examination was in excess of the privilege of counsel.

"Your honour has rightly apprehended what my purpose is," Burlingame
said deprecatingly. He then turned to Crozier again, and his voice
rose as it did when he began the examination. It was as though he was
starting all over again.

"What was it compelled" (he was boldly venturing) "you to leave Ireland
at last? What was the incident which drove you out from the land where
you were born--from being the owner of two thousand acres"--

"Partly bog," interposed Crozier.

"--From being the owner of two thousand acres to becoming a kind of
head-groom on a ranch? What was the cause of your flight?"

"Flight! I came in one of the steamers of the Company for which your
firm are the agents. Eleven days it took to come from Glasgow to
Quebec."

Again the court rippled, again the attendant intervened.

Burlingame was nonplussed this time, but he gathered himself together.

"What was the process of law which forced you to leave your own land?"

"None at all."

"What were your debts when you left?"

"None at all."

"How much was the last debt you paid?"

"Two thousand five hundred pounds."

"What was its nature?"

"It was a debt of honour--do you understand?" The subtle challenge of
the voice, the sarcasm, was not lost. Again there was a struggle on the
part of the audience not to laugh outright, and so be driven from the
court as had been threatened.

The judge interposed again with the remark, not very severe in tone,
that the witness was not in the box to ask questions, but to answer
them. At the same time he must remind counsel that the examination must
discontinue unless something more relevant immediately appeared in the
evidence.

There was silence again for a moment, and even Crozier himself seemed to
steel himself for a question he felt was coming.

"Are you married or single?" asked Burlingame, and he did not need to
raise his voice to summon the interest of the court.

"I was married."

One person in the audience nearly cried out. It was Kitty Tynan. She
had never allowed herself to think of that, but even if she had, what
difference could it make whether he was married or single, since he was
out of her star?

"Are you not married now?"

"I do not know."

"You mean you do not know if you have been divorced?"

"No."

"You mean your wife is dead?"

"No."

"What do you mean? That you do not know whether your wife is living or
dead