"Clifton," said Imogen, very quietly, reading it over Morwenna's shoulder. "He gave his own parish. He never thought anyone would look."
---
The summer assizes opened at Wells on the eleventh of August, in weather so hot that the judge sat with a wet handkerchief under his wig and the ladies in the gallery fanned themselves until the air in the old hall hummed like a hive. The case of *Rex against Saltash, otherwise Lennard* was called on the third day. The gallery had been full since eight in the morning. There were people who had driven from Bath for it, and from Bristol, and two newspapermen from London, and Jasper had seen at least four opera glasses.
He sat in the front row of the public benches. He sat very upright, in a black coat, with his hat on his knees, where everyone could see him. He did not look at the gallery. He looked at the witness box.
Imogen gave her evidence for two hours and twenty minutes. She gave it standing, in a plain grey gown, with her hands folded on the rail before her, and she gave it in a clear, low, carrying voice that did not falter once, not when she told the court about the chaise to Gretna, nor about Carlisle, nor about the February morning when the pearls had gone from her box. When the judge asked her to state her name for the record she said, "Imogen Tremayne, my lord," and then, after a little pause, "known in this city for five years as Mrs. Esmond, of the Liberty," and Jasper heard the gallery rustle and sigh like a field of corn. When Saltash's counsel rose to cross-examine her — a smooth, plump, clever man from the Western Circuit — and began, very gently, to suggest that a young woman of eighteen who had run off with a man might very naturally, afterward, prefer to believe she had been married to him, she heard him out with perfect patience, and then said, "Sir, I have the register. Would you like to read it again?" And the gallery laughed, and the judge did not stop it.
Morwenna gave her evidence after, about the church, and the letter, and the packet stamp. Fothergill gave his, nervously, clutching his prayer book. A clerk from Saltash's own bank in Corn Street was sworn, and compared the eleven letters signed *R. L.* with the declaration from Imogen's bodice and with half a dozen of Saltash's cheques, and said that in his opinion they were all one hand and that he would stake his place on it.
Saltash did not give evidence. He sat in the dock in an excellent blue coat and watched the proceedings with an air of mild interest, as if they concerned someone else. Only once did his face change: when Imogen, stepping down from the box at the end of her two hours and twenty minutes, walked past the dock without turning her head, as if it were a piece of furniture.
The jury were out for nineteen minutes. They found him guilty. The judge, observing that it was as cold-blooded a case of its kind as he had met with in thirty years at the bar, sentenced him to be transported beyond the seas for seven years — the most the law allowed.
When Jasper came out of the court into the blazing street, his sister was waiting for him on the steps. People were staring at her from every side. She did not seem to notice them.
"You stayed," she said.
"I said I would."
"I looked at you." She was very pale under the brim of her bonnet. "Every time he asked me something I didn't want to answer, I looked at you. You were just sitting there with your hat on your knees, looking as though you'd have liked to knock him down again." Her mouth shook. "It helped."