The woman stammered, blushed, and finally assumed a defiant attitude, and Sir William was sure.

He then told her something of his trouble, enjoining her to secrecy, and finally she confessed that one day Chi Lu had come to her and persuaded her to go with him before the county magistrate to sign a paper stating that she had been a witness to the marriage of Miss Abbot with Mr. Heath.  Chi Lu had given her a handsome sum for her trouble and to keep silent about the matter afterward.

This confession gave Sir William great hope.  It told him that Virgie had been in that vicinity; that she was gathering what proofs she could toward establishing the legality of her marriage, with a view to claiming her rights as a lawful wife.

He was very much elated over the discovery, and at once repaired to the county town, to seek out the magistrate and learn what he could from him.

That gentleman confirmed what he had already learned.  He said that several weeks previous a young woman had come there to obtain a copy of the record of a certain marriage, and that afterward a Chinaman and an elderly woman had signed a paper in his presence, testifying to having been witnesses of the ceremony.

Sir William reasoned that, since Virgie was seeking all these proofs, she would doubtless apply to the clergyman who had married them; so to Virginia City he straightway hastened, to seek the Rev. Dr. Thornton.

He found him readily enough.  The clergyman appeared to be in feeble health, and received him with coldness and evident displeasure.

“I suppose you are somewhat at a loss how to account for my visit, Dr. Thornton,” he remarked, in his genial way, and ignoring the frigidness of his host’s greeting; “but I have come to make some important inquiries of you.”

The reverend gentleman simply bowed, and then waited for his guest to proceed.

“You will be surprised that I have lost my wife and am searching for her,” the baronet continued, thinking it best to come to the point at once.

“Which one?” demanded the divine, with an accent of scorn in his usually mild tones.

“Sir!”

“For which wife are you searching?”

“I have but one wife—­the lady to whom you married me only a little more than a year ago!” Sir William replied in a voice of thunder, his handsome face flaming with righteous anger, though his heart bounded with new hope at the question.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” the clergyman replied, seeing at once that there was some mystery, and there must have been some fearful mistake to cause the separation of these two young people in whom he had been so deeply interested.

“You will understand my untimely sarcasm, perhaps,” he went on, “when I tell you that I have been led to believe that you had done that beautiful woman the greatest possible wrong.”

He then proceeded to explain all that he knew of the matter.