This was the indictment.
Against it, on the opposite page, he had written the defense—it came under one head:
“1—Lillian is my ideal of womanly perfection—if she prove guilty my faith is gone forever. I have never yet been able to believe her guilty while in her presence—it is only when away that these terrible facts make me fear it is so.”
A peculiar case this. If Lillian could plead her own cause, she would undoubtedly win it.
For a long time Eric Darrell sat and looked at his notes.
They covered about all of the case.
He could not but see how overwhelming the evidence was against Lillian and how meager her defense.
Still he kept hoping for the best, trusting that something would turn up to send the balance over to the other side. Had it been any one other than Lillian, the detective must have declared that there could be no hope—the case would be virtually closed. With such a client, however, he had hope to the end, because all his sympathies were enlisted in behalf of Joe and his wife.
He was not the man to waste time in useless speculation, and when he had calmly reviewed the situation, he made up his mind what ought to be done.
Would it be possible to save Lillian even though she were guilty?