He had arranged that at the climax of his address to the jury he would turn and, tearing away the slender hands of his client from her tear-stained face, challenge the jury to find guilt written there.

Wellman was totally unprepared for this and a shiver ran down his spine when he saw Howe, his face apparently surcharged with emotion, turn suddenly towards his client and roughly thrust away her hands.

As he did so he embedded his finger-nails in her cheeks, and the girl uttered an involuntary scream of nervous terror and pain that made the jury turn cold.
"Look, gentlemen! Look in this poor creature's face! Does she look like a guilty woman?
No! A thousand times no! Those are the tears of innocence and shame! Send her back to her aged father to comfort his old age! Let him clasp her in his arms and press his trembling lips to her hollow eyes! Let him wipe away her tears and bid her sin no more!" The jury acquitted, and Wellman, aghast, followed them downstairs to inquire how such a thing were possible.

The jurors said that they had agreed to disclose nothing of their deliberations.
"But," explained Wellman, "you see, in a way I am your attorney, and I want to know how to do better next time.

She had offered to plead guilty if she could get off with twenty years!" The abashed jury slunk downstairs in silence and the secret of their deliberations remains as yet untold.
In spite of such cases, where guilty women have been acquitted through maudlin sentiment or in response to popular clamor, nothing could be more erroneous than the idea that few women who are brought to the bar of justice are made to suffer for their offences.