have it for a fact, but I
would put a thousand pounds upon his charity and his discretion in such
a matter. A kinder and a sounder man does not exist, though I say it who
never met him in my life. But I heard every word of my wife's trial, and
I know the way the judge took the case. There were a heap of women
witnesses, and her counsel was inclined to bully them; it was delightful
to see the fatherly consideration that they received as compensation
from the bench."

Langholm's breath was taken away. Here was an end to the likeliest
theory that he had evolved that morning among his roses. Steel had not
married his wife in ignorance of her life's tragedy; he had been
present, and probably fallen in love with her, at her trial! Then why
did he never behave as though he were in love? And why must he expatiate
upon the judge's kindness to the female witnesses, instead of on the
grand result of the trial over which he had presided? Did Steel himself
entertain the faintest doubt about the innocence of his wife, whose
trial he had heard, and whom he had married thereafter within a few
months at the most? Langholm's brain buzzed, even while he listened to
what Hugh Woodgate was saying.

"I am not surprised," remarked the vicar. "I remember once hearing that
Sir Baldwin Gibson and Lord Edgeware were the two fairest judges on the
bench; and why, do you suppose? Because they are both old athletes and
Old Blues, trained from small boys to give their opponents every
possible chance!"

Steel nodded an understanding assent. Langholm, however, who was better
qualified to appreciate the vicar's point, took no notice of it.

"If it was not the judge," said he, "who in the world is it who has
sprung this mine, I saw them meet, and as a matter of fact I did guess
the truth. But I had special reasons. I had thought, God forgive me, of
making something out of your wife's case, Steel, little dreaming it was
hers, though I knew it had no ordinary fascination for her. But no one
else can have known that."

"You talked it over with her, however?"

And Steel had both black eyes upon the novelist, who made his innocent
admission with an embarrassment due entirely to their unnecessarily
piercing scrutiny.

"You talked it over with her," repeated Steel, this time in dry
statement of fact, "at least on one occasion, in the presence of a lady
who had a prior claim upon your conversation. That lady was Mrs. Vinson,
and it is she who ought to h