Page:The Fate of Fenella (1892).djvu/112

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JOSEPH HATTON.
97

be able to adduce instances of the enormous strength that comes with passion, or is the outcome of some great act of revenge, and so on.

That is, if Lady Francis Onslow should have to take her trial for willful murder, though the coroner's inquest ended with her condemnation, the case has still to go before the police magistrate, and already public opinion has decided that if Lady Francis Onslow did kill the would-be Tarquin she is only guilty of manslaughter. By her own confession, upon which she was originally charged, the man sought her life, and she killed him. It was remarked by many that in America she would have easily found bail if she had been arrested, and that if she had ever come before a court for trial she would have been promptly acquitted. "Justifiable homicide" is a verdict not unknown to the English law, many wise persons also remarked.

Meanwhile Lady Francis Onslow was on her way in a police van, to be charged in the police court, and a detective had been told off at Scotland Yard to keep his eye upon Lord Francis Onslow.