The winter assizes at Dulminster were held early in December, so that John Brancker had not many weeks to lie in prison before being called upon to stand his trial for the murder of James Hazeldine. The grand jury found a true bill against the prisoner, and one crisp, sunny morning, John found himself in a sort of a pen in the centre of a densely crowded court, the one object on which several hundred pairs of curious eyes, some of them helped by opera-glasses, were focused. He was pale, but quite composed, and when called upon in the usual form to plead to the indictment, his low but emphatic "Not guilty" was clearly audible to everyone there.

His sister and his niece had been permitted to have an interview with him on the eve of the trial, and he had contrived to infuse into them some of the courage which he felt, or professed to feel, as to the morrow's result. They were staying with some friends in Close Street, and Clement Hazeldine, who had given his patients into the charge of a brother practitioner for a couple of days, had arranged to send them frequent messages from the Court during the progress of the trial. The prisoner's defence had been entrusted to the hands of the well-known Mr. Burgees, with whom was Mr. Timperly as junior. Mr. Mulgrave had been specially retained as counsel for the Crown.

It was none other than the murdered man's eldest son who had retained Mr. Burgees to defend the prisoner. This was a point which had been much commented upon by the good people of Ashdown, and one that had told strongly with them in John Brancker's favor. If a clear, hard-headed man of the world like Edward Hazeldine had such faith in his innocence, how would it be possible for any jury to bring him in guilty? Then again, was it not a well-known fact that the younger son, Clement, was a frequent visitor at Mr. Brancker's house, and among such of the wiseacres as made it their business to pry into every little matter in any way connected with the affair, there were not wanting whispers of an engagement between the young doctor and the accused man's niece. No, John Brancker must be an innocent man, they decided among themselves; and yet, on the face of it, the evidence against him seemed terribly conclusive, nor, so far as was known, had anything likely to shake it been brought to light since the date of the prisoner's committal. Strenuous efforts had been made to find the man and woman whom John stated that he had encountered, quarrelling fiercely, while on his way back from Strong's cottage, and one of whom, the woman, had flung a stone at him, which had contused his forehead. But nowhere could any traces of them be found, neither had the offer of a reward, if they would come forward and give evidence, been productive of any result.

On the morning of the trial Edward Hazeldine drove over to Dulminster in his dog-cart, and put up his horse at the "Eagle" Hotel, which is exactly opposite the Court-house. His intention had been to find a seat near the counsel for the defence, but he abandoned the idea at the last moment. Happening to look at himself in the glass he started at the sight of his haggard visage, and this morning his hands trembled so much that not for a hundred pounds could he have signed his own name. He felt that he could not face the ordeal of the Court, that he could not bear the scrutiny of the crowd of coldly-curious eyes which would focus themselves on him as being the eldest son of the murdered man. He hired a private room on the first floor overlooking the entrance to the Court, and arranged for a messenger to bring him half-hourly tidings of the progress of the trial; and there he sat throughout the day, with a decanter of brandy at his elbow, he who, under ordinary circumstances, was one of the most abstemious of men. He had his father's letter buttoned up in the breast-pocket of his coat. It was not expected that the trial would extend over more than one day, and he had arranged that the moment the jury brought in their verdict its purport should be made known to him. Then, if the fatal word "Guilty" were pronounced, he would at once rush across to the Court, and before the Judge would have had time to assume the black cap, he would proclaim to the world the innocence of the man at the bar. His fevered imagination rehearsed the scene again and again, always with some fresh features or added details, but always he seemed to see the horror that would creep into the eyes of that vast crowd as he told his tale word by word, and proclaimed himself for the vile coward that he was.

There was one other person, Ephraim Judd, to wit, who had also made up his mind that, should the prisoner at the bar be adjudged guilty, he must at once crave leave to speak, and to tell all present certain things which were known to himself alone, but which would go far towards proving the innocence of John Brancker. He must relate how he saw the prisoner leave the Bank, when the latter went to fetch his umbrella, within five minutes of the time he entered it. He must explain all about the blood-smears in the prisoner's drawer, and the marks on the floor. He must confess to what he saw when he looked through the fan-light over Mr. Hazeldine's office door. He was fully alive to the fact that to do this would be to effect his own ruin, he was quite aware that he ought to have told all he knew at the first examination before the Coroner; at that time he had been deterred from speaking by a fear of the consequences which would accrue to himself, but should the worst come to the worst, no such fear should hold him back to-day. Be the consequences to himself what they might, John Brancker must not be condemned to die, until he, Ephraim Judd, had told all that which he had till now so carefully hidden. It was in no enviable frame of mind that he walked down to the court on the morning of the trial.

It is not needful that any detailed account should be given here of the progress of the trial. The evidence of the various witnesses was little more than a recapitulation of that given by them at the inquest. No fresh facts had come to light in the interim, neither did the cross-examination of the witnesses tend to elicit any further point which told materially either for or against the prisoner. As before, Brill, the man from whom the knife had been purchased by which Mr. Hazeldine had come by his death, would neither swear positively that the prisoner was the man to whom he had sold the weapon, nor that he was not. He, the prisoner, was like the man, and yet he wasn't like the man; he couldn't be positive, and he wouldn't take an oath one way or the other.

William Strong, the organ-blower, was still as positive as ever that he had not left home on the night of the murder, and that if the prisoner had knocked at the door of his cottage he could not have failed to hear him.

Ephraim Judd, Obed and Amanda Sweet, Doctor Barton and Mr. Mace, were each called upon in turn, and were each submitted to a cross-examination more or less severe, which, however, in no case brought to light anything of consequence tending to the exculpation of the prisoner.

Last of all, two people who had not been examined at the inquest were called and sworn. The first of them was a clerk from the Bank of England, who deposed to having changed notes for gold to the amount of twelve hundred pounds on the day of the murder, and who, on being shown a photograph of Mr. Hazeldine, recognized it as a likeness of the person for whom he had effected the exchange in question.

The second person who was called upon was Mr. Avison. He had no positive evidence to offer in the case, beyond the fact that the Bank had been robb............