"The subject admits of no discussion?" he asked, and there was a suppressed eagerness in his voice.
"None," Peggy answered.
Sir Robert nodded again. "Very well," he saidsotto voce. "You have told me that you were annoyed, but not seriously, at missing the train, and I suppose, Mrs. Admaston, I may add at finding yourself in Paris?"
The examination seemed to have fallen a little from its strained note.
"That is so," Peggy replied, slightly relieved.
"Did Mr. Collingwood seem much distressed at the turn of events?" asked Sir Robert.
And then—it might have been rising hysteria, or it might have been a totally innocent misapprehension of what was going on, but Peggy laughed.
Her laugh went rippling out into the court.
"He did not seem inconsolable," she said.
Her laughter was echoed by that of every one in the court; even Sir Robert's red and genial face relaxed into a smile.
"And I daresay," he said in quite a kindly voice,—"I daresay you would as soon be stranded in Paris with Mr. Collingwood as with any one?"
"Oh, much sooner," Peggy said. "He is a very charming companion."
"Perhaps," Sir Robert Fyffe answered, "I may allow myself to say the same of his companion?"
Peggy smiled brightly. "Well," she said, "it would not be the first time you had said so, Sir Robert."
"Nor will it be the last, Mrs. Admaston," the K.C. replied with a courtly bow, and a really charming smile upon his face.
Then suddenly he stood a little more upright, shifted the gown upon his shoulders, touched his wig, and looked at Peggy keenly. He was once more the keen advocate doing his duty, whatever it might cost him in personal emotion.
"But we must pass on," he said. "Very well. You finished supper at last, and about 12.30 you went to bed. Your maid joined you and you got undressed." Here Sir Robert put his pince-nez upon his nose, and leant over to see the ground-plan of the rooms of the Hôtel des Tuileries, which the solicitor on the bench before him held up for his inspection.
Sir Robert looked at the coloured plan for a moment with intense scrutiny. Then, having refreshed his memory, he turned his face once more to the witness-box.
"Mr. Collingwood," he continued, "had left you by the door leading into the passage, I suppose?"
"Yes," Peggy replied.
"You had no idea that he was occupying the room communicating with yours?"
"None."
"You then sent your maid to bed?"
"Yes."
"And it was shortly after that that the telephone bell rang—the call from Chalons?"
"Very shortly after," Peggy replied.
She seemed to be extremely interested in this conversation between herself and Sir Robert Fyffe—interested in it as if she were playing some game of which the issue would not matter. At this period of the famous cross-examination she seemed to be perfectly bright and unconcerned.
"And you went to answer it?" Sir Robert went on.
"Yes," she said.
Sir Robert clutched the bands of his gown and looked at her with the very keenest scrutiny.
"And will you tell my lord and the jury what happened?" he said.
"While I was speaking—I had my back to the door—I suddenly heard Mr. Collingwood's voice behind me."
Sir Robert started. "You were surprised—startled?" he said in an eager voice.
"I was," Peggy answered—"very."
The K.C.'s head was bent forward and was swaying slightly from side to side, as the head of a snake sways before it strikes. He was quite unconscious of the marked hostility of his attitude, but the game, the big, exciting game which he was playing, which he was paid so highly to play, and which had become the chief excitement of his life, had caught hold of him in all his nerves.
"Had he knocked?" he said.
"I didn't hear him," Peggy replied, "or of course I should not have let him come in."
"I see," Sir Robert replied. "You were hardly dressed to receive gentlemen visitors?"
"Well, hardly."
"You were angry, Mrs. Admaston?"
"Iwasangry," Peggy replied.
"Now! how did you show your anger?"
"By telling him to go back to his room."
"Did he go?"
"No."
And now laughter, loud and almost inextinguishable, filled the court. Every one was enjoying himself or herself enormously. There was a sort of atmosphere of French farce about the sombre court. Every one had, by now, forgotten that they had lunched and dined at the hospitable tables of Mr. and Mrs. Admaston. They were there for a show—they were out for blood—it was a bull-fight to these pleasant ladies and gentlemen.
Mr. Henry Passhe was obviously enjoying himself. He laughed as loudly as any one, until the warning "Hush!" of the usher suppressed the merriment. He looked towards his friend, but he saw that Colonel Adams's lean brown face was drawn and wrinkled up with pain. Then he himself—for he was a decent-minded man enough—felt a little ashamed of his jocularity, and he turned once more to an intent watching of this tragic spectacle.
"No doubt," Sir Robert said, "that made you more angry—yes?"
Mrs. Admaston did not answer, but Sir Robert persisted.
"Didn'tit make you more angry?" he said.
Suddenly Peggy looked up, and her voice rippled with laughter—she was a butterfly, a thing of sunshine and shadow, but shadow never distressed her for very long.
"I never remain angry very long," she said.
Sir Robert took no notice of the way in which she answered. His big voice went on, tolling quietly like a distant bell.
"But you were angry?"
"I wanted him to go," Peggy replied impatiently.
"Quite so," said Sir Robert. "But you allowed him to stay?"
She heard once more that inexorable persistence, that bland, passionless, but remorseless voice.
The little flicker of gaiety and of respite was over. She braced herself once more to stand up against this relentless onslaught, and clutched the rail of the witness-box before her.
"We are very old friends, Sir Robert," she answered. "I saw no particular harm in it."
"If you saw no particular harm in it, why did you not care to speak to your husband when he rang up?"
"One may do perfectly harmless things," she replied, "and yet not care to tell every one about them."
"And this was one of those perfectly harmless things which you didn't care to tell every one, or even your husband, about?"
"There was no harm in it," Peggy replied, and her voice rang out with a dreadful sense of suppressed irritation and pain.
"So little that you permitted Mr. Collingwood to stay with you—for quite a long time?"
"Not very long," she answered.
"Until the telephone call from your husband?"
"I suppose so."
Sir Robert Fyffe began to seem very pleased with himself. There was no bitterness in his voice—only an extreme politeness. But by now he kept glancing carefully at the jury, watching them with lightning glances, and gathering all the information he possibly could from the expressions on their faces—their immobility or movements of interest.
"Up to that time," Sir Robert remarked—and his question had really the note of a casual inquiry—"up to that time had he shown any sign of going?"
"I don't think so."
The next query startled the whole court, not so much from its directness—though that was patent enough,—but by reason of the way in which it was rapped out.
It was said in a hard, threatening, staccato voice: "What were you both doing?"
The answer was rather reflective than otherwise. It showed no apprehension of the intention of the examiner.
"Sitting on the sofa—he was smoking, I think," Peggy said.
"Should I be right in saying that during most of this time he was making passionate love to you?"
All the reporters looked up, their pencils poised, their eyes avid of sensation.
