own impression is that he
should have been sent to penal servitude.'

'By George!' exclaimed Dick. 'I tell you that it is all a lie from
beginning to end.'

'I fear we cannot do any good by talking about it, Mr. Shand.'

'By George!' Dick hitched up his yellow trousers as though he were
preparing for a fight. He wore his yellow trousers without braces, and
in all moments of energy hitched them up.

'If you please I will say good morning to you.'

'By George! when I tell you that I was there all the time, and that
Caldigate never spoke to the woman, or so much as saw her all that
month, and that therefore your own sister is in honest truth Caldigate's
wife, you won't listen to me! Do you mean to say that I'm lying?'

'Mr. Shand, I must ask you to leave my office.'

'By George! I wish I had you, Mr. Bolton, out at Ahalala, where there
are not quite so many policemen as there are here at Cambridge.'

'I shall have to send for one of them if you don't go away, Mr. Shand.'

'Here's a man who, even for the sake of his own sister, won't hear the
truth, just because he hates his sister's husband! What have I got to
get by lying?'

'That I cannot tell.' Bolton, as he said this, prepared himself for a
sudden attack; but Shand had sense enough to know that he would injure
the cause in which he was interested, as well as himself, by any
exhibition of violence, and therefore left the office.

'No,' said Mr. Bromley, when all this was told him; 'he is not a cruel
man, nor dishonest, nor even untrue to his sister. But having quite made
up his mind that Caldigate had been married in Australia, he cannot
release himself from the idea. And, as he thinks so, he feels it to be
his duty to keep his sister and Caldigate apart.'

'But why does he not believe me?' demanded Dick.

'In answer to that, I can only say that I do believe you.'

Then there came a request from Babington that Dick Shand would go over
to them there for a day. At Babington opinion was divided. Aunt Polly
and her eldest daughter, and with them Mr. Smirkie, still thought that
John Caldigate was a wicked bigamist; but the Squire and the rest of the
family had gradually gone over to the other side. The Squire had never
been hot against the offender, having been one of those who fancied that
a marriage at a very out-of-the-way place such as Ahalala did not
signify much. And now when he heard of Dick Shand's return and proffered
evidence, he declared that Dick