u don't?" he called out, angrily.

"That's his voice!" cried the servant, starting in the box. "Whiskers or
no whiskers, that's him!"

"If there's any difficulty, your worship, about the gentleman's hair,"
said Mr. Dark, coming forward with a grin, "here's a small parcel which,
I may make so bold as to say, will remove it." Saying that, he opened
the parcel, took some locks of hair out of it, and held them up close to
Mr. James Smith's head. "A pretty good match, your worship," continued
Mr. Dark. "I have no doubt the gentleman's head feels cooler now it's
off. We can't put the whiskers on, I'm afraid, but they match the hair;
and they are in the paper (if one may say such a thing of whiskers) to
speak for themselves."

"Lies! lies! lies!" screamed Josephine, losing her wicked self-control
at this stage of the proceedings.

The justice made a sign to two of the constables present as she burst
out with those exclamations, and the men removed her to an adjoining
room.

The second servant from the Hall was then put in the box, and was
followed by one of the tenants. After what they had heard and seen,
neither of these men had any hesitation in swearing positively to their
master's identity.

"It is quite unnecessary," said the justice, as soon as the box was
empty again, "to examine any more witnesses as to the question of
identity. All the legal formalities are accomplished, and the charge
against the prisoners falls to the ground. I have great pleasure in
ordering the immediate discharge of both the accused persons, and
in declaring from this place that they leave the court without the
slightest stain on their characters."

He bowed low to my mistress as he said that, paused a moment, and then
looked inquiringly at Mr. James Smith.

"I have hitherto abstained from making any remark unconnected with the
immediate matter in hand," he went on. "But, now that my duty is done,
I cannot leave this chair without expressing my strong sense of
disapprobation of the conduct of Mr. James Smith--conduct which,
whatever may be the motives that occasioned it, has given a false color
of probability to a most horrible charge against a lady of unspotted
reputation, and against a person in a lower rank of life whose good
character ought not to have been imperiled even for a moment. Mr. Smith
may or may not choose to explain his mysterious disappearance from
Darrock Hall, and the equally unaccountable change which he has chosen