h the gentleman in the grey suit?"

"No, sir, I didn't. It never occurred to me. A lot of the gentlemen who
live in the Temple bring friends in late of nights; I never gave the
matter any particular thought."

"Never mentioned it to anybody until now, when you were sent for to
come here?"

"No, sir, never, to anybody."

"And you have never known the gentleman standing there as anybody but
Mr. Anderson?"

"No, sir, never heard any other name but Anderson."

The Coroner glanced at the Counsel.

"I think this may be a convenient opportunity for Mr. Aylmore to give
the explanation he offered a few minutes ago," he said. "Do you suggest
anything?"

"I suggest, sir, that if Mr. Aylmore desires to give any explanation he
should return to the witness-box and submit himself to examination
again on his oath," replied the Counsel. "The matter is in your hands."

The Coroner turned to Aylmore.

"Do you object to that?" he asked.

Aylmore stepped boldly forward and into the box.

"I object to nothing," he said in clear tones, "except to being asked
to reply to questions about matters of the past which have not and
cannot have anything to do with this case. Ask me what questions you
like, arising out of the evidence of the last two witnesses, and I will
answer them so far as I see myself justified in doing so. Ask me
questions about matters of twenty years ago, and I shall answer them or
not as I see fit. And I may as well say that I will take all the
consequences of my silence or my speech."

The Treasury Counsel rose again.

"Very well, Mr. Aylmore," he said. "I will put certain questions to
you. You heard the evidence of David Lyell?"

"I did."

"Was that quite true as regards yourself?"

"Quite true--absolutely true."

"And you heard that of the last witness. Was that also true!"

"Equally true."

"Then you admit that the evidence you gave this morning, before these
witnesses came on the scene, was not true?"

"No, I do not! Most emphatically I do not. It was true."

"True? You told me, on oath, that you parted from John Marbury on
Waterloo Bridge!"

"Pardon me, I said nothing of the sort. I said that from the
Anglo-Orient Hotel we strolled across Waterloo Bridge, and that shortly
afterwards we parted--I did not say where we parted. I see there is a
shorthand writer here who is taking everything down--ask him if that is
not exactly what I said?"

A reference to the stenographer proved Aylmore to b