But I read all the evidence before the magistrates with great care, and I have just talked over the crucial points with Aldous, who followed everything to-day, as you know, and seems to have taken special note of Mr.Wharton's speeches." "Aldous!"-- her voice broke irrepressibly into another note--"I thought he would have let me speak to you first!--to-night!" Lord Maxwell, looking quickly at his grandson, was very sorry for him.
Aldous bent over her chair.
"You remember," he said, "you sent down the petition.

I thought that meant that we were to read and discuss it.

I am very sorry." She tried to command herself, pressing her hand to her brow.

But already she felt the irrevocable, and anger and despair were rising.
"The whole point lies in this," she said, looking up: "_Can_ we believe Hurd's own story?
There is no evidence to corroborate it.

I grant that--the judge did not believe it--and there is the evidence of hatred.
But is it not possible and conceivable all the same?
He says that he did not go out with any thought whatever of killing Westall, but that when Westall came upon him with his stick up, threatening and abusing him, as he had done often before, in a fit of wild rage he shot at him.
Surely, _surely_ that is conceivable?
There _is_--there _must_ be a doubt; or, if it is murder, murder done in that way is quite, quite different from other kinds and degrees of murder." Now she possessed herself.