this had happened in March.

In October, Mrs Crawley paid twenty pounds to Fletcher, the butcher, and
in November Lord Lufton's cheque was traced back through the Barchester
bank to Mr Crawley's hands. A brickmaker of Hoggle End, much favoured by
Mr Crawley, had asked for change over the counter of this Barchester
bank--not, as will be understood, the bank on which the cheque was
drawn--and had received it. The accommodation had been refused to the
man at first, but when he presented the cheque the second day, bearing
Mr Crawley' name on the back of it, together with a note from Mr Crawley
himself, the money had been given for it; and the identical notes so
paid had been given to Fletcher, the butcher on the next day by Mrs
Crawley. When inquiry was made, Mr Crawley stated that the cheque had
been paid to him by Mr Soames, on behalf of the rentcharge due to him by
Lord Lufton. But the error of this statement was at once made manifest.
There was the cheque, signed by Mr Soames himself, for the exact
amount--twenty pounds four shillings. As he himself declared, he had
never in his life paid money on behalf of Lord Lufton by a cheque drawn
on his lordship. The cheque given by Lord Lufton, and which had been
lost, had been a private matter between them. His lordship had simply
wanted change in his pocket, and his agent had given it to him. Mr
Crawley was speedily shown to be altogether wrong in the statement made
to account for the possession of the cheque.

Then he became very moody and would say nothing further. But his wife,
who had known nothing of his first statement when made, came forward and
declared that she believed the cheque for twenty pounds to be part of a
present given by Dean Arabin to her husband in April last. There had
been, she said, great heart-burnings about this gift, and she hardly
dared to speak to her husband on the subject. An execution had been