Chapter 1

There are only two gold coins of Wulfric of Mercia in existence
anywhere. One of them is in the British Museum, and the other one is in
my possession.

The most terrible incident in the whole course of my career is
intimately connected with my first discovery of that gold Wulfric. It is
not too much to say that my entire life has been deeply coloured by it,
and I shall make no apology therefore for narrating the story in some
little detail. I was stopping down at Lichfield for my summer holiday in
July, 1879, when I happened one day accidentally to meet an old
ploughman who told me he had got a lot of coins at home that he had
ploughed up on what he called the "field of battle," a place I had
already recognized as the site of the Mercian kings' wooden palace.

I went home with him at once in high glee, for I have been a collector
of old English gold and silver coinage for several years, and I was in
hopes that my friendly ploughman's find might contain something good in
the way of Anglo-Saxon pennies or shillings, considering the very
promising place in which he had unearthed it.

As it turned out, I was not mistaken. The little hoard, concealed within
a rude piece of Anglo-Saxon pottery (now No. 127 in case LIX. at the
South Kensington Museum), comprised a large number of common Frankish
Merovingian coins (I beg Mr. Freeman's pardon for not calling them
Merwings), together with two or three Kentish pennies of some rarity
from the mints of Ethelbert at Canterbury and Dover. Amongst these minor
treasures, however, my eye at once fell upon a single gold piece,
obviously imitated from the imperial Roman aureus of the pretender
Carausius, which I saw immediately must be an almost unique bit of money
of the very greatest numismatic interest. I took it up and examined it
carefully. A minute's inspection fully satisfied me that it was indeed a
genuine mintage of Wulfric of Mercia, the like of which I had never
before to my knowledge set eyes upon.

I immediately offered the old man five pounds down for the whole
collection. He closed with the offer forthwith in the most contented
fashion, and I bought them and paid for them all upon the spot without
further parley.

When I got back to my lodgings that evening I could do nothing but look
at my gold Wulfric. I was charmed and delighted at the actual possession
of so great a treasure, and was burning to take it up at once to the
British Museum to see whether even in the national collection they had
got another like it. So being by nature of an enthusiastic and impulsive
disposition, I determined to go up to town the very next day, and try to
track down the history of my Wulfric. "It'll be a good opportunity," I
said to myself, "to kill two birds with one stone. Emily's people
haven't gone out of town yet. I can call there in the morning, arrange
to go to the theatre with them at night, and then drive at once to the
Museum and see how much my find is worth."

Next morning I was off to town by an early train, and before one o'clock
I had got to Emily's.

"Why, Harold," she cried, running down to meet me and kiss me in the
passage (for she had seen me get out of my hansom from the drawing-room
window), "how on earth is it that you're up in town to-day? I thought
you were down at Lichfield still with your Oxford reading party."

"So I am," I answered, "officially at Lichfield; but I've come up to-day
partly to see you, and partly on a piece of business about a new coin
I've just got hold of."

"A coin!" Emily answered, pretending to pout. "Me and a coin! That's how
you link us together mentally, is it? I declare, Harold, I shall be
getting jealous of those coins of yours some day, I'm certain. You can't
even come up to see me for a day, it seems, unless you've got some
matter of a coin as well to bring you to London. Moral: never get
engaged to a man with a fancy for collecting coins and medals."

"Oh, but this is really such a beauty, Emily," I cried enthusiastically.
"Just look at it, now. Isn't it lovely? Do you notice the
inscription--'Wulfric Rex!' I've never yet seen one anywhere else at all
like it."

Emily took it in her hands carelessly. "I don't see any points about
that coin in particular," she answered in her bantering fashion, "more
than about any other old coin that you'd pick up anywhere."

That was all we said then about the matter. Subsequent events engrained
the very words of that short conversation into the inmost substance of
my brain with indelible fidelity. I shall never forget them to my dying
moment.

I stopped about an hour altogether at Emily's, had lunch, and arranged
that she and her mother should accompany me that evening to the Lyceum.
Then I drove off to the British Museum, and asked for leave to examine
the Anglo-Saxon coins of the Mercian period.

