It seems to me, however, that there are two tests which the Court can more or less set up as standards, wherewith to measure the truth of the matter.

The first of these is the accepted probability of the action of an individual under any given set of circumstances, as drawn from our common knowledge of human nature; and the second, the behaviour and tone of the witness, both in the box and in the course of circumstances that led to her appearance there.

I will take the last of those two first, and I may as well state, without further delay, that I am convinced of the truth of the story told by Miss Smithers.

It would to my mind be impossible for any man, whose intelligence had been trained by years of experience in this and other courts, and whose daily duty it is to discriminate as to the credibility of testimony, to disbelieve the history so circumstantially detailed in the box by Miss Smithers (Sensation).

I watched her demeanour both under examination and cross-examination very closely indeed, and I am convinced that she was telling the absolute truth so far as she knew it.
"And now to come to the second point.