No doubt it was from some points of view an unprofessional act of Sydney Campion to appear in court as counsel for the prosecution of Alan Walcott. Sydney knew that he was straining a rule of etiquette, to say the least of it; but, under the circumstances, he held himself justified in fishing for the brief.

The matter had been taken up by the Treasury, and Sydney had asked an intimate friend, who was also a friend of the Attorney-General, to give the latter a hint. Now Sir James was, above all things, a suave and politic man of the world, who thought that persons of position and influence got on best in the intricate game of life by deftly playing into each other's hands. When one gentleman could do something for another gentleman, to oblige and accommodate him, it was evidently the proper course to do it gracefully and without fuss. Campion's motives were clearly excellent. As he understood the business (although the ambassador put it very delicately indeed), a lady's reputation was at stake; and if Sir James prided himself on one thing more than another, it was his gallantry and discretion in matters of this kind. So he told his friend to go back and set Mr. Campion's mind at rest; and in the course of a day or two Sydney received his brief.

"Who is going to defend?" he asked his clerk, when he had glanced at his instructions.

"I heard just now that Larmer had retained Mr. Charles Milton."

"Charles Milton! The deuce! It will be a pretty little fight, Johnson!"

"They don't seem to have a leg to stand on; the evidence is all one way, even without the wife. I don't know what his story is, but it cannot have any corroboration—and hers is well supported."

"I am told she will be able to appear. She seems to be a terrible talker—that is the worst of her. I must keep her strictly within the ropes."

"The other side will not have the same motives," said Johnson, who knew all about the scandal which had preceded the assault, and who wanted to get his employer to speak.

"You think Mr. Milton will draw her on?"

"Sure to, I should say. If I were defending (since you ask me), I would not loose my grip until I had got her into a rage; and from all I hear that would make the jury believe her capable of anything, even of stabbing herself and swearing it on her husband."

"But, my good fellow, you are not defending him! And I'll take care she is not worked up in that fashion. Thanks for the suggestion, all the same. They will contend that it was done in a struggle."

"Against that, you have her evidence that the blow was deliberate; and I think the jury will believe her."

"They can't help themselves: motive, incitements, favoring circumstances, are all too manifest. And that just makes the difficulty and delicacy of the case for me. I want the jury to see the whole thing impartially, that they may do justice, without bias and without foolish weakness; and yet there are certain matters connected with it which need not be dwelt upon—which must, in fact, be kept in the background altogether. Do you see?"

"I think I do." Johnson was a good deal in Sydney's confidence, being a man of much discretion, and with considerable knowledge of the law. He felt that his advice was being asked, or at any rate his opinion, and he met Mr. Campion's searching gaze with one equally cool and serious.

"I have no doubt you know as much about it as I could tell you. You seem to hear everything from one source or another. Do you understand why it is that I am going into court? It is not altogether a regular thing to do, is it?"

"I suppose you wish to keep the evidence well in hand," Johnson replied, readily. "A lady's name has been used in a very unwarrantable manner, and—since you ask me—you have undertaken to see that there is no unnecessary repetition of the matter in court."

"Precisely so—no repetition at all."

"You will examine your own witness, and, of course, you need not go behind the scene in Surrey Street, at which the crime was actually committed—except in opening your case. What the jury will say is this: husband and wife on bad terms, separated, and divorce pending; wife comes to husband's rooms, reproaches him; recriminations; dagger handy on the table (very bad for him that); a sudden temptation, a sudden blow, and there's an end of it. No need to prove they were on bad terms, with all those facts before you."

"But then comes the defence."

"Well, sir, what is their line going to be? If they want to persuade the jury that she did it herself, or that it was an accident, they will not dwell upon all the reasons which might have tempted him to take her life. That would be weakening their own case."

"And Milton is capable of doing it!" said Sydney, talking to himself.

"But if they think the jury will be bound to believe that he stabbed her, no doubt they would go in for blackening her, and then they might cross-examine her about those other things."

