“You received the following telegram?”
Again Sir Harold turns round, and again a piece of paper is handed up to him.
The witness holds out her hand.
“No, the jury must hear the telegram, so I will read it out.”
In clear tones Sir Harold, turning to face the jury, reads out slowly the address, “Miss Lucy Warren, The Thatched Cottage, Terriford.” Then he pauses dramatically, and goes on:
This conveys an offer of marriage from one who is your devout lover. I am dying, and I want you. Lose not an hour. Come at once to 106, Coburg Square, London.—Guy Cheale.
Guy Cheale? Who on earth is he?
There is great excitement in Court, and again the ushers have to command “Silence!”
Here is a rare slice of human nature with a vengeance! Though what all this can have to do with Henry Garlett is a complete mystery. Many of the spectators in their eagerness rise from their seats in order to get a better view of the young woman who has inspired so strange, so pathetic, so desperate an offer of marriage.
One or two stupid people ask themselves whether, when a witness has married in the interval between the commission of a crime and the trial of the criminal, he or she has to explain how and why the marriage came about.