A TERRIBLE PLIGHT "Little more than a fortnight after that, Edith Crawford was duly committed to stand her trial before the High Court of Justiciary.

She had pleaded 'Not Guilty' at the pleading diet, and her defence was entrusted to Sir James Fenwick, one of the most eminent advocates at the Criminal Bar.
"Strange to say," continued the man in the corner after a while, "public opinion from the first went dead against the accused.

The public is absolutely like a child, perfectly irresponsible and wholly illogical; it argued that since Miss Crawford had been ready to contract a marriage with a half-demented, deformed creature for the sake of his L100,000 she must have been equally ready to murder and rob an old lady for the sake of L50,000 worth of jewellery, without the encumbrance of so undesirable a husband.
"Perhaps the great sympathy aroused in the popular mind for David Graham had much to do with this ill-feeling against the accused.

David Graham had, by this cruel and dastardly murder, lost the best--if not the only--friend he possessed.

He had also lost at one fell swoop the large fortune which Lady Donaldson had been about to assign to him.
"The deed of gift had never been signed, and the old lady's vast wealth, instead of enriching her favourite nephew, was distributed--since she had made no will--amongst her heirs-at-law.