Page:The Yellow Book - 13.djvu/152

136 against him, at last came to see. The resentment, which had been expressed by fierce mutterings and black looks, died away ashamed before the forlornness of its object in the dock. More over the evidence was as far from solving the problem of his guilt at the end as it was in the beginning. He was a swagger, and had in his possession ten shillings in silver for which he could not, or would not account; beyond these two facts nothing could be proved against him. On the disappearance of the purse he could not be induced to say a word. The story he had told the evening of his arrest was never shaken in any one particular. Only that it had been found impossible to fasten the murder on any one else, the authorities would have been only too glad to let him go.

But at length a clue to the ownership of the pistol, thrown into the bushes under the window of the house, was discovered and, as it could by no chance have come into the swagger's hands, there was no longer any reasonable excuse for detaining him a prisoner. He was, therefore, acquitted with the usual forms, a piece of good fortune it took him some time to realise thoroughly.

When he did at last grasp the fact, he was alone on the verandah of the court-house. But this was to him no source of anger and bitterness. He accepted it as he accepted every other ill of his lot as a matter of course. Nothing else was to be expected when a swagger was under consideration. Besides, for the sake of appearances, none of the townspeople would care to be seen talking to one who had not been entirely cleared of the charge of murder. That it was less than their Christian profession demanded, they chose to forget: that it was more than convention could bear they had no difficulty in remembering.

Stay, there was an exception. As the swagger slouched up the Rh