CONTENTS

CHAP
I.[ROBERT CHAMPION'S WIFE.]
II.[THE WOMAN ON THE PAVEMENT.]
III.[THE HEIRESS ENTERS INTO HER OWN.]
IV.[THE EARL OF PECKHAM'S PROPOSAL.]
V.[TRESPASSING.]
VI.[AN AUTHORITY ON THE LAW OF MARRIAGE.]
VII.[MR MORICE PRESUMES.]
VIII.[THE LADY WANDERS.]
IX.[THE BEECH TREE.]
X.[THE TALE WHICH WAS TOLD.]
XI.[THE MAN ON THE FENCE.]
XII.[WHAT SHE HEARD, SAW AND FOUND.]
XIII.[AFTERWARDS.]
XIV.[ON THE HIGH ROAD.]
XV.[COOPER'S SPINNEY.]
XVI.[JIM BAKER.]
XVII.[INJURED INNOCENCE.]
XVIII.[AT THE FOUR CROSS ROADS.]
XIX.[THE BUTTONS OFF THE FOILS.]
XX.[THE SOLICITOR'S CLERK.]
XXI.[THE "NOTE".]
XXII.[ERNEST GILBERT.]
XXIII.[THE TWO MEN.]
XXIV.[THE SOMNAMBULIST.]
XXV.[HUGH MORICE EXPLAINS.]
XXVI.[THE TWO MAIDS.]
XXVII.[A CONFIDANT.]
XXVIII.[MRS DARCY SUTHERLAND.]
XXIX.[SOME PASSAGES OF ARMS.]
XXX.[MISS ARNOTT IS EXAMINED.]
XXXI.[THE TWO POLICEMEN.]
XXXII.[THE HOUSEMAID'S TALE.]
XXXIII.[ON HIS OWN CONFESSION.]
XXXIV.[MR DAY WALKS HOME.]
XXXV.[IN THE LADY'S CHAMBER.]
XXXVI.[OUT OF SLEEP.]
XXXVII.[WHAT WAS WRITTEN.]
XXXVIII.[MISS ARNOTT'S MARRIAGE.]

Miss Arnott's Marriage

CHAPTER I

[ROBERT CHAMPION'S WIFE]

"Robert Champion, you are sentenced to twelve months' hard labour."

As the chairman of the Sessions Court pronounced the words, the prisoner turned right round in the dock, and glanced towards where he knew his wife was standing. He caught her eye, and smiled. What meaning, if any, the smile conveyed, he perhaps knew. She could only guess. It was possibly intended to be a more careless, a more light-hearted smile than it in reality appeared. Robert Champion had probably not such complete control over his facial muscles as he would have desired. There was a hunted, anxious look about the eyes, a suggestion of uncomfortable pallor about the whole countenance which rather detracted from the impression which she had no doubt that he had intended to make. She knew the man well enough to be aware that nothing would please him better than that she should suppose that he regarded the whole proceedings with gay bravado, with complete indifference, both for the powers that were and for the punishment which they had meted out to him. But even if the expression on his face had not shown that the cur in the man had, for the moment, the upper hand, the unceremonious fashion in which the warders bundled him down the staircase, and out of sight, would have been sufficient to prevent any impression being left behind that he had departed from the scene in a halo of dignity.

As regards his wife, the effect made upon her by the whole proceedings was an overwhelming consciousness of unbearable shame. When the man with the cheap good looks was hustled away, as if he were some inferior thing, the realisation that this was indeed her husband, was more than she could endure. She reached out with her hand, as if in search of some support, and, finding none, sank to the floor of the court in a swoon.

"Poor dear!" said a woman, standing near. "I expect she's something to do with that scamp of a fellow--maybe she's his wife."

"This sort of thing often is hardest on those who are left behind," chimed in a man. "Sometimes it isn't those who are in prison who suffer most; it's those who are outside."