The proceedings were purely formal, as the lawyers
said; yet they were quite enough to make Cyril's cheek turn pale
with horror. One witness after another came forward and swore to
him. The station-master at Mambury gave evidence that he had made
inquiries on the platform after Nevitt by name; the inn-keeper
deposed as to his excited behaviour when he called at the Talbot
Arms, and his recognition of McGregor as the person he was in search
of; the boy of whom Guy had inquired at the gate unhesitatingly
set down the conversation to Cyril. None of them had the faintest
doubt in his own mind--each swore--that the prisoner before the
magistrates was the self-same person who went over to Mambury on
that fatal day, and who followed Montague Nevitt down the path by
the river.
As Cyril listened, one terrible fact dawned clearer and clearer
upon his brain. Every fragment of evidence they piled up against
himself made the case against Guy look blacker and blacker.
The magistrates accepted the proofs thus tendered, and Cyril, as
yet unassisted by professional advice, was remanded accordingly
till next morning.
Just as he was about to leave the Sessions House in a tumult of
horror, fear, and suspense, somebody close by tapped him on the
shoulder gravely, after a few whispered words with the chairman
and the magistrates.
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