"That is where the danger comes in."

Sydney's words were equivalent to another question, but Johnson preserved a perfectly stolid face. It was all very well for him to advise his employer, and work up his cases for him if necessary. He was accustomed to do both these things, and his help had been invaluable to Sydney for several years past. But it was out of his line to display more confidence than was displayed in him, or to venture on delicate ground before he had received a lead.

"Yes, that's were the danger comes in," Sydney repeated. "I have reason to believe that there is a disposition on their part to keep the lady's name out of the case; but they are not pledged to it; and if they find things looking very bad for Walcott, they may show fight in that direction. Then there is Mr. Milton—no instructions can altogether gag counsel. I don't know that I have ever given him cause of offence, but I have an instinctive feeling that he would rather enjoy putting me in a hole."

"I think you would have the judge with you in any objection which you might take."

"But it would be a misfortune, as things stand, even to have to take objection. Not only do I want to avoid the introduction of these extraneous matters, but I should strongly object to figure in any way as watching Miss Campion's interests. It would be very bad indeed for me to have to do that. What I desire is that her interests should at no moment of the trial appear, even to those who know the circumstances, to be involved."

"I quite see," said Johnson. "And since you ask me, I don't think you have much to fear. It is a delicate position, but both sides are of the same mind on the particular point, and it is most improbable that any indiscretion will occur. Prosecution and defence both want to avoid a certain pitfall—when they won't struggle on the edge of it. What do you say, Mr. Campion, to setting forth in your opening statement all that is known about their previous quarrels, not concealing that the woman has been rather outrageous, in her foreign fashion, but quietly ignoring the fact of her jealousy?"

"That would be too bold—it would excite her, and possibly move the defence to needless retorts."

"As for exciting her, if she is thoroughly convinced that his conviction will spoil his chance of a divorce, she will take the whole thing coolly enough. My idea was that by opening fully, and touching on every point, you would escape the appearance of shirking anything. And at the same time you would be suggesting these motives for violence on Walcott's part which, as you said, it would be their business to avoid."

"There is a good deal in that," said Sydney, reflectively. "It is worth considering. Yes, two heads are certainly better than one. I see that I am instructed to ask about the attempt on her life at Aix-les-Bains. Why, what a rascal the man has been to her! No wonder she is venemous now."

When the trial took place, the court was crowded with men and women who were anxious to see the principal actors in what was popularly known as the Surrey Street Mystery. They were both there—Alan pale and haggard from his long suspense, and Cora, much pulled down by what she had gone through. Of the two, she was, perhaps, the more interesting. Illness and loss of blood had done something to efface the dissipated look which had become habitual with her; she was languid and soberly dressed; and, moreover, she understood, as Mr. Johnson had said she would, that the conviction of her husband would put his divorce out of the question, at any rate for some time to come. So it was her business to look interesting, and injured, and quiet; and she was cunning enough to play this part successfully.

Alan, on the other hand, was completely indifferent as to the opinion which might be formed of him, and almost indifferent as to the verdict. When he came into court he looked carefully round at the women who were present among the spectators, but, not seeing the one face which he had both dreaded and hoped to see, he fell back into his former lethargy, and took very little interest in the proceedings.

Sydney Campion opened the case for the prosecution in a business-like way, just glancing at the unhappy relations which had existed between the prisoner and his wife for several years past, and freely admitting that there appeared to have been faults on both sides. He took the common-sense view of a man of the world speaking to men of the world, and did not ask the sympathies of the jury for the injured woman who had come straight from the hospital to that court, but only their impartial attention to the evidence which would be brought before them, and the expression of their deliberate opinion on the innocence or guilt of the accused.

Nothing could be more fair than his observations—or so it appeared to the majority of Campion's hearers. No doubt he had referred to the affair at Aix-les-Bains as though it were a matter of evidence, instead of mere allegation, and to the recent quarrels in England as though the "faults on both sides" had been clearly established. But he was supposed to be speaking in strict accordance with his instructions, and, of course, it was open to the defence to question anything which he had said.

