heads; but then she had gone to heaven.  The Lord Advocate soon saw that the law was likely to be caught in its own meshes.  The first glimpse was got of the danger of hanging so versatile, so inconsistent, so unsearchable a creature as a human being on a mere confession of guilt.  That that had been the law of Scotland in all time, nay, that it had been the law of the world from the beginning, there was no doubt.  Who could know the murderer or the forger better than the murderer or the forger himself? and would any one throw away his life on a false plea?  The reasoning does not exhaust the deep subject; there remains the presumption that the criminal will, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, deny, and deny boldly.  But our case threw a new light on the old law, and the Lord Advocate was slow to indict where he saw not only reasons for failure, but also rising difficulties which might strike at the respect upon which the law was founded.

The affair hung loose for a time, and Lindsay’s friends, anxious to save him, got him induced to run his letters—­the effect of which is to give the prosecutor a period wherein to try the culprit, on failure of which the person charged is free.  The same was done by Effie’s father; but quickened as the Lord Advocate was, the difficulty still met him like a ghost that would not be laid, that if he put Effie at the bar, Lindsay would appear in the witness-box; and if he put Lindsay on his trial, Effie would swear he was innocent; and as for two people forging the same name, the thing had never been heard of.  And so it came to pass that the authorities at last, feeling they were in a cleft stick, where if they relieved one hand the other would be caught, were inclined to liberate both panels.  But the bank was at that time preyed upon by forgeries, and were determined to make an example now when they had a culprit, or perhaps two.  The consequence was, that the authorities were forced to give way, vindicating their right of choice as to the party they should arraign.  That party was Effie Carr, and the choice justified itself by two considerations:  that she, by writing and uttering the cheque, was so far committed by evidence exterior to her self-inculpation; and secondly, that Lindsay might break down in the witness-box under a searching examination.  Effie was therefore indicted and placed at the bar.  She pleaded guilty, but the prosecutor, notwithstanding, led evidence, and at length Lindsay appeared as a witness for the defence.  The people who crowded the court had been aware from report of the condition in which Lindsay stood; but the deep silence which reigned throughout the hall when he was called to answer, evinced the doubt whether he would stand true to his self-impeachment.  The doubt was soon solved.  With a face on which no trace of fear could be perceived, with a voice in which there was no quaver, he swore that it was he who signed the draft and sent Effie for the money.  The oscillation of sympathy, which