"He was very fond of me," Mrs. Admaston replied.
"Passionately in love with you?"
There was a perceptible hesitation. "I think he was very fond of me."
Sir Robert's words came from him like the blows of a hammer upon a nail: "Have you any doubt that he was passionately in love with you?"
"He told me so."
"I put it to you that you knew it, and had known it for months?"
It was an odd contrast between the triumphant note which had crept into the great barrister's voice and the diminuendo of Peggy's.
There was no gaiety now. The forces were joined. The battle, which had been an affair of skirmishes before, was now in full cry.
"I only knew what he told me." The voice was quite desperate now.
"And when did he first tell you? The night you were in Paris? Is that when you say?"
"Yes," the answer came, and the President leant forward to be sure that he heard the admission aright.
The big, round, red face of Sir Robert Fyffe was now redder than ever. His eyes blinked as if the lids could hardly veil the silent fire which peered out from them.
"Do you swear that? Please be careful...."
"I think that was the first time."
"I suggest to you," said Sir Robert, turning towards the jury, the President, and then to Peggy—"I suggest to you, Mrs. Admaston, that he had been making passionate love to you for months."
There was an intense silence in the court.
The members of the jury were obviously excited. Different members showed it in different ways. There were men who struggled to give no indication of their feelings, and made effort at an entire lack of expression. Others showed evident and lively interest.
"I knew for some months that he was very fond of me."
"And did your husband know?" echoed out into the court.
"I suppose so," was the faint answer.
"Do you suggest that your husband would ever have permitted you to go away, even in the company of friends, with a man who had been abusing his friendship by making passionate love to his wife?"
There was no answer to that. No sound came from the witness-box—the whole court waited for the response.
Sir Robert was leaning forward now, his head shaking from side to side, his blood-hound face, his extremely vivid eyes, fixed upon Peggy's face. "Do you really ask the jury to believe that?" he said.
Still Peggy was silent. She seemed to have drooped into something like a faded flower. She said nothing. There was nothing for her to say.
And in the silence the calm, judicial voice of the President, full of commiseration—without prejudice one way or the other, nevertheless,—made its demand. "You must answer, Mrs. Admaston," said the judge.
"I don't think my husband knewhowfond of me he was," Peggy said.
"If he had known," Sir Robert said, very gently now, and with a little quiver in his voice—"if he had known, don't you think, Mrs. Admaston, he would have been very angry to know how you were situated in Paris?"
Sentence after sentence was wrung from her by torture.
"I think perhaps he might not have liked it," she said in a fainting voice.
The bully came out in Sir Robert's voice. All along the line he was being tremendously successful....
"Perhaps! Wouldanyman like it? Do you think, madam, that you were treating your husband fairly in encouraging this very charming gentleman's attentions?"
Very faint, very slow, very hesitating, and extremely weary, "I did not encourage them," the answer came.
"We shall see. Didn't it make you feel very embarrassed to find yourself sitting up in a strange hotel into the small hours of the morning, with this man making passionate love to you?"
There was a dead silence in the court. Once more the person on the rack had nothing to say.
"Or had thisliaisongone too far by this time for you to feel embarrassed?"
Mr. M'Arthur jumped up.
His face blazed with simulated fury. "My lord," he barked, "I protest against these insulting suggestions."
The excited voice of the counsel rather failed of its effect as the judge looked down upon him. "Sir Robert is within his rights, Mr. M'Arthur," he said. "He would not ask these questions without good reason."
Sir Robert Fyffe saw his chance at once. He glanced at the jury; he made a little deprecating motion of his head to the President. "Too good reason, my lord! My duty is not a pleasant one.... Was this the first time, Mrs. Admaston, that you had received Mr. Collingwood in this state of undress—when the rest of the household was asleep?"
Peggy had clasped her hands. She threw them apart with a wild gesture and clutched the rail of the witness-box. "My lord!" she said, "I assure you that nothing has ever taken place between us."
The President gazed at her with calm compassion.
He had heard appeals like this one too often. He was not there to be influenced by emotions, or to be prejudiced by his natural kindness of heart.
He was there to judge.
"You must answer Sir Robert, Mrs. Admaston," he said quietly.
"We used to sit up late sometimes at Lord Ellerdine's and talk," Peggy admitted.
There were murmurs all over the court. Society was interested.
Sir Robert Fyffe leant forward to the solicitor in front of him, said something in an undertone, and then looked up.
"Was that at Lord Ellerdine's place in Yorkshire?"
"Yes."
"When were you last there?"
"About a year ago," Peggy replied.
"Indeed! About a year ago——"
"Hardly a year."
"At anyrate, several months before the Paris trip Mr. Collingwood was sitting up in your room into the small hours of the morning making passionate love to you?"
Mrs. Admaston said nothing at all.
"Is not that so?" the insistent voice inquired.
"There was no harm, Sir Robert," was the hesitating answer.
"No harm! Did Lord Ellerdine know?"
"No."
"Did your husband know?"
"No."
And now into the voice of the great counsel began to creep a note of contempt, which was doubtless perfectly genuine. He had met the woman he was cross-examining in society. He had liked her. But, as every one knew, Sir Robert's own domestic life was one of singular happiness and accord.
It is pretty certain that—having known Admaston and his wife—he was becoming genuinely indignant at what he thought the treachery of the girl.
"Was this another of those perfectly harmless things which you didn't care to tell your husband about?" he said.
"I saw no harm in it," Peggy replied, and in answer to the colder note in Sir Robert's voice her own became stubborn.
"But you would not have liked him to know? Well! You have now admitted that Mr. Collingwood had been making passionate love to you for months before the trip to Paris. We are getting at the truth gradually. I suppose that he made these declarations of love several times at Lord Ellerdine's?"
"I think he spoke to me on two or three occasions," Peggy almost murmured.
"And was this really the first time he declared his love for you?"
"Yes, the first time."
"You are sure?"
"Quite sure."
"And you still went about everywhere with him—but you were careful not to tell your husband the truth?"
"My husband trusted me. I never abused his trust."
As Peggy said this, the foreman of the jury, a plump, shortish, clean-shaved gentleman who in private life was a chemist, looked up with a puzzled expression upon his face.
He thought he detected a ring of real sincerity in the witness's voice which the facts did not seem to justify.
"Was not this an abuse of his trust?" Sir Robert said—perhaps more gravely than he had spoken yet.
"Oh! we can't all be perfect! I don't deny that I flirted," Peggy answered.
Her affectation of lightness went very ill with the weighty, measured accusations of Sir Robert Fyffe.
It struck a jarring note in the court. It did her harm.
"You do not deny that you flirted," Sir Robert said, with a little nod of his head—"and encouraged this man, this very charming companion, to flirt with you?"
