The doctor was placed upon the stand as soon as the court was opened. There was a breathless silence in the room. The audience strained their eyes to obtain a glance at the face of the witness. People were almost prepared to hear him say that he himself had slain Buckstone. That he was in Poppleton under an assumed name was enough to excite the gravest suspicions. “Dr. Lynch, I am informed that you desire to correct your testimony as given yesterday,” began the attorney for the government. “I do.” “What correction do you wish to make?” “So far as my evidence related to Mr. Birch, it was false,” replied the witness in quivering tones, hollow and sepulchral. “I acknowledge, with the utmost shame and with a loathing of myself I cannot describe, that I have attempted to injure Mr. Birch; that I have sworn to what I knew to be untrue.” The fall of a pin could have been heard in the court-room. This open, square, and unequivocal confession excited the contempt of all honest men, but pity was by far the stronger feeling. Some thought the doctor was a fool to confess; others that he need not have said so much; and fast men blamed him for not “putting it through” as he had begun: but the general sentiment was grief that one standing so high in the estimation of the community should have sacrificed himself. Christian men thought that, great as was the wrong he had done, the humiliating atonement he made ought to satisfy the sternest lover of justice. “Were you with Mr. Buckstone on the night he was murdered?” continued Mr. Lowe, very gently. “I was.” “Was Mr. Birch with him also?” “He was not.” “Did you go to the island with Buckstone?” “I did.” “Did you see the prisoner on that night?” “I did; Buckstone left me on the beach, and went up the rocks to speak with Ross Kingman. They went off together.” “Did you see the murder committed?” “I did not.” “While you were on the beach were you conscious that a murder had been committed?” “I was not.” While he was on the beach he certainly was not conscious of the fact; it did not take place until after he had left the beach. “Have you any knowledge whatever of the murder except what you obtained from Ross Kingman?” “I have not.” “Did you see the blow struck? Did you hear any angry words?” “I did not.” “That is all; the witness is yours, Mr. Darling,” said the government attorney. Mr. Lowe deemed it his duty to prove that a murder had been committed, and that it had been committed by the prisoner. This was the issue which the jury were to try, and the government had nothing to do with the question in dispute between Dr. Lynch and Mr. Birch. The latter had been vindicated, and the truth, so far as it related to the murderer, had been fully elicited. Mr. Darling asked a few questions of the witness, and he was permitted to retire. Of course, Dr. Lynch was in very bad odor, and everybody suddenly knew that Dick Birch had always been a just and upright man.