out it.

Mr. Crawley was then asked to explain in what way he came possessed of
the cheque. The question was first put by Lord Lufton; but it soon
fell into Mr. Walker's hands, who certainly asked it with all the
kindness with which such an inquiry could be made. Could Mr. Crawley
at all remember by what means that bit of paper had come into his
possession, or how long he had had it? He answered the last question
first. "It had been with him for months." And why had he kept it. He
looked round the room sternly, almost savagely, before he answered,
fixing his eyes for a moment upon almost every face around him as he
did so. Then he spoke. "I was driven by shame to keep it,--and then
by shame to use it." That this statement was true, no one in the room
doubted.

And then the other question was pressed upon him; and he lifted up
his hands, and raised his voice, and swore by the Saviour in whom he
trusted, that he knew not from whence the money had come to him. Why
then had he said that it had come from the dean? He had thought so.
The dean had given him money, covered up, in an enclosure, "so that
the touch of the coin might not add to my disgrace in taking his
alms," said the wretched man, thus speaking openly and freely in his
agony of the shame which he had striven so persistently to hide. He
had not seen the dean's monies as they had been given, and he had
thought that the cheque had been with them. Beyond that he could tell
them nothing.

Then there was a conference between the magistrates and Mr. Walker, in
which Mr. Walker submitted that the magistrates had no alternative but
to commit the gentleman. To this Lord Lufton demurred, and with him
Dr. Thorne.

"I believe, as I am sitting here," said Lord Lufton, "that he has
told the truth, and that he does not know any more than I do from
whence the cheque came."

"I am quite sure he does not," said Dr. Thorne.

Lord George remarked that it was the "queerest go he had ever come
across." Dr. Tempest merely shook his head. Mr. Fothergill pointed out
that even supposing the gentleman's statement to be true, it by no
means went towards establishing the gentleman's innocence. The cheque
had been traced to the gentleman's hands, and the gentleman was bound
to show how it had come into his possession. Even supposing that
the gentleman had found the cheque in his house, which was likely
enough, he was not thereby justified in changing it, and applying the
proceeds to h