"I am fully prepared to do so. To begin with, according to your story, I abducted this child. There you are only partly right. I did take her away from the Montalbon, and I did it as you might say, by stealth and force. But I had the fullest right to do so."
"You admit then that you are her father?"
"On the contrary, I deny it, and there is the weak point in your story. Your argument all depends upon my having been guilty of wronging that girl's mother, and the Montalbon's having me in her power. In point of fact, I am not her father, and the Montalbon had but a slim chance to blackmail me."
"But you admitted to me that you allowed her to do so. That you gave her a large amount, in jewels."
"That is true, yet I did not submit to blackmail."
"Mr. Mitchel I seldom forget a man's words. You told me that day in the vaults that you were in the woman's power, that she could ventilate certain scandals which might break your engagement. Yet now you say you were not in her power and that you did not submit to blackmail. How can you explain such conflicting statements?"
"Two conflicting statements may both be true, provided a lapse of time occurs between them. When I admitted that I had been in the power of that woman, I thought so, therefore I spoke the truth. When I say now that I was not, I also speak truly. In the interval, I have learned to appreciate the character of the woman who is now my wife. That is all. I know now that the Montalbon's story blazoned forth to the world, would not have affected her faith in me, if I had told her my own version."
"For heaven's sake, gentlemen," interrupted Mr. Neuilly, "stop this argument, and get down to the facts. I am impatient to know the truth."
"Yes, Roy," said Emily, "why not simply tell the story as a narrative, and let the whole truth be known?"