"I have told you what you will have to hear from others," he said; "and, without doubt a stronger case would be difficult to find.

Unless something new should come to light, I do not think many people will even feel the least uncertainty on the subject.
But I do." He paused, and then went on; not, however, without keeping an anxious watch on the faces opposite to him, lest his touch, however gentle, should press too hardly upon their quivering nerves.
"In the first place it appears that there is a man on whom, if this prisoner could be cleared, suspicion would naturally fall.

This man, Clarkson, I dare say you know by repute far better than I do, who never heard of him till to-day; but he appears to have so bad a character that no one would be shocked or surprised to hear that he was the murderer.
He had also a much stronger ill-will against Doctor Morton than any one else, either Indian or white man, can be shown to have had.

But yet there is such an entire absence of any proof whatever that he did commit the crime, that unless I wanted you to understand _all_ my reasons for uncertainty, I would not speak of him even here in connection with it.
"My next reason seems almost as shadowy as this; but it has considerable weight with me, nevertheless.

It is, that I believe the man who is in prison for the murder has neither strength of body nor of nerve to have committed it." He stopped as Mrs.Costello uttered a broken exclamation of surprise.
"You would not know him," Mr.Strafford said gently, answering her look.
"He has changed so much since I saw him not many weeks ago, that even I scarcely did so.