interest, from the absolute proof thus furnished of a deep-laid plot
against Agnes. But for this one circumstance there would have been a
possibility that the whole had originated in error--error growing out
of and acting upon a nature originally suspicious, and confirmed
perhaps by an unfortunate experience. And in proportion as that was
possible, the chances increased that the accuser might, as the
examinations advanced, and the winning character of the accused party
began to develop itself, begin to see his error, and to retract his own
over-hasty suspicions. But now we saw at a glance that for this hope
there was no countenance whatever, since one solitary circumstance
sufficed to establish a conspiracy. The deposition bore--that the lace
had been secreted and afterwards detected in a muff; now it was a fact
as well known to both of us as the fact of Agnes having gone out at
all--that she had laid aside her winter's dress for the first time on
this genial sunny day. Muff she had not at the time, nor could have had
appropriately from the style of her costume in other respects. What was
the effect upon us of this remarkable discovery! Of course there died
at once the hope of any abandonment by the prosecutor of his purpose;
because here was proof of a predetermined plot. This hope died at once;
but then, as it was one which never had presented itself to my mind, I
lost nothing by which I had ever been solaced. On the other hand, it
will be obvious that a new hope at the same time arose to take its
place, viz., the reasonable one that by this single detection, if once
established, we might raise a strong presumption of conspiracy, and
moreover that, as a leading fact or clue, it might serve to guide us in
detecting others. Hannah was sanguine in this expectation; and for a
moment her hopes were contagiously exciting to mine. But the hideous
despondency which in my mind had settled upon the whole affair from the
very first, the superstitious presentiment I had of a total blight
brooding over the entire harvest of my life and its promises, (tracing