Devils Lake inter-ocean. (Devils Lake, Ramsey Co., Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1905, 1886-10-09

everybody in court was exhausted. No one,
therefore, was surprised when the judge an
nounced that at this point the trial would be
adjourned till the next day. Daisy was in
simultaneously spirited out of the dock; but
before she left the waiting room below I
was allowed to have a momentary interview
with her. She was wan and worn; but her
sweet composure enabled me to keep up my
courage in her presence, and to assure her
that, so far as T knew, all was going well.
Alas! any delusions I might have enter
tanned on that point we're only too quickly
dispelled. I had hardly finished my simple
dinner at the Station hotel when Harding
appeared at the door Of my room to tell me
that Mr.. Belmore desired to have an i'm
mediate interview with me.
followed my friend to the room Of the
great advocate, who was also staying at the
hotel. found Mr.. Belmore and our solicit
tor, Mr.. Bryce, in serious consultation.
II sent for you. Mr.. Fenton," said the
famous lawyer, shat I might have a little
frank talk with you. l understand that you
are really the principal friend of Miss STAN
cliffe, and I have heard of the relationship
in which you ian to each other. Now I
want to tell you at once that she is an al
most desperate position. We shall do our
best for her tomorrow, Of course; but 1
must say candidly that I see no hope of
avoiding a conviction. l have only two
points to ,nake-ono is the possibility of a
blunder on the part of the doctor in pre-
pairing Mr.. Mauleverer's medicine, and the
other the chance that Mauleverer may rave
committed suicide. But I do not think I
ever had a stronger case to meet, nor lave I
ever been compelled to trust to more worth
less straws than these"
heard him with q dread that seemed to
render me voiceless.
"Yes," he continued, Eve must not deceive
ourselves. Everything is against us. But I
mn anxious to save this poor child if I can.
I do not believe her to BIO guilty, and I hope
that something may yet turn up to prove
her innocence. I heard all that you nave
told my learned friend here, and I wish to
give you some advice. You must move
heaven and earth to find out, first, what has
become Of the strychnia which Miss STAN
clifPe bought-for I do not believe that it has
been destroyed-and next where the man
Gregson, Of whom you lave told Mr.. Hard
ing, is to be oun In my opinion he pos
sesses the key to this mystery. But the first
step you should take is to obtain a power of
attorney from Miss Stancliffe, enabling you
to act i'll relation to al her affairs as fully
as she herself could do. This must be OBJ
tanned, if possible, before her conviction, and
Mr.. Bryce, who has an order for an inter-
view with her, will get it from her tonight"
Then the great man shook me by the hand,
and, expressing his desire to help me in
every possible way, politely bowed me from
his room.
I have no heart to write of the events of
the next day. There was again the eager
crowd of sightseers in court, and again all
the actors in the dismal tragedy appeared in
their old places. The jury looked jaded
after their night Of confinement at a neigh
boring hotel; and I was conscious that not
merely upon myself, but upon my darling,
the awful ordeal of the previous day, and Of
the sleepless night which followed, had told
heavily. But she preserved the same air Of
sweet serenity which had distinguished her
from the first.
Mr.. Hawks speech for the prosecution was
the coolest, clearest and most merciless expo
sition Of the facts that could by any posi-
bility have been laid before the jury. He
was no novice at his work, and / shudder-
ingly felt when he sat down that he had not
left q loophole by which Daisy could escape.
That Mr.. Mauleverer was undoubtedly poi
soned by strychnia on the night of October
"a, that the prisoner was tho person who
must have committed the crime, and that
she had a strong motive for committing it
these were the three points which he labored
to establish beyond the power of refutation,
and it was only too clear that he did establish
them in the minds OF nearly everybody in
court.
Mr.. Belmore took q very different line.
His desire evidently was to get away as far as
possible from the evidence, and in a speech
which was full of imprisoned and eloquent
pleading he dwelt upon the difficulty of i'm.
agining that a young girl like Daisy could
ever have conceived, much less could nave
carried out, SO deadly q plot against the life
of her relative and benefactor. Nothing but
absolutely convincing evidence could justify
the jury in finding a verdict against her. But
in this case where was there any absolute
demonstration of her guilt7 Who could say
that Mr.. Maulevercr had not, under the inlu-
ence of the excitement from which he was un-
doubtedly suffering, committed suicide7 and
in that case everybody knew the %proverbial
cunning with which a mailman sought to
hide the traces of his acts; but even if this
hypothesis were to be rejected, was it not
possible, and even probable, that weak,
"a AS0NSo la A1ikuV Ahto
made another mistake, and by ~ipadvertence
| given strycnia instead Of bromide of potas-
stun to his patients At all events, with
these two possibilities staring them in the
face, the jury would incur a terrible re-
sponsibility if they returned a verdict of
guilty against the prisoner.
think that if the jury had given their
verdict then it would lave been in Daisy's
favor. But tho summing up Of the judge,
clear, careful and impartial, destroyed the
effect of Belmore's eloquent special plead
ing.
I sat as III @ dream, while the tedious
formalities connected with tho retirement of
the jury were carried out And then came
half an hour of awful supense, during which
everybody remained in court save my darling
and the judge. still recall with a sickening
sense Of horror that sudden lull in the hum
of general conversation, which told us that
the jury were returning to deliver their ver-
dict. see the judge hurrying back to the
bench; l see the twelve men, with their
grave, set faces slowly filing into the box; l
hear, as though from a vast distance, the
calling over of the names, and the demand
of tho clerk, "How say you, gentlemen; do
you find the prisoner guilty or not guiltvp
And then l nm Oh my feet, with arms
stretched out to where my love stands, deadly
white, but moro beautiful than ever, with
hands clasped aid eyes turned toward
heaven, which has just heard the mon
strous verdict that is to brand her
name wi b infamy and cut short her life
upon the scafroll. For the jury have re-
turned a verdict Of Guilty" and our last
hope has BEN destroyed.
Some one draws mo lack into my seat,
and implores me, for her sake, to remain