Then came the evidence for the prosecution, the substance of which is already known to the reader; but Cora's account of the quarrel in Surrey Street was so ingeniously colored and distorted that Alan found himself listening with something like genuine amusement to the questions of counsel and the replies of his lying wife.

"And so," said Mr. Campion, after she had spoken of her earnest appeal for the renewal of friendship, and of her husband's insulting refusal, "you came to high words. Did you both keep the same positions whilst you were talking?"

"For a long time, until I lost patience, and then—yes, let me speak the whole truth—I threw a certain book at him."

Cora was on the point of saying why she threw the book, and whose name was on the title-page, but she checked herself in time. It had been very difficult to persuade her that her interests were safe in the hands of Lettice's brother, and even now she had occasional misgivings on that point. Sydney went on quickly.

"A book lying close to your hand, you mean?"

"She said a certain book," Mr. Milton interjected.

"You must make allowance for her," said the judge. "You know she is French, and you should follow her in two languages at once. No doubt she meant 'some book or other.' The point has no importance."

"And then," said Sydney, "you altered your positions?"

"We stood facing each other."

"What happened next?"

"Suddenly—I had not moved—an evil look came in his face. He sprang to the table, and took from the drawer a long, sharp poignard. I remembered it well, for he had it when we were married."

"What did he do then?"

"He raised it in his hand; but I had leaped upon him, and then began a terrible struggle."

The court was excited. Alan and his counsel were almost the only persons who remained perfectly cool.

"It was an unequal struggle?"

"Ah, yes! I became exhausted, and sank to the ground."

"Before or after you were stabbed?"

"He stabbed me as I fell."

"Could it have been an accident?"

"Impossible, for I fell backward, and the wound was in front."

After Sydney had done with his witness, Mr. Milton took her in hand; and this was felt by every one to be the most critical stage of the trial. Milton did his best to shake Cora's evidence, not without a certain kind of success. He turned her past life inside out, made her confess her infidelity, her intemperance, her brawling in the streets, her conviction and fine at the Hammersmith Police Court. It was all he could do to restrain himself from getting her to acknowledge the reason of her visit to Maple Cottage; but his instructions were too definite to be ignored. He felt that the introduction of Miss Campion's name would have told in favor of his client—at any rate, with the jury; and he would not have been a zealous pleader if he had not wished to take advantage of the point.

By this time Cora was in a rage, and she damaged herself with the jury by giving them a specimen of her ungovernable temper. The trial had to be suspended for a quarter of an hour, whilst she recovered from a fit of hysterics; but it said much for her crafty shrewdness that she was able to adhere, in the main, to the story which she had told. She was severely cross-examined about the scene in Surrey Street, and especially about the dagger. She feigned intense surprise at being asked and pressed as to her having brought the weapon with her; but Mr. Milton could not succeed in making her contradict herself.

Then the other witnesses were heard and counsel had an opportunity of enforcing the evidence on both sides. Mr. Milton was very severe on his learned friend for introducing matter in his opening speech, on which he did not intend to call witnesses; but in his own mind he had recognized the fact that there must be a verdict of guilty, and he brought out as strongly as he could the circumstances which he thought would weigh with the court in his client's favor. Sydney was well content with the result of the trial as far as it had gone. There had been no reference of any kind to his sister Lettice; and, as he knew that this was due in some measure to the reticence of the defence, it would have argued a want of generosity on his part to talk of the cruelty of the prisoner in stopping his wife's allowance because she had molested him in the street.

