Every fact which was calculated to arouse sympathy for her was also helping to condemn her.

No one doubted that she had shot Stephen Ballantyne.

He deserved shooting--very well.

But that did not give her the right to be his executioner.

What was her defence to be?
A sudden intolerable provocation?
How would that square with the dragging of his body across the carpet to the door?
There was the fatal insuperable act.
Thresk read again and again the reports of the proceedings for a hint as to the line of the defence.