Constable Williams proved that when he arrived upon the spot nothing had been touched.

Man and horse lay where they had fallen, the gig was broken in pieces, a strong rope was stretched across the road.

He said that on taking the news to Mrs.Mulready he had learned from the servants that the prisoner had not slept at home that night, and that there had been a serious quarrel between him and the deceased the previous evening.
After hearing this evidence Ned was asked if he was in a position to account for the time which had elapsed between his leaving home and his arrival at his nurse's cottage.
He replied that he could only say that he had been wandering on the moor.
The case was remanded for a week, as the evidence of Mrs.Mulready and the others in the house would be necessary, and it was felt that a mother could not be called upon to testify against her son with her husband lying dead in the house.
"I am sorry indeed to see you in this position," Mr.Simmonds said to Ned.

"My friendship for your late father, and I may say for yourself, makes the position doubly painful to me, but I can only do my duty.

I should advise you to say nothing at this period of the proceedings; but if there is anything which you think of importance to say, and which will give another complexion to the case, I am ready to hear it." "I have nothing to say, sir," Ned said quietly, "except that I am wholly innocent of the affair.