of blood corresponding with the wound, the dress undisturbed, all
manifestly untouched since the fatal stroke was dealt. Could this
have been the case, had the key of the drawer of gold been taken from
the waistcoat pocket, the chain from about the neck of the deceased,
and both replaced after the removal of the money and relocking the
drawer! Can any one doubt that the drawer was opened, the money
taken out, and the lock secured, while Mr. Axworthy was alive and
consenting? Again, what robber would convey away the spoil in a bag
bearing the initials of the owner, and that not caught up in haste,
but fetched in for the purpose from the office? Or would so tell-
tale a weapon as the rifle have been left conspicuously close at
hand? There was no guilty precipitation, for the uniform had been
taken off and folded up, and with a whole night before him, it would
have been easy to reach a more distant station, where his person
would not have been recognized. Why, too, if this were the beginning
of a flight and exile, should no preparation have been made for
passing a single night from home? why should a day-ticket have been
asked for? No, the prisoner's own straightforward, unvarnished
statement is the only consistent interpretation of the facts,
otherwise conflicting and incomprehensible.

'That a murder has been committed is unhappily too certain. I make
no attempt to unravel the mystery. I confine myself to the far more
grateful task of demonstrating, that to fasten the imputation on the
accused, would be to overlook a complication of inconsistencies, all
explained by his own account of himself, but utterly inexplicable on
the hypothesis of his guilt.

'Circumstantial evidence is universally acknowledged to be perilous
ground for a conviction; and I never saw a case in which it was more