The superintendent, who knew me well enough by sight and repute as a
responsible amateur collector, readily gave me permission to look at a
drawerful of the earliest Mercian gold and silver coinage. I had brought
one or two numismatic books with me, and I sat down to have a good look
at those delightful cases.

After thoroughly examining the entire series and the documentary
evidence, I came to the conclusion that there was just one other gold
Wulfric in existence besides the one I kept in my pocket, and that was
the beautiful and well-preserved example in the case before me. It was
described in the last edition of Sir Theophilus Wraxton's "Northumbrian
and Mercian Numismatist" as an absolutely unique gold coin of Wulfric of
Mercia, in imitation of the well-known aureus of the false emperor
Carausius. I turned to the catalogue to see the price at which it had
been purchased by the nation. To my intense surprise I saw it entered at
a hundred and fifty pounds.

I was perfectly delighted at my magnificent acquisition.

On comparing the two examples, however, I observed that, though both
struck from the same die and apparently at the same mint (to judge by
the letter), they differed slightly from one another in two minute
accidental particulars. My coin, being of course merely stamped with a
hammer and then cut to shape, after the fashion of the time, was rather
more closely clipped round the edge than the Museum specimen; and it had
also a slight dent on the obverse side, just below the W of Wulfric. In
all other respects the two examples were of necessity absolutely
identical.

I stood for a long time gazing at the case and examining the two
duplicates with the deepest interest, while the Museum keeper (a man of
the name of Mactavish, whom I had often seen before on previous visits)
walked about within sight, as is the rule on all such occasions, and
kept a sharp look-out that I did not attempt to meddle with any of the
remaining coins or cases.

Unfortunately, as it turned out, I had not mentioned to the
superintendent my own possession of a duplicate Wulfric; nor had I
called Mactavish's attention to the fact that I had pulled a coin of my
own for purposes of comparison out of my waistcoat pocket. To say the
truth, I was inclined to be a little secretive as yet about my gold
Wulfric, because until I had found out all that was known about it I did
not want anybody else to be told of my discovery.

At last I had fully satisfied all my curiosity, and was just about to
return the Museum Wulfric to its little round compartment in the neat
case (having already replaced my own duplicate in my waistcoat pocket),
when all at once, I can't say how, I gave a sudden start, and dropped
the coin with a jerk unexpectedly upon the floor of the museum.

It rolled away out of sight in a second, and I stood appalled in an
agony of distress and terror in the midst of the gallery.

Next moment I had hastily called Mactavish to my side, and got him to
lock up the open drawer while we two went down on hands and knees and
hunted through the length and breadth of the gallery for the lost
Wulfric.

It was absolutely hopeless. Plain sailing as the thing seemed, we could
see no trace of the missing coin from one end of the room to the other.

At last I leaned in a cold perspiration against the edge of one of the
glass cabinets, and gave it up in despair with a sinking heart. "It's no
use, Mactavish," I murmured desperately; "the thing's lost, and we shall
never find it."

Mactavish looked me quietly in the face. "In that case, sir," he
answered firmly, "by the rules of the Museum I must call the
superintendent." He put his hand, with no undue violence, but in a
strictly official manner, upon my right shoulder. Then he blew a
whistle. "I'm sorry to be rude to you, sir," he went on, apologetically,
"but by the rules of the Museum I can't take my hand off you till the
superintendent gives me leave to release you."

Another keeper answered the whistle. "Send the superintendent,"
Mactavish said quietly. "A coin missing."

In a minute the superintendent was upon the spot. When Mactavish told
him I had dropped the gold Wulfric of Mercia he shook his head very
ominously. "This is a bad business, Mr. Tait," he said gloomily. "A
unique coin, as you know, and one of the most valuable in the whole of
our large Anglo-Saxon collection."

"Is there a mouse-hole anywhere," I cried in agony; "any place where it
might have rolled down and got mislaid or concealed for the moment?"

The superintendent went down instantly on his own hands and knees,
pulled up every piece of the cocoa-nut matting with minute deliberation,
searched the whole place thoroughly from end to end, but found nothing.
He spent nearly an hour on that thorough search; meanwhile Mactavish
never for a moment relaxed his hold upon me.

