At two o'clock of the afternoon, in a court packed to suffocation point, Ronald Cavendish rose to begin his final speech for the defense of Lucy Towers.

Robert Fielding's testimony, unshaken in cross-examination, had been followed by more evidence, collected by Standon's assiduous reporters, as to the character of the dead man; and that evidence--Ronnie felt,--coupled with the arrest of Maggie Peterson, made the main issue, the issue of wilful murder, safe.

Nevertheless, the Wixton imagination in him was doubtful of the second issue, the issue of manslaughter. In England, the unwritten law did not run; and although, thanks to the press, the streets outside were black with people, with a mob hungry for news of the verdict, determined on his client's acquittal, Ronnie knew the difficulties of securing that acquittal too well for overconfidence.

Again he had spent the luncheon interval alone; praying--voicelessly--that his oratory might not fail; visualizing always those two dour-faced spinsters on the jury, and Mr. Justice Heber, having summed up in cold legal phraseology the bare facts of the case, awarding, on the jury's recommendation, the lenient sentence of a year's imprisonment.

In those few seconds of time before his speech began, Ronnie's imagination could almost hear the murmur of the mob without. The murmur flustered him. After all, Lucy had shot her husband. Between her, pale in the dock, and the dark cell of felony, stood only a dumb advocate, a fencer unskilled with the sword of the spoken word.

Till suddenly, standing there silent before Lucy's peers, it seemed to Ronnie as though all the emotions of the last year stirred in his heart, as though all that pity for womankind which Aliette had engendered in him fought for utterance at his lips. For one fleeting moment, his keen gaze swept the court, envisaging judge, jury, the motionless figure of his client, the constable and the wardress either side of her, the spectators standing two-deep round the closed doors, Benjamin Bunce, David Patterson, John Cartwright, Brunton. For one fleeting moment he thought of Brunton, and of the wrong which Brunton had done to the woman he loved. Then, gravely, quietly, feeling the sword of the spoken word quiver like a live blade at his lips, he engaged his enemy.

Sentence by calm sentence, Julia Cavendish's son--making scarcely a gesture, referring hardly to a note--traversed the statements of his enemy and of the witnesses for his enemy; sentence by grave sentence, he demonstrated to those twelve watchful faces, to the nine men and the three women in the jury-box, that the crime---if crime it were--had been committed on a sudden impulse, without motive, without malice, without premeditation.

"Members of the jury, if we except the evidence of Maggie Peterson--evidence which we now know to be one tissue of lies,--what proof have we of motive or of malice aforethought? No proof, no proof whatsoever. When counsel for the Crown dared to call my client an adulteress, on what did he base his foul allegation? On the word of a proved liar. I venture to tell him that, if any one fact has emerged from the evidence which he has seen fit to put before you, it is the fact of my client's fidelity to the blackguard whom she had the misfortune to marry."

At that, fearfully, the "hanging prosecutor" craned forward in his seat; and fearfully--as though it were of himself and not of the dead that Ronnie spoke--his bloodshot eyes glanced up at the set, stern face of counsel for the defense. But counsel for the defense deigned him never a glance. Terribly, counsel for the defense went on:

"My lord, members of the jury, he, counsel for the Crown, is a distinguished, perhaps our most distinguished advocate. Behind him are all the resources of the public purse, of the public power. Yet I, the humblest of pleaders, should not be doing my duty to my client did I not tell him that this prosecution to which he has thought fit to add the weight of his advocacy is a prosecution founded on false witness, bolstered on perjury, a prosecution which no just advocate would have dared to support."

With those words, unprofessional, unpremeditated--for now the sword of oratory had outlunged Ronnie's self-control, so that he spoke from his heart, careless of etiquette,--a shiver of excitement rippled the gray-wigged heads behind. The wigged heads nodded toward one another, whispering, "I say! Why the deuce don't Brunton protest!" But Brunton did not protest. And counsel for the defense spoke on:

"Why he has so dared, is for my learned friend to explain. My learned friend spoke of mercy. The poet tells us that the quality of mercy is not strained. Did my learned friend ponder that saying when his hands drew up the indictment against my client? Did any spirit of mercy move him when his brain schemed the evidence which has been put before this court? Is he merciful or merciless, truthful or truthless, when he asks you to believe that this woman, this unfortunate Lucy Towers, is guilty not only of murder but of adultery?"

Still Brunton did not protest. His eyes, the bloodshot eyes under the wig awry, dared look no more upon his enemy. For now it seemed to Hector Brunton as though Ronnie pleaded with him--as he had pleaded long ago--not only for the freedom of the woman in the dock, but for the freedom of Aliette.

"Adultery!" pleaded Ronnie. "Has my learned friend brought any proof of that adultery? He has brought none. None. None. Has he brought any proof of murder? Any proof of that malice aforethought without which--as he himself has told you--there can be no murder? He has brought none. None. None. Yet deliberately he has sought to twine"--one hand shot out, pointing first at Brunton, then at the unmoving figure of Lucy Towers--"the hangman's rope round the neck of this innocent woman. For she is innocent! Innocent of murder as she is of adultery. Innocent--I declare it to you in all solemnity!--innocent before the sight of man as she is innocent before the sight of God--of any and of every charge that counsel for the Crown has thought fit to bring against her. Of no charge, not even of manslaughter, can she be found guilty! Is it manslaughter to defend the defenseless? Is it manslaughter when a weak woman protects the man she loves from the beast who makes her days and her nights a living hell?

"A living hell!" For a second the flood of oratory ceased; for a second, through the silence of bated breaths, it seemed to Ronald Cavendish as though once again he caught the murmurs of the crowd without. But now the crowd gave strength to his words.

