'Yes. We have all been living with him since father died.'
'Just so. And you know the other prisoner, Launcelot Trevanion?' Here the sergeant feigned to examine his notebook, ostensibly to refresh his memory, but really in order to afford witness and prisoner opportunity to look at each other. Also that the court, the spectators, the magistrate, and lastly he, Francis Dayrell, might appreciate their mutual discomfort.
This Mephistophelian design was set at naught by the self-possession of the witness, who after one glance, brief as the jagged lightning and as scathing, answered deliberately—'Yes, I do know Lance Trevanion, I know him well.'
There was not much in this apparently harmless Saxon sentence, chiefly monosyllabic, but those who were close enough to hear the last words thrilled for long days after as they recalled the concentrated venom with which they were saturated.
'When you say you know the prisoner, Trevanion, well,' queried Dayrell, with an air of respectful interest, 'you mean, I suppose, that he was a great friend of your brothers, and of the family generally. Your brother Dan, your cousin Harry, and his sister Tessie—you are rather a large family, I believe—were all friendly towards him, as he to you?'
'Yes; very friendly; we all thought no end of him.'
'Of course, of course; most natural on your part and his. He was often at your camp, at Growlers'. Used to play a game or two of cards sometimes with your brothers—a little euchre—eh?'
'Yes; I believe so.'
'You believe so? Don't you know it, Miss Lawless? Were not the stakes rather heavy sometimes?'
'They may have been. I never played for money. The boys may have had a gamble now and then.'