" His friend endeavoured to
assure him that even had nothing been heard of the key the jury would
have acquitted him. But Phineas would not believe him. It had seemed
to him as he had listened to the whole proceeding that the Court had
been against him. The Attorney and Solicitor-General had appeared to
him resolved upon hanging him,--men who had been, at any rate, his
intimate acquaintances, with whom he had sat on the same bench, who
ought to have known him. And the judge had taken the part of Lord
Fawn, who had seemed to Phineas to be bent on swearing away his life.
He had borne himself very gallantly during that week, having in all
his intercourse with his attorney, spoken without a quaver in his
voice, and without a flaw in the perspicuity of his intelligence.
But now, when Mr. Low came to him, explaining to him that it was
impossible that a verdict should be found against him, he was quite
broken down. "There is nothing left of me," he said at the end of the
interview. "I feel that I had better take to my bed and die.
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