Page:The Fate of Fenella (1892).djvu/115

 around me here a crowd of men—fathers, husbands, and brothers—men who have women they love at home, and whose honor lies in the hands of those women. Which of us, my brothers—my fellow-men," he cried suddenly, aloud, stretching forth his right arm in a passionate appeal to those before him, "which of us all, did those women whom we love stand where my unfortunate client stood upon that fatal night, alone in the darkness, with no arm to defend her, no ear to hear her cry, with nothing but a certain and a shameful dishonor before her—which of us, I say, would not desire that the women we love and hold sacred, you and I, and every true man in all England, should do as this woman did; and save her honor at all costs?"

There was a murmur of applause that ran round the court as he sat down. Then the judge summed up strongly in her favor. There had been no evidence to contradict the prisoner's own statement. No eye save her own had been in that chamber of death in the darkness of the night. Something, indeed, had been said about signs of more force having been used than it was in the power of a woman's frail hands to employ, but there had been no evidence in support of that theory; not a vestige of any other presence in the prisoner's chamber, save that of her would-be destroyer, had come to light; and the jury must bear in mind that a desperate woman is