The answer to that was clear and emphatic. He
did not want to take the police into his confidence with regard to the
relations that had existed between his wife and the dead man. He wanted
to save his wife's name from scandal. Was not that a natural impulse for
a high-minded man? The prisoner had believed that in due course the
police would discover the actual murderer, and that in the meantime the
scandal which threatened his wife's name would be buried with the man who
had wronged her. If the prisoner could have prevented it his wife's name
would not have been dragged into this case even for the purpose of saving
himself from injustice. But the prosecution, in order to establish a
motive for the crime, had dragged this scandal into light. He did not
blame the prosecution in the least for that. In fact he was grateful to
his learned friend for doing so, for it had released him from a promise
extracted from him by the prisoner not to make any use of the matter in
his conduct of the case. The defence was that, although the accused man
had gone to Riversbrook on the night of the 18th of August to accuse Sir
Horace Fewbanks of base treachery, he went there unarmed, and with no
intention of committing violence.
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