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 array of inferences which would be marshalled against you in the interests of this penal code by one of the most talented of its servants. The mere fact that you had come to stand your trial in this noisome chamber, itself stained with a thousand crimes committed in the name of justice, and that a cruel chain of events had forced you to vindicate your kinship with the divine will in the precincts of this charnel-house—it is well, gentlemen, that the windows are kept so close, for who would have this foulness mingle with the air of London?"

For the best part of an hour in that raw winter morning, with a drizzling rain falling incessantly, did Northcote continue to rehearse his address to the jury. The amused intolerance of his hearers yielded to an intense interest. They had been present in court on many occasions and had heard these things for themselves, but never had they listened to a voice of such dominion, of such volume and majesty, a voice capable of such burning appeal. They stood merely at the threshold of the argument, it was true; but the art of the orator unfolded it, made it clear. His natural magic, his incommunicable gift, rendered it with the harmony of music, so that before the end these oxlike custodians of the peace, far from growing weary of their situation, began to view with emotion the injury that threatened an outcast from society.

"Go on, sir," said Z9 humbly; "you've the gift and no mistake. They'll not be able to hang her if you talk to 'em that way."

"This is not quite the form it will take, you know," said Northcote, whose exertions had been so great that he was breathing heavily and drip