"A grave charge yet a true one, my lord. Yet what they have sworn to is both false and grave."
"Yet are you sworn in as a witness for the Crown."
"And as a witness for the Crown do I speak," rejoined Rose Marie simply, "for the Crown of England is the crown of truth, and my father and I are here for the truth."
"Which mayhap will bear fuller investigation," quoth Sir William Jones with a sneer.
"As full an one as you desire, my lords."
"Then pray, Mistress, since you and your father do swear that you were not at the hostelry of the 'Rat Mort' in Paris on the evening of the nineteenth of April, how comes it that you can state so positively that the accused did not then and at that place hold treasonable converse with the minister of the King of France, as the other witnesses have testified?"
Rose Marie paused before she answered; it almost seemed as if she wished to wait until all disturbing sounds had died down in the vast hall, so that her fresh and firm voice should ring clearly from end to end.
Then she spoke, looking straight at the judge:
"Because of the truth of the statement, my lord," she said, "to which my father hath already sworn before the magistrate, and to which he must, it seems, now swear openly before this court, according to the laws of your country. The accused, my lord, could not have been present at a hostelry in Paris, or held converse with a minister of the King of France on the evening of the nineteenth day of April, for on that day did I plight my troth to him at the Church of St. Gervais, and he did spend the full day in my father's house. At five o'clock in the afternoon he did journey with me to St. Denis and there remained with me at the hostelry of the 'Three Archangels,' when my father came and fetched me away."
"It is false," came faintly whispered from the lips of the prisoner, whose consciousness only seemed to return for this brief while, that he might register a last protest against the desecration of his saint.