, as he described the gross conduct and contempt of
which this young man had been guilty. He deplored the condition of the
law in England, which allowed persons to get married on the strength of
false statements. He wound up his lecture, which had a conciseness and
pertinence about it not often found in lectures, by the brief
announcement that he should forthwith make an order committing Mr. John
Hanbury to Holloway Prison.

There was an ominous silence for a brief second or so. Then the Court
was addressed by Mr. Rupert--who was Mary Beresford's husband, and a
fairly well-known Q.C.--who made a very humble and touching little
appeal. He said he represented the relatives of the young lady; he was
himself a near relative; and they were all inclined to beg his Lordship
to take a merciful view of the case. They did not think the young man,
though he had acted most improperly, was inspired by mercenary motives.
He was now in Court; and was anxious to make the most profound apology.
If his Lordship----

But at this moment his Lordship, by the slightest of gestures, seemed
to intimate that Mr. Rupert was only wasting time; and the end of it
was that Mr. Jack Hanbury, after having heard a little more lecturing
on the heinousness of his conduct, found himself under the charge of
the tipstaff of the Court, with Holloway prison as his destination. It
was not to be considered as a humorous escapade after all.

'Madge will have a fit,' said Mr. Tom, when they were outside again.
'Some one must go and tell her. I shan't.'

'I knew he must be committed,' said Mr. Rupert to the young man's
father. 'There was no help for that; his contempt of Court was too
heinous. Now the proper thing to do is to let him have a little dose
of prison--the authority of the Court must be vindicated, naturally;
and then we must have a definite scheme for the establishment of the
young man in business before we beg the Court to reconsider the matter.
I mean, you must name a sum; and it must be ready. And then there must
be an understanding that Miss Beresford--I mean Mrs. Hanbury's--small
fortune shall be settled on herself.'

'My advice,' remarked Mr. Tom, 'is that Madge should go herself and see
the Vice-Chancellor. She might do the pathetic business--a wife and
not a widow, or whatever the poetry of the thing is. I think it's
deuced hard lines to lock up a fellow for merely humbugging an old
parson up in Kentish Town. Why shouldn't peo