d was an
absurdity, and every proceeding had some ridiculous absurdity to
accompany it. It was not until the cross-examination of Baigent by Mr.
Hawkins that the undoubted truth began to appear.

"You are the first," said Baron Bramwell, "who has let daylight into
the case." It will be seen presently what the simple story was which
the learned counsel at last evolved from the lies and half-truths
which had for so many years imposed upon a great number even of the
intelligent and educated classes of the community. And I would observe
that until nearly the end of the trial the case was never safe or
quite free from doubt; it was only what was elicited by Mr. Hawkins
that made it so. No Wonder the advocate said to Giffard, who was
opposed to him on the first trial: "If you and I had been together
in that case in the first instance, we should have won it for the
Claimant." Being on the other side, this is how the case stood when he
had completed it:--

The real heir to the family was a fairly well-formed, slender youth of
medium height. The personator of this youth was a man an inch and a
half or two inches taller, and weighing five-and-twenty stone. His
hands were a great deal larger than those of Roger, and at least an
inch longer; his feet were an inch and a half longer. He was broader,
deeper, thicker, and altogether of a different build. The lobes of his
ears, instead of being pendent like Roger's, adhered to his cheeks.
But he was not more unlike in physical outline than in mental
endowment, taste, character, pursuits, and sentiment, in manners and
habits, in culture and education, connection and recollection.

Roger had been educated at Stonyhurst, with the education of a
gentleman; this man had never had any education at all. Roger had
moved in the best English society; this man amongst slaughtermen,
bushrangers, thieves, and highwaymen. Roger had been engaged to a
young lady, his cousin, Kate Doughty; this man had been engaged to a
young woman of Wapping, of the name of Mary Ann Loader, a respectable
girl in his own sphere of life.

Roger's engagement to this young lady, his cousin, was disapproved of
by the Tichborne family, and was the cause of his leaving England. But
before he went he gave her a writing, and deposited a copy of it with
Mr. Gosford, the legal adviser of the family.

This document was one of the most important incidents in the history
of the case, and upon it, if the cross-examination had b