It will be best for her, and that's all I ought to think on. But, dear Job, you are a hearty fellow for your time of life, and may live many years to come; and perhaps you could tell her, when you felt sure you were drawing near your end, that I solemnly told you (as I do now) that I was innocent of this thing. You must not tell her for many years to come; but I cannot well bear to think on her living through a long life, and hating the thought of me as the murderer of him she loved, and dying with that hatred to me in her heart. It would hurt me sore in the other world to see the look of it in her face, as it would be, till she was told. I must not let myself think on how she must be viewing me now. "So God bless you, Job Legh; and no more from "Yours to command, "JAMES WILSON." Job turned the letter over and over when he bad read it; sighed deeply; and then wrapping it carefully up in a bit of newspaper he had about him, he put it in his waistcoat pocket, and went off to the door of the witness-room to ask if Mary Barton was there. As the door opened he saw her sitting within, against a table on which her folded arms were resting, and her head was hidden within them. It was an attitude of hopelessness, and would have served to strike Job dumb in sickness of heart, even without the sound of Mrs Wilson's voice in passionate sobbing, and sore lamentations, which told him as well as words could do (for she was not within view of the door, and he did not care to go in), that she was at any rate partially undeceived as to the hopes he had given her last night. Sorrowfully did Job return into the body of the court; neither Mrs Wilson nor Mary having seen him as he had stood at the witness-room door. As soon as he could bring his distracted thoughts to bear upon the present scene, he perceived that the trial of James Wilson for the murder of Henry Carson was just commencing. The clerk was gabbling over the indictment, and in a minute or two there was the accustomed question, "How say you, Guilty or Not Guilty?" Although but one answer was expected,--was customary in all cases,--there was a pause of dead silence, an interval of solemnity even in this hackneyed part of the proceeding; while the prisoner at the bar stood with compressed lips, looking at the judge with his outward eyes, but with far other and different scenes presented to his mental vision; a sort of rapid recapitulation of his life,--remembrances of his childhood,--his father (so proud of him, his first-born child),--his sweet little playfellow, Mary,--his hopes, his love--his despair, yet still, yet ever and ever, his love,--the blank, wide world it had been without her love,--his mother,--his childless mother,--but not long to be so,--not long to be away from all she loved,--nor during that time to be oppressed with doubt as to his innocence, sure and secure of her darling's heart;--he started from this instant's pause, and said in a low firm voice, "Not guilty, my lord." The circumstances of the murder, the discovery of the body, the causes of suspicion against Jem, were as well known to most of the audience as they are to you, so there was some little buzz of conversation going on among the people while the leading counsel for the prosecution made his very effective speech. "That's Mr Carson, the father, sitting behind Serjeant Wilkinson!" "What a noble-looking old man he is! so stern and inflexible, with such classical features! Does he not remind you of some of the busts of Jupiter?" "I am more interested by watching the prisoner. Criminals always interest me. I try to trace in the features common to humanity some expression of the crimes by which they have distinguished themselves from their kind.
