“Can I speak to you a minute?” said Lady Sophia to Priam.

Mr. Oxford stepped away with a bow.

And Lady Sophia looked steadily at Priam.  He had to admit again that she was stupendous.  She was his capital mistake; but she was stupendous.

At their last interview he had embraced her.  She had attended his funeral in Westminster Abbey.  And she could suppress all that from her eyes!  She could stand there calm and urbane in her acceptance of the terrific past.  Apparently she forgave.

Said Lady Sophia simply, “Now, Mr. Farll, shall I have to give evidence or not?  You know it depends on you?”

The casualness of her tone was sublime; it was heroic; it made her feet small.

He had sworn to himself that he would be cut in pieces before he would aid the unscrupulous Mr. Oxford by removing his collar in presence of those dramatic artistes.  He had been grossly insulted, disturbed, maltreated, and exploited.  The entire world had meddled with his private business, and he would be cut in pieces before he would display those moles which would decide the issue in an instant.

Well, she had cut him in pieces.

“Please don’t worry,” said he in reply.  “I will attend to things.”

At that moment Alice, who had followed him by a later train, appeared.

“Good-morning, Lady Sophia,” he said, raising his hat, and left her.

Thoughts on Justice

“Farll takes his collar off.”  “Witt v.  Parfitts.  Result.”  These and similar placards flew in the Strand breezes.  Never in the history of empires had the removal of a starched linen collar (size 16-1/2) created one-thousandth part of the sensation caused by the removal of this collar.  It was an epoch-making act.  It finished the drama of Witt v.  Parfitts.  The renowned artistes engaged did not, of course, permit the case to collapse at once.  No, it had to be concluded slowly and majestically, with due forms and expenses.  New witnesses (such as doctors) had to be called, and old ones recalled.  Duncan Farll, for instance, had to be recalled, and if the situation was ignominious for Priam it was also ignominious for Duncan.  Duncan’s sole advantage in his defeat was that the judge did not skin him alive in the summing up, nor the jury in their verdict.  England breathed more freely when the affair was finally over and the renowned artistes engaged had withdrawn enveloped in glory.  The truth was that England, so proud of her systems, had had a fright.  Her judicial methods had very nearly failed to make a man take his collar off in public.  They had really failed, but it had all come right in the end, and so England pretended that they had only just missed failing.  A grave injustice would have been perpetrated had Priam chosen not to take off his collar.  People said, naturally, that imprisonment for bigamy would have included the taking-off of collars; but then it was rumoured that prosecution for bigamy had not by any means been a certainty, as since leaving the box Mrs. Henry Leek had wavered in her identification.  However, the justice of England had emerged safely.  And it was all very astounding and shocking and improper.  And everybody was exceedingly wise after the event.  And with one voice the press cried that something painful ought to occur at once to Priam Farll, no matter how great an artist he was.