"About that very story of the empty rectory and the light in the church," he began, with Fuller--"about that perfectly true story," he added, wilfully, "which you told us yesterday. Did you tell it to anybody at the time?" "Only Tom Ivey." "Why only to him?" "He asked me to keep that to myself." "And did you?" "I did my best, sir, but that slipped out one day when I was talking to----" "Never mind his or her name. You did your best to keep the matter to yourself, but it slipped out one day in conversation. Now when did you last tell that true story, not counting yesterday, as fully and particularly as you told it here in court? Think. I want the exact date of the very last occasion." "That was last Friday, sir--to-day's the 22nd--that would be the 18th of August." "Last Friday, the 18th of August; a fatal day to me!" said Robert Carlton. "Thank you. That is all I want from you." The justices put no question. The clerk did not re-examine. The witness was ordered to stand down. Then followed a short but heavy silence, pregnant with speculation as to the drift of all these questions and the object of so much unexplained insistence upon a date. It meant something. What could it mean? Carlton stood upright in the dock, calm, confident, inscrutable; it seemed a great many moments before the silence was broken by the formal tones of the clerk. "Do you call any witness for the defence?" he asked. Carlton dropped his eyes into the well of the court, and they fell upon a pair that were fastened upon his face with the glitter of fixed bayonets. "Yes," said he. "I wish you to call Sir Wilton Gleed." Quietly though distinctly spoken, the name clapped like thunder on the court. Amazement fell on all alike, for the issue between these two had been the common theme for days. Popular sympathy had rightly sided with morality, and its champion had lost nothing by his tactful magnanimity in refraining from sitting upon the bench; that he should be put in the box instead, and by his shameless adversary, was an audacity as hard to credit as to understand. There was a moment's hush, then a minute's buzz, to which the justices themselves contributed. Wilders muttered that the man was mad; his colleague on the right confessed himself nonplussed; his colleague on the left dropped his shaven chin upon his gold horseshoe, and his shoulders shook with joy. Meanwhile Sir Wilton had forced a grin and found his voice. "You want me in the box, do you?" "I do." "Very well; you shall have me." And he was sworn, still grinning, with an odd mixture of malevolence and deprecation for those who ran to read. "I meant to keep out of this," the florid face said; "but now I'm in it--well, you'll see! It's the fellow's own fault; his blood" etc., etc. But this was not what Sir Wilton was saying in his heart. Carlton began at the beginning. "You are the patron of the living of Long Stow, are you not?" "You know I am."