It was false, indeed, and Oliver knew it, and deliberately had recourse to falsehood, using it as a fulcrum upon which to lever out the truth. He was cunning as all the fiends, and never perhaps did he better manifest his cunning.
“False?” he cried with scorn. “Come, now, be reasonable. The truth, ere torture sucks it out of you. Reflect that I know all—exactly as you told it me. How was it, now? Lurking behind a bush you sprang upon him unawares and ran him through before he could so much as lay a hand to his sword, and so. …”
“The lie of that is proven by the very facts themselves,” was the furious interruption. A subtle judge of tones might have realized that here was truth indeed, angry indignant truth that compelled conviction. “His sword lay beside him when they found him.”
But Oliver was loftily disdainful. “Do I not know? Yourself you drew it after you had slain him.”
The taunt performed its deadly work. For just one instant Lionel was carried off his feet by the luxury of his genuine indignation, and in that one instant he was lost.
“As God’s my witness, that is false!” he cried wildly. “And you know it. I fought him fair. …” He checked on a long, shuddering, indrawn breath that was horrible to hear.
Then silence followed, all three remaining motionless as statues: Rosamund white and tense, Oliver grim and sardonic, Lionel limp, and overwhelmed by the consciousness of how he had been lured into self-betrayal.
At last it was Rosamund who spoke, and her voice shook and shifted from key to key despite her strained attempt to keep it level.
“What … what did you say, Lionel?” she asked.
Oliver laughed softly. “He was about to add proof of his statement, I think,” he jeered. “He was about to mention the wound he took in that fight, which left those tracks in the snow, thus to prove that I lied—as indeed I did—when I said that he took Peter unawares.
“Lionel!” she cried. She advanced a step and made as if to hold out her arms to him, then let them fall again beside her. He stood stricken, answering nothing. “Lionel!” she cried again, her voice growing suddenly shrill. “Is this true?”
“Did you not hear him say it?” quoth Oliver.
She stood swaying a moment, looking at Lionel, her white face distorted into a mask of unutterable pain. Oliver stepped towards her, ready to support her, fearing that she was about to fall. But with an imperious hand she checked his advance, and by a supreme effort controlled her weakness. Yet her knees shook under her, refusing their office. She sank down upon the divan and covered her face with her hands.
“God pity me!” she moaned, and sat huddled there, shaken with sobs.
Lionel started at that heartbroken cry. Cowering, he approached her, and Oliver, grim and sardonic, stood back, a spectator of the scene he had precipitated. He knew that given rope Lionel would enmesh himself still further. There must be explanations that would damn him utterly. Oliver was well content to look on.
“Rosamund!” came Lionel’s piteous cry. “Rose! Have mercy! Listen ere you judge me. Listen lest you misjudge me!”
“Ay, listen to him,” Oliver flung in, with his soft hateful laugh. “Listen to him. I doubt he’ll be vastly entertaining.”
That sneer was a spur to the wretched Lionel. “Rosamund, all that he has told you of it is false. I … I … It was done in self-defence. It is a lie that I took him unawares.” His words came wildly now. “We had quarrelled about … about … a certain matter, and as the devil would have it we met that evening in Godolphin Park, he and I. He taunted me; he struck me, and finally he drew upon me and forced me to draw that I might defend my life. That is the truth. I swear to you here on my knees in the sight of Heaven! And. …”
“Enough, sir! Enough!” she broke in, controlling herself to check these protests that but heightened her disgust.
“Nay, hear me yet, I implore you; that knowing all you may be merciful in your judgment.”
“Merciful?” she cried, and almost seemed to laugh.
“It was an accident that I slew him,” Lionel raved on. “I never meant it. I never meant to do more than ward and preserve my life. But when swords are crossed more may happen than a man intends. I take God to witness that his death was an accident resulting from his own fury.”
She had checked her sobs, and she considered him now with eyes that were hard and terrible.
“Was it also an accident that you left me and all the world in the belief that the deed was your brother’s?” she asked him.
He covered his face, as if unable to endure her glance. “Did you but know how I loved you—even in those days, in secret—you would perhaps pity me a little,” he whimpered.
“Pity?” She leaned forward and seemed to spit the word at him. “ ’Sdeath, man! Do you sue for pity—you?”
“Yet you must pity me did you know the greatness of the temptation to which I succumbed.”
“I know the greatness of your infamy, of your falseness, of your cowardice, of your baseness. Oh!”
He stretched out suppliant hands to her; there were tears now in his eyes. “Of your charity, Rosamund. …” he was beginning, when at last Oliver intervened:
“I think you are wearying the lady,” he said, and stirred him with his foot. “Relate to us instead some more of your astounding accidents. They are more diverting. Elucidate the accident, by which you had me kidnapped to be sold into slavery. Tell us of the accident by which you succeeded to my property. Expound to the full the accidental circumstances of which throughout you have been the unfortunate victim. Come, man, ply your wits. ’Twill make a pretty tale.”
And then came Jasper to announce that Ali waited with the brazier and the heated manacles.
“They are no longer needed,” said
