Little did those who looked at Henry Cross on that morning as he stood up to listen to the reading of the indictment against him realize all that had passed through the young man’s mind since he had been placed under arrest. They saw him pale, hollow-cheeked, and hollow-eyed—restless, too—and given to clasping and unclasping his hands at frequent intervals. Many thought they saw the signs of guilt staring from his face, and wondered how it was he had not broken down and confessed all.

They did not know the heavy secret he carried locked up in his heart—a secret he had determined should not be forced from him, even though he be made to walk to the very chair. “If she will not speak, I shall remain silent,” he had said to himself. He loved her too much to uncover her crimes to the world.

Many times had he wondered and wondered, trying to fathom Maud’s secret. Who was the father of her son—Chesterbrook or another? What had taken her to that man’s rooms on their wedding morning?—a quarrel between them, or some discovery on his part? Had he really committed suicide, or had she in anger or fear struck that deadly blow?

These questions and a hundred others had coursed through his brain, and he had found himself unable to answer even the first of them. And then there was that strange slip of paper. Who had placed that by the desk? Was it genuine or a forgery?

At first he had thought to place that slip in evidence, but he had realized that this would bring Maud on the witness stand, and he had given up the idea. No, she must come entirely by her own free will, or not at all.

The courtroom was crowded long before the case was called. There was a buzz of conversation, which was, however, immediately hushed at the announcement:

“The People against Henry Cross!”

Cross stood up, and the indictment was read, slowly and distinctly, accusing him of having willfully and with malice aforethought killed Allen Chesterbrook by stabbing the man in the heart with a dagger, on the morning of May 20th, of the current year.

“Prisoner at the bar, how do you plead?”

Cross drew a long, deep breath.

“Not guilty,” he said, in a low but clear voice. Then he sat down.

After the usual routine the selection of a jury began. Cross took but scant interest in this, but both Welford and the prosecuting attorney were on the alert, and it was noon before the jury was finally settled upon. A recess of half an hour was taken, and then the trial really opened.

It is not our intention to go into the details of that great case as it was presented for several days in the Lakeview courthouse. To those wishing for all the particulars we would say that they may be found in the back files of most of the leading journals of the country, for this trial and its sensational ending attracted widespread attention. Both sides went into many useless details, which wearied both judge and jury.

The first real surprise came when Jack Hull took the stand and began to relate all that he had discovered. He told first of the quarrel that had taken place between Cross and Chesterbrook, and said it was his knowledge of this that had made him suspect Cross. Then he related how he had taken Chesterbrook’s rooms, the finding of the loose ceiling in the closet, of the square that had been nailed down with six-penny nails, while the other boards were nailed with ten-penny nails; of his going to the office and asking for some nails to mend a wagon, and of the office boy giving him a hammer and some nails that Cross had brought there two days after the murder.

He told how the square in the closet floor had been put down—in a way that proved it had not been done by a regular carpenter—and said it was large enough to admit of the passage of any ordinary man’s body, being sixteen inches wide by twenty and a half inches long, the boards being two in number, eight inches wide each.

Many looked at Cross as Hull paused here in his testimony, and they saw him start and flush; but otherwise he retained his composure. At this point Hull asked for and received a drink of water, and then continued his testimony.

Now every one listened with bated breath as the detective related how he had shadowed Henry Cross many times, and noticed his restlessness. How, as long as he had occupied the murdered man’s rooms, Cross had scarcely looked at him.

And then he told of the night when he was sitting in his room, and Cross had come down the stairs in his pajamas, fast asleep. One could have heard a pin drop when, in low, impressive tones, he related the particulars of Cross’ appearance at that time. He vividly pictured Jackson’s conduct, and how he—Hull—had cautioned the man to keep silent.

Then came the horrible, thrilling climax which held the audience spellbound—how Cross had stalked into the front room, passed to the one in the rear, gone to the closet, and then how his manner had changed as with a face full of bitter hatred he had sprung to the bureau, caught up the hairbrush as one would a dagger, and stabbed quickly and heavily at the empty air.

He stopped and looked at Cross, and the audience, the jury, and the judge followed that gaze. The prisoner had arisen; he was clutching the rail before him, and shaking as with the ague. He had listened to every word, and he stood there doubting the evidence of his own senses, the heavy beads of perspiration standing out upon his forehead, over which his uncombed hair hung wildly. As all present looked at him his eyes fell, and he dropped limply into his seat.

After this Hull’s testimony came to a rapid close. He told how Cross had vanished from the room, and how he had cautioned Jackson to remain silent for a few days. The knowledge that Cross was going to flee next reached his ears, and he had waited no longer, but arrested the criminal just as he was about to step on board one of the lake boats.

