g if his double Christian name were
correctly given, his age, and if he were not the son of Dr. May.

'You were the prisoner's school-fellow, I believe?'

'No,' faltered Aubrey.

'But you live near him?'

'We are friends,' said Aubrey, with sudden firmness and precision; and
from the utterance of that emphatic _are_, his spirit returned.

'Did you often see him?'

'On most Sundays, after church.'

'Did you ever hear him say he had any thoughts of the means of leaving
the mill privately?'

'Something like it,' said Aubrey, turning very red.

'Can you tell me the words?'

'He said if things went on, that I was not to be surprised if I heard
non est inventus,' said Aubrey, speaking as if rapidity would conceal
the meaning of the words, but taken aback by being made to repeat and
translate them to the jury.

'And did he mention any way of escaping?'

'He said the window and cedar-tree were made for it, and that he often
went out that way to bathe,' said Aubrey.

'When did this conversation take place?'

'On Sunday, the 22nd of June,' said Aubrey, in despair, as the Crown
lawyer thanked him, and sat down.

He felt himself betrayed into having made their talk wear the air of
deliberate purpose, and having said not one word of what Mr. Bramshaw
had hailed as hopeful. However, the defending barrister rose up to ask
him what he meant by having answered 'Something like it.'

'Because,' said Aubrey, promptly, 'though we did make the scheme, we
were neither of us in earnest.'

'How do you know the prisoner was not in earnest?'

'We often made plans of what we should like to do.'

'And had you any reason for thinking this one of such plans!'

'Yes,' said Aubrey; 'for he talked of getting gold enough to build up
the market-cross, or else of going to see the Feejee Islands.

'Then you understood the prisoner not to express a deliberate purpose,
so much as a vague design.'

'Just so,' said Aubrey. 'A design that depended on how things went on
at the mill.' And being desired to explain his words, he added, that
Leonard had said he could not bear the sight of Sam Axworthy's tyranny
over the old man, and was resolved not to stay, if he were made a party
to any of the dishonest tricks of the trade.

'In that case, did he say where he would have gone?'

'First to New Zealand, to my brother, the Reverend Norman May.'

Leonard's counsel was satisfied with the colour the conversation had
now assumed; but the