"If she had been able to attend as a witness this would have come out," he said. "I find that she was subpoenaed, but her illness makes it impossible for her to be there." And he gave a sigh, half of relief, half of sorrow.
"And can you do nothing, nothing?" asked Mary.
"Nothing yet," said the judge.
"But you cannot believe they will find him guilty?"
"Paul will be allowed to make a speech in his own defence. He may work wonders that way. He has done very little cross-examining to-day, but that may be part of his method. I think he's going to rely on his analysis of evidence. It's not an unsound process. Cross-examinations ofttimes mean very little. Justice Hawkins, you may remember, when he was practising at the Bar, used to depend almost entirely on his closing speech, and he won more cases than perhaps any other man. Still, we must not depend upon that. Nothing shall be left undone, Mary."
"Father, I'm going to see Paul."
"Better wait, better wait," he replied. "I am afraid a visit from you would do him more harm than good. You'd have to tell him about his mother's illness."
"I'm going to write to him to-night, anyhow," said Mary.
"But tell him nothing that will pain him, Mary."
When Mary left the room Judge Bolitho nearly lost control over himself. The days were slipping away, and nothing had been done. In spite of every inquiry he had made, he seemed to be getting no nearer to the solution he sought for. Like Mary, he was convinced that Paul had never done the deed; and yet, unless the murderer could be discovered, he could not close his eyes to Paul's face. For more than an hour he went over the whole miserable story again, connecting link with link, incident with incident, opinion with opinion. Still the same blank wall met him.