"Just on the stroke of twelve, when the train was about to leave, a man whom at first sight I mistook for my husband came hurrying up the platform, and I stepped into the carriage with him."
"Do you see that man in court?"
"Yes; he sits two seats to your right."
Drayton rose, smiled broadly, bowed to the witness, and resumed his seat.
"Were you alone in the compartment?"
"At first we were; but just as the train was moving away who should join us but Parson Christian."
There was another buzz of conversation, and counsel paused again to say that he should not trouble the court with an explanation of the extraordinary circumstances by which Parson Christian came to be in London at that critical moment. These facts formed in themselves a chain of evidence which must yet come before a criminal court, involving as it did the story of a conspiracy more painful and unnatural perhaps than could be found in the annals of jurisprudence.
"Tell the court what passed in the train."
"I perceived at once that the man was not my husband, though strangely like him in face and figure, and when he addressed me as his wife I repulsed him."
"Did Parson Christian also realize the mistake?"