“Pleasantries indeed! I’m stating plain facts. To-morrow is the day of trial. Mr Maurice Gerald, or McSweeney, or O’Hogerty, or whatever’s his name, will stand before the bar—accused of murdering your brother.”
“’Tis false! Maurice Gerald never—”
“Did the deed, you are going to say? Well, that remains to be proved. It will be; and from your own lips will come the words that’ll prove it—to the satisfaction of every man upon the jury.”
The great gazelle-eyes of the Creole were opened to their fullest extent. They gazed upon the speaker with a look such as is oft given by the gazelle itself—a commingling of fear, wonder, and inquiry.
It was some seconds before she essayed to speak. Thoughts, conjectures, fears, fancies, and suspicions, all had to do in keeping her silent.
“I know not what you mean,” she at length rejoined. “You talk of my being called into court. For what purpose? Though I am the sister of him, who—I know nothing—can tell no more than is in the mouth of everybody.”
“Yes can you; a great deal more. It’s not in the mouth of everybody: that on the night of the murder, you gave Gerald a meeting at the bottom of the garden. No more does all the world know what occurred at that stolen interview. How Henry intruded upon it; how, maddened, as he might well be, by the thought of such a disgrace—not only to his sister, but his family—he threatened to kill the man who had caused it; and was only hindered from carrying out that threat, by the intercession of the woman so damnably deluded!
“All the world don’t know what followed: how Henry, like a fool, went after the low hound, and with what intent. Besides themselves, there were but two others who chanced to be spectators of that parting.”
“Two—who were they?”
The question was asked mechanically—almost with a tranquil coolness.