look: then shut the drawer, locked it, strode straight down-stairs to
his horse and galloped away.

In three hours' time, pretty Madam Noy was in the constables' hands upon
the charge of murdering her husband by poison.

They tried her, next Spring Assize, at Bodmin, before the Lord Chief
Justice. There wasn't evidence enough to put Sergeant Basket in the
dock alongside of her--though 'twas freely guessed he knew more than
anyone (saving the prisoner herself) about the arsenic that was found in
the little drawer and inside the old man's body. He was subpoena'd from
Plymouth, and cross-examined by a great hulking King's Counsel for
three-quarters of an hour. But they got nothing out of him.
All through the examination the prisoner looked at him and nodded her
white face, every now and then, at his answers, as much as to say,
"That's right--that's right: they shan't harm thee, my dear." And the
love-light shone in her eyes for all the court to see. But the sergeant
never let his look meet it. When he stepped down at last she gave a sob
of joy, and fainted bang-off.

They roused her up, after this, to hear the verdict of _Guilty_ and her
doom spoken by the judge. "Pris'ner at the bar," said the Clerk of
Arraigns, "have ye anything to say why this court should not pass
sentence o' death?"

She held tight of the rail before her, and spoke out loud and clear--

"My Lord and gentlemen all, I be a guilty woman; an' I be ready to die
at once for my sin. But if ye kill me now, ye kill the child in my
body--an' he is innocent."