"And if I did," she replied, still defiant, "my husband trusted me, and knew that there was nothing in it."
"Mrs. Admaston, if that is true, why were you afraid to talk to him upon the night of the 23rd March, and why did you connive at a deliberate lie on the following day?"
There was a cold and deliberate disgust in Sir Robert's voice, and almost every person there gave a little sympathetic shudder.
But Peggy, brave to the last, still fought on. "I was a fool," she said, with a little shrug of the shoulders, as if the question was of no great moment. "I was a fool. The others thought the thing much worse than it was, and that frightened me. I have told you already that I loathed myself for lying as I did."
Sir Robert knitted his brows for a moment, and then decided on his course of action.
That brilliant brain was never at a loss. Again, after a second's hesitation, the deadly thrust was delivered. It was delivered with such apparent suavity and innocence, with such a relaxation of the hard, accusing note, that the girl in the witness-box was utterly deceived.
"You mean," said Sir Robert, "that though you did not tell your husband everything about your harmless flirtations—your peccadilloes—you never before deliberately lied to shield yourself?"
"Yes," Peggy replied eagerly; "that is what I mean."
"Does it not strike you, Mrs. Admaston, that any one who knew of your previous adventures with Mr. Collingwood, the pleasure you obviously find in his society, and the methods you have adopted to blind your husband to the progress of this innocent friendship, would have good ground for supposing that the accident which brought about the last of this series of innocent and pleasant reunions was in reality not accident, but deliberate design?"
"I see what you mean," she answered; "but whatever any one thought, itwasan accident!"
"An accident! Oh, just consider this chapter of accidents! Byaccident, you and Mr. Collingwood got on to the wrong train at Boulogne; byaccident, although the luggage of the whole party was together at Charing Cross Station and Mr. Collingwood was instructed to register it all through to St. Moritz, your luggage and Mr. Collingwood's was not registered—anaccidentwhich enabled you to take it on with you upon the Paris train, which you only entered byaccident. Byaccident, Mr. Collingwood seems to have taken for himself and a lady rooms at an hotel in Paris which, but for theaccidentwhich took you and him to Paris, could have been of no possible use to him. Do you still ask the jury to believe that your visit to Paris was an accident?"
Sir Robert had a little over-emphasised himself—that is, as far as the witness was concerned,—though his accentuated speech had its effect upon the jury. Peggy herself recognised artifice. When therehadbeen a real note of sincerity in the counsel's voice it had frightened her far more than any rhetoric could.
"Certainly I do," she answered with spirit.
The barrister recognised in a moment that, while he had made an effect upon the court, he had at the same time given new courage to the witness. He was, as all great counsel are, a psychologist of the first order. He responded instantly, and in this duel of two minds—his and Mrs. Admaston's—his keener and more trained intelligence realised exactly what was passing in her thoughts.
"I suggest to you, Mrs. Admaston," he said very briskly, "that you and Mr. Collingwood had planned this trip to Paris—that he took the rooms with your knowledge—that you both missed the train deliberately, and reached Paris in accordance with your preconceived design?"
"And I tell you," Peggy replied, "that all these suggestions are absolutely false."
"Absolutely false?"
Her voice rang out into the court shrill with the long torture of her examination, but passionate with her own certainty of her innocence. "There's not a rag of truth in any of them. You may think you can make black white, and white black, you may hire spies, tamper with railway servants and waiters...."
An instant reproof came from the judge—two words: "Mrs. Admaston!" he said.
She looked up, but hardly heard him.
"... And do all the rest of the degrading work which seems inseparable from this court."
"Mrs. Admaston," the President said again, "you must not speak like that."
All men, even judges, are influenced by circumstance. It is probable that the President would have been far more severe at such an outburst as this, if Mrs. Admaston had not been a millionairess in her own right and the wife of a prominent Cabinet Minister. And it is sure also that, under such circumstances as these, an ordinary woman, without the unconscious consciousness of her financial and social position, would not have dared to do as Peggy did.
Despite the President's admonition, a torrent of half hysterical, wholly indignant words poured from the witness-box.
"And what right have they to treat me like this?" Peggy cried. "Am I to be treated as guilty, merely because I have foolishly courted temptation? I don't know what I have said, I don't know what I shall say before this torture is completed; but I am sensible enough to know that I have no chance in all this farrago of horrible insinuation which twists every little piece of harmless and girlish folly into some vicious and debasing form. I cannot keep quiet under it. I tell you it is all—all—lies—nothing but lies!"
"Now, Mrs. Admaston," Sir Robert said, apparently unmoved by this tirade, "I must ask you to give me your very close attention."
"You must try to be more composed," the President said kindly to Peggy, "if you wish to do yourself justice."
Peggy's white, set face looked straight out before her. She summoned up all her courage to bear the remainder of her torture.
"You still persist," said Sir Robert, "in saying that your trip to Paris resulted from an accident?"
"Emphatically I do," she answered.
Sir Robert looked towards the judge.
"Has your lordship got that document," he said, "which Mr. Admaston identified when he was in the witness-box?"
The President nodded. "That was the anonymous letter received by Miss Admaston—Mr. Admaston's aunt,—was it not, and produced by her on subpœna yesterday? Yes. I have it here in the envelope."
"Perhaps your lordship will allow the witness to look at the envelope."
Mr. M'Arthur jumped up. "My lord," he said, "I submit again that nothing can make this letter evidence."
"And you are quite right, Mr. M'Arthur," the judge answered. "But at present Sir Robert is not suggesting that it is evidence—Usher," he continued, "please hand this to the witness."
"Look at that envelope," Sir Robert continued. "You will see that it is dated March 23rd, and the postmark shows that it was collected at 10.30 a.m. Now, you persist in saying that at the time that letter was posted nothing was further from your mind than that you would be staying the night in Paris."
"I have already said so," Peggy answered.
"And do you say so still?"
"Of course I do," she answered tartly.
"We shall see," Sir Robert Fyffe rapped out. "The letter is addressed to Miss Admaston—is it not? And Mr. Admaston has sworn that she brought it to him to the House of Commons just after three o'clock on the same day. Is Miss Admaston a friend of yours?"
"I don't think she altogether approves of me," Peggy answered.
"You know that Mr. Admaston has sworn that it was the information contained in that letter which determined him to have you watched in Boulogne and in Paris?"
"Yes, I know."
"And at the time that letter was written, no one could possibly have known that you were going to spend the night in Paris or miss the train at Boulogne?"
"Of course they couldn't."
"May I take it, therefore," Sir Robert continued, "that you believed your husband when he says that that letter was in his hands soon after three o'clock—long before you even reach Folkestone?"
"I believe my husband implicitly," Peggy said, and there was a little quaver in her voice.
