Here, then, the progress of this dreadful
business stops for awhile.

May 5th. Robert has got a little
temporary employment in copying for his friend
the lawyer. I am working harder than ever
at my needle to make up for the time that
has been lost lately.

May 6th. To-day was Sunday, and Robert
proposed that we should go and look at
Mary's grave. He, who forgets nothing
where a kindness is to be done, has found
time to perform the promise he made to me
on the night when we first met. The grave
is already, by his orders, covered with turf,
and planted round with shrubs. Some
flowers, and a low headstone, are to be
added to make the place look worthier of my
poor lost darling who is beneath it. Oh, I
hope I shall live long after I am married to
Robert! I want so much time to show him
all my gratitude!

* * * * *

May 20th. A hard trial to my courage
to-day. I have given evidence at the police-
office, and have seen the monster who
murdered her.

I could only look at him once. I could
just see that he was a giant in size, and that
he kept his dull, lowering, bestial face turned
towards the witness-box, and his bloodshot,
vacant eyes staring on me. For an instant
I tried to confront that look; for an instant
I kept my attention fixed on him—on his
blotched face, on the short grizzled hair
above it—on his knotty, murderous right
hand hanging loose over the bar in front of
him, like the paw of a wild beast over the
edge of his den. Then the horror of him—
the double horror of confronting him, in the
first place, and afterwards of seeing that he
was an old man—overcame me; and I
turned away faint, sick, and shuddering. I
never faced him again; and at the end of my
evidence, Robert considerately took me out.

When we met once more at the end of the
examination, Robert told me that the
prisoner never spoke, and never changed his
position. He was either fortified by the
cruel composure of the savage, or his faculties
had not yet thoroughly recovered from the
disease that had so lately shaken them. The
magistrate seemed to doubt if he was in his
right mind; but the evidence of the medical
man relieved his uncertainty, and the
prisoner was committed for trial on a charge of
manslaughter.

Why not on a charge of murder? Robert
explained the law to me when I asked that
question. I accepted the explanation, but it
did not satisfy me. Mary Mallinson was
killed by a blow from the hand of Noah
Truscott. That is murder in the sight of
God. Why not murder in the sight of the
law also?

* * * * *

June 18th. To-morrow is the day
appointed for the trial at the Old Bailey.
Before sunset this evening I went to look at
Mary's grave. The turf has grown so green
since I saw it last; and the flowers are
springing up so prettily. A bird was perched
dressing his feathers, on the low white headstone
that bears the inscription of her name
and age. I did not go near enough to
disturb the little creature. He looked innocent
and pretty on the grave, as Mary herself was
in her life-time. When he flew away, I went
and sat for a little by the headstone, and
read the mournful lines on it. Oh, my love,
my love! what harm or wrong had you ever
done in this world, that you should die at
eighteen by a blow from a drunkard's hand?

June 19th. The trial. My experience of
what happened at it is limited, like my
experience of the examination at the police-office,
to the time occupied in giving my own
evidence. They made me say much more
than I said before the magistrate. Between
examination and cross-examination, I had to
go into almost all the particulars about poor
Mary and her funeral that I have written in
this journal; the jury listening to every
word I spoke with the most anxious attention.
At the end, the judge said a few
words to me approving of my conduct, and
then there was a clapping of hands among
the people in court. I was so agitated and
excited that I trembled all over when they
let me go out into the air again. I looked at
the prisoner both when I entered the witness-
box and when I left it. The lowering
brutality of his face was unchanged, but his
faculties seemed to be more alive and
observant than they were at the police-office.
A frightful blue change passed over his face,
and he drew his breath so heavily that the
gasps were distinctly audible, while I
mentioned Mary by name, and described the
mark of the blow on her temple. When
they asked me if I knew anything of the
prisoner, and I answered that I only knew
what Mary herself had told me about his
having been her father's ruin, he gave a kind
of groan, and struck both his hands heavily
on the dock. And when I passed beneath
him on my way out of the court, he leaned
over suddenly, whether to speak to me or to
strike me I can't say, for he was
immediately made to stand upright again by the
turnkeys on either side of him. While the
evidence proceeded (as Robert described it to
me), the signs that he was suffering under
superstitious terror became more and more
apparent; until, at last, just as the lawyer
appointed to defend him was rising to speak,
he suddenly cried out, in a voice that startled
every one, up to the very judge on the
bench, "Stop!" There was a pause, and ail
eyes looked at him. The perspiration was
pouring over his face like water, and he
made strange, uncouth signs with his hands
to the judge opposite. "Stop all this!" he
cried again; "I've been the ruin of the
father and the death of the child. Hang