By this time Joy and Judith were close together, holding hands. Insensibly the girl drew her Aunt over to where Athlyne was standing and took him by the arm. He raised his other hand and with it covered the hand that lay on his arm, pressing it closer as he listened attentively to the Sheriff’s expounding of the law: “I gather that I did not express myself clearly when a short time ago I spoke of the Scottish marriage laws. Let me now be more precise. And as I am trying to put into words understandable by all a somewhat complex subject I shall ask that no one present will make any remark whatever till this part of my task has been completed. I shall then answer to the best of my power any question or questions which any of you may choose to ask me. “Let me begin by assuring you all that what in Scottish law we call an ‘irregular’ marriage is equally binding in every way with a ‘regular’ marriage; the word only refers to form or method, and in no wise to the antecedents or to the result. In our law ‘Mutual Consent’ constitutes marriage. You will observe that I speak of marriage--not the proof of it. Proof is quite a different matter; and as it is formally to be certified by a Court it is naturally hedged in by formalities. This consent, whether proved or not, whether before witnesses or not, should of course be followed by co-habitation; but even this is not necessary. The dictum of Scots’ law is ‘_Concensus non concubitus facit matrimonium_.’ But I have a shrewd suspicion that the mind of the Court is helped to a declaration of validity when _concensus_ has been followed by _concubitus_. “Now let us take the present case and examine it as though testing it in a Court of Law; for such is the true means to be exact. This man and woman--we don’t know ‘gentleman’ and ‘lady’ in the Law--declared in the presence of witnesses that they were man and wife. That is, the man declared to the police sergeant at Dalry that the woman was his wife; and the woman declared timeously to the police officer who made the arrest that the man was her husband. These two statements, properly set out, would in themselves be evidence not only of inferred consent by declaration _de præsenti_ but of the same thing by ‘habit and repute.’ The law has been thus stated: “‘It may be held that a man and a woman, by living together and holding themselves out as married persons, have sufficiently declared their matrimonial consent; and in that case they will be declared to be married although no specific promise of marriage or of _de præsenti_ acknowledgement has been proved.’