"Do you recognise the handwriting?" Sir Robert asked.
"I have never seen it before," she answered.
The judge looked intently at the K.C. "I don't want to interrupt you, Sir Robert," he said; "but do you know whose handwriting it is?"
"No, my lord," Sir Robert replied. "I am really asking for information."
"It is very curious," said the judge.
"It is, my lord," said Sir Robert. "My learned friend, Mr. Carteret, who is watching the case on behalf of Miss Admaston, informs me that he has had it submitted to every well-known handwriting expert in the United Kingdom, and indeed in Europe."
"And compared with the writing of every person however remotely connected with the parties concerned in this case?"
"He has even had it compared with Mrs. Admaston's, my lord."
"And no doubt with Mr. Collingwood's?" the judge continued.
"Yes," Sir Robert said, "and with Mr. Collingwood's too, my lord—though, I regret to say, with no result."
He turned from the judge to Peggy. "And can't you help us, Mrs. Admaston?" he concluded.
"No, not from the envelope," Peggy answered.
"It is a most peculiar handwriting," the judge observed, leaning back in his seat.
Sir Robert continued his cross-examination. "Now, Mrs. Admaston," he said, "remember that that letter was in the hands of your husband just after three o'clock on 23rd March. Now, will you be so good as to read it?"
"Out loud?"
"Oh no. Read it to yourself."
There was dead silence in the court as with trembling hands the girl took the letter from the envelope and began to read it. All the spectators, those engaged in the case, and several members of the jury knew that the dramatic moment of all had arrived. There had been many dramatic moments, but this was to be the culminating one.
The excitement was intense, and, when Peggy suddenly gave a little cry, there was a low murmur of sound. She cried out loudly, sharply, as if in pain, while the judge and jury regarded her intently. Then she bent forward over the letter again and appeared to re-read it.
Suddenly she lifted her head and turned desperately to the President. "Oh! my lord, this is infamous!" she cried.
Without any hesitation at all Sir Robert made his point.
"Do you still persist, Mrs. Admaston, in your statement that your trip to Paris was the result of an accident?"
Peggy was desperate. "My lord—this letter—it is a trap—it must be—a trap——" she wailed.
"Come, Mrs. Admaston," Sir Robert said very sternly; "can you still keep up this farce, this hypocritical farce?"
Suddenly Collingwood jumped up from his place. "My lord, I protest!" he said, in a voice which trembled with indignation.
The judge gave him a keen look as he subsided, muttering to himself.
"You will have an opportunity to-morrow," the judge said, "of showing your sympathy."
"Now, madam, having read that letter——" Sir Robert resumed.
The foreman of the jury rose. "My lord," he said, "the jury would like to see that letter."
"What do you say, Mr. M'Arthur and Mr. Menzies?" asked the judge.
"I can see no purpose in keeping it out any longer, my lord," Mr. M'Arthur answered, while Mr. Menzies said that any mischief which it might do had been done already.
The President seemed to approve. "I think you are right," he said. "Usher, give me the letter."
The letter was handed up again to the bench, and, adjusting his pince-nez, the judge proceeded to read it.
"Listen, gentlemen," he said, "and I will read it to you. The importance of this letter, gentlemen, which, as you have seen, has so terribly upset this poor lady, is that it was clearly written before 10.30 on the morning of the 23rd March, and was in the hands of Mr. Admaston long before Mrs. Admaston and her friends reached Folkestone—let alone Boulogne. The letter is dated March 23rd, and it is unsigned. Now, gentlemen, an anonymous letter is open to grave suspicion, but in the peculiar circumstances of this case the fact of its being anonymous makes no difference. If any one, other than the respondent and co-respondent, knew that they were going to stay in Paris on the night of the 23rd, and knew that before they started, it is difficult to exaggerate the importance of the fact. I will now read the letter:—
"'Mrs. Admaston will be staying at Paris to-night alone with Mr. Collingwood. They have arranged to get separated from Lord Ellerdine and Lady Attwill at Boulogne and to stay the night together at the Hôtel des Tuileries. If Mr. Admaston does not believe this, let him telephone the hotel to-night.'
"'Mrs. Admaston will be staying at Paris to-night alone with Mr. Collingwood. They have arranged to get separated from Lord Ellerdine and Lady Attwill at Boulogne and to stay the night together at the Hôtel des Tuileries. If Mr. Admaston does not believe this, let him telephone the hotel to-night.'
Mr. Carteret," the judge concluded, "were any other letters in this strange handwriting received by Miss Admaston?"
"One other, my lord, three days ago," said Mr. Carteret.
"I should like to see it," said the President.
The second letter was handed up to him, and he read it through carefully.
"It is all very mysterious," he said, shaking his head. "I think, gentlemen, that you had better hear it. It is as follows:—
"'Please destroy the other letter and this, and save an old servant who honours the family from the anger of Mrs. Admaston.'"
"'Please destroy the other letter and this, and save an old servant who honours the family from the anger of Mrs. Admaston.'"
The judge paused, carefully scrutinising the letter; then he took up an ivory reading-glass and looked at the letter through the magnifying lens.
"Am I right, Mr. Carteret," he said, "in my view that this letter has been blotted and not allowed to dry?"
Mr. Carteret leant over and had a hurried conversation with his handwriting expert. "I am instructed that there is no doubt as to that, my lord," he said, looking up.
"I should much like to see that blotting-paper," the President remarked.
"Blotting-paper!" said Sir Robert Fyffe. "So should we all, my lord." Then he rose to his feet. "Now, Mrs. Admaston, having read this letter, do you still dare to repeat that until you had the misfortune to miss the train at Boulogne you had no intention of spending the night in Paris with Mr. Collingwood?"
Peggy did not answer.
She stared at the letter upon the judge's desk as if fascinated by it.
"My lord and the jury are waiting for an answer," Sir Robert repeated. "Come, madam."
"And what answer can I give?" the tortured girl said faintly.
Sir Robert was showing her no mercy now. "The truth, madam, if you can," he said.
"The truth!" she answered. "What is the truth to you? It's not the truth you want. It's me—my very soul—that's what you want! Not to wring the truth out of me, but just so much of it as will serve your ends!"
"Mrs. Admaston," the President said compassionately, but with emphasis, "these outbursts do not assist your case."
"My case!" Peggy cried helplessly. "My lord, who will believe me in the face of this lying letter? It is a trap—a trap, I say! I have been hunted and hounded into it. I am not surprised now that innocent women in hundreds let their cases go by default rather than face the humiliation and torture of this awful place."
"Madam, I must insist upon an answer," Sir Robert said relentlessly.
"What am I to answer?" she cried again, wringing her hands with a terribly piteous gesture.
"If you ask me, Mrs. Admaston, let me advise you to answer the truth."
