s as the spectators craned their
necks to catch a glimpse of her. Behind her, and with one hand on her
chair-back, stood the old parson, his Jovian white head more white than
of old, the tenderer lines in his mellow face drawn down to a look of
pain. Immediately facing Greta, at the opposite end of the table, Hugh
Ritson sat. One leg was thrown over the other knee, and the long,
nervous fingers of the right hand played with the shoelace. His head was
inclined forward, and the thin, pallid, clean-cut face with the great
calm eyes and the full, dilated nostrils was more than ever the face of
a high-bred horse. None would have guessed the purpose with which Hugh
Ritson sat there. One would have said that indifference was in those
eyes and on that brow--indifference or despair.

Near where the rustle was loudest and most frequent among the
spectators, Drayton sat by the side of Mr. Bonnithorne. He was dressed
in his favorite suit of broad plaid, and had a gigantic orange-lily
stuck jauntily in his buttonhole. His face was flushed and his eyes
sparkled. Now and again he leaned back to whisper something to the
blacksmith, the miller, and the landlord of the Flying Horse, who were
grouped behind him. His remarks must have been wondrously facetious, for
they were promptly followed by a low gurgle, which was as promptly
suppressed.

The counsel for the plaintiff opened his case. The plaintiff sued as the
owner in succession to her husband, who was at present dead to the law.
She contended that the man who now stood seized of the Ghyll was not her
husband, Paul Ritson, but Paul Drayton, an innkeeper of Hendon, who bore
him a strange personal resemblance, and personated him. The evidence of
identity which should presently be adduced was full and complete in the
essential particular of proving that the defendant was not Paul Ritson,
by whose title alone the defense would maintain the right of present
possession. Unhappily, the complementary evidence as to the actual
identity of the defendant with Paul Drayton, the publican, had been
seriously curtailed by the blindness, followed by the death, of an
important witness. Still, if he, the counsel for the plaintiff, could
prove to the satisfaction of the jury that the defendant was not the man
he represented himself to be, they would have no course but to grant the
ejectment for which the plaintiff asked. To this end he would call two
witnesses whose evidence must outweigh that of all