The Birkenhead News and Wirral General Advertiser. — 1913-09-10 (Birkenhead, Merseyside, England)

CIIA PPM. XXV  "I shall go mad—l shall go mad!" John Pleydell muttered the words in low tones. He was sitting in his room—sitting in the dark. It was quite late at night, and he had drawn the blinds and pulled the thick tapestry curtains across his window, for he did not want the moon to peer in at him. He was even afraid of thg starlight. The darkness comforted him as Mothing else could. It was the evening of the second day of .Felicity Harwood's frial on the grim' charge of murder. The autumn Assizes were being held at Chelmsford, and the judge who was trying Felicity. had the reputation of being particularly hard on female offenders, nor had he ever been known to err on the side of mercy; and Pleydell felt sick at heart as to what the result of the trial would be, for the evidence that the Crown had brought forward against the prisoner was simply overwhelming. It had been noticed and remarked in court that the prisoner's counsel—Sir Jacob Aston, the famous K.C.—looked uncommonly haggard and ill at ease, and he had act his lips tight, as he always did when he was fighting with his back against the wall. Certainly the prisoner's youth was in her favour—her extreme youth—and Felicity made a shrinking and appealing figure as she sat in the dock dressed with great simplicity in black. But it was such a terrible crime that she was charged with —such an inhuman crime—that scant pity could be felt for Felicity if she were really guilty of her friend's murder, and a number of people had already begun to regard the prisoner as a beautiful vampire—a diabolical poisonees. Felicity had been hissed by the crowd when she entered the court-house, and there had been a cruel demonstration against her—a demonstration that had driven all the colour from her cheeks, and had made her cling wildly to her sturdy wardresses. "How the people hate me!" she IyMspered. "They have judged me already. They think me guilty. They don't elm wait till I have been condemned—condemned." She had shivered violently as she spoke, for Felicity had given up all hope of being able to prove her innocence. She felt that the stars themselves were against her —that she was the child of misfortune—of doom. She had no friends—she had no sympathisers. Her lover stood afar off. She bad indeed been brought low, even unto the dust. Her name had become a by-word from Sheba to Dan. She was accursed— accursed! She had refused to see Pleydell. She declined to have anything to do with him. It was in vain that he wrote to her and offered his help—his services—begged her to see him. Nothing would induce her to do so. But she agreed to one of Pleydell's suggestions. She authorised him to brief Sir Jacob Aston in her defence; but when Sir Jacob asked Felicity if she would not grant Mr. Pleydell a few minntee' interview with her the girl grew hysterical—alsnort incoherent. "I hate him!" she cried. "I am afraid of him! He is never to come neer me— never You understand that—you will make him understand its" Sir Jacob Aston had conveyed Fo',icity's message to Pleydell. and the tall, lean lawyer had merely bowed his head and given a queer shrug of the shoulders. "It's strange that Miss Harwood Phonld have turned against me so completely, considering that I am her best friend," he muttered—"tite—the man who believes in her. But I expect she is feeling very overwrought just now, and is hardly capable of telling her friends from her roes. e had allectedi to laugh as he said the last words, and not to appear at an ourprised at Felicity's averston—her fear of hizn—her dread. But at the bottom of Ms heart John Pleydell knew that sorneetratige instinct had warned Felicity that ;..e was the parson who was responsible for her present condition—for the fact that she wee a prisoner meanie" her trial on the heinous charge of mettle?. Yes. ll was John Pleydell who had dtifi the pit into which Felicity had fallen. It was his crime for which sirs was mots' its vorsiges_om