several hours of the night in a barn belonging to a cottage, being
unwilling to call up the inhabitants, to whom she was well known. Most
of the night she spent here watching; towards morning she believed that
she slept for a few minutes; some steps disturbed her, and she awoke.
It was dawn, and she quitted her asylum, that she might again endeavour
to find my brother. If she had gone near the spot where his body lay,
it was without her knowledge. That she had been bewildered when
questioned by the market-woman was not surprising, since she had passed
a sleepless night and the fate of poor William was yet uncertain.
Concerning the picture she could give no account.
I know, continued the unhappy victim, how heavily and
fatally this one circumstance weighs against me, but I have no power of
explaining it; and when I have expressed my utter ignorance, I am only left
to conjecture concerning the probabilities by which it might have been
placed in my pocket. But here also I am checked. I believe that I have no
enemy on earth, and none surely would have been so wicked as to destroy me
wantonly. Did the murderer place it there? I know of no opportunity
afforded him for so doing; or, if I had, why should he have stolen the
jewel, to part with it again so soon?
I commit my cause to the justice of my judges, yet I see no room for
hope. I beg permission to have a few witnesses examined concerning my
character, and if their testimony shall not overweigh my supposed
guilt, I must be condemned, although I would pledge my salvation on my
innocence.
Several witnesses were called who had known her for many years, and
they spoke well of her; but fear and hatred of the crime of which they
supposed her guilty rendered them timorous and unwilling to come
forward. Elizabeth saw even this last resource, her excellent
dispositions and irreproachable conduct, about to fail the accused,
when, although violently agitated, she desired permission to address
the court.
I am, said she, the cousin of the unhappy child who
was murdered, or rather his sister, for I was educated by and have lived
with his parents ever since and even long before his birth. It may
therefore be judged indecent in me to come forward on this occasion, but
when I see a fellow creature about to perish through the cowardice of her
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