trial.  It will probably seem odd to you that I had never even heard of the trial till I reached my father’s house last night.  I did not know that Caldigate had married Miss Bolton, nor that Euphemia Smith had claimed him as her husband.

’I am able and willing to swear that they had not become man and wife up to June 1873, and that no one at Ahalala or Nobble conceived them to be man and wife.  Of course, they had lived together.  But everybody knew all about it.  Some time before June,—­early, I should say, in that autumn,—­there had been a quarrel.  I am sure they were at daggers drawn with each other all that April and May in respect to certain mining shares, as to which Euphemia Smith behaved very badly.  I don’t think it possible that they should ever have come together again; but in May ’73,—­which is the date I have heard named,—­they certainly were not man and wife.

    ’I have thought it right to inform you of this immediately on my
    return, and am, your obedient servant,

    ‘Richard Shand.’

Mr. Seely, when he received this letter, found it to be his duty to take it at once to Sir John Joram, up in London.  He did not believe Dick Shand.  But then he had put no trust in Bagwax, and had been from the first convinced, in his own mind, that Caldigate had married the woman.  As soon as it was known to him that his client had paid twenty thousand pounds to Crinkett and the woman, he was quite sure of the guilt of his client.  He had done the best for Caldigate at the trial, as he would have done for any other client; but he had never felt any of that enthusiasm which had instigated Sir John.  Now that Caldigate was in prison, Mr. Seely thought that he might as well be left there quietly, trusting to the verdict, trusting to Judge Bramber, and trusting still more strongly on his own early impressions.  This letter from Dick,—­whom he knew to have been a ruined drunkard, a disgrace to his family, and an outcast from society,—­was to his thinking just such a letter as would be got up in such a case, in the futile hope of securing the succour of a Secretary of State.  He was sure that no Secretary of State would pay the slightest attention to such a letter.  But still it would be necessary that he should show it to Sir John, and as a trip to London was not disagreeable to his professional mind, he started with it on the very day of its receipt.

‘Of course we must have his deposition on oath,’ said Sir John.

‘You think it will be worth while?’

’Certainly.  I am more convinced than ever that there was no marriage.  That post-office clerk has been with me,—­Bagwax,—­and has altogether convinced me.’

‘I didn’t think so much of Bagwax, Sir John.’

’I dare say not, Mr. Seely;—­an absurdly energetic man,—­one of those who destroy by their over-zeal all the credit which their truth and energy ought to produce.  But he has, I think, convinced me that that letter could not have passed through the Sydney post-office in May ‘73.’