It might, indeed, if it had not been blameless, provide some element of unjust suspicion against him, furnish some fancied motive.

The prisoner had chosen his path, and events had so far justified him.

It must be clear to the minds of judge and jury that there were fatally weak places in the circumstantial evidence offered for the conviction of this man.
There was the fact that no sign of the crime, no drop of blood, no weapon, was found about him or near him, and that he was peacefully sleeping at the moment the constable arrested him.
There was also the fact that no motive for the crime had been shown.

It was not enough that he and the dead man had been heard quarrelling.

Was there any certainty that it was a quarrel, since no word or sentence of the conversation had been brought into court?
Men with quick tempers might quarrel over trivial things, but exasperation did not always end in bodily injury and the taking of life; imprecations were not so uncommon that they could be taken as evidence of wilful murder.