“Why, how was that?” inquired several.
“It is really quite a romance in its way,” he replied, “and if you care to listen, I’ll go through it once more.
“It happened many years ago when I was in the United States. Very shortly after I came of age I was summoned on a jury. As it was my first experience I did not attempt to escape serving, as older men are apt to do.
“The only important case that came before us was the trial of a young man for the murder of his own father.
“I won’t go into the particulars any more than is necessary for the story.
“The crime was a most horrible and unnatural one, and to look at the frank, boyish face, and believe him capable of it, seemed impossible.
“The evidence was entirely circumstantial, yet gradually as its terrible weight accumulated, an abundant motive was found in the son’s desire to inherit at once the father’s immense wealth, as it was shown they had recently quarrelled, that hot words had been given and returned, that the young man had publicly threatened his father’s life.
“One by one the jurymen by my side lost faith in the prisoner, and finally when it was clearly proved that he was within five rods of the murdered man, almost after the fatal shot was heard, that he had an empty pistol in his hand, that the ball taken from the wound evidently belonged to the pistol, and that he acted most strangely and unlike an innocent man when found at this time.
“There was only one man on the jury who had not already made up his mind for the terrible verdict—guilty. That man was myself.
“Somehow or other I could not believe the man before me was guilty of the crime charged.