"On several occasions?"
"I was told that such a thing had been said."
"And that your friends believed it?"
"Not one!" the witness answered indignantly. "No friend of mine believed one word of the story!"
She flushed and paled again as she spoke. She shot one involuntary glance towards the man who was so much more than a friend, and who had almost believed that slander.
"You will admit, I think, Lady Perivale, that the story had been common talk for a long time before this society journal got hold of it?"
"I know nothing about common talk."
"That will do, Lady Perivale," said the counsel.
Lady Perivale's butler and maid were the next witnesses.
They had been with their mistress at Porto Maurizio from November to April, during which period she had never been absent from the villa for twenty-four hours.