Keep accusation separate from established guilt
Read for meaning first. Select a highlighted word if you want a closer look.
The fictional prosecutor seeks to indict the treasurer after the investigators deliver the account records and correspondence for formal consideration. A convicted felon who appears as a witness has already been found guilty of an unrelated serious crime in an earlier chapter. A rival pamphlet contains libel when it publishes a knowingly false theft allegation about an innocent clerk and damages the clerk's reputation. The novelist gives each person a different status, requiring readers to follow the evidence rather than transfer suspicion from one person to another.
To indict the treasurer is to make a formal criminal accusation, so the narrative still has further proceedings to describe. The witness's status as a felon does not by itself decide whether his account of the missing payments is accurate. The pamphlet's libel also cannot be excused merely because a separate investigation concerns real misconduct by someone else. At the reading group's next meeting, members trace who is accused, who has an established conviction, and which published statement the story explicitly identifies as false.
Before you move on
Look away from the passage. Can you explain each focus word in your own words?
Original fictional passages for vocabulary practice.