In the meantime, Ben Lee's death is by many being imputed to Everard,
who is quite unconscious of these suspicions. He is much surprised at
the appearance of policemen at the rectory that afternoon, and still
more so at being arrested on the charge of murdering Lee.

After due examination, Everard is committed for trial on the charge of
murder. His best witness, Granfer, who had seen and spoken with him in
the village at the moment of the alleged murder, greatly discredited his
evidence by his circumlocution and stupidity, purposely affected to set
the court in a roar. He admitted that Everard gave him money and
tobacco. Judkins swore that at three o'clock Lee told him Everard had
asked Alma to meet him at dusk that evening in the wood, and that
he--Lee--meant to follow Everard there and exact reparation from him;
that Alma and Everard were known to be together in the wood on the
morning of Lee's death (when Everard was with Lilian), and that he
himself had seen them meet often clandestinely in the spring during Mrs.
Lee's illness, when letters, books, and flowers had passed between them.
On the eve of Lee's death he had seen Everard go into the copse at dusk
carrying a heavy stick.

Ingram Swaynestone, Grove, the waggoner, and Stevens, the Sexton, all
saw Everard going on the upland path to Swaynestone. But the blacksmith
swore to seeing him in the village street at the same hour. A keeper saw
him going to the copse at the same time that a shepherd met him on the
down going in another direction. At five o'clock two rectory maids saw
Everard run in by the back door and upstairs, followed by the cat; he
made no reply when Miss Maitland spoke to him. An hour later, Everard
asked the cook for raw meat for a black eye, which he said he got by
running against a tree in the dark. Blood was found in a basin in his
room, and on the grey suit, which was much stained and torn, as if by a
struggle. A handkerchief of Everard's was found in the wood, also a
stick he had been seen with in the morning.

Everard's evidence at the inquest was that he left Malbourne Rectory
about four, wearing a black coat, met the blacksmith in the village, and
the shepherd on the down, and finding the cottage on the down empty,
returned, seeing no one till he met Granfer at Malbourne Cross, and
reached the rectory at six, where a romp with Winnie Maitland gave him
the black eye, that he promised her not to speak about. He could not
account for the