"And the bit of broken bottle found in or near the defendant's own stable! Is he to be convicted on the similarity it offers to the one known to have come from the club-house wine-vault, while a reasonable doubt remains of his having been the hand which carried it there? No! Where there is a reasonable doubt, no high-minded jury will convict; and I claim that my client has made it plain that there is such a reasonable doubt."

All this and more did Mr. Moffat dilate upon. But I could no longer fix my mind on details, and much of this portion of his address escaped me.

But I do remember the startling picture with which he closed. His argument so far, had been based on the assumption of Arthur's ignorance of Carmers purpose in visiting the club-house, or of Adelaide's attempt at suicide. His client had left the building when he said he did, and knew no more of what happened there afterward than circumstances showed, or his own imagination conceived. But now the advocate took a sudden turn, and calmly asked the jury to consider with him the alternative outlined by the prosecution in the evidence set before them.

"My distinguished opponent," said he, "would have you believe that the defendant did not fly at the moment declared, but that he waited to fulfil the foul deed which is the only serious matter in dispute in his so nearly destroyed case. I hear as though he were now speaking, the attack which he will make upon my client when he comes to review this matter with you. Let me see if I cannot make you hear those words, too." And with a daring smile at his discomforted adversary, Alonzo Moffat launched forth into the following sarcasm:

"Arthur Cumberland, coming up the kitchen stairs, hears voices where he had expected total silence—sees light where he had left total darkness. He has two bottles in his hands, or in his large coat-pockets. If they are in his hands, he sets them down and steals forward to listen. He has recognised the voices. They are those of his two sisters, one of whom had ordered him to hitch up the cutter for her to escape, as he had every reason to believe, the other. Curiosity—or is it some nobler feeling—causes him to draw nearer and nearer to the room in which they have taken up their stand. He can hear their words now and what are the words he hears? Words that would thrill the most impervious heart, call for the interference of the most indifferent. But he is made of ice, welded together with steel. He sees—for no place save one from which he can watch and see, viz.: the dark dancing hall, would satisfy any man of such gigantic curiosity—Adelaide fall at Carmel's feet, in recognition of the great sacrifice she has made for her. But he does not move; he falls at no one's feet; he recognises no nobility, responds to no higher appeal. Stony and unmoved, he crouches there, and watches and watches—still curious, or still feeding his hate on the sufferings of the elder, the forbearance of the younger.

"And on what does he look? You have already heard, but consider it. Adelaide, despairing of happiness, decides on death for herself or sister. Both loving one man, one of the two must give way to the other. Carmel has done her part; she must now do hers. She has brought poison; she has brought glasses—three glasses, for three persons, but only two are on the scene, and so she fills but two. One has only cordial in it, but the other is, as she believes, deadly. Carmel is to have her choice; but who believes that Adelaide would ever have let her drink the poisoned glass?

"And this man looks on, as the two faces confront each other—one white with the overthrow of every earthly hope, the other under the stress of suffering and a fascination of horror sufficient to have laid her dead, without poison, at the other one's feet. This is what he sees—a brother!—and he makes no move, then or afterwards, when, the die cast, Adelaide succumbs to her fear and falls into a seemingly dying state on the couch.

"Does he go now? Is his hate or his cupidity satisfied? No! He remains and listens to the tender interchange of final words, and all the late precautions of the elder to guard the younger woman's good name. Still he is not softened; and when, the critical moment passed, Carmel rises and totters about the room in her endeavour to fulfil the tasks enjoined upon her by her sister, he gloats over a death which will give him independence and gluts himself with every evil thought which could blind him to the pitiful aspects of a tragedy such as few men in this world could see unmoved. A brother!

"But this is not the worst. The awful cup of human greed and hatred is but filled to the brim; it has not yet overflowed. Carmel leaves the room; she has a telephonic message to deliver. She may be gone a minute; she may be gone many. Little does he care which; he must see the dead, look down on the woman who has been like a mother to him, and see if her influence is forever removed, if his wealth is his, and his independence forever assured.

"Safe in the darkness of the gloomy recesses of the dancing hall, he steals slowly forward. Drawn as by a magnet, he enters the room of seeming death, draws up to the pillow-laden couch, pulls off first one cushion, and then another, till face and hands are bare and—

"Ah!—there is a movement! death has not, then, done its work. She lives—the hated one—lives! And he is no longer rich, no longer independent. With a clutch, he seizes her at the feeble seat of life; and as the breath ceases and her whole body becomes again inert, he stoops to pull off the ring, which can have no especial value or meaning for him—and then, repiling the cushions over her, creeps forth again, takes up the bottles, and disappears from the house.

"Gentlemen of the jury, this is what my opponent would have you believe. This will be his explanation of this extraordinary murder. But when his eloquence meets your ears—when you hear this arraignment, and the emphasis he will place upon the few points remaining to his broken case, then ask yourself if you see such a monster in the prisoner now confronting you from the bar. I do not believe it. I do not believe that such a monster lives.

"But you say, some one entered that room—some one stilled the fluttering life still remaining in that feeble breast. Some one may have, but that some one was not my client, and it is his guilt or innocence we are considering now, and it is his life and freedom for which you are responsible. No brother did that deed; no witness of the scene which hallowed this tragedy ever lifted hand against the fainting Adelaide, or choked back a life which kindly fate had spared.

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