Lord Henry sat back in his chair, and tugged gently at his ashen tuft of beard, his florid face overcast and thoughtful. There was something here he did not understand at all. “Mistress Rosamund,” he said quietly, “let me exhort you to consider the gravity of your words. You are virtually accusing one who is no longer able to defend himself; if your story is established, infamy will rest for ever upon the memory of Lionel Tressilian. Let me ask you again, and let me entreat you to answer scrupulously. Did Lionel Tressilian admit the truth of this thing with which you say that the prisoner charged him?”
“Once more I solemnly swear that what I have spoken is true; that Lionel Tressilian did in my presence, when charged by Sir Oliver with the murder of my brother and the kidnapping of himself, admit those charges. Can I make it any plainer, sirs?”
Lord Henry spread his hands. “After that, Killigrew, I do not think we can go further in this matter. Sir Oliver must go with us to England, and there take his trial.”
But there was one present—that officer named Youldon—whose wits, it seems, were of keener temper.
“By your leave, my lord,” he now interposed, and he turned to question the witness. “What was the occasion on which Sir Oliver forced this admission from his brother?”
Truthfully she answered. “At his house in Algiers on the night he....” She checked suddenly, perceiving then the trap that had been set for her. And the others perceived it also. Sir John leapt into the breach which Youldon had so shrewdly made in her defences.
“Continue, pray,” he bade her. “On the night he....”
“On the night we arrived there,” she answered desperately, the colour now receding slowly from her face.
“And that, of course,” said Sir John slowly, mockingly almost, “was the first occasion on which you heard this explanation of Sir Oliver’s conduct?”
“It was,” she faltered—perforce.