It was a scene never to be forgotten. The library was dim with the shadows of the autumn evening, and in the gloom Lady Darrell's pale pink dress, golden hair, and white arms bare to the shoulder, seemed to attract all the light; her face was changed from its great agitation—the calm, fair beauty, the gentle, caressing manner were gone.
Near her stood Pauline, whose countenance was softened with compassion and pity unutterable, the dark eyes shining as through a mist of tears.
Before them, as a criminal before his judges, stood Aubrey Langton, with an angry scowl on his handsome face, and yet something like fear in his eyes.
"What is it?" he cried, impatiently. "I cannot understand this at all."
Lady Darrell turned her pale face to him.
"Captain Langton," she said, gravely, "Miss Darrell brings a terrible accusation against you. She tells me that you stole the roll of notes that Sir Oswald missed, and that at the price of her life you extorted an oath from her not to betray you; is it true?"
She looked at him bravely, fearlessly.
"It is a lie!" he said.
Lady Darrell continued:
"Here, in this room, where we are standing now, she tells me that the scene took place, and that, finding she had discovered you in the very act of theft, you held a loaded pistol to her head until she took the oath you dictated. Is it true or false?"