Then turning to Lola, he asked—
"Do you identify this man as Jules Jeanjean, Mademoiselle?"
"Yes," the girl replied. "He is my uncle."
"You infernal brat!" shrieked the prisoner, livid with fury. "So it is you who have given me away, after all! I should have taken the old man's advice, and have put you out of the way. Dieu! You and your friend, Vidal, over there, had a narrow escape at Spring Grove. Your grave was already dug for you!"
"And yours will also be dug for you before long—when the Judge has sentenced you to death!" I cried.
"Enough!" exclaimed Sommerville, holding up his hand to command silence. "We want no recriminations, only the truth. You, and your friend Bertini, will have plenty of opportunity for defending yourselves when before the court. I think, Mademoiselle," he added, turning to where Lola was standing beside the man once believed to be dead, "you will have a strange story to relate to the Judge."
"She'll lie, no doubt," declared Jeanjean with a sneer. "She always does."
"No," the girl cried in her pretty, broken English, "I shall the truth speak. All of the truth."
"Yes," I urged, eagerly. "Reveal to us now the truth concerning the mystery on Cromer Cliffs. How it is that Edward Craig, the man who died, is now standing beside you!"
The prisoner, with a frantic struggle to free his arms, and throw himself upon her, to silence her lips, made a sudden dash forward. But his captors closed with him, pinioned him, and held him fiercely by the throat.