e committing bigamy?"

"Sir!"

"You knew, I say, that you were committing bigamy; that the child
whom you were professing to marry would not become your wife through
that ceremony. I say that you knew all this at the time? Come, Mr.
Mollett, answer me, if you do not wish me to have you dragged out of
this by a policeman and taken at once before a magistrate."

"Oh, sir! be merciful to us; pray be merciful to us," said Mrs.
Mollett, holding up her apron to her eyes.

"Father, why don't you speak out plainly to the gentleman? He will
forgive you, if you do that."

"Am I to criminate myself, sir?" said Mr. Mollett, still in the
humblest voice in the world, and hardly above his breath.

After all, this fox had still some running left in him, Mr.
Prendergast thought to himself. He was not even yet so thoroughly
beaten but what he had a dodge or two remaining at his service. "Am
I to criminate myself, sir?" he asked, as innocently as a child might
ask whether or no she were to stand longer in the corner.

"You may do as you like about that, Mr. Mollett," said the lawyer; "I
am neither a magistrate nor a policeman; and at the present moment I
am not acting even as a lawyer. I am the friend of a family whom you
have misused and defrauded most outrageously. You have killed the
father of that family--"

"Oh, gracious!" said Mrs. Mollett.

"Yes, madam, he has done so; and nearly broken the heart of that poor
lady, and driven her son from the house which is his own. You have
done all this in order that you might swindle them out of money for
your vile indulgences, while you left your own wife and your own
child to starve at home. In the whole course of my life I never came
across so mean a scoundrel; and now you chaffer with me as to whether
or no you shall criminate yourself! Scoundrel and villain as you
are--a double-dyed scoundrel, still there are reasons why I shall not
wish to have you gibbeted, as you deserve."

"Oh, sir, he has done nothing that would come to that!" said the poor
wife.

"You had better let the gentleman finish," said the daughter. "He
doesn't mean that father will be hung."

"It would be too good for him," said Mr. Prendergast, who was now
absolutely almost out of temper. "But I do not wish to be his
executioner. For the peace of that family which you have so brutally
plundered and ill used, I shall remain quiet,--if I can attain my
object without a public prosecution. But, remember, that I g