She started and stopped short. The door was flung open, and Vansittart entered, briskly, eagerly. He looked from one to the other, then went up to Joan, and reverentially lifting her hand, kissed it. "Who is this lady, dearest?" he asked, gazing steadfastly at Vera. CHAPTER XXXV "I am Vera Anerley," said the pale girl, speaking in clear tones of deadly meaning. "I have come to tell your wife that the case against her is complete; that she may be arrested at any moment for the murder of Victor Mercier!" Joan gave a faint cry, and buried her wet, dishevelled head in Vansittart’s coat-sleeve. "Hush, darling, I am here!" he tenderly said. Then, supporting Joan’s fainting form, which was already a dead weight, he looked with cool scorn, with stern defiance, at the slender, black-clad figure, at the white, miserable face with those menacing eyes. "Case, indeed," he exclaimed with scathing contempt. "A jealous woman’s vengeance, you should say! But your miserable plot to destroy my injured wife, woman, will succeed in injuring no one but yourself. I have this morning learnt every detail of the trumped-up charge, and given my instructions for the defence. If, indeed, the affair will go any further after my deposition on oath that on the night that--man--died--my future wife was with me until she met her maid to return home. And now, since you have succeeded in making Lady Vansittart ill, I must ask you to quit the house--I will have you driven to the station, if you like--" Vera interrupted him with a groan. "I forgot!" she wailed. "I forgot--a man will perjure himself to save the woman he loves! But your lies will fail to save her, my lord! Husbands and wives are nothing in law, in a murder case! If you want to save her, you must take her away!" With a sob she turned on her heel and went out. Vansittart gathered Joan in his arms, and sinking into a chair tried to kiss her back to life. "My darling, I know all! I will save you!" he repeated passionately. What could she have been doing? She must have been exposed to the whole fury of the storm. Had the vindictive creature killed her? He had thought himself hopelessly crushed, body and soul, when he arrived at his lawyers’ to find the distracted Sir Thomas with his awful tale of the charge to be brought against his niece, which Paul Naz had in compassion forewarned him of. But the sight of his darling--who looked dead or dying--who lay like a stone in his arms and hardly seemed to breathe--brought back life and energy, if it augmented his despair.