"It's a damned lie!" the girl hissed. "He was good to me, and you shall swing for it!"
The Colonel looked genuinely distressed.
"I am afraid," he said, "that you are prejudiced. If he was, as you say, kind to you, it was for his own pleasure. Believe me, I made a careful study of his character before I decided that he must go."
She looked at him with fierce curiosity.
"Are you a god," she demanded, "that you should have power of life or death? Who are you to set yourself up as a judge?"
"Pray do not believe," he begged, "that I arrogate to myself any such position. Only, unfortunately, as regards your late husband's character there could be no mistake, and concerning such men as he I have very strong convictions."
Wrayson, who had recovered himself a little, laid his hand upon the Colonel's shoulder.
"Colonel," he said hoarsely, "you're not serious! You can't be! Be careful. This woman means mischief. She will take you at your word."
"How else should she take me?" the Colonel asked calmly. "I suppose her prejudice in favour of this man was natural, but all I can say is that, under similar circumstances, I should act to-day precisely as I did on the night when I found him about to sell a woman's honour, for money to minister to the degraded pleasures of his life."
The woman leaned towards him, venomous and passionate.