"The truth?"
"Yes, the truth—that this trip to Paris was all arranged between you and your lover"—his voice sank and became deeply impressive; "that at the very moment in which your husband was trying to reach you upon the telephone you were in that lover's arms?"
"It is a lie!" she said despairingly.
"The telephone bell rang several times before it was answered, did it not?"
"Yes, but——"
Sir Robert cut her short. "I suggest to you that even then you were in your lover's arms?" he said with bitter scorn.
"It is a lie!" Peggy answered once more.
"Then, Mrs. Admaston, and for the last time, I press for an answer. Do you still insist that you and your lover——"
She didn't allow him to finish his sentence. Desperate as she was, the hot words poured from her in a cataract of sound.
"How dare you suggest that he is my lover!" she cried. "I tell you that I have never loved him!—never—never—never—never! If I had loved him do you think that I would be here now? For months and months he has begged and entreated me to let my husband divorce me so that I could marry him. If I had loved him, do you think that I would have faced this horrible place? I have never loved him. I have been foolish—I have played with fire—I have loved his admiration. I did not know that the law—man's law—made no difference between the opportunity to do wrong and the wrong itself. I know now. Some day men who know women will make other laws—some of us must have our lives broken first. In the face of that letter and the evidence, no man would ever believe me, whatever I say; but I swear before God that it was all an accident—our being in Paris. I swear that I meant no harm by all my little lies. I swear I have done nothing wrong—nothing; but no one will believe me now—no one." Her voice sank and dropped, and she ended her outburst with a deep moan of pain.
"I think we will adjourn now," said the President, and there was pain in his voice also.
He gathered up the papers before him on his desk and rose. The court rose also.
There was an immediate hum and bustle, which broke out into the loud murmurs of subdued conversation as the judge left his seat and disappeared through the door at the back.
Peggy Admaston, wringing her hands, her face a white wedge of anguish, the pallor dreadfully accentuated by the burnished masses of her dark hair, almost stumbled down the steps of the witness-box. Mr. M'Arthur and her solicitor—a little confused knot of people, indeed—hastened up to her, and with a grim face Sir Robert Fyffe, not looking in the girl's direction, arranged his papers and spoke earnestly to his junior.
The scene was one of indescribable excitement.
It was as though a thunderbolt had fallen, and people looked at each other with pale, questioning faces.
The hum died down for an instant, as the weeping woman was led gently from the court.
Then it recommenced louder than ever, mingled with the shuffling of innumerable feet.
Directly the President had risen, Society streamed out into the great hall of the Law Courts.
Innumerable motor broughams and private carriages were waiting in Fleet Street, and despite the dullness of the afternoon the eager photographers of the illustrated papers were waiting to get snap-shots of celebrated people as they passed from the sordid theatre of Court No. II.en routefor afternoon tea and scandal.
Henry Passhe had an engagement, and, saying good-bye to Colonel Adams, hurried away. The other remained in the big central hall for a moment or two looking round to see if he could find an acquaintance.
To him, as he stood there, came Lord Ellerdine and struck him on the shoulder.
"Hullo, Adams!" he said, in a voice which was very subdued. "Thought I saw you in court. Been watching this dreadful business?"
Colonel Adams nodded. "Yes, Ellerdine," he said. "Henry Passhe brought me. He much wanted to come. I hesitated whether I should go or not, and now I am very sorry I did. To see a charming little woman like Mrs. Admaston tortured—that isn't very pleasant."
The other thrust his arm into the colonel's. "Damned dreadful, isn't it?" he said in an agitated voice. "Well, look here, let's get out of this. What are you going to do?"
"I have nothing particular to do at present; but why do you ask, Ellerdine?"
"Look here," Lord Ellerdine replied—"we can't talk here, but I have got an idea." His voice glowed with pride as he said it. "I haven't mentioned it to a soul, and I don't want to mention it to any one concerned in the case. Upon my soul, Adams, it is a godsend to have met you. I want to hear what you think. Are you game to listen?"
Adams nodded. He liked Lord Ellerdine, as everybody did, though he had no higher opinion of that gentleman's intelligence than the rest of the world.
"Quite at your service, Ellerdine," he answered; "and if your idea is one that may possibly help Mrs. Admaston, I shall be more pleased still."
"Of course it is," Lord Ellerdine answered. "Well, let's go and talk it over. It is impossible in this infernal rush."
"All right," Colonel Adams replied, "Come to the Cocoa Tree, or, if you like, I will come with you to White's."
Lord Ellerdine shook his head. "We will have some tea," he said. "But I don't want to go west now until I have talked this idea of mine over with you. If you agree that there is anything in it, then we should only have to come back to this part of the world again. Can't we get a cup of tea somewhere about here?"
By this time the two men had walked outside the Law Courts and were standing among the motley crowd which was pouring out of the great central doorway and also the side approaches to the public galleries and courts.
They looked around them. Both of them were absolutely at sea in this part of London.
"Tell you what," Ellerdine said suddenly: "I have got another idea. Let's go to an A.B.C.—what?"
"What do you mean?" Adams replied.
"Why," Lord Ellerdine answered, "the A.B.C. you know, where clerks and people have tea. There are always lots of them in every street, I believe."
They turned eastwards and began to walk slowly down Fleet Street.
"Ellerdine," Colonel Adams exclaimed bitterly, "look at this!"
The pavements were lined with news-venders displaying great contents bills of the evening papers:
"Mrs. Admaston on the Rack"; "Society Lady's Admissions"; and in a violently Radical sheet, "Society Butterfly Examined."
Lord Ellerdine saw the placards also. "Sickening, isn't it?" he said, with a real note of pain in his voice. "Poor little Peggy! Poor little girl! I would have done anything to stop it, Adams; and in half an hour—these newspaper fellows are so damned clever—in half an hour there'll be all about the last scene, the letter and all that. By the time we get back to town"—Lord Ellerdine didn't imagine that he was really in London at the moment,—"by the time we get back to town it will be in all the clubs just as it has come over the tape machines for the last two hours, only with further details—how Peggy looked and all that. Sickening!"
Colonel Adams agreed. He did not in the least know what his rather fatuous friend was about to propose or had in his mind; but he was, at anyrate, glad of his companionship, weary and unhappy as he felt at the terrible spectacle which he had found almost impossible to endure.
"I could kill that man Robert Fyffe," he said savagely as they walked slowly eastwards. "Great, big, damned bully, I call him."
"Well, I know him," Ellerdine replied; "and really, Adams, he is quite a decent chap in private life. It is his job, you know, and he has got to do it as well as he can. I believe he gets about a hundred a day or more for a case like this."
"Filthy cruelty, I call it," Adams answered, "whether he is a decent chap or not. To be paid—to earn your living, by Gad!—to torture men and women like that seems to me a low way of earning your bread-and-butter."