The judge summed up with great fairness. He picked out the facts which had been sworn to in regard to the actual receiving of the wound, which, he said, were compatible with the theory of self-infliction, with that of wilful infliction by the husband, and with that of accident. As for the first theory, it would imply that the dagger had passed from the prisoner's hands to those of his wife, and back again, and it seemed to be contradicted by the evidence of the landlady and the other lodger. Moreover, it was not even suggested by the defence, which relied upon the theory of accident. An accident of this kind would certainly be possible during a violent struggle for the possession of the dagger. Now the husband and wife virtually accused each other of producing this weapon and threatening to use it. It was for the jury to decide which of the two they would believe. There was a direct conflict of evidence, or allegation, and in such a case they must look at all the surrounding circumstances. It was not denied that the dagger belonged to the prisoner, but it was suggested in his behalf that the wife had purloined it some time before, and had suddenly produced it when she came to her husband's apartments in Surrey Street. If that could be proved, then the woman had been guilty of perjury, and her evidence would collapse altogether. Now there were some portions of her evidence which were most unsatisfactory. She had led a dissolute life, and was cursed with an ungovernable temper. But, on the other hand, she had told a consistent tale as to the occurrences of that fatal afternoon, and he could not go so far as to advise the jury to reject her testimony as worthless.

His lordship then went over the remaining evidence, and concluded as follows:—

"Gentlemen, I may now leave you to your difficult task. It is for you to say whether, in your judgment, the wound which this woman received was inflicted by herself or by her husband. If you find that it was inflicted by her husband, you must further decide, to the best of your ability, whether the prisoner wounded his wife in the course of a struggle, without intending it, or whether he did at the moment wittingly and purposely injure her. The rest you will leave to me. You have the evidence before you, and the constitution of your country imposes upon you the high responsibility of saying whether this man is innocent or guilty of the charge preferred against him."

The jury retired to consider their verdict, and after about three-quarters of an hour they returned into court.

"Gentlemen of the jury," said the clerk, "are you agreed upon your verdict?"

"We are," said the foreman.

"Do you find the prisoner guilty or not guilty?"

"We find him guilty of wounding, with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm."

Alan turned his face to the judge. The whole thing had been so precisely rehearsed in his mind that no mere detail would take him by surprise. He had expected the verdict, and it had come. Now he expected the sentence; let it come, too. It would hardly be worse than he was prepared for.

To say that Mr. Justice Perkins was dissatisfied with the verdict would be going a little too far; but he almost wished, when he heard it, that he had dwelt at greater length upon the untrustworthy character of Mrs. Walcott's evidence. However, he had told the jury that this was a matter for their careful consideration; and he had always been wont, even more than some of his brother judges, to leave full responsibility to his juries in matters of opinion and belief.

"Alan Walcott," he said to the convicted man, "you have had a fair trial before twelve of your peers, who have heard all the evidence brought before them, whether favorable to you or the reverse. In the exercise of their discretion, and actuated as they doubtless have been by the purest motives, they have found you guilty of the crime laid to your charge. No words of mine are necessary to make you appreciate this verdict. Whatever the provocation which you may have received from this miserable woman, however she may have forgotten her duty and tried you beyond endurance—and I think that the evidence was clear enough on these points—she was still your wife, and had a double claim upon your forbearance. You might well have been in a worse position. From the moment when you took that deadly weapon in your hands, everything was possible. You might have been charged with wilful murder, if she had died, or with intent to murder. You have been defended with great ability; and if the jury believed, as they manifestly did, that your defence, so fat as concerns the introduction of the dagger, could not be maintained then they had no alternative but to find as they actually did find. It only remains for me to pass upon you such a sentence, within the discretion left me by the law, as seems to be appropriate to your offence, and that is that you be imprisoned and kept to hard labor for the term of six calendar months."

Then the prisoner was removed; the court and the spectators dispersed to dine and amuse themselves; the reporters rushed off to carry their last copy to the evening newspapers; and the great tide of life swept by on its appointed course. No foundering, ship on its iron-bound coast, no broken heart that sinks beneath its waves, disturbs the law-abiding ebb and flow of the vast ocean of humanity.