‘You were with him on that very day,’ she said.  This referred to the day in April on which it had been sworn that the marriage was solemnized.

’I was with him every day about that time.  I can’t say about particular days.  The truth is,—­I don’t mind telling you, Mrs. Caldigate,—­I was drinking a good deal just then.’  His present state of abstinence had of course become known at Folking, not without the expression of much marvel on the part of the old Squire as to the quantity of tea which their visitor was able to swallow.  And as this abstinence had of course been admired, Dick had fallen into a way of confessing his past backslidings to a pretty, sympathetic friendly woman, who was willing to believe all that he said, and to make much of him.

‘But I suppose——­’ Then she hesitated; and Dick understood the hesitation.

‘I was never so bad,’ said he, ’but what I knew very well what was going on.  I don’t believe Caldigate and Mrs. Smith even so much as spoke to each other all that month.  She had had a wonderful turn of luck.’

‘In getting gold?’

’She had bought and sold shares till she was supposed to have made a pot of money.  People up there got an idea that she was one of the lucky ones,—­and it did seem so.  Then she got it into her head that she didn’t want Caldigate to know about her money, and he was downright sick of her.  She had been good-looking at one time, Mrs. Caldigate.’

‘I daresay.  Most of them are so, I suppose.’

’And clever.  She’d talk the hind-legs off a dog, as we used to say out there.’

‘You had very odd sayings, Mr. Shand.’

’Indeed we had.  But when she got in that way about her money, and then took to drinking brandy, Caldigate was only too glad to be rid of her.  Crinkett believed in her because she had such a run of luck.  She held a lot of his shares,—­shares that used to be his.  So they got together, and she left Ahalala and went to Polyeuka Hall.  I remember it all as if it were yesterday.  When I broke away from Caldigate in June, and went to Queensland, they hadn’t seen each other for two months.  And as for having been married;—­you might as well tell me that I had married her!’

If Mr. Caldigate had ever allowed a shade of doubt to cross his mind as to his son’s story, Dick Shand’s further story removed it.  The picture of the life which was led at Ahalala and Nobble was painted for him clearly, so that he could see, or fancy that he saw, what the condition of things had been.  And this increased faith trickled through to others.  Mr. Bromley who had always believed, believed more firmly than before, and sent tidings of his belief to Plum-cum-Pippins and thence to Babington.  Mr. Holt, the farmer, became more than ever energetic, and in a loud voice at a Cambridge market ordinary, declared the ill-usage done to Caldigate and his young wife.  It had been said over and over again at the trial that Dick Shand’s evidence was the one thing wanted, and here was Dick Shand to give his evidence.  Then the belief gained ground in Cambridge; and with the belief there arose a feeling as to the egregious wrong which was being done.