The prisoner, seeing he had nothing to fear from his counsel's interference, and meeting with no rebuke from the Judge, went calmly on:
"Yesterday I felt differently in regard to this matter. If I could be saved from my fate by a defence seemingly so impregnable, I was willing to be so saved, but to-day I would be a coward and a disgrace to my sex if, in face of the generous action of this woman, I allowed a falsehood of whatever description to place her in peril, or to stand between me and the doom that probably awaits me. Sir," he continued, turning for the first time to Mr. Orcutt, with a gesture of profound respect, "you had been told that the path from Mrs. Clemmens' house to the bridge, and so on to Monteith Quarry Station, could not be traversed in ninety minutes, and you believed it. You were not wrong. It cannot be gone over in that time. But I now say to your Honor and to the jury, that the distance from my aunt's house to the Quarry Station can be made in that number of minutes if a way can be found to cross the river without going around by the bridge. I know," he proceeded, as a torrent of muttered exclamations rose on his ear, foremost among which was that of the much-discomfited Hickory, "that to many of you, to all of you, perhaps, all means for doing this seem to be lacking to the chance wayfarer, but if there were a lumberman here, he would tell you that the logs which are frequently floated down this stream to the station afford an easy means of passage to one accustomed to ride them, as I have been when a lad, during the year I spent in the Maine woods. At all events, it was upon a log that happened to be lodged against the banks, and which I pushed out into the stream by means of the 'pivy' or long spiked pole which I found lying in the grass at its side, that I crossed the river on that fatal day; and if the detective, who has already made such an effort to controvert the defence, will risk an attempt at this expedient for cutting short his route, I have no doubt he will be able to show you that a man can pass from Mrs. Clemmens' house to the station at Monteith Quarry, not only in ninety minutes, but in less, if the exigencies of the case seem to demand it. I did it."
And without a glance at Imogene, but with an air almost lofty in its pride and manly assertion, the prisoner sank back into his seat, and resumed once more his quiet and unshaken demeanor.
This last change in the kaleidoscope of events, that had been shifting before their eyes for the last half hour, was too much for the continued equanimity of a crowd already worked up into a state of feverish excitement. It had become apparent that by stripping away his defence, Mansell left himself naked to the law. In this excitement of the jury, consequent upon the self-accusation of Imogene, the prisoner's admission might prove directly fatal to him. He was on trial for this crime; public justice demanded blood for blood, and public excitement clamored for a victim. It was dangerous to toy with a feeling but one degree removed from the sentiment of a mob. The jury might not stop to sympathize with the self-abnegation of these two persons willing to die for each other. They might say: "The way is clear as to the prisoner at least; he has confessed his defence is false; the guilty interpose false defences; we are acquit before God and men if we convict him out of his own mouth."
The crowd in the court-room was saying all this and more, each man to his neighbor. A clamor of voices next to impossible to suppress rose over the whole room, and not even the efforts of the officers of the court, exerted to their full power in the maintenance of order, could have hushed the storm, had not the spectators become mute with expectation at seeing Mr. Ferris and Mr. Orcutt, summoned by a sign from the Judge, advance to the front of the bench and engage in an earnest conference with the Court. A few minutes afterward the Judge turned to the jury and announced that the disclosures of the morning demanded a careful consideration by the prosecution, that an adjournment was undoubtedly indispensable, and that the jury should refrain from any discussion of the case, even among themselves, until it was finally given them under the charge of the Court. The jury expressed their concurrence by an almost unanimous gesture of assent, and the crier proclaimed an adjournment until the next day at ten o'clock.
Imogene, still sitting in the witness chair, saw the prisoner led forth by the jailer without being able to gather, in the whirl of the moment, any indication that her dreadful sacrifice—for she had made wreck of her life in the eyes of the world whether her confession were true or false—had accomplished any thing save to drive the man she loved to the verge of that doom from which she had sought to deliver him.