"Then came Mr. Williams. I had seen him for a moment in setting out, and

was struck with his strange, lost, dreamy look. There is something very

haggard and mournful in his countenance; and, though he has naturally

the same fine features as his eldest sister, his cheeks are hollow, his

eyes almost glassy, and his beard, which is longer than the Colonel's,

very grey. He gave me the notion of the wreck of a man, stunned and

crushed, and never thoroughly alive again; but when he stood in the

witness-box, face to face with the traitor, he was very different; he

lifted up his head, his eyes brightened, his voice became clear, and his

language terse and concentrated, so that I could believe in his having

been the very able man he was described to be. I am sure Maddox must

have quailed under his glance, there was something so loftily innocent

in it, yet so wistful, as much as to say, 'how could you abuse my

perfect confidence?' Mr. Williams denied having received the money,

written the letter, or even thought of making the request. They showed

him the impression of two seals. He said one was made with a seal-ring

given him by Colonel Keith, and lost some time before he went abroad;

the other, with one with which he had replaced it, and which he

produced,--he had always worn it on his finger. They matched exactly

with the impressions; and there was a little difference in the hair of

the head upon the seal that was evident to every one. It amused the

boys extremely to see some of the old jurymen peering at them with their

glasses. He was asked where he was on the 7th of September (the date of

the letter), and he referred to some notes of his own, which enabled him

to state that on the 6th he had come back to Prague from a village with

a horrible Bohemian name--all cs and zs--which I will not attempt to

write, though much depended on the number of the said letters.

"The rest of the examination must have been very distressing, for

Maddox's counsel pushed him hard about his reasons for not returning to

defend himself, and he was obliged to tell how ill his wife was, and how

terrified; and they endeavoured to make that into an admission that he

thought himself liable. They tried him with bits of the handwriting, and

he could not always tell which were his own;--but I think every one must

have been struck with his honourable scrupulosity in explaining every

doubt he had.

"Other people were called in about the writing, but Alison Williams was

the clearest of all. She was never puzzled by any scrap they showed her,

and, moreover, she told of Maddox having sent for her brother's address,

and her having copied it from a letter of Mrs. Williams's, which she

produced, with the wrong spelling, just as it was in the forgery. The

next day had come a letter from the brother, which she showed, saying

that they were going to leave the place sooner than they had intended,

and spelling it right. She gave the same account of the seals, and

nothing ever seemed to disconcert her. My boys were so much excited

about their 'own Miss Williams,' that I was quite afraid they would

explode into a cheer.




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