Serjeant Probyn. And that mistakes of
identity are very common.

Witness. That I am also aware of.

Serjeant Probyn. I think you have mentioned
that your opportunities of studying the features
of deceased were not very numerous. May I
ask how many times you have seen her unveiled?

Witness. I have seen her unveiled twice.

Serjeant Probyn. And do you mean to say that,
on the strength of having twice seen the deceased
lady's face, you will speak unhesitatingly on
this, a question of her identity—and that with
a portrait, too, which may give but a very
imperfect idea of the deceased?

Witness. Had this been a portrait done by
the hand of man, I might have been compelled
to speak with greater diffidence. But the sun,
sir, is a mighty artist, and we must admit that
his portraits, whether they please us or not, are
certainly reproductions of some phase or other
of the persons who have sat for them.

Serjeant Probyn. And you consider, do you,
Mr. Vampi, that those two glimpses which were
permitted you of the late Miss Carrington's face,
were sufficient to justify you in speaking so
confidently as you do?

Witness. Most certainly. One of those
"glimpses," as you call them, lasted a
considerable time, and I had the opportunity of
thoroughly examining the poor lady's
countenance in every part.

Serjeant Probyn. And what, may I ask, was
the occasion of your being permitted thus to
examine the deceased lady's features?

Witness. I had asked to be allowed to do so.

Serjeant Probyn. That was rather a peculiar
request, Mr. Vampi, was it not? Will you
inform the court what was the occasion of your
making it?

Witness. I had undertaken to make inquiry,
for the poor lady's benefit, as to what her star
promised for the future, and I thought that
before completing her horoscope it would be
well that I should see her face, and see in what
respects it resembled, or differed from, the
physiognomies of other persons born under the
same planet. It is one of the characteristics of
the art mystic——-

Serjeant Probyn was obliged to interrupt the
witness at this point, as he saw that if he failed
to do so, the counsel for the defence would
certainly interpose to prevent Cornelius from
committing himself further. Surely it is not
too much to say that this conflict was like some
passage of arms of old, with a life at stake upon
its issue.

The long cross-examination of this witness
was now brought to an end.

Serjeant Probyn. I am afraid, Mr. Vampi,
that the "art mystic" must be left alone for
the present, however interesting it might
be to hear it treated of by one so profoundly
initiated in its arcana as yourself. I have now
only one other question which it is necessary to
ask before you leave the witness-box. It is this:
How does it happen that since you sold so many
bottles of laudanum at different times to the
deceased lady—and in this I will remark that
it seems to me that you have been greatly to
blame—how does it happen, I say, that one,
and one only, of these bottles has been found in
her possession?

Witness. I will, with permission, answer
your remark as to my being to blame in selling
the laudanum to the deceased, before proceeding
to reply to your other question. Laudanum is,
it must be remembered, a medicine, and not
merely a poison, and is quite easy to obtain at
the different chemists' shops, where it would be
verv difficult, if not impossible, to purchase
such drugs as are simply poisons, and nothing
else. It is not by any means the custom to
surround the purchase of opium with difficulties
and restrictions, and the order which I have
already alluded to, signed by a medical man,
was quite sufficient, as it appears to me, to
justify my selling laudanum to the bearer of it.
As to the question concerning the bottles, it is
soon answered; the lady was in the habit of
returning my empty bottles to me whenever she
came for a fresh supply, not wishing, probably,
to have them accumulating on her hands. The
bottle produced in court must have been the
last which she received from me, and which,
unhappily, she was never able to bring back.

With this Cornelius Vampi's evidence came
to an end, and he was at length allowed to
retire from the witness-box. There was no one in
court who could fail to be struck by the strange
mixture of common sense with delusion which
had been revealed in the course of Vampi's
evidence. On all practical points what he had
said had been so straightforward and to the
purpose, and yet let the slightest chance be given
him of mounting his favourite hobby, and he
was ready for the wildest and most preposterous
excursions upon its back forthwith. Upon the
whole, that cross-examination, however, had
been but little injurious to the cause of our poor
prisoner. The astrologer had stuck to all his
points immovable. On that question of the
identity of the deceased lady with the unknown
to whom he had sold the laudanum, he was firm,
as also with regard to the exact date when her
visits to him had ceased, and these, after all,
were the really important parts of his evidence.
To say that it was listened to throughout with
profound attention, is to give but a feeble idea
of the extreme interest which every word he said
excited in the minds of his audience. Had the
case under trial been in the least degree a less
serious one, and had the issue of the trial itself
been less than a question of life and death, a
considerable amount of amusement would have
been felt by all present at the grotesque way in
which that forbidden subject, in which Cornelius
took such delight, kept reappearing in his
evidence, and at the evident mortification experienced
by the philosopher when he was prevented
from enlarging upon it.

To Gabrielle, as has been said, all that Vampi
had to say was matter of an entirely new as well
as a most momentous kind. It solved that
mystery—a mystery as much to her as to others—