s proved that she has not slept at
that house. You explain this circumstance by entering into the state
of her mind, and deducing from it a metaphysical conclusion. I don't
say the conclusion is wrong--I only say that the jury will take the
fact of her contradicting herself in preference to any reason for the
contradiction that you can offer."

"But is it not possible," I urged, "by dint of patience and exertion,
to discover additional evidence? Miss Halcombe and I have a few hundred
pounds----"

He looked at me with a half-suppressed pity, and shook his head.

"Consider the subject, Mr. Hartright, from your own point of view," he
said. "If you are right about Sir Percival Glyde and Count Fosco
(which I don't admit, mind), every imaginable difficulty would be
thrown in the way of your getting fresh evidence. Every obstacle of
litigation would be raised--every point in the case would be
systematically contested--and by the time we had spent our thousands
instead of our hundreds, the final result would, in all probability, be
against us. Questions of identity, where instances of personal
resemblance are concerned, are, in themselves, the hardest of all
questions to settle--the hardest, even when they are free from the
complications which beset the case we are now discussing. I really see
no prospect of throwing any light whatever on this extraordinary
affair. Even if the person buried in Limmeridge churchyard be not Lady
Glyde, she was, in life, on your own showing, so like her, that we
should gain nothing, if we applied for the necessary authority to have
the body exhumed. In short, there is no case, Mr. Hartright--there is
really no case."

I was determined to believe that there WAS a case, and in that
determination shifted my ground, and appealed to him once more.

"Are there not other proofs that we might produce besides the proof of
identity?" I asked.

"Not as you are situated," he replied. "The simplest and surest of all
proofs, the proof by comparison of dates, is, as I understand,
altogether out of your reach. If you could show a discrepancy between
the date of the doctor's certificate and the date of Lady Glyde's
journey to London, the matter would wear a totally different aspect,
and I should be the first to say, Let us go on."

"That date may yet be recovered, Mr. Kyrle."

"On the day when it is recovered, Mr. Hartright, you will have a case.
If you have any prospect, at this moment, of get