"Nay, my lord, I couldn't see distinctly," replied the soldier, "but she was dressed all in white, and ran very quickly along the terrace not far from this window."
"Then Your Grace will perhaps be able to tell us . . ." suggested the Cardinal with utmost benevolence.
"I can tell Your Eminence nothing," replied Wessex coldly. "I was in this room all the time and saw no woman near."
"Your Grace was here?" said His Eminence in gentle tones of profound astonishment, "alone with Don Miguel de Suarez? . . . The woman . . ."
"There was no woman here," rejoined the Duke of Wessex firmly, "and I was alone with Don Miguel de Suarez."
There was dead silence now, the moon, pale, inquisitive, brilliant, peeped in through the window to see what was amiss. She saw a number of men recoiling, awestruck, from a small group composed of a dead man and of the first gentleman in the land self-confessed as a murderer. No one dared to speak, the moment was too solemn, too terrible, for any speech save a half-smothered sigh of horror.
The captain of the guard was the first to recollect his duty.
"Your Grace's sword . . ." he began, somewhat shamefacedly.
"Ah yes! I had forgot," said Wessex quietly, as he rose to his feet. He drew his sword from its sheath, and with one quick, sudden wrench, broke the blade across his knee. Then he threw the pieces of steel on the ground.
"I am ready to follow you, friend captain," he said, with all the hauteur, all the light, easy graciousness so peculiar to himself.