At last the superintendent desisted from the search as quite hopeless,
and approached me very politely.

"I'm extremely sorry, Mr. Tait," he said in the most courteous possible
manner, "but by the rules of the Museum I am absolutely compelled either
to search you for the coin or to give you into custody. It may, you
know, have got caught somewhere about your person. No doubt you would
prefer, of the two, that I should look in all your pockets and the folds
of your clothing."

The position was terrible. I could stand it no longer.

"Mr. Harbourne," I said, breaking out once more from head to foot into a
cold sweat, "I must tell you the truth. I have brought a duplicate gold
Wulfric here to-day to compare with the Museum specimen, and I have got
it this very moment in my waistcoat pocket."

The superintendent gazed back at me with a mingled look of incredulity
and pity.

"My dear sir," he answered very gently, "this is altogether a most
unfortunate business, but I'm afraid I must ask you to let me look at
the duplicate you speak of."

I took it, trembling, out of my waistcoat pocket and handed it across to
him without a word. The superintendent gazed at it for a moment in
silence; then, in a tone of the profoundest commiseration, he said
slowly, "Mr. Tait, I grieve to be obliged to contradict you. This is our
own specimen of the gold Wulfric!"

The whole Museum whirled round me violently, and before I knew anything
more I fainted.

II.

When I came to I found myself seated in the superintendent's room, with
a policeman standing quietly in the background.

As soon as I had fully recovered consciousness, the superintendent
motioned the policeman out of the room for a while, and then gently
forced me to swallow a brandy and soda.

"Mr. Tait," he said compassionately, after an awkward pause, "you are a
very young man indeed, and, I believe, hitherto of blameless character.
Now, I should be very sorry to have to proceed to extremities against
you. I know to what lengths, in a moment of weakness, the desire to
possess a rare coin will often lead a connoisseur, under stress of
exceptional temptation. I have not the slightest doubt in my own mind
that you did really accidentally drop this coin; that you went down on
your knees honestly intending to find it; that the accident suggested to
you the ease with which you might pick it up and proceed to pocket it;
that you yielded temporarily to that unfortunate impulse; and that by
the time I arrived upon the scene you were already overcome with remorse
and horror. I saw as much immediately in your very countenance.
Nevertheless, I determined to give you the benefit of the doubt, and I
searched over the whole place in the most thorough and conscientious
manner.... As you know, I found nothing.... Mr. Tait, I cannot bear to
have to deal harshly with you. I recognize the temptation and the agony
of repentance that instantly followed it. Sir, I give you one chance. If
you will retract the obviously false story that you just now told me,
and confess that the coin I found in your pocket was in fact, as I know
it to be, the Museum specimen, I will forthwith dismiss the constable,
and will never say another word to any one about the whole matter. I
don't want to ruin you, but I can't, of course, be put off with a
falsehood. Think the matter carefully over with yourself. Do you or do
you not still adhere to that very improbable and incredible story?"

Horrified and terror-stricken as I was, I couldn't avoid feeling
grateful to the superintendent for the evident kindness with which he
was treating me. The tears rose at once into my eyes.

"Mr. Harbourne," I cried passionately, "you are very good, very
generous. But you quite mistake the whole position. The story I told you
was true, every word of it. I bought that gold Wulfric from a ploughman
at Lichfield, and it is not absolutely identical with the Museum
specimen which I dropped upon the floor. It is closer clipped round the
edges, and it has a distinct dent upon the obverse side, just below the
W of Wulfric."

The superintendent paused a second, and scanned my face very closely.

"Have you a knife or a file in your pocket?" he asked in a much sterner
and more official tone.

"No," I replied, "neither--neither."

"You are sure?"

"Certain."

"Shall I search you myself, or shall I give you in custody?"

"Search me yourself," I answered confidently.

He put his hand quietly into my left-hand breast pocket, and to my utter
horror and dismay drew forth, what I had up to that moment utterly
forgotten, a pair of folding pocket nail-scissors, in a leather case, of
course with a little file on either side.

My heart stood still within me.

