The next edition of the evening papers contained a full account of the opportune killing of Marcus Blaydon by Lucy Lyman. It happened the previous evening in the strawyard of Athalsdean Farm, where Marcus Blaydon was staying with Mr. Wadhurst. Three of the yardmen saw the woman enter and enquire for Mr. Blaydon; and she had gone, according to their direction, into one of the outhouses where he had been superintending some work, for it seemed that Farmer Wadhurst did not allow him to eat the bread of idleness. The men shortly afterwards heard the sound as of an altercation, and then of a shot. The woman rushed out shrieking, and Blaydon came after her, with a revolver, from which he fired two more shots at her. He was overtaking her when she picked up one of the two-pronged forks with which the bundles of straw were tossed from the carts, and turned upon him with it. He was in the act of rushing at her, but he never reached her; he rushed upon the two prongs of the fork and fell dead at her feet. That was the whole story; for although the woman was arrested and admitted that she had produced the revolver in the presence of the man in order to terrify him and force him to go away with her, it was perfectly plain that he had got possession of the weapon, and had endeavoured to take her life, his efforts being only frustrated by the accident of the strawyard fork lying in her way when she was trying to escape. “Justifiable homicide”--that was the phrase which was in everybody’s mouth during the next few days; and everyone who spoke the words added that he or she supposed that Mr. Wingfield and Priscilla would now get married in proper form. But that was not Priscilla’s intention at all. She meant to have the contract between herself and Marcus Blaydon pronounced null and void in a court of law, and she expressed herself to this effect to Jack. She thought that she would have some trouble in inducing him to see that it would not be just the same thing if they got married the next day; but she found that he was with her on all points in this matter. Messrs. Liscomb and Liscomb were instructed to proceed with the case; and a good many people, when they heard this--including Messrs. Liscomb and Liscomb--said that Mr. Wingfield and Priscilla were a pair of fools. And that was exactly what the judge said when he was appealed to a couple of months later in the form of a petition by Priscilla. “A pair of young fools!” This was when he was driving home from the court. When he had had a sleep and a game of whist at the _Athenaeum_, and a chat with his wife, he said again, “A pair of young fools!” The next day he granted the petition. It so happened, however, that there was another scene in this matrimonial comedy; for on the very morning after the return of the Wingfields, the Reverend Osney Possnett called upon Priscilla.