Sir Terence signified that he had no more to ask, and again the president invited the prisoner to question the witness, to receive again the prisoner’s unvarying refusal. And now O’Moy rose in his place to announce that he had himself a further statement to, make to the court, a statement which he had not conceived necessary until he had heard the prisoner’s account of his movements during the half-hour he had spent at Monsanto on the night of the duel. “You have heard from Sergeant Flynn and my butler Mullins that the letter carried from me by the latter to the former on the night of the 28th was a letter for the Commissary-General of an urgent character, to be forwarded first thing in the morning. If the prisoner insists upon it, the Commissary-General himself may be brought before this court to confirm my assertion that that communication concerned a complaint from headquarters on the subject of the tents supplied to the third division Sir Thomas Picton’s--at Celorico. The documents concerning that complaint--that is to say, the documents upon which we are to presume that the prisoner was at work during tine half-hour in question--were at the time in my possession in my own private study and in another wing of the building altogether.” Sir Terence sat down amid a rustling stir that ran through the court, but was instantly summoned to his feet again by the president. “A moment, Sir Terence. The prisoner will no doubt desire to question you on that statement.” And he looked with serious eyes at Captain Tremayne. “I have no questions for Sir Terence, sir,” was his answer. Indeed, what question could he have asked? The falsehoods he had uttered had woven themselves into a rope about his neck, and he stood before his brother officers now in an agony of shame, a man discredited, as he believed. “But no doubt you will desire the presence of the Commissary-General?” This was from Colonel Fletcher his own colonel and a man who esteemed him--and it was asked in accents that were pleadingly insistent. “What purpose could it serve, sir? Sir Terence’s words are partly confirmed by the evidence he has just elicited from Sergeant Flynn and his butler Mullins. Since he spent the night writing a letter to the Commissary, it is not to be doubted that the subject would be such as he states, since from my own knowledge it was the most urgent matter in our hands. And, naturally, he would not have written without having the documents at his side. To summon the Commissary-General would be unnecessarily to waste the time of the court. It follows that I must have been mistaken, and this I admit.” “But how could you be mistaken?” broke from the president. “I realise your difficulty in crediting, it. But there it is. Mistaken I was.” “Very well, sir.” Sir Harry paused and then added “The court will be glad to hear you in answer to the further evidence adduced to refute your statement in your own defence.”