enters Mrs Villiers’ room, and here the jury will recall the evidence of Mrs Villiers, who said Miss Marchurst did not know that the deceased was sleeping with her. So when Miss Marchurst entered the room, she naturally thought that Mrs Villiers was by herself, and would, as a matter of course, refrain from drawing the curtains and looking into the bed, in case she should awaken her proposed victim. There was a glass with drink on the table; she was alone with Mrs Villiers, her heart filled with jealous rage against a woman she thinks is her rival. Her own room is a few steps away--what, then, was easier for her than to go to her own room, obtain the poison, and put it into the glass? The jury will remember in the evidence of Mr Kilsip, the bottle was three-quarters empty, which argued some of it had been used. All the evidence against Miss Marchurst was purely circumstantial, for if she committed the crime, no human eye beheld her doing so. But the presumption of her having done so, in order to get rid of a successful rival, was very strong, and the weight of evidence was dead against her. The jury would, therefore, deliver their verdict in accordance with the facts laid before them. The jury retired, and the court was very much excited. Everyone was quite certain that Kitty was guilty, but there was a strong feeling against M. Vandeloup as having been in some measure the cause, though indirectly, of the crime. But that young gentleman, in accordance with his usual foresight, had left the court and gone straight home, as he had no wish to face a crowd of sullen faces, and perhaps worse. Madame Midas sat still in the court awaiting the return of the jury, with the calm face of a marble sphinx. But, though she suffered, no appearances of suffering were seen on her serene face. She never had believed in human nature, and now the girl whom she had rescued from comparative poverty and placed in opulence had wanted to kill her. M. Vandeloup, whom she admired and trusted, what black infamy he was guilty of--he had sworn most solemnly he never harmed Kitty, and yet he was the man who had ruined her. Madame Midas felt that the worst had come--Vandeloup false, Kitty a murderess, her husband vanished, and Selina dead. All the world was falling into ruins around her, and she remained alone amid the ruins with her enormous fortune, like a golden statue in a deserted temple. With clasped hands, aching heart, but impassive face, she sat waiting for the end. The jury returned in about half an hour, and there was a dead silence as the foreman stood up to deliver the verdict. The jury found as follows:-- That the deceased, Selina Jane Sprotts, died on the 21st day of November, from the effects of poison, namely, conia, feloniously administered by one Katherine Marchurst, and the jury, on their oaths, say that the said Katherine Marchurst feloniously, wilfully, and maliciously did murder the said deceased.