r any additional particulars about the Asylum (the address of
which he mentioned, as well as the names and addresses of the two
doctors on whose certificates the patient was admitted), he was ready
to answer any question and to clear up any uncertainty. He had done
his duty to the unhappy young woman, by instructing his solicitor to
spare no expense in tracing her, and in restoring her once more to
medical care, and he was now only anxious to do his duty towards Miss
Fairlie and towards her family, in the same plain, straightforward way.

I was the first to speak in answer to this appeal. My own course was
plain to me. It is the great beauty of the Law that it can dispute any
human statement, made under any circumstances, and reduced to any form.
If I had felt professionally called upon to set up a case against Sir
Percival Glyde, on the strength of his own explanation, I could have
done so beyond all doubt. But my duty did not lie in this
direction--my function was of the purely judicial kind. I was to weigh
the explanation we had just heard, to allow all due force to the high
reputation of the gentleman who offered it, and to decide honestly
whether the probabilities, on Sir Percival's own showing, were plainly
with him, or plainly against him. My own conviction was that they were
plainly with him, and I accordingly declared that his explanation was,
to my mind, unquestionably a satisfactory one.

Miss Halcombe, after looking at me very earnestly, said a few words, on
her side, to the same effect--with a certain hesitation of manner,
however, which the circumstances did not seem to me to warrant. I am
unable to say, positively, whether Sir Percival noticed this or not.
My opinion is that he did, seeing that he pointedly resumed the
subject, although he might now, with all propriety, have allowed it to
drop.

"If my plain statement of facts had only been addressed to Mr.
Gilmore," he said, "I should consider any further reference to this
unhappy matter as unnecessary. I may fairly expect Mr. Gilmore, as a
gentleman, to believe me on my word, and when he has done me that
justice, all discussion of the subject between us has come to an end.
But my position with a lady is not the same. I owe to her--what I
would concede to no man alive--a PROOF of the truth of my assertion.
You cannot ask for that proof, Miss Halcombe, and it is therefore my
duty to you, and still more to Miss Fairlie, to offer it. May I beg