addressed itself to me, but always to the person
who was speaking at the time. For instance.
The throat of the murdered man had been cut
straight across. In the opening speech, for
the defence, it was suggested that the
deceased might have cut his own throat. At that
very moment, the figure with its throat in the
dreadful condition referred to (this it had
concealed before) stood at the speaker's elbow,
motioning across and across its windpipe, now
with the right hand, now with the left, vigorously
suggesting to the speaker himself, the
impossibility of such a wound having been
self-inflicted by either hand. For another instance.
A witness to character, a woman, deposed to
the prisoner's being the most amiable of mankind.
The figure at that instant stood on the
floor before her, looking her full in the face,
and pointing out the prisoner's evil countenance
with an extended arm and an outstretched finger.

The third change now to be added, impressed
me strongly, as the most marked and striking
of all. I do not theorise upon it; I accurately
state it, and there leave it. Although the
Appearance was not itself perceived by those
whom it addressed, its coming close to such
persons was invariably attended by some
trepidation or disturbance on their part. It
seemed to me as if it were prevented by laws
to which I was not amenable, from fully revealing
itself to others, and yet as if it could,
invisibly, dumbly and darkly, overshadow their
minds. When the leading counsel for the
defence suggested that hypothesis of suicide and
the figure stood at the learned gentleman's
elbow, frightfully sawing at its severed throat,
it is undeniable that the counsel faltered in his
speech, lost for a few seconds the thread of his
ingenious discourse, wiped his forehead with his
handkerchief, and turned extremely pale. When
the witness to character was confronted by the
Appearance, her eyes most certainly did follow
the direction of its pointed finger, and rest in
great hesitation and trouble upon the prisoner's
face. Two additional illustrations will suffice.
On the eighth day of the trial, after the pause
which was every day made early in the afternoon
for a few minutes' rest and refreshment,
I came back into Court with the rest of the
Jury, some little time before the return of the
Judges. Standing up in the box and looking
about me, I thought the figure was not there,
until, chancing to raise my eyes to the gallery, I
saw it bending forward and leaning over a very
decent woman, as if to assure itself whether the
Judges had resumed their seats or not.
Immediately afterwards, that woman screamed, fainted,
and was carried out. So with the venerable,
sagacious, and patient Judge who conducted the
trial. When the case was over, and he settled
himself and his papers to sum up, the murdered
man entering by the Judges' door, advanced
to his Lordship's desk, and looked eagerly
over his shoulder at the pages of his notes
which he was turning. A change came over his
Lordship's face; his hand stopped; the peculiar
shiver that I knew so well, passed over him;
he faltered, "Excuse me, gentlemen, for a few
moments. I am somewhat oppressed by the
vitiated air;" and did not recover until he had
drunk a glass of water.

Through all the monotony of six of those interminable
ten days—the same Judges and others
on the bench, the same Murderer in the dock, the
same lawyers at the table, the same tones of question
and answer rising to the roof of the court,
the same scratching of the Judge's pen, the same
ushers going in and out, the same lights kindled
at the same hour when there had been any
natural light of day, the same foggy curtain outside
the great windows when it was foggy, the same
rain pattering and dripping when it was rainy,
the same footmarks of turnkeys and prisoner
day after day on the same sawdust, the same
keys locking and unlocking the same heavy
doors—through all the wearisome monotony
which made me feel as if I had been Foreman of
the Jury for a vast period of time, and Piccadilly
had flourished coevally with Babylon, the
murdered man never lost one trace of his
distinctness in my eyes, nor was he at any
moment less distinct than anybody else. I
must not omit, as a matter of fact, that I never
once saw the Appearance which I call by the
name of the murdered man, look at the Murderer.
Again and again I wondered, "Why does he
not?" But he never did.

Nor did he look at me, after the production of
the miniature, until the last closing minutes of
the trial arrived. We retired to consider, at
seven minutes before ten at night. The idiotic
vestryman and his two parochial parasites gave
us so much trouble, that we twice returned into
Court, to beg to have certain extracts from the
Judge's notes re-read. Nine of us had not the
smallest doubt about those passages, neither, I
believe, had any one in Court; the dunderheaded
triumvirate however, having no idea
but obstruction, disputed them for that very
reason. At length we prevailed, and finally
the Jury returned into Court at ten minutes
past twelve.

The murdered man at that time stood directly
opposite the Jury-box, on the other side of the
Court. As I took my place, his eyes rested on
me, with great attention; he seemed satisfied,
and slowly shook a great grey veil, which he
carried on his arm for the first time, over his
head and whole form. As I gave in our verdict
"Guilty," the veil collapsed, all was gone, and
his place was empty.

The Murderer being asked by the Judge,
according to usage, whether he had anything to say
before sentence of Death should be passed upon
him, indistinctly muttered something which was
described in the leading newspapers of the
following day as "a few rambling, incoherent, and
half-audible words, in which he was understood
to complain that he had not had a fair trial,
because the Foreman of the Jury was prepossessed
against him." The remarkable declaration that
he really made, was this: "My Lord, I knew I
was a doomed man when the Foreman of my Jury
came into the box. My Lord, I knew he would