For that would have been setting a trap for me, wouldn't it?"

Hazlewood stared at Thresk with the bland innocence of a child. "Oh no,
no," he declared, and then an insinuating smile beamed upon his long
thin face. "Only since you _are_ here and since so much is at stake for
me--my son's happiness--I hoped that you might perhaps give us an answer
or two which would disperse the doubts of some suspicious people."

"Who are they?" asked Thresk.

"Neighbours of ours," replied Hazlewood, and thereupon Robert Pettifer
stepped forward. He had remained aloof and silent until this moment. Now
he spoke shortly, but he spoke to the point:

"I for one."

Thresk turned with a smile upon Pettifer.

"I thought so. I recognised Mr. Pettifer's hand in all this. But he ought
to know that the sudden confrontation of a suspected person with
unexpected witnesses takes place, in those countries where the method is
practised, before the trial; not, as you so ingeniously arranged it this
afternoon, two years after the verdict has been given."

Robert Pettifer turned red. Then he looked whimsically across the table
at his brother-in-law.

"We had better make a clean breast of it, Hazlewood."

"I think so," said Thresk gently.

Pettifer came a step nearer. "We are in the wrong," he said bluntly. "But
we have an excuse. Our trouble is very great. Here's my brother-in-law to
begin with, whose whole creed of life has been to deride the authority of
conventional man--to tilt against established opinion. Mrs. Ballantyne
comes back from her trial in Bombay to make her home again at Little
Beeding. Hazlewood champions her--not for her sake, but for the sake of
his theories. It pleases his vanity. Now he can prove that he is not as
others are."

Mr. Hazlewood did not relish this merciless analysis of his character. He
twisted in his chair, he uttered a murmur of protest. But Robert Pettifer
waved him down and continued:

"So he brings her to his house. He canvasses for her. He throws his son
in her way. She has beauty--she has something more than beauty--she
stands apart as a woman who has walked through fire. She has suffered
very much. Look at it how one will, she has suffered beyond her deserts.
She has pretty deferential ways which make their inevitable appeal to
women as to men. In a word, Hazlewood sets the ball rolling and it gets
beyond his reach."

Thresk nodded.

"Yes, I understand that."

"Finally, Hazlewood's son falls i