"Ah, you put your arm on her neck now," said Dombrain, with a sneer, "but you will take it away when you know----" "Dombrain!" cried the wretched woman, for the last time, "spare me--spare me!" "I will spare you as you have spared me." "Be silent, with your cowardly threats, sir," said Kaituna, looking proudly at him, "and do your worst. Who is Mrs. Belswin?" "Your mother!" Kaituna gave a cry, and recoiled from her companion. "My mother!" she said, hoarsely. "It cannot be! my mother is dead." Dombrain played his trump card. "Your mother is alive! She stands there, and you can now know her for what she is--a guilty wife--a divorced woman--and the murderer of her husband." Kaituna gazed at this gibing devil with a terrified stare in her dilated eyes, then turned slowly and looked at her miserable mother. The unhappy woman, with a grey worn face, haggard and scarred with myriad wrinkles, made a step forward, as if to embrace her child, but the girl, with a look of terror, shrank back, and fell in a faint on the floor at the feet of Maxwell, while Mrs. Belswin sank on her knees with a piteous cry, wringing her manacled hands over the unconscious form of the daughter she had found--and lost. CHAPTER XXXIV. IN OPEN COURT. Who's sure of Life's game, When Fate interferes? For praise or for blame, Who's sure of life's game? A sentence--a name, Turns joy into tears, Who's sure of Life's game, When Fate interferes? This strange case--particulars of which in some mysterious way got into the daily papers--excited much curiosity in London, and when the preliminary inquiry into the affair took place, the court was crowded to suffocation. The public, of course, learned all about the matter from the newspapers, but how the reporters managed to learn so much was most extraordinary, as they gave an account of Mrs. Belswin's previous life--of her presence, under a false name, in the house of her late husband--of the murder of that husband--and of the wonderful amount of money realised by the sale of the Pole Star shares for the daughter of the murdered man, and the woman accused of the crime. All this, more or less garbled and exaggerated, appeared in the leading morning papers, and the "Pethram Paradox"--so it was called--took a prominent place among the sensations of the day. Maxwell, deeply angered at this publicity, which would make the public judge Mrs. Belswin guilty, before she had a chance of defending herself, made several attempts to find Dombrain, whom he suspected of being the author of this malignant gossip in order to damage the chance of the unfortunate woman during her trial, but Mr. Dombrain, suspecting that he would be looked for, made himself scarce, and until the day of the preliminary inquiry, nothing was seen or heard of him by those on the side of Mrs. Belswin.