There is nothing to prove that it is genuine.

It may have been written by any friend of yours with a view of obtaining your acquittal.

Of course we shall put it in at the trial, but it cannot be accepted as legal evidence in any way.
Still a thing of that sort may have an effect upon some of the jury." Ned looked again at the letter, and a shade came over his face now that he looked at it carefully.

He recognized in a moment Bill's handwriting.
He had himself instructed him by setting him copies at the time he was laid up with the broken leg, and Bill had stuck to it so far that he was able to read and write in a rough way.
Ned's first impulse was to tell Mr.Wakefield who had written the note, but he thought that it might get Bill into a scrape.

It was evidently written by his friend, solely to create an impression in his favor, and he wondered that such an idea should have entered Bill's head, which was by no means an imaginative one.