"The peculiarities and complexity of the case make it needful that we should ask upon what grounds you have given in your verdict."
Foreman: "We find the prisoner not guilty, my lord, on the ground that it is proved he did not buy the strychnine, and that the evidence of the housekeeper is unreliable evidence. But we think that until the mystery of the murder is cleared up, suspicion must still attach itself to Mr. Atherton."
The Chief-Justice to the prisoner: "It is usual to say whether we, before whom a case has been tried, agree in the verdict of the jury. Both myself and my brother Watson do most fully in this instance. We agree that upon the evidence brought forward to-day you could not by the criminal law be convicted; but we also agree in the remark made by the foreman that a degree of suspicion and doubt will rest upon you so long as the real perpetrator of this horrible crime is not forthcoming. As having known you under happier circumstances, I sincerely trust and pray for your sake that time may bring to light this hidden deed of darkness."
The judges rose and left the court. Then arose from all parts a savage yell of disappointment. Once before I told how thirsty the public were for another sight of the hangman and his victim; and now to snatch their prey from under their very eyes, with the stain of crime upon him, with a shadow of the gallows hanging over him, was more than they could bear. Amidst groans and hisses, amidst a deluge of the foulest epithets, he passed out of the court--UNCONVICTED. Unconvicted, but not unsuspected; uncondemned, but not unblemished. With the taint of murder clinging to him, with his fair good name tarnished by the withering breath of imputed crime, and his innocent life robbed of its { 94} noblest beauty in the eyes of his fellow-men, Philip Hugh Atherton left that criminal court and became once more a free, and yet a marked man beneath his native sky. His whole position opened out clear before me in that one brief second which succeeded the closing the trial--all its future suffering and sorrow. Oh! if he would but now realize that at least one friend was true to him, that one heart warmed to him with the same affection as ever, who would devote himself to clearing away every cloud that dimmed his future! And dashing away the blinding tears that would force themselves into my eyes, I made my difficult way through the crowd and gained the outer court. A carriage stood opposite the private door, and a double line of policemen guarded a passage to it. I hurried forward. Hugh Atherton and Lister Wilmot passed quickly out, the carriage-door shut, and they drove off.