第71章 CHAPTER XVII(6)

For a long moment Captain Tremayne stood there in tense, expectant silence. Yet he was not considering; he was waiting. Lady O'Moy he knew to be in court, behind him. She had heard, even as he had heard, that his fate hung perhaps upon whether Richard Butler's presence were to be betrayed or not. Not for him to break faith with her. Let her decide. And, awaiting that decision, he stood there, silent, like a man considering. And then, because no woman's voice broke the silence to proclaim at once his innocence, and the alibi that must ensure his acquittal, he spoke at last.

"I thank you, sir. Indeed, I am very grateful to the court for the consideration it has shown me. I appreciate it deeply, but I have nothing more to say."

And then, when all seemed lost, a woman's voice rang out at last:

"But I have!"

Its sharp, almost strident note acted like an electric discharge upon the court; but no member of the assembly was more deeply stricken than Captain Tremayne. For though the voice was a woman's, yet it was not the voice for which he had been waiting.

In his excitement he turned, to see Miss Armytage standing there, straight and stiff, her white face stamped with purpose; and beside her, still seated, clutching her arm in an agony of fear, Lady O'Moy, murmuring for all to hear her:

"No, no, Sylvia. Be silent, for God's sake!"

But Sylvia had risen to speak, and speak she did, and though the words she uttered were such as a virgin might wish to whisper with veiled countenance and averted glance, yet her utterance of them was bold to the point of defiance.

"I can tell you why Captain Tremayne is silent. I can tell you whom he shields."

"Oh God!" gasped Lady O'Moy, wondering through her anguish how Sylvia could have become possessed of her secret.

"Miss Armytage - I implore you!" cried Tremayne, forgetting where he stood, his voice shaking at last, his hand flung out to silence her.

And then the heavy voice of O'Moy crashed in:

"Let her speak. Let us have the truth - the truth!" And he smote the table with his clenched fist.

"And you shall have it," answered Miss Armytage. "Captain Tremayne keeps silent to shield a woman - his mistress."

Sir Terence sucked in his breath with a whistling sound. Lady O'Moy desisted from her attempts to check the speaker and fell to staring at her in stony astonishment, whilst Tremayne was too overcome by the same emotion to think of interrupting. The others preserved a watchful, unbroken silence.

"Captain Tremayne spent that half-hour at Monsanto in her room. He was with her when he heard the cry that took him to the window.

Thence he saw the body in the courtyard, and in alarm went down at once - without considering the consequences to the woman. But because he has considered them since, he now keeps silent."

"Sir, sir," Captain Tremayne turned in wild appeal to the president, "this is not true." He conceived at once the terrible mistake that Miss Armytage had made. She must have seen him climb down from Lady O'Moy's balcony, and she had come to the only possible, horrible conclusion. "This lady is mistaken, I am ready to - "

"A moment, sir. You are interrupting," the president rebuked.

And then the voice of O'Moy on the note of terrible triumph sounded again like a trumpet through the long room.

"Ah, but it is the truth at last. We have it now. Her name! Her name!" he shouted. "Who was this wanton?"

Miss Armytage's answer was as a bludgeon-stroke to his ferocious exultation.

"Myself. Captain Tremayne was with me."