on of his own innocence could be productive of
nothing but useless delay in the proceedings. And yet he sanctioned that
delay. Was he privately on the watch for any accidental circumstance
which might help him to better a case that he knew to be a bad one?

Permitted to speak, Arnold spoke. The unmistakable accent of truth was
in every word that he uttered. He gave a fairly coherent account of
events, from the time when Geoffrey had claimed his assistance at the
lawn-party to the time when he found himself at the door of the inn
at Craig Fernie. There Sir Patrick interfered, and closed his lips. He
asked leave to appeal to Geoffrey to confirm him. Sir Patrick amazed
Mr. Moy by sanctioning this irregularity also. Arnold sternly addressed
himself to Geoffrey.

"Do you deny that what I have said is true?" he asked.

Mr. Moy did his duty by his client. "You are not bound to answer," he
said, "unless you wish it yourself."

Geoffrey slowly lifted his heavy head, and confronted the man whom he
had betrayed.

"I deny every word of it," he answered--with a stolid defiance of tone
and manner.

"Have we had enough of assertion and counter-assertion, Sir Patrick, by
this time?" asked Mr. Moy, with undiminished politeness.

After first forcing Arnold--with some little difficulty--to control
himself, Sir Patrick raised Mr. Moy's astonishment to the culminating
point. For reasons of his own, he determined to strengthen the favorable
impression which Arnold's statement had plainly produced on his wife
before the inquiry proceeded a step farther.

"I must throw myself on your indulgence, Mr. Moy," he said. "I have not
had enough of assertion and counter-assertion, even yet."

Mr. Moy leaned back in his chair, with a mixed expression of
bewilderment and resignation. Either his colleague's intellect was in a
failing state--or his colleague had some purpose in view which had not
openly asserted itself yet. He began to suspect that the right reading
of the riddle was involved in the latter of those two alternatives.
Instead of entering any fresh protest, he wisely waited and watched.

Sir Patrick went on unblushingly from one irregularity to another.

"I request Mr. Moy's permission to revert to the alleged marriage, on
the fourteenth of August, at Craig Fernie," he said. "Arnold Brinkworth!
answer for yourself, in the presence of the persons here assembled. In
all that you said, and all that you did, while you were at the inn,