"Perhaps it is," the other replied. "At the same time, Adams, it might be said of your job too. That Afghan business, when there was no quarter, that you were in: there were a whole lot of sentimentalists in the Radical press that howled and held you up to execration as a sort of Pontius Pilate with a flavour of Nero, at home. You were out there doing the work. I was home and read the papers—you didn't. Bally monster, they called you—what?"
"Damn all newspaper writers!" the old white-haired colonel growled. "But I say, Ellerdine, what about this cup of tea?"
Lord Ellerdine looked round anxiously, and then his face lighted up. "Here's an A.B.C.," he said, pointing to some adjacent windows covered with letters in white enamel and displaying buns and pastry.
"How will this do, old chap?"
The soldier nodded, and together the two men entered the shop.
"What do we do now?" Ellerdine said, looking round him with some perplexity. "By Jove! there's a pretty girl."
One of the waitresses, realising suddenly that the two gentlemen who had just entered were quite unaccustomed to the ways of the establishment, and having one of her tables vacant, hurried up to them.
"Tea?" she said engagingly.
"That's just it, my dear," said Lord Ellerdine, with a pleased smile. "Now, you show us all the ropes, will you?"
"Come this way," said the pretty waitress, with an engaging little toss of her head and a consciousness of something pleasantly unusual. She led them to a little round-topped marble table where two cheap cane chairs were waiting, upon which Lord Ellerdine and Colonel Adams seated themselves.
"Tea, I think you said?" said the waitress to Lord Ellerdine, whom she obviously found the most sympathetic of the pair.
The ex-diplomatist nodded. "But we must have something to eat—what? Well, my dear, we will leave it to you.Carte blanche—what?"
"Now look here, Adams," Lord Ellerdine said, "what I want to tell you is this. Of course, I am tremendously interested in this case. I am mixed up in it considerably, and also I am a great friend of Peggy's—one of her oldest friends. You know her too, though not as well as I do, and you know what a charming little woman she is. I would do anything to save her if I could, and I have got an idea! Now, some time ago," Lord Ellerdine continued, "a silly Johnny—a secretary it was—forged my name. It was on a cheque. There was considerable difficulty in finding out who was the actual culprit, as owing to the circumstances there were several people who might have done it. My solicitors told me that the only way to really find out was to go to a handwriting expert. I didn't know what that was until they explained, but it seems there are Johnnies who make a regular profession of studying people's writing."
"Are there, by Jove!" said the colonel, much interested.
"Yes; and just at that time—it was some two years ago—the king and skipper of the whole lot had come over from America and established a branch in London. His name is William Q. Devereux."
"Is it, by Jove!" said the colonel again.
Ellerdine nodded. "Odd," he said, "but true,parole d'honneur. He started an office in London to help all the commercial Johnnies in the city, and so I went to him with my papers; and I am damned if the chap didn't find out who forged my name in about an hour, and we had him nailed that same evening. Cost me a tenner, that's all."
Colonel Adams nodded, looking with some trepidation at the pile of rather too luscious-looking pastry which had by now been set upon the table.
"I don't think I will venture," he said to himself; and then to Ellerdine, "Well, go on, Ellerdine."
"Now, in my pocket," Lord Ellerdine continued, "I have got exact photographs and tracings of the letters which have made such a fuss this afternoon. My idea, Adams, is that you and I—if you have time, that is—should go down into the City and see this expert chap and see if he can throw some light on the situation. They have tried all the experts in London on Peggy's case, but they don't seem to know about my American friend. I believe in him. He is one of the most astute people going. What do you say to trying him—for poor little Peggy's sake?"
"Excellent idea, by Jove!" the other answered. "You've got his address, of course?"
"Oh yes," Lord Ellerdine replied; "it's in Coleman Street, E.C. Now, I wonder if you would mind going down with me and seeing what he has got to say?"
"Not in the least," Colonel Adams answered. "In fact, I shall be tremendously interested. I'd do a good deal more than that, my dear Ellerdine, if I could, to help Mrs. Admaston in any way."
"Very well, then," said the peer. "We'll just finish our tea, and pay that pretty-looking girl and take a taxi at once."
In five minutes they had dismissed the cab and were being carried in a lift to the third floor of a big block of buildings in Coleman Street.
The door of Mr. Devereux's office was marked "Enter," and the newcomers found themselves in a small but comfortably furnished room. At a round polished table, on which there was a typewriting machine, sat a young lady, who was reading a novel of Miss Marie Corelli's.
"Mr. Devereux is in," she said in answer to their queries, "but he is just about to leave. However, I will take your name and see if he can see you."
Some people would have been annoyed at this fashion of greeting, but to the two simple gentlemen in question it seemed quite right and proper that such a rare bird as an American handwriting expert should be fenced round with a certain ritual.
"Tell Mr. Devereux," said Lord Ellerdine, "that Lord Ellerdine is here. Mr. Devereux knows me."
Unlike the young person in the café, the young lady in the office did not seem at all impressed, but languidly sauntered through the door which led to the inner room. She came back much more quickly than she had entered. "Mr. Devereux begs that you will step in," she said, and once more fell to her enthralling romance as the door closed behind the visitors.
Mr. Devereux was a well-dressed, trim young American with a hard, clean-shaved face. His manner was brisk, business-like, and deferential, and his whole appearance suggested energy and capability.
Upon his large leather-covered writing-table were various appliances used in his business.
One saw a microscope of some peculiar construction. There were a variety of small lenses and reading-glasses, together with various instruments of shining steel for measuring, with extreme accuracy, the length of a letter or a line.
There was also an enlarging camera upon a shelf by the window, and a door in one corner of the place was marked "Dark room."
"Glad to see you again, my lord," said Mr. Devereux. "Not a forgery case this time, I hope?"
"Not a bit of it," Lord Ellerdine replied, shaking hands with the expert. "Glad to see you, Mr. Devereux. No; it is something far more important than a cheque for fifty pounds. It is to do with the Admaston divorce case."
Mr. Devereux started. His face became almost ferret-like in its intentness, while he said nasally, but with suppressed eagerness in his voice, "I guess this is a bit of luck. I have just seen this evening's paper, and of course I have followed the case with great interest from first to last. I know without any possibility of doubt that all my brother experts in London have been consulted. And from the first it has rather hurt me that nobody had come to me, because I do claim——"
Lord Ellerdine interrupted him. "I know, I know," he said; "there is no one that can touch you, Mr. Devereux. But probably, you see——" He hesitated in his effort to soothe the somewhat wounded feelings of the expert.
Colonel Adams came to the rescue. "Well, Mr. Devereux," he said, "here we are, and we have got something very important on which to ask your opinion."
