wished to keep him under restraint ?-Here he stopped abruptly, and sat down.

As he met my eye, probably he remembered discussions with me, to which he felt he could not trust himself to allude at that instant; but when his glance turned from me on to Carnegie, there was a fleeting expression of such settled cunning and triumph, that not only George, but many others, noticed it. There was a dead silence. And if the verdict had been taken then, I am satisfied it would have been unfavourable to Mr. Tremlett's wishes.

I felt that the other side had lost, nor was I alone in my belief; and when the court immediately afterwards adjourned for refreshment, I had no doubt of the issue. Mr. Tremlett had sealed his own fate.*

* It is commonly supposed that no lunatic entertaining a delusion has volition sufficient to enable him to deny his belief in it; even for any important and tangible gain, however much he may avoid or equivocate. Dr. Bucknill, in the Journal of Mental Science, No. 20, 1857, mentions a case of a gentleman who completely concealed, and even denied, his delusions in conversation, but betrayed them in his letters. I have not, however, in my experience met with any similar instance. I

make no question that had I been permitted to converse with Mr. Tremlett in the presence of the court, I could have succeeded in showing from his own mouth, that the danger of his revengeful state of mind was not affected by the fact of his father's death. His enmity was merely transferred without diminution of force from the dead to the living. I had long entertained the conviction that Mr. Tremlett viewed all those who had been concerned in his detention as conspirators worthy of punishment; and from the vague and mysterious terms in which he alluded to his wife, I suspected that this poor lady was the chief object of his stifled resentment.

CHAPTER XII.

GEORGE CARNEGIE PLEADS AGAINST HIMSELF.

GEORGE CARNEGIE, whose face since Tremlett's address had worn a most sombre and troubled expression, disappeared instantly, and I did not see him again until the court had reassembled. Mr.

the leader, was not present; and

it was amid a breathless silence that Carnegie rose, and said that, owing to the sudden indisposition of his senior counsel, it devolved on him to conclude the defence, and in this unexpected position he must throw himself on the indulgence of the court.

He was exceedingly pale, but his manner was calm and resolute; and if no one else knew, I did, that it was not the suddenness but the nature of the duty, that stole the blood from his face.

Who can tell what were the various thoughts

that struggled in the breast of the young advocate as he stood there to make his first great essay? I think he would have gladly surrendered the long wished-for opportunity for distinction, could he have done it without incurring dishonour.

The tide of old memories swept over him with heavy, unresisted swell. His feelings now were those of baffled love and perished hopes ;-though there had been a time when he would gladly have sacrificed, on the altar of love, his time, his means, his energies-all that is usually considered the inalienable wealth of youth, and that makes the earth fair to the sons of men. He had but to be silent, to refrain from active aid, and his old rival-the man who had dashed the cup of happiness from his lips years ago— would be officially pronounced a lunatic, and withdrawn, perhaps for ever, from society. How easily he might have reconciled this line of action with his conscience, after the unequivocal indications of sinister and revengeful design which Mr. Tremlett had betrayed!

If any such unworthy desire had slumbered

in his heart, it must have been roused to assert itself, for revenge is commonly stronger than ambition. He perhaps had known that pang, and endured that struggle, in the first instance; but in his present position the contest was even more complicated.

He might have refused the brief at first; but whatever alteration his opinions had undergone since, he had hardly the right to show it. If by any lack of earnestness he lost his cause, with what face could he support the reproaches of the woman who had selected him for her confidence? On the other hand, how could he resolve to deliver one whom he in vain essayed to believe he had forgotten into the power of a malignant madman?

In this internal strife he chose, as most men of just intentions but hot impulse would have done, to suppress his own feelings, and to act and speak as the paid advocate only.

Where doubt is felt, there is a certain satisfaction experienced by a sensitive conscience when the path decided on is also the most distasteful.