“Sure?” he exclaimed, “if only Fenella did not stab the count, what care I what other hand dealt the fatal blow?” Lucille de Vigny smiled, a dark and mystic smile, as she said slowly, “Not even if the hand should prove to be _your own_?” Frank Onslow fell back with blue and writhing lips. “It is a lie,” he said hoarsely, “a cruel lie!” “It is the truth, my poor Frank; I can prove it.” Now, as has been already stated, this was mere conjecture on her part. In spite of the assertion in her letter, she had _not_ been in the corridor of the Prospect Hotel when the tragic occurrence had taken place. On the contrary, she had been, perhaps, the most perplexed by Frank’s disappearance the next morning. It was only subsequently that her feminine intuition had supplied a partial solution of the mystery. However, her shot told with terrible effect. “Prove it!” he repeated incredulously. “Why, after I had seen the count enter Fenella’s room, I went straight to my own; I sat up in a stupor till daylight, I did indeed, Lucille!” “And at daylight you fled,” said Mme. de Vigny softly. “Only as far as Paris,” he rejoined, “and I did not fly. I traveled in my ordinary manner.” “At least you left your wife to go through the inquest and trial alone.” “I did not know of either until weeks afterward, when Castleton showed me the reports.” “Not know of a sensation that was convulsing all England? Paris is scarcely Kamschatka, my dear Frank. English papers are procurable at the hotels.” “I--I was ill,” he said feebly, “or else I was yachting for weeks in the Bay of Biscay. Or both--_I_ don’t know!” Even to his sick and bewildered brain his story began to seem rather a lame and unprofitable one. “But my wife,” urged the wretched Frank, with a pitiful return of hopefulness, “expressly admitted, when she was examined and cross-examined on her trial, that she had done the deed herself in defense of her life. I have never yet known Fenella, with all her faults, stoop to a direct falsehood. How do you get over _that_, Lucille?” “I am a foreigner,” was the chilling response, “and, as such, imperfectly acquainted with your criminal procedure. Still, I have always understood that persons indicted for such offenses are not entitled to give evidence in their own defense. I may be wrong.” It should be explained here that Mme. de Vigny _was_ wrong--or partly so. There certainly is some such rule, but it would be strange, indeed, if an advocate of Clitheroe Jacynth’s position and influence could not succeed in getting it set aside in favor of his fair client, when, as his legal acumen had divined, the effect of such an admission would inevitably insure the prisoner’s triumphant release, even on a trial for manslaughter. And the result, as has been stated, amply justified his calculations.