"I advise my client not to answer that question," interposed the lawyer, and the American was silent.
"As you please," said Hauteville, and he went on grimly: "Kittredge, you have so far refused to speak of the lady to whom you wrote this letter. Now you must speak of her. It is evident she is the person who called for you in the cab. Do you deny that?"
"I prefer not to answer."
"She was your mistress? Do you deny that?"
"Yes, I deny that," cried the American, not waiting for Pleindeaux's prompting.
"Ah!" shrugged the judge, and turning to his secretary: "Ask the lady to come in."
Then, in a moment of sickening misery, Kittredge saw the door open and a black figure enter, a black figure with an ashen-white face and frightened eyes. It was Pussy Wilmott, treading the hard way of the transgressor with her hair done most becomingly, and breathing a delicate violet fragrance.
"Take him into the outer room," directed the judge, "until I ring."
The guard opened the door and motioned to Maître Pleindeaux, who passed out first, followed by the prisoner and then by the guard himself. At the threshold Kittredge turned, and for a second his eyes met Pussy's eyes.
"Please sit down, madam," said the judge, and then for nearly half an hour he talked to her, questioned her, tortured her. He knew all that Coquenil knew about her life, and more; all about her two divorces and her various sentimental escapades. And he presented this knowledge with such startling effectiveness that before she had been five minutes in his presence poor Pussy felt that he could lay bare the innermost secrets of her being.