Page:The Woman in White.djvu/419

 story of Marian had been presented to me from a stranger's point of view&mdash;the first time the terrible obstacles that lay across our path had been made to show themselves in their true character.

"There can be no doubt," I said, "that the facts, as you have stated them, appear to tell against us, but&mdash;&mdash;"

"But you think those facts can be explained away," interposed Mr. Kyrle. "Let me tell you the result of my experience on that point. When an English jury has to choose between a plain fact, on the surface, and a long explanation under the surface, it always takes the fact, in preference to the explanation.  For example, Lady Glyde (I call the lady you represent by that name for argument's sake) declares she has slept at a certain house, and it is proved that she has not slept at that house.  You explain this circumstance by entering into the state of her mind, and deducing from it a metaphysical conclusion.  I don't say the conclusion is wrong&mdash;I only say that the jury will take the fact of her contradicting herself, in preference to any reason for the contradiction that you can offer."

"But is it not possible," I urged, "by dint of patience and exertion, to discover additional evidence? Miss Halcombe and I have a few hundred pounds&mdash;&mdash;"

He looked at me with a half-suppressed pity, and shook his head.

"Consider the subject, Mr. Hartright, from your own point of view," he said. "If you are right about Sir Percival Glyde and Count Fosco (which I don't admit, mind), every imaginable difficulty would be thrown in the way of your getting fresh evidence. Every obstacle of litigation would be raised; every point in the case would be systematically contested&mdash;and by the time we had spent our thousands, instead of our hundreds, the final result would, in all probability, be against us.  Questions of identity, where instances of personal resemblance are concerned, are, in themselves, the hardest of all questions to settle&mdash;the hardest, even when they are free from the complications which beset the case we are now discussing.  I really see no prospect of throwing any light whatever on this extraordinary affair.  Even if the person buried in Limmeridge churchyard be not Lady Glyde, she was, in life, on your own showing, so like her, that we should gain nothing, if we applied for the necessary authority to have the body exhumed. In short, there is no case, Mr. Hartright&mdash;there is really no case."

I was determined to believe that there was a case; and, in