"That is quite sufficient, Mr. Tait," the superintendent went on,
severely. "Had you alleged that the Museum coin was smaller than your
own imaginary one you might have been able to put in the facts as good
evidence. But I see the exact contrary is the case. You have stooped to
a disgraceful and unworthy subterfuge. This base deception aggravates
your guilt. You have deliberately defaced a valuable specimen in order
if possible to destroy its identity."

What could I say in return? I stammered and hesitated.

"Mr. Harbourne," I cried piteously, "the circumstances seem to look
terribly against me. But, nevertheless, you are quite mistaken. Tho
missing Wulfric will come to light sooner or later and prove me
innocent."

He walked up and down the room once or twice irresolutely, and then he
turned round to me with a very fixed and determined aspect which fairly
terrified me.

"Mr. Tait," he said, "I am straining every point possible to save you,
but you make it very difficult for me by your continued falsehood. I am
doing quite wrong in being so lenient to you; I am proposing, in short,
to compound a felony. But I cannot bear, without letting you have just
one more chance, to give you in charge for a common robbery. I will let
you have ten minutes to consider the matter; and I beseech you, I beg of
you, I implore you to retract this absurd and despicable lie before it
is too late for ever. Just consider that if you refuse I shall have to
hand you over to the constable out there, and that the whole truth must
come out in court, and must be blazoned forth to the entire world in
every newspaper. The policeman is standing here by the door. I will
leave you alone with your own thoughts for ten minutes."

As he spoke he walked out gravely, and shut the door solemnly behind
him. The clock on the chimney-piece pointed with its hands to twenty
minutes past three.

It was an awful dilemma. I hardly knew how to act under it. On the one
hand, if I admitted for the moment that I had tried to steal the coin, I
could avoid all immediate unpleasant circumstances; and as it would be
sure to turn up again in cleaning the Museum, I should be able at last
to prove my innocence to Mr. Harbourne's complete satisfaction. But, on
the other hand, the lie--for it _was_ a lie--stuck in my throat; I could
not humble myself to say I had committed a mean and dirty action which I
loathed with all the force and energy of my nature. No, no! come what
would of it, I must stick by the truth, and trust to that to clear up
everything.

But if the superintendent really insisted on giving me in charge, how
very awkward to have to telegraph about it to Emily! Fancy saying to the
girl you are in love with, "I can't go with you to the theatre this
evening, because I have been taken off to gaol on a charge of stealing a
valuable coin from the British Museum." It was too terrible!

Yet, after all, I thought to myself, if the worst comes to the worst,
Emily will have faith enough in me to know it is ridiculous; and,
indeed, the imputation could in any case only be temporary. As soon as
the thing gets into court I could bring up the Lichfield ploughman to
prove my possession of a gold Wulfric; and I could bring up Emily to
prove that I had shown it to her that very morning. How lucky that I had
happened to take it out and let her look at it! My case was, happily, as
plain as a pikestaff. It was only momentarily that the weight of the
evidence seemed so perversely to go against me.

Turning over all these various considerations in my mind with anxious
hesitancy, the ten minutes managed to pass away almost before I had
thoroughly realized the deep gravity of the situation.

As the clock on the chimney-piece pointed to the half-hour, the door
opened once more, and the superintendent entered solemnly. "Well, Mr.
Tait," he said in an anxious voice, "have you made up your mind to make
a clean breast of it? Do you now admit, after full deliberation, that
you have endeavoured to steal and clip the gold Wulfric?"

"No," I answered firmly, "I do not admit it; and I will willingly go
before a jury of my countrymen to prove my innocence."

"Then God help you, poor boy," the superintendent cried despondently. "I
have done my best to save you, and you will not let me. Policeman, this
is your prisoner. I give him in custody on a charge of stealing a gold
coin, the property of the trustees of this Museum, valued at a hundred
and seventy-five pounds sterling."

The policeman laid his hand upon my wrist. "You will have to go along
with me to the station, sir," he said quietly.

