or the trial. She would not have been then present to state the vitally
important circumstances to which she had just sworn, if the prisoner's
twin-brother had not found her out on the previous day--had not
questioned her if she knew anything about the clock--and had not (hearing
what she had to tell) insisted on her taking the journey with him to the
court the next morning.

This evidence virtually decided the trial. There was a great burst of
relief in the crowded assembly when the woman's statement had come to an
end.

She was closely cross-examined as a matter of course. Her character was
inquired into; corroborative evidence (relating to the chisel and the
scratches on the frame) was sought for and was obtained. The end of it
was that, at a late hour on the second evening, the jury acquitted the
prisoner, without leaving their box. It was not too much to say that his
life had been saved by his brother. His brother alone had persisted, from
first to last, in obstinately disbelieving the clock--for no better
reason than that the clock was the witness which asserted the prisoner's
guilt! He had worried everybody with incessant inquiries--he had
discovered the absence of the housemaid, after the trial had begun--and
he had started off to interrogate the girl, knowing nothing, and
suspecting nothing; simply determined to persist in the one everlasting
question with which he persecuted everybody belonging to the house: "The
clock is going to hang my brother; can you tell me anything about the
clock?"

Four months later, the mystery of the crime was cleared up. One of the
disreputable companions of the murdered man confessed on his death-bed
that he had done the deed. There was nothing interesting or remarkable in