reports of Stella
Ballantyne's trial, which had been printed day by day in the _Times of
India_. He had sent for them months ago when he had blithely taken upon
himself the defence of Stella Ballantyne. He had read them with a growing
ardour. So harshly had she lived; so shadowless was her innocence. He
turned to them now in a different spirit. Pettifer had been left by the
English summaries of the trial with a vague feeling of doubt. Mr.
Hazlewood respected Robert Pettifer. The lawyer was cautious, deliberate,
unemotional--qualities with which Hazlewood had instinctively little
sympathy. But on the other hand he was not bound hand and foot in
prejudice. He could be liberal in his judgments. He had a mind clear
enough to divide what reason had to say and the presumptions of
convention. Suppose that Pettifer was after all right! The old man's
heart sank within him. Then indeed this marriage must be prevented--and
the truth must be made known--yes, widely known. He himself had been
deceived--like many another man before him. It was not ridiculous to have
been deceived. He remained at all events consistent to his principles.
There was his pamphlet to be sure, _The Prison Walls must Cast no
Shadow_ that gave him an uncomfortable twinge. But he reassured himself.

"There I argue that, once the offence has been expiated, all the
privileges should be restored. But if Pettifer is right there has been no
expiation."

That saving clause let him out. He did not thus phrase the position even
to himself. He clothed it in other and high-sounding words. It was after
all a sort of convention to accept acquittal as the proof of innocence.
But at the back of his mind from first to last there was an immense fear
of the figure which he himself would cut if he refused his consent to
the marriage on any ground except that of Stella Ballantyne's guilt. For
Stella herself, the woman, he had no kindness to spare that morning.
Yesterday he had overflowed with it. For yesterday she had been one more
proof to the world how high he soared above it.

"Since Pettifer's in doubt," he said to himself, "there must be some
flaw in this trial which I overlooked in the heat of my sympathy"; and
to discover that flaw he read again every printed detail of it from the
morning when Stella first appeared before the stipendiary magistrate to
that other morning a month later when the verdict was given. And he
found no flaw. Stella's acquittal was inevitable on