At the conclusion of the reading Alden Lytton bowed gravely and waited.
"Mr. Alden Lytton, you have heard that you are charged with having, on the fifteenth of February of this present year, feloniously intermarried with Emma Angela Cavendish, in and during the lifetime of your lawful wife, Mary Lytton, now living in this State. Such marriage, under such circumstances, being a felony, punishable with imprisonment and hard labor in the State Penitentiary for a term not less than —— or more than —— years. What have you to say to this charge?" inquired the magistrate.
Alden Lytton with some difficulty controlled his indignation as he answered:
"It is perfectly true that in last February I married Miss Cavendish, of Blue Cliffs. But it is a false and malicious slander that I ever at any time married any one else. It is only amazing to me, Mr. Magistrate, that you should have issued a warrant charging me with so base a crime. You could not possibly have had any grounds to justify such a proceeding."
"We shall see," answered, the magistrate. "You admit that you married Miss Cavendish on the fifteenth of last February?"
"Certainly I do."
"Then nothing remains but to prove or to disprove the statement that at the time of your marriage with Miss Cavendish, at Blue Cliffs, you had a lawful wife then living in the city of Richmond."
Alden Lytton flushed to the temples at hearing his true wife's pure and noble name brought into this dishonoring examination. He spoke sternly as he inquired:
"Upon what grounds do you make this charge? Where are your witnesses?"
"The Reverend Mr. Borden will please step forward," said the magistrate.