“Miss Armytage—I implore you!” cried Tremayne, forgetting where he stood, his voice shaking at last, his hand flung out to silence her.
And then the heavy voice of O’Moy crashed in:
“Let her speak. Let us have the truth—the truth!” And he smote the table with his clenched fist.
“And you shall have it,” answered Miss Armytage. “Captain Tremayne keeps silent to shield a woman—his mistress.”
Sir Terence sucked in his breath with a whistling sound. Lady O’Moy desisted from her attempts to check the speaker and fell to staring at her in stony astonishment, whilst Tremayne was too overcome by the same emotion to think of interrupting. The others preserved a watchful, unbroken silence.
“Captain Tremayne spent that half-hour at Monsanto in her room. He was with her when he heard the cry that took him to the window. Thence he saw the body in the courtyard, and in alarm went down at once—without considering the consequences to the woman. But because he has considered them since, he now keeps silent.”
“Sir, sir,” Captain Tremayne turned in wild appeal to the president, “this is not true.” He conceived at once the terrible mistake that Miss Armytage had made. She must have seen him climb down from Lady O’Moy’s balcony, and she had come to the only possible, horrible conclusion. “This lady is mistaken, I am ready to—”
“A moment, sir. You are interrupting,” the president rebuked.
And then the voice of O’Moy on the note of terrible triumph sounded again like a trumpet through the long room.
“Ah, but it is the truth at last. We have it now. Her name! Her name!” he shouted. “Who was this wanton?”