‘Then your first marriage was a deliberate felony, and a deliberate fraud,’ cried Edward: ‘a felony because it was a bigamous marriage, for which the law of the land could punish you, even now; a fraud because by it you pretended to fulfil the conditions of your cousin’s will, when you were not in a position to comply with them.’ ‘Stop, Mr. Edward Clare,’ exclaimed Tom Sampson, whose quick perception had by this time made him master of the case; ‘you are assuming a great deal more than you can sustain. You are going very much too fast. What evidence have you that my client’s first marriage was a legal one? What evidence have you that he was ever married to Mademoiselle Chicot? We know how very loosely tied such alliances are apt to be in that class of life.’ ‘How do I know that he was married to her?’ echoed Edward. ‘Why, by his own admission.’ ‘My client admits nothing,’ said Sampson with dignity. ‘He admits everything when he tells you that he was remarried to Miss Malcolm after Madame Chicot’s death. Had he known his first marriage with Miss Malcolm to be valid there would have been no occasion for a repetition of the ceremony.’ ‘He may have erred from excess of caution,’ said Sampson. ‘John Treverton,’ said the Vicar, who had been looking from one speaker to the other, the facts of the case slowly dawning upon him, ‘this is very dreadful. Why is my son here as your accuser? What does it all mean?’ ‘It means that I have been guilty of a great wrong,’ answered Treverton quietly, ‘and that I am ready to undo that wrong, so far as it lies in my power. But I cannot discuss this question in your son’s presence. He has entered this room to-night as my avowed enemy. To you--to Sampson--as the trustees under my cousin’s will, I am prepared to speak with fullest confidence--as I have already spoken to my wife--but I have no confession to make to your son. I recognise no right of his to interfere in my affairs.’ ‘No, Edward, really, this is no concern of yours,’ said the Vicar. ‘Is it not?’ cried his son, bitterly. ‘But for my discovery, but for the presence of George Gerard in the church to-day, do you suppose this virtuous gentleman would have made his confession to his wife or his wife’s trustees? He saw himself identified to-day by the doctor who attended his first wife, who knows the story of his late career under the _alias_ of Chicot. Finding himself face to face with an inevitable discovery, Mr. Treverton very cleverly yields to the pressure of circumstances, and makes a clean breast of it. Had Gerard never appeared in Hazlehurst, this honourable gentleman would have gone on till doomsday, untroubled by any scruples of conscience.’