months before he was keenly aware that he was unjustly casting a vile
and hideous suspicion on an innocent person. But in the intervening
period his moral sense had got largely blunted. Familiarity with
the hateful plot had warped his ideas about it. Their places were
reversed. Sir Gilbert was really aggrieved now that Guy Waring should
turn up again, and should venture to vindicate his deeply-wronged
character.

The man was as good as dead. Well, and he ought to have stopped so;
or else he ought never to have died at all. He ought to have kept
himself continually in evidence. But to go away for eighteen months,
unknown and unheard of, till one's sense of security had had time
to re-establish itself, and then to turn up again like this without
one minute's warning--oh, it was infamous, scandalous. The fellow
must be devoid of all consideration for others. Sir Gilbert wiped
his clammy brow with those ample hands. What on earth was he to do
for his wife, and for Gwendoline?

And Gwendoline was so happy, too, over Granville Kelmscott's return!
How could he endure that Granville Kelmscott's return should be
the signal for discovering her father's sin and shame to her! If
only he could have married her off before it all came out! Or if
only he could die before the man was tried!--Tried! Sir Gilbert's
eyes started from his head with horror. What was that Elma Clifford
suggested the other night? Why--if the man was arrested, he would
be arrested at Plymouth, the moment he landed, and would be tried
for murder at the Western Assizes. And it was he himself, Sir
Gilbert Gildersleeve, who was that term to take the Western Circuit.

He would be called upon to sit on the bench himself, and try Guy