The expert became all attention once more. "What is it?" he said briefly.
Lord Ellerdine put his hand in the breast-pocket of his coat and withdrew a long envelope full of papers.
"I have here," he said, "exact photographs and tracings—everything that you will probably find needful, in fact—of the two letters which you have just been reading about in the evening paper, and which have caused such a tremendous sensation this afternoon. It seems at the moment that Mrs. Admaston has absolutely lost her case. To all outward appearances these letters have ruined her. At the same time, I am certain that she knew nothing about them, and that Mr. Collingwood knew nothing about them either. You follow me?"
Lord Ellerdine had never been so concise and explanatory before, but the occasion had come, and he had risen to it.
"I follow you perfectly," said the expert.
"Very well, then," Lord Ellerdine said; "here are the letters, and I want you to tell me what you think about them."
He gave the envelope to the expert, who withdrew the papers it contained and spread them upon the table.
He began to study them with grave attention. The two men sat in the comfortable chairs he had indicated to them.
"My lord," said the expert, looking up suddenly, "I guess you won't realise the necessity of it, but I should very much like to be left alone for say twenty minutes. I can think better when I am alone, and I gather you want an immediate opinion?"
"We do," Lord Ellerdine replied. "All right; we will go, and come back in half an hour or so."
The two gentlemen re-entered the waiting-room.
"Well, my dear," said Lord Ellerdine briskly to the young lady, "we are put out here while Mr. Devereux examines some papers I have brought in; and he tells us that we are to talk to you—what?"
The young lady put down her volume. "Frightfully cold," she said, "isn't it?" And for the next half-hour Lord Ellerdine and Colonel Adams and this very superior young lady conversed with a studied propriety which certainly did not obtain in the drawing-rooms where the two gentlemen were accustomed to visit.
At the end of that time the door opened and the keen-faced American came out.
He was rubbing his hands briskly as though pleased with himself. "Guess I have got something for you, at anyrate," he said, "if you will come in here."
They re-entered the inner room, and Devereux began. "I can tell you one thing," he said, "and one thing only."
Lord Ellerdine was trembling with excitement. "What is it?" he said breathlessly. "Will it help?"
"It may," the expert replied; "but at anyrate it is this. Those two letters were written by some one who can write with the left hand as well as with the right. There is not the slightest doubt about it, and I don't care what any of your darned English experts may say."
Lord Ellerdine's face fell. "With the left hand?" he asked vaguely.
The expert nodded. "I will explain to you," he said, pulling a large book of manuscripts towards him; and illustrating his theory with swift, decisive movements upon a blank sheet of paper, he showed the two men exactly the reasons for his diagnosis.
"Now, my lord," he said, when he had finished and made certain that both of them thoroughly understood—"now, my lord, all you have to do is to find the person who writes with his or her left hand and could have possibly been sufficiently acquainted with the facts to produce those two letters. When that is done you will have the person."
Lord Ellerdine was considerably disappointed. He had imagined that by some occult means the expert would have been immediately able to name the writer of the letters. He strove to conceal what he felt, however; and after paying Mr. Devereux's fee the two men left the building.
"It isn't much," Lord Ellerdine said, as they got into a cab and drove rapidly towards the West End. "It isn't much, but it is something. I will drop you at your club—Cocoa Tree, isn't it?—and then drive straight to Collingwood's solicitors to find out where he is. It is not much, but it is something," he repeated rather vaguely to himself; and then both men became occupied with their own thoughts and were silent.
The drawing-room of Mrs. Admaston's house in St. James's was thought by many people to be one of the most delightful rooms in town.
The Morris and æsthetic conventions were entirely ignored in it. There were no soft greys or greens, no patterns of pomegranates, no brown and pleasing sombreness. The room expressed Peggy herself, and was designed entirely by her.
It was large, panelled entirely in white with sparse gilding, and the ceiling was white also, though slightly different in tone. The very few pictures which hung upon the walls were all of the gay Watteau school, and there were some fans painted on silk and framed by Charles Conder.
The furniture was not obtrusive. It was in the light style of the Second Empire, fragile and delicate in appearance, but strong and comfortable enough in experience.
The room was essentially a summer room, and yet one could see that even in winter time it would strike a note of warmth, hospitality, and comfort.
For, with great wisdom, Peggy had made concessions. While the drawing-room still preserved its gay French air, there was, nevertheless, a huge open hearth on which, in winter, logs and coal glowed redly. Now, it was filled with great bunches of the simple pink foxglove.
Standing out from the fireplace, at right angles to the wall, was a large sofa of blue linen; and there was also a big writing-table with a pleasant furniture of chased silver upon it.
This room in the luxurious house was called the "drawing-room," but it was not really that. It was, in fact, Mrs. Admaston's own particular room—she hated the word boudoir. The big reception-rooms had no such intimate and pleasant aspect—splendid as they were—as this.
The flowers bloomed on the hearth, the long dull-green curtains had not yet veiled the warm outside evening, when a footman entered and flung open the two big doors which led into this delightful place.
The man stood waiting with one arm stretched out upon one leaf of the door.
Mrs. Admaston and Lady Attwill entered, and Pauline followed them.
"Bring some tea at once," Pauline said in a low voice to the footman.
Then she turned to Peggy. "Madame," she said in a voice full of pain, "do compose yourself. You will be very ill if you go on like this."
Peggy's face was dangerously flushed. Her eyes glittered, her hands clasped and unclasped themselves.
"That letter!" she cried. "That fiendish letter! Who could have sent it? Whatdevilplanned that trap?"
Lady Attwill shrugged her shoulders. "Anonymous—take no notice," she said.
Peggy turned on her like a whirlwind. "Don't be absurd, Alice!" she cried. "It was sent before we left London. Who knew we should go to Paris? Who knew that we should stay at the Tuileries?"
Pauline was hovering round her mistress with a face that was all anxiety, with hands that trembled to touch and soothe. "Remember, madame," she said, "it was sent to your aunt. Very funny that! She has never liked you, that grim old lady!"
"Why did she dislike me?" Peggy said petulantly.
"Madame, you were gay, happy—like sunbeams. Your old aunt lived in the shadows. She is a dour old maid."
"I don't see what she has to do with it," Peggy answered. "The letter was written by some one who knew that we were going to stay in Paris, and even where we were going to stay."
Lady Attwill went up to the fireplace and sank down upon the sofa of blue linen.
In her smart afternoon costume of grey silk, and a large straw hat upon which the flowers were amethyst and purple, she made a perfect colour-harmony as she sat.
"Why was it sent to her?" Lady Attwill asked.
Peggy sighed. "I don't know, except that she was the one to poison George's mind. Without her he would probably have ignored it. But who was it whoknewthat we should be in Paris that night? No one imagines that I knew or—Pauline. Then there's Dicky—that's absurd."