Terrified and stunned as I was by the awfulness of the accusation, I
could not forget or overlook the superintendent's evident reluctance and
kindness. "Mr. Harbourne," I cried, "you have tried to do your best for
me. I am grateful to you for it, in spite of your terrible mistake, and
I shall yet be able to show you that I am innocent."

He shook his head gloomily. "I have done my duty," he said with a
shudder. "I have never before had a more painful one. Policeman, I must
ask you now to do yours."

III.

The police are always considerate to respectable-looking prisoners, and
I had no difficulty in getting the sergeant in charge of the lock-up to
telegraph for me to Emily, to say that I was detained by important
business, which would prevent me taking her and her mother to the
theatre that evening. But when I explained to him that my detention was
merely temporary, and that I should be able to disprove the whole story
as soon as I went before the magistrates, he winked most unpleasantly at
the constable who had brought me in, and observed in a tone of vulgar
sarcasm, "We have a good many gentlemen here who says the same,
sir--don't we, Jim? but they don't always find it so easy as they
expected when they stands up afore the beak to prove their statements."

I began to reflect that even a temporary prison is far from being a
pleasant place for a man to stop in.

Next morning they took me up before the magistrate; and as the Museum
authorities of course proved a _prima facie_ case against me, and as my
solicitor advised me to reserve my defence, owing to the difficulty of
getting up my witness from Lichfield in reasonable time, I was duly
committed for trial at the next sessions of the Central Criminal Court.

I had often read before that people had been committed for trial, but
till that moment I had no idea what a very unpleasant sensation it
really is.

However, as I was a person of hitherto unblemished character, and wore a
good coat made by a fashionable tailor, the magistrate decided to admit
me to bail, if two sureties in five hundred pounds each were promptly
forthcoming for the purpose. Luckily, I had no difficulty in finding
friends who believed in my story; and as I felt sure the lost Wulfric
would soon be found in cleaning the museum, I suffered perhaps a little
less acutely than I might otherwise have done, owing to my profound
confidence in the final triumph of the truth.

Nevertheless, as the case would be fully reported next morning in all
the papers, I saw at once that I must go straight off and explain the
matter without delay to Emily.

I will not dwell upon that painful interview. I will only say that Emily
behaved as I of course knew she would behave. She was horrified and
indignant at the dreadful accusation; and, woman like, she was very
angry with the superintendent. "He ought to have taken your word for it,
naturally, Harold," she cried through her tears. "But what a good thing,
anyhow, that you happened to show the coin to me. I should recognize it
anywhere among ten thousand."

"That's well, darling," I said, trying to kiss away her tears and cheer
her up a little. "I haven't the slightest doubt that when the trial
comes we shall be able triumphantly to vindicate me from this terrible,
groundless accusation."

IV.

When the trial did actually come on, the Museum authorities began by
proving their case against me in what seemed the most horribly damning
fashion. The superintendent proved that on such and such a day, in such
and such a case, he had seen a gold coin of Wulfric of Mercia, the
property of the Museum. He and Mactavish detailed the circumstances
under which the coin was lost. The superintendent explained how he had
asked me to submit to a search, and how, to avoid that indignity, I had
myself produced from my waistcoat-pocket a gold coin of Wulfric of
Mercia, which I asserted to be a duplicate specimen, and my own
property. The counsel for the Crown proceeded thus with the
examination:--

"Do you recognize the coin I now hand you?"

"I do."

"What is it?"

"The unique gold coin of Wulfric of Mercia, belonging to the Museum."

"You have absolutely no doubt as to its identity?"

"Absolutely none whatsoever."

"Does it differ in any respect from the same coin as you previously saw
it?"

"Yes. It has been clipped round the edge with a sharp instrument, and a
slight dent has been made by pressure on the obverse side, just below
the W of Wulfric."

"Did you suspect the prisoner at the bar of having mutilated it?"

"I did, and I asked him whether he had a knife in his possession. He
answered no. I then asked him whether he would submit to be searched for
a knife. He consented, and on my looking in his pocket I found the pair
of nail-scissors I now produce, with a small file on either side."

"Do you believe the coin might have been clipped with those scissors?"

"I do. The gold is very soft, having little alloy in its composition;
and it could easily be cut by a strong-wristed man with a knife or
scissors."

