His Other Wife: A Novel — page 354: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

345 SENTENCED AND RECLAIMED, CHAPTER XXXIX. SENTENCED AND RECLAIMED. It was now the prisoner’s turn to be heard in his own cause, of which he had assumed the management. He was still very composed, but a tremor in his tones betrayed the shock his nerves had sustained. He said: ‘Gentlemen, it is trne that an:appalling weight. has been cast into the balance against me by the discovery ‘that I bear upon my person a mark answering to the description of one drawn by the witness, Rachel Croft. It is needless for me to state to you that a bribe of a few dollars might easily have secured from the deputy of the prison the information which has been made to appear against me in this court. . For one who had privileged access to my cell by day and night, and who as often dis- turbed me in the midst of profound, unconscious slumber or the gloomy reveries of an unhappy prisoner, nothing was simpler than the accidental or premeditated discovery of any distinguishing mark upon my person. This, with one other suspicious circumstance, seems to me the only point worthy to be mentioned in opposition to the clear and positive testimony of two intelligent witnesses, who have disproved my identity with the Mathew Croft of Rachel Croft’s tragedy. I refer, gentlemen, to the fact of Eomicbooks: (E(@)