d gone up to London, his father had been
in Cambridge, but on his return he found the old Squire at his old house.
'Yes,' he said, telling the story of what he had just done, 'I have paid
twenty thousand pounds out of hand to those rascals, simply because I
thought I owed it to them!' The Squire shook his head, not being able
to approve of the act.' I don't see why I should have allowed myself to
be hindered from doing what I thought to be right because they were
doing what they knew to be wrong.'

'They won't go, you know.'

'I daresay not, sir. Why should they?'

'But the jury will believe that you intended to purchase their absence.'

'I think I have made all that clear.'

'I am afraid not, John. The man applied to you for the money, and was
refused. That was the beginning of it. Then the application was repeated
by the woman with a threat; and you again refused. Then they present
themselves to the magistrates, and make the accusation; and, upon that,
you pay the money. Of course it will come out at the trial that you paid
it immediately after this renewed application from Bollum. It would have
been better to have defied them.'

'I did defy them,' said John Caldigate. But all that his father said
seemed to him to be true, so that he repented himself of what he had
done.

He made no inquiry on the subject, but, early in May he heard from Mr.
Seely that Crinkett and the woman were still in London, and that they
had abandoned the idea of going at once to Australia. According to Mr.
Seely's story,--of the truth of which he declared himself to be by
no means certain,--Crinkett had wished to go, but had been retained
by the woman. 'As far as I can learn,' said Mr. Seely, 'she is in
communication with the Boltons, who will of course keep her if it be
possible. He would get off if he could; but she, I take it, has got
hold of the money. When you made the cheque payable to her order, you
effectually provided for their remaining here. If he could have got the
money without her name, he would have gone, and she would have gone
with him.'

'But that was not my object,' said Caldigate angrily. Mr. Seely
thereupon shrugged his shoulders. Early in June the man came back who
had been sent out to Sydney in February on behalf of Caldigate. He also
had been commissioned to seek for evidence, and to bring back with him,
almost at any cost, whatever witness or witnesses he might find whose
presence in England would serve Caldig