As I listened, I didn't wonder that the jury looked as if they already
considered me guilty: but I smiled to myself when I thought how utterly
Emily's and the ploughman's evidence would rebut this unworthy
suspicion.

The next witness was the Museum cleaner. His evidence at first produced
nothing fresh, but just at last, counsel set before him a paper,
containing a few scraps of yellow metal, and asked him triumphantly
whether he recognized them. He answered yes.

There was a profound silence. The court was interested and curious. I
couldn't quite understand it all, but I felt a terrible sinking.

"What are they?" asked the hostile barrister.

"They are some fragments of gold which I found in shaking the cocoa-nut
matting on the floor of gallery 27 the Saturday after the attempted
theft."

I felt as if a mine had unexpectedly been sprung beneath me. How on
earth those fragments of soft gold could ever have got there I couldn't
imagine; but I saw the damaging nature of this extraordinary and
inexplicable coincidence in half a second.

My counsel cross-examined all the witnesses for the prosecution, but
failed to elicit anything of any value from any one of them. On the
contrary, his questions put to the metallurgist of the Mint, who was
called to prove the quality of the gold, only brought out a very strong
opinion to the effect that the clippings were essentially similar in
character to the metal composing the clipped Wulfric.

No wonder the jury seemed to think the case was going decidedly against
me.

Then my counsel called his witnesses. I listened in the profoundest
suspense and expectation.

The first witness was the ploughman from Lichfield. He was a
well-meaning but very puzzle-headed old man, and he was evidently
frightened at being confronted by so many clever wig-wearing barristers.

Nevertheless, my counsel managed to get the true story out of him at
last with infinite patience, dexterity, and skill. The old man told us
finally how he had found the coins and sold them to me for five pounds;
and how one of them was of gold, with a queer head and goggle eyes
pointed full face upon its surface.

When he had finished, the counsel for the Crown began his
cross-examination. He handed the ploughman a gold coin. "Did you ever
see that before?" he asked quietly.

"To be sure I did," the man answered, looking at it open-mouthed.

"What is it?"

"It's the bit I sold Mr. Tait there--the bit as I got out o' the old
basin."

Counsel turned triumphantly to the judge. "My lord," he said, "this
thing to which the witness swears is a gold piece of Ethelwulf of
Wessex, by far the commonest and cheapest gold coin of the whole
Anglo-Saxon period."

It was handed to the jury side by side with the Wulfric of Mercia; and
the difference, as I knew myself, was in fact extremely noticeable. All
that the old man could have observed in common between them must have
been merely the archaic Anglo-Saxon character of the coinage.

As I heard that, I began to feel that it was really all over.

My counsel tried on the re-examination to shake the old man's faith in
his identification, and to make him transfer his story to the Wulfric
which he had actually sold me. But it was all in vain. The ploughman had
clearly the dread of perjury for ever before his eyes, and wouldn't go
back for any consideration upon his first sworn statement. "No, no,
mister," he said over and over again in reply to my counsel's bland
suggestion, "you ain't going to make me forswear myself for all your
cleverness."

The next witness was Emily. She went into the box pale and red-eyed, but
very confident. My counsel examined her admirably; and she stuck to her
point with womanly persistence, that she had herself seen the clipped
Wulfric, and no other coin, on the morning of the supposed theft. She
knew it was so, because she distinctly remembered the inscription,
"Wulfric Rex," and the peculiar way the staring open eyes were
represented with barbaric puerility.

Counsel for the Crown would only trouble the young lady with two
questions. The first was a painful one, but it must be asked in the
interests of justice. Were she and the prisoner at the bar engaged to be
married to one another?

The answer came, slowly and timidly, "Yes."

Counsel drew a long breath, and looked her hard in the face. Could she
read the inscription on that coin now produced?--handing her the
Ethelwulf.

Great heavens! I saw at once the plot to disconcert her, but was utterly
powerless to warn her against it.

Emily looked at it long and steadily. "No," she said at last, growing
deadly pale and grasping the woodwork of the witness-box convulsively;
"I don't know the character in which it is written."

