and we met Mr. Grey, who put us in very good places, and told us the case was just coming on.  You will see the report in detail in the paper, so I will only try to give you what you would not find there.  I should tell you that Maddox has entirely dropped his alias.  Mr. Grey is convinced that was only a bold stroke to gain time and prevent the committal, so as to be able to escape, and that he ’reckoned upon bullying a dense old country magistrate;’ but that he knew it was quite untenable before a body of unexceptionable witnesses.  Altogether the man looked greatly altered and crest-fallen, and there was a meanness and vulgarity in his appearance that made me wonder at our ever having credited his account of himself.  He had an abject look, very unlike his confident manner at the sessions, nor did he attempt his own defence.  Mr. Grey kept on saying he must know that he had not a leg to stand upon.

“The counsel for the prosecution told the whole story, and it was very touching.  I had never known the whole before; the sisters are so resolute and uncomplaining:  but how they must have suffered when every one thought them ruined by their brother’s fraud!  I grieve to think how we neglected them, and only noticed them when it suited our convenience.  Then he called Mr. Beechum, and you will understand better than I can all about the concern in which they were embarked, and Maddox coming to him for an advance of £300, giving him a note from Mr. Williams, asking for it to carry out an invention.  The order for the sum was put into Maddox’s hands, and the banker proved the paying it to him by an order on a German bank.

“Then came Mr. Williams.  I had seen him for a moment in setting out, and was struck with his strange, lost, dreamy look.  There is something very haggard and mournful in his countenance; and, though he has naturally the same fine features as his eldest sister, his cheeks are hollow, his eyes almost glassy, and his beard, which is longer than the Colonel’s, very grey.  He gave me the notion of the wreck of a man, stunned and crushed, and never thoroughly alive again; but when he stood in the witness-box, face to face with the traitor, he was very different; he lifted up his head, his eyes brightened, his voice became clear, and his language terse and concentrated, so that I could believe in his having been the very able man he was described to be.  I am sure Maddox must have quailed under his glance, there was something so loftily innocent in it, yet so wistful, as much as to say, ’how could you abuse my perfect confidence?’ Mr. Williams denied having received the money, written the letter, or even thought of making the request.  They showed him the impression of two seals.  He said one was made with a seal-ring given him by Colonel Keith, and lost some time before he went abroad; the other, with one with which he had replaced it, and which he produced,—­he had always worn it on his finger.  They matched exactly with