I turned slowly to Barosa. “If the contesse has told you, why bother me about it?”
“Repeat it,” he said sternly.
I shook my head. “You know already.”
“Repeat it,” he cried again furiously. “And then admit you lied.”
“I do not lie,” I answered and turned again to Inez. “So you have asked that question?”
“Repeat it, I say,” he thundered. “If you dare.”
“Oh, I dare. Sampayo told me that you had him at your mercy because you found out the facts about his South African doings and threatened to expose him. I had the same knowledge with an addition which frightened him even more. He said that you had forced this betrothal, but that it was only a sham and that you did not mean him to marry Miralda because you yourself loved her.”
Out came a storm of oaths and denial, with fierce and passionate threats against Sampayo for having coined the lie and against me for having dared to repeat it.
Inez was scarcely less moved; and from what passed it was clear that there had been a very warm quarrel between them before they had come up to me. I learnt that she had threatened to sacrifice everything and go straight to M. Volheno.
It was a long time before I could get a word in, and then I brought them back to the real point. “Sampayo told me that after my interview with him he begged you to get rid of me by doing what I wanted—freeing Miralda from all this trouble. But you refused and tried to get rid of me in another way—by inciting Henriques to murder me.”