And this was the man as to whom it had been acknowledged that his evidence, if it could be obtained, would be final. The return of Dick himself was to the Shands an affair so much more momentous than the release of John Caldigate from prison, that for some hours or so the latter subject was allowed to pass out of sight. The mother got him up-stairs and asked after his linen,— vain inquiry,— and arranged for his bed, turning all the little Rewbles into one small room. In the long run, grandmothers are more tender to their grand-children than their own offspring. But at this moment Dick was predominant. How grand a thing to have her son returned to her, and such a son,— a teetotaller of two years’ growth, who had seen all the world of the Pacific Ocean! As he could not take whisky-and-water, would he like ginger-beer before he went to bed,— or arrowroot? Dick decided in favour of ginger-beer, and consented to be embraced again.

It was, I think, to Maria’s credit that she was the first to bring back the conversation to John Caldigate’s marriage. ‘Was she a very horrible woman?’ Maria asked, referring to Euphemia Smith.

‘There were a good many of ’em out there, greedy after gold,’ said Dick; ‘but she beat ’em all; and she was awfully clever.’

‘In what way, Dick?’ asked Mrs. Rewble. Because she does not seem to me to have done very well with herself.’

‘She knew more about shares than any man of them all. But I think she just drank a little. It was that which disgusted Caldigate.’

‘He had been very fond of her?’ suggested Maria.

‘I never knew a man so taken with a woman.’ Maria blushed, and Mrs. Rewble looked round at her younger sisters as though desirous that they should be sent to bed. ‘All that began on board the ship. Then he was fool enough to run after her down to Sydney; and of course she followed him up to the mines.’

‘I don’t know why of course,’ said Mrs. Posttlethwaite defending her sex generally.

‘Well, she did. And he was going to marry her. He did mean to marry her;— there’s no doubt of that. But it was a queer kind of life we lived up there.’

‘I suppose so,’ said the doctor. Mrs. Rewble again looked at the girls and then at her mother; but Mrs. Shand was older and less timid than her married daughter. Mrs. Rewble when a girl herself had never been sent away, and was now a pattern of female discretion.

‘And she,’ continued Dick, ‘as soon as she had begun to finger the scrip, thought of nothing but gold. She did not care much for marriage just then, because she fancied the stuff wouldn’t belong to herself. She became largely concerned in the “Old Stick-in-the-Mud.” That was Crinkett’s concern, and there were times at which I thought she would marry him. Then Caldigate got rid of her altogether. That was before I went away.’

‘He never married her?’ asked the doctor.

‘He certainly hadn’t married her when I left Nobble in June ‘73.’

‘You can swear to that, Dick?’

‘Certainly I can. I was with him every day. But there wasn’t anyone round there who didn’t know how it was. Crinkett himself knew it.’

‘Crinkett is one of the gang against him.’

‘And there was a man named Adamson. Adamson knew.’

‘He’s another of the conspirators,’ said the doctor.

‘They won’t dare to say before me,’ declared Dick, stoutly, ‘that Mrs. Smith and John Caldigate had become man and wife before June ‘73. And they hated one another so much then that it is impossible they should have come together since. I can swear they were not married up to June ‘73.’

‘You’ll have to swear it,’ said the doctor, ‘and that with as little delay as possible.’

All this took place towards the end of August, about five weeks after the trial, and a day or two subsequent to the interview between Bagwax and the Attorney-General. Bagwax was now vehemently prosecuting his inquiries as to that other idea which had struck him, and was at this very moment glowing with the anticipation of success, and at the same time broken-hearted with the conviction that he never would see the pleasant things of New South Wales.

On the next morning, under the auspices of his father, Dick Shand wrote the following letter to Mr. Seely, the attorney.

‘POLLINGTON, 30th August, 187-.

Sir,— I think it right to tell you that I reached my father’s house in this town late yesterday evening. I have come direct from one of the South Sea Islands via Honolulu and San Francisco, and have not yet been in England forty-eight hours. I am an old friend of Mr. John Caldigate, and went with him from England to the gold diggings in New South Wales. My name will be known to you, as I am now aware that it was frequently mentioned in the course of the late trial. It will probably seem odd to you that I had never even heard of the trial till I reached my father’s house last night. I did not know that Caldigate had married Miss Bolton, nor that Euphemia Smith had claimed him as her husband.

‘I am able and willing to swear that they had not become man and wife up to June 1873, and that no one at Ahalala or Nobble conceived them to be man and wife. Of course, they had lived together. But everybody knew all about it. Some time before June,— early, I should say, in that autumn,— there had been a quarrel. I am sure they were at daggers drawn with each other all that April and May in respect to certain mining shares, as to which Euphemia Smith behaved very badly. I don’t think it possible that they should ever have come together again; but in May ‘73,— which is the date I have heard named,— they certainly were not man and wife.

‘I have thought it right to inform you of this immediately on my return, and am, your obedient servant,

‘RICHARD SHAND.’

Mr. Seely, when he received this letter, found it to be his duty to take it at once to Sir John Joram, up in London. He did not believe Dick Shand. But then he had put no trust in Bagwax, and had been from the first convinced, in his own mind, that Caldigate had married the woman. As soon as it was known to him that his client had paid twenty thousand pounds to Crinkett and the woman, he was quite sure of the guilt of his client. He had done the best for Caldigate at the trial, as he would have done for any other client; but he had never felt any of that enthusiasm which had instigated Sir John. Now that Caldigate was in prison, Mr. Seely thought that he might as well be left there quietly, trusting to the verdict, trusting to Judge Bramber, and trusting still more strongly on his own early impressions. This letter from Dick,— whom he knew to have been a ruined drunkard, a disgrace to his family, and an outcast from society,— was to his thinking just such a letter as would be got up in such a case, in the futile hope of securing the succour of a Secretary of State. He was sure that no Secretary of State would pay the slightest attention to such a letter. But still it would be necessary that he should show it to Sir John, and as a trip to London was not disagreeable to his professional mind, he started with it on the very day of its receipt.

‘Of course we must have his deposition on oath,’ said Sir John.

‘You think it will be worth while?’

‘Certainly. I am more convinced than ever that there was no marriage. That post-office clerk has been with me,— Bagwax,— and has altogether convinced me.’

‘I didn’t think so much of Bagwax, Sir John.’

‘I dare say not, Mr. Seely;— an absurdly energetic man,— one of those who destroy by their over-zeal all the credit which their truth and energy ought to produce. But he has, I think, convinced me that that letter could not have passed through the Sydney post-office in May ‘73.’

‘If so, Sir John, even that is not much,— towards upsetting a verdict.’

‘A good deal, I think, when the characters of the persons are considered. Now comes this man, whom we all should have believed, had he been present, and tells this story. You had better get hold of him and bring him to me, Mr. Seely.’

Then Mr. Seely hung up his hat in London for three or four days, and sent to Pollington for Dick Shand. Dick Shand obeyed the order, and both of them waited together upon Sir John. ‘You have come back at a very critical point of time for your friend,’ said the barrister.

Dick had laid aside the coat and waistcoat with the broad checks, and the yellow trousers, and had made himself look as much like an English gentleman as the assistance of a ready-made-clothes shop at Pollington would permit. But still he did not quite look like a man who had spent three years at Cambridge. His experiences among the gold diggings then his period of maddening desolation as a Queensland shepherd, and after that his life among the savages in a South Sea island, had done much to change him. Sir John and Mr. Seely together almost oppressed him. But still he was minded to speak up for his friend. Caldigate had, upon the whole, been very good to him, and Dick was honest. ‘He has been badly used any way,’ he said.

‘You have had no intercourse with any of his friends since............