"You say that he is guilty of murder, and that is the verdict of you all?"
"That is the verdict of us all," was the response.
"James Ronald Penreath," continued the clerk, turning to the accused man, and speaking in the same sing-song tones of one who repeated a formula by rote, "you stand convicted of the crime of wilful murder. Have you anything to say for yourself why the Court should not give you judgment of death according to law?"
The man in the dock, who had turned very pale, merely shook his head.
The judge, with expressionless face and in an expressionless voice, pronounced sentence of death.
CHAPTER XVII
Colwyn returned to Durrington in a perplexed and dissatisfied frame of mind. The trial, which he had attended and followed closely, had failed to convince him that all the facts concerning the death of Roger Glenthorpe had been brought to light. Really, the trial had not been a trial at all, but merely a battle of lawyers about the state of Penreath's mind.
If Penreath was really sane—and Colwyn, who had watched him closely during the trial, believed that he was—the Crown theory of the murder by no means accounted for all the amazing facts of the case.