“That is the truth as I stand here in the sight of Heaven,” she replied in a voice that rang with sincerity and carried conviction to more than one of the officers seated at that table. “By that act the murderer sought not only to save himself from exposure, but to complete his work by succeeding to the Tressilian estates. Sir Oliver was to have been sold into slavery to the Moors of Barbary. Instead the vessel upon which he sailed was captured by Spaniards, and he was sent to the galleys by the Inquisition. When his galley was captured by Muslim corsairs he took the only way of escape that offered. He became a corsair and a leader of corsairs, and then. …”
“What else he did we know,” Lord Henry interrupted. “And I assure you it would all weigh very lightly with us or with any court if what else you say is true.”
“It is true. I swear it, my lord,” she repeated.
“Ay,” he answered, nodding gravely. “But can you prove it?”
“What better proof can I offer you than that I love him, and have married him?”
“Bah!” said Sir John.
“That, mistress,” said Lord Henry, his manner extremely gentle, “is proof that yourself you believe this amazing story. But it is not proof that the story itself is true. You had it, I suppose,” he continued smoothly, “from Oliver Tressilian himself?”
“That is so; but in Lionel’s own presence, and Lionel himself confirmed it—admitting its truth.”
“You dare say that?” cried Sir John, and stared at her in incredulous anger. “My God! You dare say that?”
“I dare and do,” she answered him, giving him back look for look.
Lord Henry sat back in his chair, and tugged gently at his ashen tuft of beard, his florid face overcast and thoughtful. There was something here he did not understand at all. “Mistress Rosamund,” he said quietly, “let me exhort you to consider the gravity of your words. You are virtually accusing one who is no longer able to defend himself; if your story is established, infamy will rest forever upon the memory of Lionel Tressilian. Let me ask you again, and let me entreat you to answer scrupulously. Did Lionel Tressilian admit the truth of this thing with which you say that the prisoner charged him?”
“Once more I solemnly swear that what I have spoken is true; that Lionel Tressilian did in my presence, when charged by Sir Oliver with the murder of my brother and the kidnapping of himself, admit those charges. Can I make it any plainer, sirs?”
Lord Henry spread his hands. “After that, Killigrew, I do not think we can go further in this matter. Sir Oliver must go with us to England, and there take his trial.”
But there was one present—that officer named Youldon—whose wits, it seems, were of keener temper.
“By your leave, my lord,” he now interposed, and he turned to question the witness. “What was the occasion on which Sir Oliver forced this admission from his brother?”
Truthfully she answered. “At his house in Algiers on the night he. …” She checked suddenly, perceiving then the trap that had been set for her. And the others perceived it also. Sir John leapt into the breach which Youldon had so shrewdly made in her defences.
“Continue, pray,” he bade her. “On the night he. …”
“On the night we arrived there,” she answered desperately, the colour now receding slowly from her face.
“And that, of course,” said Sir John slowly, mockingly almost, “was the first occasion on which you heard this explanation of Sir Oliver’s conduct?”
“It was,” she faltered—perforce.
“So that,” insisted Sir John, determined to leave her no loophole whatsoever, “so that until that night you had naturally continued to believe Sir Oliver to be the murderer of your brother?”
She hung her head in silence, realizing that the truth could not prevail here since she had hampered it with a falsehood, which was now being dragged into the light.
“Answer me!” Sir John commanded.
“There is no need to answer,” said Lord Henry slowly, in a voice of pain, his eyes lowered to the table. “There can, of course, be but one answer. Mistress Rosamund has told us that he did not abduct her forcibly; that she went with him of her own free will and married him; and she has urged that circumstance as a proof of her conviction of his innocence. Yet now it becomes plain that at the time she left England with him she still believed him to be her brother’s slayer. Yet she asks us to believe that he did not abduct her.” He spread his hands again and pursed his lips in a sort of grieved contempt.
“Let us make an end, a’ God’s name!” said Sir John, rising.
“Ah, wait!” she cried. “I swear that all that I have told you is true—all but the matter of the abduction. I admit that, but I condoned it in view of what I have since learnt.”
“She admits it!” mocked Sir John.
But she went on without heeding him. “Knowing what he has suffered through the evil of others, I gladly own him my husband, hoping to make some amends to him for the part I had in his wrongs. You must believe me, sirs. But if you will not, I ask you is his action of yesterday to count for naught? Are you not to remember that but for him you would have had no knowledge of my whereabouts?”
They stared at her in fresh surprise.
“To what do you refer now, mistress? What action of his is responsible for this?”
“Do you need to ask? Are you so set on murdering him that you affect ignorance? Surely you know that it was he dispatched Lionel to inform you of my whereabouts?”
Lord Henry tells us that at this he smote the table with his open palm, displaying an anger he could no longer curb. “This is too much!” he cried. “Hitherto I have believed you sincere but misguided and mistaken. But so deliberate a falsehood
