eeable 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 you have been
home, I think?' This question Sir John asked because Mr. Seely had
suggested that this appearance of the man at this special moment might
not improbably be what he called a 'plant.'

'I have had no intercourse with anybody, sir. I came here last Friday,
and I hadn't spoken a word to anybody before that. I didn't know that
Caldigate had been in trouble at all. My people at Pollington were