direct contradiction to advice which I myself gave at no very distant period.  Excuse me, if you please, from entering (for the present at least) into the motive which has influenced me from the time when I entered this room.  My position is one of unexampled responsibility and of indescribable distress.  May I appeal to that statement to stand as my excuse, if I plead for a last extension of indulgence toward the last irregularity of which I shall be guilty, in connection with these proceedings?”

Lady Lundie alone resisted the unaffected and touching dignity with which those words were spoken.

“We have had enough of irregularity,” she said sternly.  “I, for one, object to more.”

Sir Patrick waited patiently for Mr. Moy’s reply.  The Scotch lawyer and the English lawyer looked at each other—­and understood each other.  Mr. Moy answered for both.

“We don’t presume to restrain you, Sir Patrick, by other limits than those which, as a gentleman, you impose on yourself.  Subject,” added the cautious Scotchman, “to the right of objection which we have already reserved.”

“Do you object to my speaking to your client?” asked Sir Patrick.

“To Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn?”

“Yes.”

All eyes turned on Geoffrey.  He was sitting half asleep, as it seemed—­with his heavy hands hanging listlessly over his knees, and his chin resting on the hooked handle of his stick.

Looking toward Anne, when Sir Patrick pronounced Geoffrey’s name, Mr. Moy saw a change in her.  She withdrew her hands from her face, and turned suddenly toward her legal adviser.  Was she in the secret of the carefully concealed object at which his opponent had been aiming from the first?  Mr. Moy decided to put that doubt to the test.  He invited Sir Patrick, by a gesture, to proceed.  Sir Patrick addressed himself to Geoffrey.

“You are seriously interested in this inquiry,” he said; “and you have taken no part in it yet.  Take a part in it now.  Look at this lady.”

Geoffrey never moved.

“I’ve seen enough of her already,” he said, brutally.

“You may well be ashamed to look at her,” said Sir Patrick, quietly.  “But you might have acknowledged it in fitter words.  Carry your memory back to the fourteenth of August.  Do you deny that you promised to many Miss Silvester privately at the Craig Fernie inn?”

“I object to that question,” said Mr. Moy.  “My client is under no sort of obligation to answer it.”

Geoffrey’s rising temper—­ready to resent any thing—­resented his adviser’s interference.  “I shall answer if I like,” he retorted, insolently.  He looked up for a moment at Sir Patrick, without moving his chin from the hook of his stick.  Then he looked down again.  “I do deny it,” he said.

“You deny that you have promised to marry Miss Silvester?”

“Yes.”

“I asked you just now to look at her—­”