At that moment Le drew from his breast pocket a folded newspaper, which he passed to Mr. Force, who, in turn, submitted it to the judge, saying respectfully:
“Here, your honor, is a copy of the London Times to which reference has been made. If your honor will examine the obituary column, you will see that the notice of Lady Mary Anglesea’s death is ‘conspicuous by its absence.’”
Col. Anglesea flushed and paled visibly while the judge turned over the paper and examined it.
“I hold here a copy of the London Times of August 25, 18—, the date you mentioned as containing the obituary notice of your wife’s death; but I fail to find it in the list of such notices,” said the judge.
“Will your honor allow me to look at that paper?” inquired Anglesea, struggling, and partly succeeding, in recovering his self-control.
“Certainly,” replied the judge, and he handed it over.
“Where did this paper come from?” frowningly inquired Anglesea of Mr. Force.
The latter gentleman replied by a wave of his hand toward Leonidas Force, who still stood near the right-hand end of the table before the judge.
“I procured it from Mr. Henry Herbert, an English gentleman, whose acquaintance I made since my return from sea, and who, as I casually found out, takes the London Times, and keeps a file of it.”
“Ah!” said Col. Anglesea. “I was certainly under the strong impression that the notice of my wife’s death was inserted in the Times of the day after the occurrence; but, as I really had nothing to do with the matter myself—such matters are usually attended to by the family solicitor, minister, or some other than the chief mourner—I could not have been certain, and should not have undertaken to give the precise date, as to which I must have been mistaken. And now that I reflect upon the matter, I remember that Lady Mary Anglesea died at Anglewood Manor at precisely 11:53 P.M., on the twenty-fifth, and, of course, the notice could not have reached London in time for insertion in the issue of the Times of the twenty-sixth. It may have first appeared in the issue of the twenty-seventh, or even of the twenty-eighth, and it may have never appeared in the Times at all, but in some other paper. I do not know. I fear I took the matter so for granted that the notice appeared in the Times on the day after the death, that I spoke hastily and unadvisedly,” concluded the colonel, with that air of candor he could so well assume.