’I can’t go into that question, Mr. Shand.  As I believe him to have been guilty of as wicked a crime as any man can well commit, I cannot concern myself in asking for a pardon for him.  My own impression is that he should have been sent to penal servitude.’

‘By George!’ exclaimed Dick.  ’I tell you that it is all a lie from beginning to end.’

‘I fear we cannot do any good by talking about it, Mr. Shand.’

‘By George!’ Dick hitched up his yellow trousers as though he were preparing for a fight.  He wore his yellow trousers without braces, and in all moments of energy hitched them up.

‘If you please I will say good morning to you.’

’By George! when I tell you that I was there all the time, and that Caldigate never spoke to the woman, or so much as saw her all that month, and that therefore your own sister is in honest truth Caldigate’s wife, you won’t listen to me!  Do you mean to say that I’m lying?’

‘Mr. Shand, I must ask you to leave my office.’

’By George!  I wish I had you, Mr. Bolton, out at Ahalala, where there are not quite so many policemen as there are here at Cambridge.’

‘I shall have to send for one of them if you don’t go away, Mr. Shand.’

’Here’s a man who, even for the sake of his own sister, won’t hear the truth, just because he hates his sister’s husband!  What have I got to get by lying?’

‘That I cannot tell.’  Bolton, as he said this, prepared himself for a sudden attack; but Shand had sense enough to know that he would injure the cause in which he was interested, as well as himself, by any exhibition of violence, and therefore left the office.

‘No,’ said Mr. Bromley, when all this was told him; ’he is not a cruel man, nor dishonest, nor even untrue to his sister.  But having quite made up his mind that Caldigate had been married in Australia, he cannot release himself from the idea.  And, as he thinks so, he feels it to be his duty to keep his sister and Caldigate apart.’

‘But why does he not believe me?’ demanded Dick.

‘In answer to that, I can only say that I do believe you.’

Then there came a request from Babington that Dick Shand would go over to them there for a day.  At Babington opinion was divided.  Aunt Polly and her eldest daughter, and with them Mr. Smirkie, still thought that John Caldigate was a wicked bigamist; but the Squire and the rest of the family had gradually gone over to the other side.  The Squire had never been hot against the offender, having been one of those who fancied that a marriage at a very out-of-the-way place such as Ahalala did not signify much.  And now when he heard of Dick Shand’s return and proffered evidence, he declared that Dick Shand having been born a gentleman, though he had been ever so much a sinner, and ever so much a drunkard, was entitled to credence before a host of Crinketts.  But with Aunt Polly and Julia there remained the sense of the old injury, robbing Shand of all his attributes of birth, and endowing even Crinkett with truth.  Then there had been a few words, and the Squire had asserted himself, and insisted upon asking Shand to Babington.