Peggy's face seemed to have grown older. The terrible ordeal that she had undergone had left vivid traces upon it. It was not a frightened face—it was the face of one who had been agonised, but it was also a face of great perplexity.
Pauline interposed. "Madame," she said, "if you did not know that you would be staying at Paris that night, the writer of that letter must be some one who did know, and who planned this trick to compromise you. There are only two who could have known. Madame—I do not like...."
In the maid's voice the old, harsh Breton determination had flashed out. She turned towards Lady Attwill, and her whole voice and bearing were a challenge.
Her head was pushed a little forward, moving from side to side like a snake about to strike; unconsciously her arms were set akimbo.
Lady Attwill looked languidly at the angry woman. "You need have no delicacy, Pauline," she said. "Ca fait rien, expliquez-vous. Tiens! What you want to say is that the letter was written by Mr. Collingwood or by myself—or by somebody or other procured by us to do it. C'est votre idée, n'est-ce pas?"
The woman, in her way—in her languid way—was defiant as the old Breton bonne herself.
Peggy rose and began to walk up and down the room. She had been sitting almost opposite Lady Attwill, but now there seemed to be hesitation and perplexity, not only in her voice, but in her whole attitude.
"But you could not have done it, Alice," she said. "The luggage, don't you know—it was Colling who saw that it was not registered."
"That is only what the porter says," Alice Attwill answered grimly.
"Oh, my dear," Peggy replied, "it is only too obviously true. Pauline saw through it the same night. Didn't you think it was very funny?"
Lady Attwill fell immediately into the suggestion.
"Well, dear," she said, "Dicky and I were a little bit suspicious, since you put it to me; but I hardly liked to suggest——"
Peggy turned from both of them and went up to the piano, standing by it and drumming upon it with her gloved fingers. "Colling!" she muttered. "It's impossible! And yet just now when I left the court I could not think how else it could have been done."
She wheeled round. "Alice," she said, "do you think itcouldhave been Colling? Do you? What reason could he have had?"
Alice Attwill's hands were clasped upon her knee. She was bending forward, nodding her head slightly from time to time, and had an almost judicial pose.
She appeared to be thinking. "My dear Peggy," she said at length, "I can see plenty of reasons. After all, we know that Colling won't be sorry if Admaston gets his divorce."
"I beg miladi's pardon," Pauline broke in, "but I do not think that is so."
"C'est bien possible," Lady Attwill replied to the maid. And then, looking at Peggy, "I am sure I can't imagine Mr. Collingwood doing such a thing. I am the last person to make mischief."
She rose as she spoke and walked towards the door. "Come along, Peggy," she said; "you must get your things off—you've had such a horrible day."
Peggy looked at her wildly. She hardly seemed to hear what she was saying.
"No—no—let me think—I must think!" she cried, and there was a rising note of hysteria in her voice.
"Well," Lady Attwill said calmly, "I must get out of my things, at anyrate." Then she spoke with something which sounded like affection in her voice.
"Peggy," she said, "you really must lie down and rest—I shall be down in a few minutes."
With a bright smile she took her parasol and left the room.
Then Peggy let herself go.
"Oh! How cruel it is!" she cried, raging up and down the drawing-room. "They have taken all the joy out of my life! I feel as if they had burnt the damning letter in scarlet upon my breast—branded by law, divorce-court law! Oh, the ignominy, the shame of it all—the shame! It is barbarous! To hold a woman up and torture her before a pruriently minded crowd whether she is guilty or not! Am I guilty because I can't prove that I am innocent?"
The old maid ran up to Peggy and caught her firmly by the arms, pressing her down into a chair.
"Rest! rest!" she said, with the tears rolling down her cheeks. "Mignon, you will break my heart if you go on like this. You are innocent; I stake my soul on that. Wait—wait till to-morrow when I am witness. I will tell them!"
Peggy's arms went round the old maid's neck and she drew the gnarled face to hers. "Pauline," she said, "dear Pauline! They will torture you as they did me. It is useless. Sir Robert Fyffe will make you say just what he wants. It is not justice that triumphs in the end—it is intellect that damns. Pauline, do you think that Mr. Collingwood knew that we should be in Paris that night, and that he wrote the letter?"
Pauline kissed her. "I think, madame," she said, "that M. Collingwood knew that we should be in Paris. But I am certain he did not write that letter. M. Collingwood might have done a very foolish thing, thinking that you loved him—but he is a gentleman."
"But if he did not write it—then you think that Lady Attwill?..."
"Comme vous voulez? If it is not M. Collingwood, madame, it must be Lady Attwill."
"But why should she have done such a fiendish thing?"
"She has never forgiven you for marrying Mr. Admaston. Did I not tell you, madame? Did I not say that to you in Paris?"
Peggy nodded. "Yes, Pauline," she replied; "but I can't believe you. She has seen my misery. No, Pauline, it is impossible!"
"Madame, it is not impossible. She can only conquer by your misery."
Peggy jumped up from the sofa, her whole body shaking, her face aflame with righteous anger. "Pauline!" she said in a shrill voice, "Imustfind out who wrote that letter."
"Yes, madame," the old maid replied, with a despairing gesture of her hands; "but how will you do it?"
"I shall employ the same weapons to find out that as they have brought against me. The law, the officers, the craft and cunning of the whole machine. I am very rich, Pauline, quite apart from my husband—as you know very well; but, if it cost me every penny I had, I would spend it all, if necessary, to find out who wrote that letter."
The door opened and two footmen came in with the tea equipage. Peggy looked up at them, annoyed at the interruption; then her eye fell upon the windows at the end of the room which led upon a long, secluded terrace outside the drawing-room. It was called the "terrace lounge."
"Not here," she said impatiently; "on the terrace."
The men took the table through the windows, pulling aside the curtains which half veiled the view beyond.
"I'll rest and think, Pauline," Peggy said. "I can always think in that old Sheraton chair on the terrace."
"But if M. Collingwood calls?" Pauline asked.
"Why should he call?" Peggy said. "I see no reason."
"He telephoned asking if you would see him," the maid replied.
"Ah!" Peggy said, with a sudden note of resolve.
It frightened the faithful Breton maid. "Don't see him, madame!" she cried. "Rest!"
"No rest for us yet, Pauline.... I will see him. Imustsee him. Let him be shown in here. Tell me as soon as he comes."
She turned and went through one of the windows just as the two men-servants came out of the other, having arranged the things for tea.
"When M. Collingwood comes," Pauline said, "show him in here."
The first footman bowed. Pauline's word was law in this house; and, though it was bitterly resented below-stairs that she, a servant herself, should have such authority, no one ventured to dispute it.