ul Drayton.

"Then tell the court how you came to identify the defendant as Drayton."

"There were many facts pointing that way."

"Give us one."

"On the morning of the marriage I found a letter lying open before the
fire in my vestry. It was from Mr. Hugh Ritson to Mr. Bonnithorne, and
it mentioned the name of Drayton in a connection which, by the light of
later revelations, provoked many inferences."

Mr. Bonnithorne was unprepared for this answer. Counsel looked at him
inquiringly, but the attorney glanced down and colored deeply.

"Can you show us the letter?"

"No; I left it where I found it."

"Then it can hardly be received as evidence."

The attorney smiled, and the tension of Drayton's face relaxed. There
was a slight shuffle among the people; the witness had stepped back.

Counsel for the defense opened his case. They were asked to believe that
the defendant in the present action was Paul Drayton, in the teeth of
the fact that Paul Drayton was at that moment a convict in a convict
prison. The incredible statement was made that a newly married husband
had placed his young wife in a convent on the night of their marriage,
and that when they should have rejoined each other an interchange had
been made, the husband going to prison in another man's name, the other
man coming to Cumberland to claim the place of the woman's husband.
Moreover, they were asked to believe that the husband's brother, Mr.
Hugh Ritson, had either been fooled by the impostor or made a party to
the imposture. Happily it was easy to establish identity by two
unquestionable chains of evidence--resemblance and memory. It would be
shown that the defendant could be none other than Paul Ritson, first,
because he resembled him exactly in person; second, because he knew all
that Paul Ritson ought to know; third, because he knew nothing that Paul
Ritson might not know. No two men's lives had ever been the same from
the beginning of the world, and as it would be seen that the defendant's
life had been the same as Paul Ritson's, it followed that Paul Ritson
and the defendant were one and the same man.

Dick o' the Syke was the first witness examined for the defense. He
swore that Paul Ritson was active in extinguishing a fire that broke out
in the mill two years ago; that he had climbed to the cross-trees with a
hatchet; and that within the past month the defendant had described to
him the precise locality and shape of the gap made in the