Of course not: for the inscription was in the peculiar semi-runic
Anglo-Saxon letters! She had never read the words "Wulfric Rex" either.
I had read them to her, and she had carried them away vaguely in her
mind, imagining no doubt that she herself had actually deciphered them.

There was a slight pause, and I felt my blood growing cold within me.
Then the counsel for the Crown handed her again the genuine Wulfric, and
asked her whether the letters upon it which she professed to have read
were or were not similar to those of the Ethelwulf.

Instead of answering, Emily bent down her head between her hands, and
burst suddenly into tears.

I was so much distressed at her terrible agitation that I forgot
altogether for the moment my own perilous position, and I cried aloud,
"My lord, my lord, will you not interpose to spare her any further
questions?"

"I think," the judge said to the counsel for the Crown, "you might now
permit the witness to stand down."

"I wish to re-examine, my lord," my counsel put in hastily.

"No," I said in his ear, "no. Whatever comes of it, not another
question. I had far rather go to prison than let her suffer this
inexpressible torture for a single minute longer."

Emily was led down, still crying bitterly, into the body of the court,
and the rest of the proceedings went on uninterrupted.

The theory of the prosecution was a simple and plausible one. I had
bought a common Anglo-Saxon coin, probably an Ethelwulf, valued at about
twenty-two shillings, from the old Lichfield ploughman. I had thereupon
conceived the fraudulent idea of pretending that I had a duplicate of
the rare Wulfric. I had shown the Ethelwulf, clipped in a particular
fashion, to the lady whom I was engaged to marry. I had then defaced and
altered the genuine Wulfric at the Museum into the same shape with the
aid of my pocket nail-scissors. And I had finally made believe to drop
the coin accidentally upon the floor, while I had really secreted it in
my waistcoat pocket. The theory for the defence had broken down utterly.
And then there was the damning fact of the gold scrapings found in the
cocoa-nut matting of the British Museum, which was to me the one great
inexplicable mystery in the whole otherwise comprehensible
mystification.

I felt myself that the case did indeed look very black against me. But
would a jury venture to convict me on such very doubtful evidence?

The jury retired to consider their verdict. I stood in suspense in the
dock, with my heart loudly beating. Emily remained in the body of the
court below, looking up at me tearfully and penitently.

After twenty minutes the jury retired.

"Guilty or not guilty?"

The foreman answered aloud, "Guilty."

There was a piercing cry in the body of the court, and in a moment Emily
was carried out half fainting and half hysterical.

The judge then calmly proceeded to pass sentence. He dwelt upon the
enormity of my crime in one so well connected and so far removed from
the dangers of mere vulgar temptations. He dwelt also upon the vandalism
of which I had been guilty--myself a collector--in clipping and defacing
a valuable and unique memorial of antiquity, the property of the nation.
He did not wish to be severe upon a young man of hitherto blameless
character; but the national collection must be secured against such a
peculiarly insidious and cunning form of depredation. The sentence of
the court was that I should be kept in--

Five years' penal servitude.

Crushed and annihilated as I was, I had still strength to utter a single
final word. "My lord," I cried, "the missing Wulfric will yet be found,
and will hereafter prove my perfect innocence."

"Remove the prisoner," said the judge, coldly.

They took me down to the courtyard unresisting, where the prison van was
standing in waiting.

On the steps I saw Emily and her mother, both crying bitterly. They had
been told the sentence already, and were waiting to take a last farewell
of me.

"Oh, Harold!" Emily cried, flinging her arms around me wildly, "it's all
my fault! It's my fault only! By my foolish stupidity I've lost your
case. I've sent you to prison. Oh, Harold, I can never forgive myself.
I've sent you to prison. I've sent you to prison."

"Dearest," I said, "it won't be for long. I shall soon be free again.
They'll find the Wulfric sooner or later, and then of course they'll let
me out again."

"Harold," she cried, "oh, Harold, Harold, don't you see? Don't you
understand? This is a plot against you. It isn't lost. It isn't lost.
That would be nothing. It's stolen; it's stolen!"

A light burst in upon me suddenly, and I saw in a moment the full depth
of the peril that surrounded me.