A long line of witnesses followed; Ned Degroot and Bart Harkness, who had witnessed the quarrel at the Charity Ball, and overheard Cross say he would kill Chesterbrook; Mark Jepson, who was compelled to testify about the nails and the hammer; Jackson, who corroborated Hull’s story of Cross’ somnambulism, and several other witnesses of lesser importance.

Then the case was adjourned for the day, and the prisoner was taken back to his cell, while the people streamed out into the raw, wintry air, saying to themselves that Henry Cross had not the ghost of a chance of being acquitted.

On the following morning, after a sleepless night and a long interview with his lawyer, the prisoner was put on the stand. He was more calm than on the day previous, and all could see that he had nerved himself for a searching encounter with the prosecuting attorney.

No cross-examination had yet been indulged in, and the case had moved on without a hitch. Consequently the prosecuting attorney was contented, satisfied that the case would be decided against the prisoner. He handled Cross lightly, almost pityingly. The prisoner admitted what had been said about the quarrel, and the hammer and nails, and the prosecutor did not ask him concerning his alleged sleep-walking.

It was then that Welford showed what was in him. He began his opening address with confidence and excellent judgment. In a few well-chosen words he brushed aside almost all of the so-styled evidence against his client, who, he asserted, was entirely innocent of this foul charge brought against him.

He endeavored to prove that the quarrel between his client and Chesterbrook had been patched up long before the murder, so much so that on that fateful morning Cross had been gayly bound for the church where the wedding was to take place, with never an idea in his head that murder most foul had been committed.

Hull smiled to himself here. He had not mentioned that slip of paper, for several reasons, and he was glad to learn that no plea of suicide was to be entered.

And as for that hole in the closet, Welford went on, Cross had found the boards loose weeks before and nailed them fast, and had taken the hammer and nails to his office merely because he needed them more there than he did at his rooms.

As to the sleep-walking—well, lots of people were at times subject to somnambulism, and did very curious things when in that condition. He could recite half a dozen queerer cases. Cross’ mind had been full of the murder; he wouldn’t deny that, for his rooms were directly over those of the murdered man, and he had been the first to find him.

His client was a sensitive man, of an imaginative turn of mind, and during that sleep-walking had merely dreamed of the awful deed, and imagined how it had been committed, just as he or any man on the jury might do when he had eaten a heavy supper. If the sleep-walking meant anything, it meant that Cross had come down to that room while in a somnambulistic state, and had reënacted the murder of poor Chesterbrook, as the details had been impressed upon his mind by listening to them as described by the witnesses at the inquest.

The recess of the day was now reached, and the afternoon was mainly devoted to the cross-examination of the witnesses, but nothing of importance was elicited.

Among those who attended the trial was Colonel Willowby, who came escorting a young woman who was heavily veiled. That his companion was Maud Willowby no one for one moment doubted, but there was that in the stern old military man’s bearing which precluded questioning on the point. The two sat very nearly in the middle of the courtroom, in a little seat cut off from the others by two columns running to the ceiling, and during the progress of the case the eyes of the veiled lady were never once taken from the face of the prisoner.

Maud had received Henry Cross’ letter on the morning after it had been written and hardly had she finished reading it when her father had brought her the news of the young man’s arrest. The announcement had caused her to faint, and she had gone to bed sick, not to get up until the Sunday previous to the day on which the great trial opened.

Her determination to witness the trial had surprised her father, who had sought to interview Cross three times, but without success. But he was forced to accede to her demands, and so there they were, like a couple of outsiders, listening to all that was going on. Many times had the young woman shivered to think that she might at any moment be called on to take the stand and reveal her awful secret, but the call had not come. Still the trial was not yet ended.

When the court adjourned for the day, the crowd was slow in leaving the building, many remaining behind to see the sheriff once more take charge of his prisoner, so pale, so haggard, and yet growing firmer every hour.

There were all kinds of people there, business men, idlers from the race track down at Creston, tramps, who thought as much of the shelter as they did of the trial, and some few criminals to whom such scenes were all too familiar. They stared at Cross openly and impudently, and did not stir until he had passed out of sight through a door behind the jury box. Then the spectators drifted out singly and in pairs, and the conversation became loud and general.

The colonel and Maud waited in their retired seat until the main aisle of the courtroom was almost cleared. Then the father took his daughter by the arm.

“Come, my dear; we can easily get to the street now,” he said.

She did not reply, but, trembling over the strain she had endured throughout the afternoon, arose and followed him. As she turned her face toward the open doors, a man who had occupied a seat but a yard or two to the rear of them also passed out to the aisle, and he and Maud came face to face.

The young woman gazed at the stranger as if spellbound with horror. She took a step forward as though to grasp him by the arm, then fell back with bitter loathing depicted on her hidden face. She threw up her hands wildly, gave one long, pitiable shriek, and fell at her father’s feet like one dead.