down his rough cheeks.

I was deeply affected, and felt that the man had uttered the whole truth.
It was evidently one of those cases in which a person liable to suspicion
damages his own cause by resorting to a trick. No doubt, by his act of
theft, Armstrong had been driven to an expedient which would not have
been adopted by a person perfectly innocent. And thus, from one thing to
another, the charge of murder had been fixed upon him and his hapless
wife. When his confession had been uttered, I felt a species of
self-accusation in having contributed to his destruction, and gladly
would I have undone the whole day's proceedings. The judge, on the
contrary, was quite undisturbed. Viewing the harangue of Armstrong as a
mere tissue of falsehood, he cooly pronounced sentence of death on the
prisoners. They were to be hanged on Monday. This was Friday.

"A bad job!" whispered the counsel for the defence as he passed me. "That
witness of yours, the woman Strugnell, is the real culprit."

I tasted no dinner that day: I was sick at heart; for I felt as if the
blood of two fellow-creatures was on my hands. In the evening I sallied
forth to the judge's lodgings. He listened to all I had to say; but was
quite imperturbable. The obstinate old man was satisfied that the
sentence was as it should be. I returned to my inn in a fever of despair.
Without the approval of the judge, I knew that an application to the
Secretary of State was futile. There was not even time to send to London,
unless the judge had granted a respite.

All Saturday and Sunday I was in misery. I denounced capital punishment
as a gross iniquity--a national sin and disgrace; my feelings of course
being influenced somewhat by a recollection of that unhappy affair of