"Read that, and don't be shocked, mother," he said quietly.
She settled her spectacles carefully on her nose, and waded through the legal formulæ.
"I didn't think it of you, Griff," was all she said, as she laid the paper down.
But the lines on her old face were working pitiably, and Griff knew what she was suffering.
He made a clean breast of it then, and the cloud on the mother's face lifted a little.
"We shall not defend the action," he finished.
Again the lines of pain struck across the woman's forehead and about her eyes.
"But why, Griff? Surely, after what you have told me, you are not——"
"Guilty? No; but in the eyes of any court we are. The servant was spying on us—Kate told me so to-day. She saw enough to prejudice our case from the start. Then Strangeways returned in time to see me at Peewit the next morning, so the evidence as to my passing the night there is clear enough."
"Yes; but you can prove that it was impossible for you to get home."