question--a silence that
you could feel was the result of a deep-laid conspiracy--and all the
ladies smiled.

Fortunately I was not caught; nor was I even taken aback; my presence
of mind did not desert me in this my hour of need; and I said, in the
most natural tone I could assume,--

"Yes, I was sure that would be the first question you would ask me
when I had the pleasure of meeting this brilliant company, as you knew
I must pass through Chester Station; so I popped my head out of the
window and asked the porter which horse had won. He told me the Judge
had won by a length, Chaplain was a good second, and Sheriff a bad
third."

The squire took his defeat like a man.

I was reminded during the evening of a singular case of bigamy--a
double bigamy--that came before me at Derby, in which the simple story
was that an unfortunate couple had got married twenty years before the
time I speak of, and that they had the good luck to find out they did
not care for one another the week after they were married. It would
have been luckier if they had found it out a week before instead of
a week after; but so it was, and in the circumstances they did the
wisest thing, probably, that they could. They separated, and never met
again until they met in the dock before me--a trysting-place not of
their own choosing, and more strange than a novelist would dream of.

But there they were, and this was the story of their lives:--

The man, after the separation, lived for some time single, then formed
a companionship, and, as he afterwards heard that his wife had got
married to some one else, thought he would follow her example.

Now, if a Judge punished immorality, here was something to punish; but
the law leaves that to the ecclesiastical or some other jurisdiction.
The Judge has but to deal with the breach of the law, and to punish in
accordance with the requirements of the injury to society--not even to
the injury of the individual.

I made inquiries of the police and others, as the prisoners had
pleaded guilty, and found that all the parties--the four persons--had
been living respectable and hard-working lives. There was no fault
whatever to be found with their conduct. They were respected by all
who knew them.

I then asked how it was found out at last that these people, living
quietly and happily, had been previously married.

"O my lord," said a policeman, "there was a hinquest on a babby, which
was the female prisoner's