‘I don’t know why of course,’ said Mrs. Posttlethwaite defending her sex generally.

’Well, she did.  And he was going to marry her.  He did mean to marry her;—­there’s no doubt of that.  But it was a queer kind of life we lived up there.’

‘I suppose so,’ said the doctor.  Mrs. Rewble again looked at the girls and then at her mother; but Mrs. Shand was older and less timid than her married daughter.  Mrs. Rewble when a girl herself had never been sent away, and was now a pattern of female discretion.

‘And she,’ continued Dick, ’as soon as she had begun to finger the scrip, thought of nothing but gold.  She did not care much for marriage just then, because she fancied the stuff wouldn’t belong to herself.  She became largely concerned in the “Old Stick-in-the-Mud.”  That was Crinkett’s concern, and there were times at which I thought she would marry him.  Then Caldigate got rid of her altogether.  That was before I went away.’

‘He never married her?’ asked the doctor.

’He certainly hadn’t married her when I left Nobble in June ‘73.’

‘You can swear to that, Dick?’

’Certainly I can.  I was with him every day.  But there wasn’t anyone round there who didn’t know how it was.  Crinkett himself knew it.’

‘Crinkett is one of the gang against him.’

‘And there was a man named Adamson.  Adamson knew.’

‘He’s another of the conspirators,’ said the doctor.

‘They won’t dare to say before me,’ declared Dick, stoutly, ’that Mrs. Smith and John Caldigate had become man and wife before June ’73.  And they hated one another so much then that it is impossible they should have come together since.  I can swear they were not married up to June ‘73.’

‘You’ll have to swear it,’ said the doctor, ’and that with as little delay as possible.’

All this took place towards the end of August, about five weeks after the trial, and a day or two subsequent to the interview between Bagwax and the Attorney-General.  Bagwax was now vehemently prosecuting his inquiries as to that other idea which had struck him, and was at this very moment glowing with the anticipation of success, and at the same time broken-hearted with the conviction that he never would see the pleasant things of New South Wales.

On the next morning, under the auspices of his father, Dick Shand wrote the following letter to Mr. Seely, the attorney.

    ’Pollington, 30th August, 187-.

Sir,—­I think it right to tell you that I reached my father’s house in this town late yesterday evening.  I have come direct from one of the South Sea Islands via Honolulu and San Francisco, and have not yet been in England forty-eight hours.  I am an old friend of Mr. John Caldigate, and went with him from England to the gold diggings in New South Wales.  My name will be known to you, as I am now aware that it was frequently mentioned in the course of the late