“Oh, eventually! Yes, eventually.” Her fingers were twisting and untwisting the handkerchief they held, and her distressed loveliness was very piteous to see. Yet it seems to have occurred to none of them that this distress and the minor contradictions into which it led her were the result of her intent to conceal the truth, of her terror lest it should nevertheless be wrung from her. Only O’Moy, watching her and reading in her every word and glance and gesture the signs of her falsehood, knew the hideous thing she strove to hide, even, it seemed, at the cost of her lover’s life. To his lacerated soul her torture was a balm. Gloating, he watched her, then, and watched her lover, marvelling at the blackguard’s complete self-mastery and impassivity even now. Major Swan was urging her gently. “Eventually, then, what was it that you saw?” “I saw a man lying on the ground, and another kneeling over him, and then--almost at once--Mullins came out, and--” “I don’t think we need take this any further, Major Swan,” the president again interposed. “We have heard what happened after Mullins came out.” “Unless the prisoner wishes--” began the judge-advocate. “By no means,” said Tremayne composedly. Although outwardly impassive, he had been watching her intently, and it was his eyes that had perturbed her more than anything in that court. It was she who must determine for him how to proceed; how far to defend himself. He had hoped that by now Dick Butler might have been got away, so that it would have been safe to tell the whole truth, although he began to doubt how far that could avail him, how far, indeed, it would be believed in the absence of Dick Butler. Her evidence told him that such hopes as he may have entertained had been idle, and that he must depend for his life simply upon the court’s inability to bring the guilt home to him. In this he had some confidence, for, knowing himself innocent, it seemed to him incredible that he could be proven guilty. Failing that, nothing short of the discovery of the real slayer of Samoval could save him--and that was a matter wrapped in the profoundest mystery. The only man who could conceivably have fought Samoval in such a place was Sir Terence himself. But then it was utterly inconceivable that in that case Sir Terence, who was the very soul of honour, should not only keep silent and allow another man to suffer, but actually sit there in judgment upon that other; and, besides, there was no quarrel, nor ever had been, between Sir Terence and Samoval. “There is,” Major Swan was saying, “just one other matter upon which I should like to question Lady O’Moy.” And thereupon he proceeded to do so: “Your ladyship will remember that on the day before the event in which Count Samoval met his death he was one of a small luncheon party at your house here in Monsanto.” “Yes,” she replied, wondering fearfully what might be coming now.