risoner's
friend, took up the examination of his chief.

"It is of course admitted that Captain Tremayne enjoyed free access
to Monsanto practically at all hours in his capacity as your military
secretary, Sir Terence?"

"Admitted," said Sir Terence.

"And it is therefore possible that he might have come upon the body of
the deceased just as Mullins came upon it?"

"It is possible, certainly. The evidence to come will no doubt determine
whether it is a tenable opinion."

"Admitting this, then, the attitude in which Captain Tremayne was
discovered would be a perfectly natural one? It would be natural that he
should investigate the identity and hurt of the man he found there?"

"Certainly."

"But it would hardly be natural that he should linger by the body of
a man he had himself slain, thereby incurring the risk of being
discovered?"

"That is a question for the court rather than for me."

"Thank you, Sir Terence." And, as no one else desired to question him,
Sir Terence resumed his seat, and Lady O'Moy was called.

She came in very white and trembling, accompanied by Miss Armytage,
whose admittance was suffered by the court, since she would not be
called upon to give evidence. One of the officers of the Fourteenth
seated on the extreme right of the table made gallant haste to set a
chair for her ladyship, which she accepted gratefully.

The oath administered, she was invited gently by Major Swan to tell the
court what she knew of the case before them.

"But--but I know nothing," she faltered in evident distress, and Sir
Terence, his elbow leaning on the table, covered his mouth with his hand
that its movements might not betray him. His eyes glowered upon her with
a ferocity that was hardly dissembled.

"If you will take the trouble to tell the court what you saw from your
balcony," the major insisted, "the court will be grateful."

Perceiving her agitation, and attributing it to nervousness, moved
also by that delicate loveliness of hers, and by deference to the
adjutant-generates lady, Sir Harry Stapleton intervened.

"Is Lady O'Moy's evidence really necessary?" he asked. "Does it
contribute any fresh fact regarding the discovery of the body?"

"No, sir," Major Swan admitted. "It is merely a corroboration of what we
have already heard from Mullins and Sir Terence."

"Then why unnecessarily distress this lady?"

"Oh, for my own part, sir--" the prosecutor was submitting, when Sir
Terence cut in: