The state's attorney pictured all of this circumstantial evidence to the jury in an eloquence seldom equaled.
But, who ever heard a lawyer plead the cause of a moneyless man? The attorneys appointed to defend Daymon preserved only their respectability in the profession.
And the jury returned their verdict guilty. Nothing now remained but to pronounce the sentence, and then the execution.
The judge was a crippled man, and slowly assumed an erect position. Then casting his eyes around the court room, they rested upon the prisoner, and he paused a moment. That moment was silent, profound, awful! for every ear was open to catch the first sound of that sentence. The silence was broken by a wild scream at the door. The anxious crowd opened a passage, and a woman entered the court room, her hair floating upon her shoulders, and her voice wild and mellow as the horn of resurrection. That woman was Daymon's wife.
SCENE SECOND.—THE HERO OF SHIRT-TAIL BEND.
Two boys in one house grew up side by side,
By the mother loved, and the father's pride
With raven locks and rosy cheeks they stood,