"Members of the jury, I do not ask for mercy. I ask only for justice. I ask you, when you weigh your verdict, to remember what manner of man was this William Towers. I ask you to look upon my client. I ask you to think of this woman, faithful always, complaining never, enduring always--year after hellish year--the bestial defilements of the drunken reprobate into whose black heart, not of premeditation but in sheer and sudden defense of a fellow-creature, she fired her fatal shot. Oh, yes, Lucy Towers fired that shot. Lucy Towers and no other killed her husband. That is the one truth in the tissue of lies which has been put before you. But was that killing a crime? Is not the world well rid of men like William Towers? Members of the jury, you, who have heard from the lips of unbiased witnesses what were his cruelties, what his drinkings and what his lecheries, will you not say to yourselves--as I say to myself--when you come to consider your verdict: 'God save all women from such a man.'"

And then, for the first time, Ronnie deigned one scornful look upon his enemy.

"Yet, believe me, you men and you women on whose word depends life or death for this woman I am defending, it is not on the ground of her husband's cruelties that I ask you to let her go free. However degraded, however debauched, however cruel; this man, this William Towers still had the right to live. Neither by his lechery nor by his drunkenness did he forfeit his life. Yet his life was forfeit. Why? Let me tell you why. Let me tell you in one sentence. Because he sought to take the life of another.

"Remember that. Never forget that. William Towers sought to take the life of another!" Ronnie's voice slowed to emphasis. Subconsciously, he knew himself at the very core of his defense. But consciously he knew nothing. The faces of the judge, of the jury and the spectators--phantom symbols whose intelligences his own intelligence must now grapple--blurred to his sight. He swayed as he stood.

"Members of the jury, that is the issue; the whole simple issue before this court. Dismiss from your minds all prejudice. That my learned friend stooped to call false witnesses is for my learned friend's conscience to excuse. You have not been summoned to decide the guilt of Maggie Peterson. You are not here to weigh the sins of the dead. You have been summoned to decide whether or no my client is guilty of any crime. Judge--impartially yet compassionately--that single simple issue. And, judging, keep before your minds this picture, the picture my client herself painted for you in unshaken, unforgettable words, the picture of the poor clean room in the tenement-house where Lucy Towers sits with her cousin; with the armless man, whose arms (need I remind you?) were sacrificed for your sake and for mine.

"Day by day Lucy Towers has visited that room; day by day her hands and hers alone have ministered to its helpless, to its defenseless occupant. Day by day she has brought him, despite her husband's threats, a little money--food perhaps. Is that a crime? But to-day she has not even brought money. She has only helped him--the piteousness of it!--to drink his tea. They are cousins, these two. They are happy with one another; not, as my learned friend would have you believe, guiltily happy, but innocently happy. They love one another--as they themselves told you--in the best, in the highest way, even as brother and sister love one another.

"So, they are sitting. And then, without warning, comes the crash of a stick-handle on the door. Startled, they look up. Startled, they see, framed in the doorway, the cruel terrible face of a man, of this woman's legal owner, of William Towers. In his hand this reprobate, this cruel drunken reprobate, brandishes his stick. The stick is no ordinary walking-stick. It is a weapon--a deadly weapon--a loaded stick. William Towers grasps the loaded stick by the ferrule. He lifts it menacingly; he makes as though to brain Robert Fielding--the armless, the helpless, the defenseless man, Robert Fielding. Robert Fielding's cousin is afraid; she fears this reprobate's violence, fears that he has been drinking, fears his ungovernable temper. There is a revolver in the cupboard. A revolver!

"A revolver!" Unconsciously, Ronnie's hand shot out, pointing at the weapon.

"My client runs to the cupboard. She opens the cupboard. She sees the revolver. Mad with fear, she grasps the revolver. She points it at William Towers. And William Towers jeers at her, jeers at them both. 'I'll do you in. I'll do you both in, damn you!' shouts this madman, this drunken madman who has made my client's life a living hell. And again he brandishes his stick, threatening a defenseless man.

"And then? Even then, does Robert Fielding call upon his cousin to fire? No. Remember that he knows himself in danger of his life; knows that one pressure of his cousin's finger on the trigger will save his life. Yet Robert Fielding does not call upon his cousin to fire. He warns the man--the reprobate who is seeking to slay him; he cries, 'Look out, Bill. The gun's loaded.' But William Towers only sneers. 'You can't frighten me,' sneers William Towers, and once more he brandishes his weapon, making as though to batter out Robert Fielding's life.

"To batter out Robert Fielding's life!" Now, irresistible, the sword of the spoken word plunges to its peroration. "My lord, members of the jury, was it murder, or a defense against murder, when my client, my innocent client, maddened by fear--driven to desperation by the thought of this foul crime which only she could prevent--pulled the trigger, sped the bullet which sent William Towers to his account with God? My lord, members of the jury, all you who listen to me in this court to-day, is there any one of you who--fearful as my client was fearful--provoked as my client was provoked--maddened as my client was maddened, by the sight of an armless man, of the one creature she loved in all the world, about to suffer death at the hands of a reprobate--would not have done what Lucy Towers did, would not have torn madly at the revolver trigger, would not have taken a life that a life might live?

"Men and women in whose hands lies the fate of my client, it is on that plea--on that plea alone--on the plea that the life she took was a life already forfeit--that I ask you to set her free. Were I in France, were I in America, I might plead the unwritten law. I do not plead it. By the written statutes of England; by every precedent of British justice; by the written law and by the written law alone; by that inalienable right which every citizen of this country possesses, the right to kill in another's defense, I ask you by your verdict to-day to manumit Lucy Towers of all and every penalty, to let her go free from this court, to acquit her at the hands of her fellow-men--as I, her advocate, am convinced that she stands acquitted at the hands of God."