he
proper rates in a cinematograph-film of a bill. At the end of a month
he said it looked as though M'Leod, thanks to him, were really going
to listen to reason. I was many pounds out of pocket, but I had learned
something of Mr. Baxter on the human side. I deserved it. Never in my
life have I worked to conciliate, amuse, and flatter a human being as I
worked over my solicitor.

It appeared that he golfed. Therefore, I was an enthusiastic beginner,
anxious to learn. Twice I invaded his office with a bag (M'Leod lent it)
full of the spelicans needed in this detestable game, and a vocabulary
to match. The third time the ice broke, and Mr. Baxter took me to his
links, quite ten miles off, where in a maze of tramway lines, railroads,
and nursery-maids, we skelped our divotted way round nine holes like
barges plunging through head seas. He played vilely and had never
expected to meet any one worse; but as he realised my form, I think
he began to like me, for he took me in hand by the two hours together.
After a fortnight he could give me no more than a stroke a hole, and
when, with this allowance, I once managed to beat him by one, he was
honestly glad, and assured me that I should be a golfer if I stuck
to it. I was sticking to it for my own ends, but now and again my
conscience pricked me; for the man was a nice man. Between games he
supplied me with odd pieces of evidence, such as that he had known the
Moultries all his life, being their cousin, and that Miss Mary, the
eldest, was an unforgiving woman who would never let bygones be.
I naturally wondered what she might have against him; and somehow
connected him unfavourably with mad Agnes.

"People ought to forgive and forget," he volunteered one day between
rounds. "Specially where, in the nature of things, they can't be sure of
their deductions. Don't you think so?"

"It all depends on the nature of the evidence on which one forms one's
judgment," I answered.

"Nonsense!" he cried. "I'm lawyer enough to know that there's nothing in
the world so misleading as circumstantial evidence. Never was."

"Why? Have you ever seen men hanged on it?"

"Hanged? People have been supposed to be eternally lost on it," his face
turned grey again. "I don't know how it is with you, but my consolation
is that God must know. He must! Things that seem on the face of 'em like
murder, or say suicide, may appear different to God. Heh?"

"That's what the murderer and the suicide can alw