n in the dock as one of themselves.
Hill was cross-examined as to the lapse from honesty which had sent him
to gaol, and he was reluctantly forced to admit, that so far from the
theft being the result of an impulse to save his wife and child from
starvation, as the Counsel for the prosecution had indicated, it was the
result of the impulse of cupidity. He had robbed a master who had trusted
him and had treated him with kindness. Having extracted this fact, in
spite of Hill's evasions and twistings, Holymead straightened himself to
his full height, and, shaking a warning finger at the witness, said:

"I put it to you, witness, that the reason Sir Horace Fewbanks engaged
you as butler in his household at Riversbrook was because he knew you to
be a man of few scruples, who would be willing to do things that a more
upright honest man would have objected to?"

"That is not true," replied Hill.

"Is it not true that your late master frequently entertained women of
doubtful character at Riversbrook?" thundered the K.C.

Hill gasped at the question. When he had first heard that his late
master's old friend, Mr. Holymead, was to appear for Birchill, he had
immediately come to the conclusion that Mr. Holymead was taking up the
case in order to save Sir Horace's name from exposure by dealing
carefully with his private life at Riversbrook. But here he was
ruthlessly tearing aside the veil of secrecy. Hill hesitated. He glanced
round the curious crowded court and saw the eager glances of the women as
they impatiently awaited his reply. He hesitated so long that Holymead
repeated the question.

"Women of doubtful character?" faltered the witness. "I do not
understand you."

"You understand me perfectly well, Hill. I do not mean women off the
streets, but women who have no moral reputation to maintain--women who do
not mind letting confidential servants see that they have no regard for
the conventional standards of life. I mean, witness, that your late
master frequently entertained at Riversbrook, women--I will not call them
ladies--who were not particular at what hour they went home. Sometimes
one or more of them stayed all night, and you were entrusted with the
confidential task of smuggling them out of the house without other
servants knowing of their presence. Is not that so?"

"I--I--"

"Answer the question without equivocation, witness."

"Y-es, sir."

There was a slight stir in the body of the court due to the fact