'But if it had been paid then you would have—married Mr. Crinkett?' Sir John's manner as he asked the question was so gentle and so soft that it was felt by all to contain an apology for intruding on so delicate a subject. But when she hesitated, he did, after a pause, renew his inquiry in another form. 'Perhaps this was only a threat, and you had no purpose of carrying it out.'
Then she plucked up her courage. 'I have not married him,' she said.
'But did you intend it?'
'I did. What were the laws to me out there? He had left me and had taken another wife. I had to do the best for myself. I did intend it. But I didn't do it. A woman can't be tried for her intentions.'
'No,' said Sir John. 'But she may be judged by her intentions.'
Then she was asked why she had not gone when she had got the money, according to her promise. 'He defied us,' she said, 'and called us bad names,—liars and perjurers. He knew that we were not liars. And then we were watched and told that we might not go. As he said that he was indifferent, I was willing enough to stay and see it out.'
'You cannot give us,' he asked again,—and this was his last question,—'any clearer record of those months which you lived with your husband?'
'No,' she said, 'I cannot. I kept no journal.' Then she was allowed to go, and though she had been under examination for three hours, it was thought she had escaped easily.
Crinkett was the next, who swore that he had been Caldigate's partner in sundry mining speculations,—that they had been in every way intimate,—that he had always recommended Caldigate to marry Mrs. Smith, thinking, as he said, 'that respectability paid in the long run,'—and that, having so advised him, he had become Caldigate's special friend at the time, to the exclusion of Dick Shand, who was generally drunk, and who, whether drunk or sober, was opposed to the marriage. He had been selected to stand by his friend at the marriage, and he, thinking that another witness would be beneficial, had taken Adamson with him. His only wonder was that any one should dispute a fact which was at the time so notorious both at Ahalala and at Nobble. He held his head high during his evidence in chief, and more than once called the prisoner 'Caldigate,'—'Caldigate knew this,'—and 'Caldigate did that.' It was past four when he was handed over for cross-examination; but when it was said that another hour would suffice for it, the judge agreed to sit for that other hour.
But it was nearly two hours before the gentleman who was with Sir John had finished his work, during which Mr. Crinkett seemed to suffer much. The gentleman was by no means so complacent as Sir John, and asked some very disagreeable questions. Had Crinkett intended to commit bigamy by marrying the last witness, knowing at the time that she was a married woman? 'I never said that I intended to marry her,' said Crinkett. 'What she wrote to Caldigate was nothing to me.' He could not be made to own, as she had done in a straightforward way, that he had intended to set the law at defiance. His courage failed him, and his presence of mind, and he was made to declare at last that he had only talked about such a marriage, with the view of keeping the woman in good humour, but that he had never intended to marry her. Then he was asked as to Bollum;—had he told Bollum that he intended to marry the woman? At last he owned that he might have done so. Of course he had been anxious to get his money, and he had thought that he might best do so by such an offer. He was reduced to much misery during his cross-examination; but on the one main statement that he had been present at the marriage he was not shaken.