"Yes," Peggy replied eagerly; "that is what I mean."
"Does it not strike you, Mrs. Admaston, that any one who knew of your previous adventures with Mr. Collingwood, the pleasure you obviously find in his society, and the methods you have adopted to blind your husband to the progress of this innocent friendship, would have good ground for supposing that the accident which brought about the last of this series of innocent and pleasant reunions was in reality not accident, but deliberate design?"
"I see what you mean," she answered; "but whatever any one thought, it was an accident!"
"An accident! Oh, just consider this chapter of accidents! By accident, you and Mr. Collingwood got on to the wrong train at Boulogne; by accident, although the luggage of the whole party was together at Charing Cross Station and Mr. Collingwood was instructed to register it all through to St. Moritz, your luggage and Mr. Collingwood's was not registered—an accident which enabled you to take it on with you upon the Paris train, which you only entered by accident. By accident, Mr. Collingwood seems to have taken for himself and a lady rooms at an hotel in Paris which, but for the accident which took you and him to Paris, could have been of no possible use to him. Do you still ask the jury to believe that your visit to Paris was an accident?"
Sir Robert had a little over-emphasised himself—that is, as far as the witness was concerned,—though his accentuated speech had its effect upon the jury. Peggy herself recognised artifice. When there had been a real note of sincerity in the counsel's voice it had frightened her far more than any rhetoric could.
"Certainly I do," she answered with spirit.
The barrister recognised in a moment that, while he had made an effect upon the court, he had at the same time given new courage to the witness. He was, as all great counsel are, a psychologist of the first order. He responded instantly, and in this duel of two minds—his and Mrs. Admaston's—his keener and more trained intelligence realised exactly what was passing in her thoughts.
"I suggest to you, Mrs. Admaston," he said very briskly, "that you and Mr. Collingwood had planned this trip to Paris—that he took the rooms with your knowledge—that you both missed the train deliberately, and reached Paris in accordance with your preconceived design?"
"And I tell you," Peggy replied, "that all these suggestions are absolutely false."
"Absolutely false?"