"There's only one way, Harold--only one way; and as things now stand you
mustn't think it strange of me to propose it. Harold, you must marry me
immediately, whether mamma will let us or not!" "Emily!" I cried, "my own darling! your confidence and trust in me makes
me I can't tell you how proud and happy. That you should be willing to
marry me even while I am under such a cloud as this gives me a greater
proof of your love than anything else you could possibly do for me. But,
darling, I am too proud to take you at your word. For your sake, Emily,
I will never marry you until all the world has been compelled
unreservedly to admit my innocence." Emily blushed and cried a little. "As you will, Harold, dearest," she
answered, trembling, "I can afford to wait for you. I know that in the
end the truth will be established." IV. A week or two later I was astonished one morning at receiving a visit in
my London lodgings from the warder Woollacott, whose life I had been
happily instrumental in saving at Portland Prison. "Well, sir," he said, grasping my hand warmly and gratefully, "you see I
haven't yet entirely recovered from that terrible morning. I shall bear
the marks of it about me for the remainder of my lifetime. The Governor
says I shall never again be fit for duty, so they've pensioned me off
very honourable." I told him how pleased I was that he should have been liberally treated,
and then we fell into conversation about myself and the means of
re-establishing my perfect innocence. "Sir," said he, "I shall have plenty of leisure, and shall be
comfortably off now. If there's anything that I can do to be of service
to you in the matter, I shall gladly do it. My time is entirely at your
disposal." I thanked him warmly, but told him that the affair was already in the
hands of the regular detectives, who had been set to work upon it by the
Governor's influence with the Home Secretary. By-and-by I happened to mention confidentially to him my suspicions of
the man Mactavish. An idea seemed to occur to the warder suddenly; but
he said not a word to me about it at the time. A few days later,
however, he came back to me quietly and said, in a confidential tone of
voice, "Well, sir, I think we may still manage to square him." "Square who, Mr. Woollacott? I don't understand you." "Why, Mactavish, sir. I found out he had a small house near the Museum,
and his wife lets a lodging there for a single man. I've gone and taken
the lodging, and I shall see whether in the course of time something or
other doesn't come out of it." I smiled and thanked him for his enthusiasm in my cause; but I confess I
didn't see how anything on earth of any use to me was likely to arise
from this strange proceeding on his part. V.

It was that same week, I believe, that I received two other unexpected
visitors. They came together. One of them was the Superintendent of
Coins at the British Museum; the other was the well-known antiquary and
great authority upon the Anglo-Saxon coinage, Sir Theophilus Wraxton. "Mr. Tait," the superintendent began, not without some touch of natural
shamefacedness in his voice and manner, "I have reason to believe that I
may possibly have been mistaken in my positive identification of the
coin you showed me that day at the Museum as our own specimen of the
gold Wulfric. If I _was_ mistaken, then I have unintentionally done you
a most grievous wrong; and for that wrong, should my suspicions turn out
ill-founded, I shall owe you the deepest and most heartfelt apologies. But the only reparation I can possibly make you is the one I am doing
to-day by bringing here my friend Sir Theophilus Wraxton. He has a
communication of some importance to make to you; and if he is right, I
can only beg your pardon most humbly for the error I have committed in
what I believed to be the discharge of my duties." "Sir," I answered, "I saw at the time you were the victim of a mistake,
as I was the victim of a most unfortunate concurrence of circumstances;
and I bear you no grudge whatsoever for the part you bore in subjecting
me to what is really in itself a most unjust and unfounded suspicion. You only did what you believed to be your plain duty; and you did it
with marked reluctance, and with every desire to leave me every possible
loophole of escape from what you conceived as a momentary yielding to a
vile temptation. But what is it that Sir Theophilus Wraxton wishes to
tell me?" "Well, my dear sir," the old gentleman began, warmly, "I haven't the
slightest doubt in the world myself that you have been quite
unwarrantably disbelieved about a plain matter of fact that ought at
once to have been immediately apparent to anybody who knew anything in
the world about the gold Anglo-Saxon coinage. No reflection in the world
upon you, Harbourne, my dear friend--no reflection in the world upon you
in the matter; but you must admit that you've been pig-headedly hasty in
jumping to a conclusion, and ignorantly determined in sticking to it
against better evidence. My dear sir, I haven't the very slightest doubt
in the world that the coin now in the British Museum is _not_ the one
which I have seen there previously, and which I have figured in the
third volume of my 'Early Northumbrian and Mercian Numismatist!' Quite
otherwise; quite otherwise, I assure you." "How do you recognize that it is different, sir?" I cried excitedly. "The two coins were struck at just the same mint from the same die, and
I examined them closely together, and saw absolutely no difference
between them, except the dent and the amount of the clipping." "Quite true, quite true," the old gentleman replied with great
deliberation. "But look here, sir. Here is the drawing I took of the
Museum Wulfric fourteen years ago, for the third volume of my
'Northumbrian Numismatist.' That drawing was made with the aid of
careful measurements, which you will find detailed in the text at page
230. Now, here again is the duplicate Wulfric--permit me to call it
_your_ Wulfric; and if you will compare the two you'll find, I think,
that though your Wulfric is a great deal smaller than the original one,
taken as a whole, yet on one diameter, the diameter from the letter U in
Wulfric to the letter R in Rex, it is nearly an eighth of an inch
broader than the specimen I have there figured. Well, sir, you may cut
as much as you like off a coin, and make it smaller; but hang me if by
cutting away at it for all your lifetime you can make it an eighth of an
inch broader anyhow, in any direction." I looked immediately at the coin, the drawing, and the measurements in
the book, and saw at a glance that Sir Theophilus was right. "How on earth did you find it out?" I asked the bland old gentleman,
breathlessly.