But even as she spoke these wicked words she shuddered with horror.
Meanwhile, every day Mr. Lytton and his counsel, Messrs. Berners and Denham, consulted together concerning the proper line of defense to be taken by them.
It is almost needless to say that Messrs. Berners and Denham felt perfectly sure of the absolute guiltlessness of their client, and quite sanguine in their expectations both of a full acquittal of the falsely-accused and of a thorough exposure and successful prosecution of the conspirators.
But as time passed and no answer came to the advertisements for the missing man both counsel and client began to grow anxious.
The detective who had been sent to Philadelphia to look up evidence for the defense returned to Wendover with such meager intelligence that the hopes of all concerned sank very low.
So overwhelming was the evidence against the accused that to gain an acquittal it was absolutely necessary either to prove an alibi or to find the man who had personated Mr. Lytton at the marriage ceremony.
But neither of these most important objects had been yet effected.
No one had been found in Philadelphia, or elsewhere, who had set eyes on Mr. Alden Lytton between the hours of eleven and one on the fifteenth of the last September, at which time his marriage with Mary Grey was alleged to have taken place.
And no one had answered the advertisements for Craven Kyte.
And what complicated this part of the case still more was the circumstance that Mr. Bastiennello, the senior partner of the firm in which poor Craven Kyte was once the youngest "Co.," was absent in Europe, where he had been on a visit to his relations for the last two months, so that he could not be consulted as to the probable whereabouts of his former partner.