Lady O’Moy checked her tears to look at her companion, and there was dread in her eyes.
“You have spoken to Lord Wellington?”
“Yes. The opportunity came, and I took it.”
“And whatever did you tell him?” She was all a-tremble now, as she clutched Miss Armytage’s hand.
Miss Armytage related what had passed; how she had explained the true facts of Dick’s case to his lordship; how she had protested her faith that Tremayne was incapable of lying, and that if he said he had not killed Samoval it was certain that he had not done so; and, finally, how his lordship had promised to bear both cases in his mind.
“That doesn’t seem very much,” her ladyship complained.
“But he said that he would never allow a British officer to be made a scapegoat, and that if things proved to be as I stated them he would see that the worst that happened to Dick would be his dismissal from the army. He asked me to let him know immediately if Dick were found.”
More than ever was her ladyship on the very edge of confiding. A chance word might have broken down the last barrier of her will. But that word was not spoken, and so she was given the opportunity of first consulting her brother.
He laughed when he heard the story.
“A trap to take me, that’s all,” he pronounced it. “My dear girl, that stiff-necked martinet knows nothing of forgiveness for a military offence. Discipline is the god at whose shrine he worships.” And he afforded her anecdotes to illustrate and confirm his assertion of Lord Wellington’s ruthlessness. “I tell you,” he concluded, “it’s nothing but a trap to catch me. And if you had been fool enough to yield, and to have blabbed of my presence to Sylvia, you would have had it proved to you.”