This was said to try the prisoner, and it succeeded, for he started slightly at the word "crimes."
"Accomplice! Of whom do you speak?"
"There is a woman in custody who has been associated with you for years. It was she who instigated you to the robbery and murder of the Baron d'Enot. She joined you when you fled from the gambling-den in Tinplate Street, and shared your flight from Paris. She was with you in St. Petersburg till you separated after a violent quarrel—"
"The blame was hers," interrupted Ledantec.
"Possibly, but you were equally to blame. In any case she left you to shift for herself. She entered a great English family by a false marriage, and, when next you met her, conspired with her to bring the wealth of that family within her grasp. You again became her guilty partner, and plotted to take the life of the heir to a noble English title and great estates."
He was referring now to McKay, but Ledantec, misled by a guilty conscience, was thinking of Lord Lydstone, and his mysteriously sudden death.
"That was her doing!" he cried remorsefully. "In removing Lord Lydstone—"
The judge caught quickly at the new name.
"You removed, or, more plainly, you murdered Lord Lydstone at the instigation of your accomplice—is that so?"
Ledantec would not confess to this, but the judge felt certain that he had come upon the track of another dreadful crime.