"Mrs. Towers, while the oath you have just sworn is still fresh in your mind, I want you to answer this question. Have you ever, at any time in your life, been guilty of immorality with your cousin, Robert Fielding?" "Never." The answer, so diffident yet so definite, might have been Aliette's; and to Ronnie, his brain still throbbing from its own unaccustomed eloquence, it seemed, just for a fraction of a second, as though the woman he defended were indeed his own. "Various witnesses for the Crown have stated that you were on bad terms with your husband. Are those statements true?" "I did my best to get on with him." The brown eyes never flinched. "But he was a cruel man, especially when he was in drink." "Nevertheless, you were faithful to him?" "Yes. Always." "You heard Mrs. Peterson's evidence? She said," Ronnie referred to his notes, "that at half-past nine o'clock on the night of July 4, she saw you go into Robert Fielding's room. Have you any comment to make on that evidence?" "It's a lie. I never visited him at night. Only by day." "At half-past nine on the night of July 4, where were you?" "I was in my own room, washing up the supper things." "Was your husband with you?" "No." "Where was he?" "I don't know." "One other point about Mrs. Peterson's evidence. She told us, if you remember, that you made a statement: that you said to her that you would never be happy till your husband was dead. What have you to say about that statement?" "It's another lie." The lips pursed, stubbornly--it seemed to Brunton--as his wife's own. "An absolute lie." "One moment, please!" Mr. Justice Heber--every syllable of his question audible as the tinkle of glass--intervened. "I should like to be clear on this point, Mrs. Towers. The witness to whom your counsel refers made the following statements: that at half-past nine o'clock on the night of July 4 she saw you enter Robert Fielding's room; that you were in the habit of making such visits, and that she was standing in the passage between your room and hers when she saw you. Do I understand you positively to deny all three of those statements?" "Yes, m'lord." "And the witness in question further stated that you said to her: 'Bill isn't fit to be any woman's husband. I wish to God he was dead.' What have you to say to that?" The woman in the witness-box did not hesitate. Deliberately her eyes met the judge's. Deliberately she answered his question: "My lord, I may have said that Bill wasn't fit to be any woman's husband. But I never said," the shy voice rose, "either to Maggie Peterson or to any one else, that I wished he was dead." "She never said"--word for word Mr. Justice Heber wrote down his answer--"that she wished her husband was dead." But Hector Brunton--bent over his brief--could not write. For now, not only conscience, but all his years spent in separating truth from falsehood, all the experience of a legal lifetime, told him of Lucy's innocence.