The laugh, quickly suppressed, that followed these words, did not come
from our learned friends on the other side.

"Sir Harry used those words?"

"He did; but as he died two or three minutes after, it were of course no
use to send for no parson whatsomever."

"Exactly. That will do, unless the other side have any questions to ask."
No question _was_ put, and the witness went down. "Call," said I to the
crier of the court--"call the Reverend Zachariah Zimmerman."

This was a bomb-shell. Lord Emsdale, the better to conceal his agitation,
descended from the bench and took his seat beside his counsel. The
Reverend Zachariah Zimmerman, examined by Mr. Frampton, deponed in
substance as follows:--"He was at present rector of Dunby, Shropshire,
and had been in holy orders more than twenty years. Was on a visit to the
Reverend Mr. Cramby at Leeds seven years ago, when one morning Mr.
Cramby, being much indisposed, requested him to perform the marriage
ceremony for a young couple then waiting in church. He complied, and
joined in wedlock Violet Dalston and Henry Grainger. The bride was the
lady now pointed out to him in court; the bridegroom he had discovered,
about two years ago, to be no other than the late Sir Harry Compton,
baronet. The initials Z.Z. were his, and written by him. The parish
clerk, a failing old man, had not officiated at the marriage; a nephew,
he believed, had acted for him, but he had entered the marriage in the
usual form afterwards."

"How did you ascertain that Henry Grainger was the late Sir Harry