are,
why could you not have said this, and cleared him, on your return to
West Lynne?"

"It was no affair of mine, that I should make it public. Afy asked me
not to say I had seen her, and I promised her I would not. As to Richard
Hare, a little extra scandal on his back was nothing, while there
remained on it the worse scandal of murder."

"Stop a bit," interposed Mr. Rubiny, as the witness was about to retire.
"You speak of the time being eight o'clock in the evening, sir. Was it
dark?"

"Yes."

"Then how can you be certain it was Thorn who got out of the cab and
entered?"

"I am quite certain. There was a gas-lamp right at the spot, and I saw
him as well as I should have seen him in daylight. I knew his voice,
too; could have sworn to it anywhere; and I would almost have sworn to
him by his splendid diamond ring. It flashed in the lamplight."

"His voice! Did he speak to you?"

"No. But he spoke to the cabman. There was a half dispute between them.
The man said Thorn had not paid him enough, that he had not allowed for
having been kept waiting twenty minutes on the road. Thorn swore at him
a bit, and then flung him an extra shilling."

The next witness was a man who had been groom to the late Sir Peter
Levison. He testified that the prisoner, Francis Levison had been on a
visit to his master late in the summer and part of the autumn, the year
that Hallijohn was killed. That he frequently rode out in the direction
of West Lynne, especially toward evening; would be away three or four
hours, and come home with the horse in a foam. Also that he picked up
two letters at different times, which Mr. Levison had carelessly let
fall from his pocket, and returned them to him. Both the notes were
addressed "Captain Thorn." But they had not been through the post, for
there was no further superscription on them; and the writing looked like
a lady's. He remembered quite well hearing of the murder of Hallijohn,
the witness added, in answer to a question; it made a great stir
through out the country. It was just at that same time that Mr. Levison
concluded his visit, and returned to London.

"A _wonderful_ memory!" Mr. Rubiny sarcastically remarked.

The witness, a quiet, respectable man, replied that he _had_ a good
memory; but that circumstances had impressed upon it particularly the
fact that Mr. Levison's departure followed close upon the murder of
Hallijohn.

"One day, when Sir Peter was round at the stables, gent