XXV. THE ADVOCATE

XXVI. THE JUDGMENT




PART I

SIR OLIVER TRESSILIAN



CHAPTER I

THE HUCKSTER


Sir Oliver Tressilian sat at his ease in the lofty dining-room of the
handsome house of Penarrow, which he owed to the enterprise of his
father of lamented and lamentable memory and to the skill and invention
of an Italian engineer named Bagnolo who had come to England half a
century ago as one of the assistants of the famous Torrigiani.

This house of such a startlingly singular and Italianate grace for so
remote a corner of Cornwall deserves, together with the story of its
construction, a word in passing.

The Italian Bagnolo who combined with his salient artistic talents a