“What on earth has that to do with it, Sir Terence?” the president rebuked him, out of his earnest desire to cut this examination as short as possible.
“The question, sir, does not seem to me to be without point,” replied O’Moy. He was judicially smooth and self-contained. “It is intended to enable us to form an opinion as to the lapse of time between her ladyship’s hearing the cry and reaching the balcony.”
Grudgingly the president admitted the point, and the question was repeated.
“Ye-es,” came Lady O’Moy’s tremulous, faltering answer, “I was in bed.”
“But not asleep—or were you asleep?” rapped O’Moy again, and in answer to the president’s impatient glance again explained himself: “We should know whether perhaps the cry might not have been repeated several times before her ladyship heard it. That is of value.”
“It would be more regular,” ventured the judge-advocate, “if Sir Terence would reserve his examination of the witness until she has given her evidence.”
“Very well,” grumbled Sir Terence, and he sat back, foiled for the moment in his deliberate intent to torture her into admissions that must betray her if made.
“I was not asleep,” she told the court, thus answering her husband’s last question. “I heard the cry, and ran to the balcony at once. That—that is all.”
“But what did you see from the balcony?” asked Major Swan.
“It was night, and of course—it—it was dark,” she answered.