need for help from one who had that wisdom of the serpent
which, he argued, is not forbidden, but is only of hard acquirement to dove-like
innocence, had been gradually led to pour out to the attorney all the reasons
which made him desire to know the truth about the man who called himself Maurice
Christian: he had shown all the precious relics, the locket, the letters, and
the marriage certificate. And Jermyn had comforted him by confidently promising
to ascertain, without scandal or premature betrayals, whether this man were
really Annette's husband, Maurice Christian Bycliffe.
    Jermyn was not rash in making this promise, since he had excellent reasons
for believing that he had already come to a true conclusion on the subject. But
he wished both to know a little more of this man himself, and to keep Mr Lyon in
ignorance - not a difficult precaution - in an affair which it cost the minister
so much pain to speak of. An easy opportunity of getting an interview with
Christian was sure to offer itself before long - might even offer itself
to-morrow. Jermyn had seen him more than once, though hitherto without any
reason for observing him with interest; he had heard that Philip Debarry's
courier was often busy in the town, and it seemed especially likely that he
would be seen there when the market was to be agitated by politics, and the new
candidate was to show his paces.
    The world of which Treby Magna was the centre was naturally curious to see
the young Transome, who had come from the East, was as rich as a Jew, and called
himself a Radical; characteristics all equally vague in the minds of various
excellent ratepayers, who drove to market in their taxed carts, or in their
hereditary gigs. Places at convenient windows had been secured beforehand for a
few best bonnets; but, in general, a Radical candidate excited no ardent
feminine partisanship, even among the Dissenters in Treby, if they were of the
prosperous and long-resident class. Some chapel-going ladies were fond of
remembering that their family had been Church; others objected to politics
altogether as having spoiled old neighbourliness, and sundered friends who had
kindred views as to cowslip wine and Michaelmas cleaning; others, of the
melancholy sort, said it would be well if people would think less of reforming
parliament and more of pleasing God. Irreproachable Dissenting matrons, like Mrs
Muscat, whose youth had been passed in a short-waisted bodice and tight skirt,
had never been animated by the struggle for liberty, and had a timid suspicion
that religion was desecrated by being applied