“I protest, my lord!” cried Hugh in torture of soul. “Her tale is a lie. I will not have her commit perjury for my sake.”
The judge rebuked him. The management of the case was in the hands of counsel. They only could be heard.
“But for God’s sake, my lord?” cried Hugh again.
Sternly the judge threatened forcible measures. Hugh cast a wild, despairing glance around the hushed and wondering court, threw up his hands in a passionate gesture of appeal to Irene, who stood transfigured before him, and then with a groan sank into his chair and buried his face in his arms. He was powerless.
The prisoner being effectually silenced, the judge bent his heavy brows upon Irene.
“Will you repeat that statement on oath?”
She nodded her head thrice in affirmation before she could articulate the “yes.”
There was a consultation between the judge and the attorney-general. The latter had no objection to the request of the defence. Irene stepped into the witness-box. She took the oath, shivered, and shot a swift glance of appeal at her husband. He sat glaring at her like a man stupefied, his eyes crossed in a kind of glazed squint, his body bent forwards, still biting at his fingers.
The self-accusing cry had sprung from resistless impulse. The heroic instinct, awakened earlier, had been clamouring, in the darkness. It rose to the lightning flash of suggestion. Hugh was doomed. Here was a splendid rescue. It had been a moment of tumultuous rapture. Simultaneously had come the conviction of Gerard’s acquiescence, his equal gladness to sacrifice his honour for his friend’s life. Had not Hugh once faced death for Gerard? Had not Gerard just said that he would give all he held most dear in the world to save him? It had been an exquisite moment of faith, during which the world had grown young again and radiant deeds were the commonplaces of life. All had crowded, in the instant, upon her mind. And the words had gone from her, she scarce knew how. They had sounded strange in her ears. But the silence, the cold, dispassionate accents of the judge brought to the surface her instincts as a nineteenth-century woman, cultivated under a thousand complex conditions. She realised the gravity of the step she was taking. All her faintness had gone under the magic of her inspiration, but the great and sudden effort to concentrate her intellectual powers checked the thrill in her veins. To be heroic in cold blood is the highest grade. She answered calmly. Her questioner was less collected than herself.
Only a woman could have committed the splendid perjury. Under examination she told with faultless precision the story of the fabulous adultery; the prisoner’s Orestian friendship with her husband; his love for her before her marriage; the later and guilty passion on her own side; the rare chance of that fatal night when her husband was in Edinburgh. Solemnly she swore that the prisoner arrived at her house at a quarter to twelve and stayed there until the morning, leaving just before the servants were astir. Her manner gave the story the seal of truth.