And he looked with serious eyes at Captain
Tremayne.

"I have no questions for Sir Terence, sir," was his answer.

Indeed, what question could he have asked? The falsehoods he had uttered
had woven themselves into a rope about his neck, and he stood before
his brother officers now in an agony of shame, a man discredited, as he
believed.

"But no doubt you will desire the presence of the Commissary-General?"
This was from Colonel Fletcher his own colonel and a man who esteemed
him--and it was asked in accents that were pleadingly insistent.

"What purpose could it serve, sir? Sir Terence's words are partly
confirmed by the evidence he has just elicited from Sergeant Flynn and
his butler Mullins. Since he spent the night writing a letter to the
Commissary, it is not to be doubted that the subject would be such as he
states, since from my own knowledge it was the most urgent matter in
our hands. And, naturally, he would not have written without having
the documents at his side. To summon the Commissary-General would be
unnecessarily to waste the time of the court. It follows that I must
have been mistaken, and this I admit."

"But how could you be mistaken?" broke from the president.

"I realise your difficulty in crediting, it. But there it is. Mistaken
I was."

"Very well, sir." Sir Harry paused and then added "The court will be
glad to hear you in answer to the further evidence adduced to refute
your statement in your own defence."

"I have nothing further to say, sir," was Tremayne's answer.

"Nothing further?" The president seemed aghast. "Nothing, sir."

And now Colonel Fletcher leaned forward to exhort him. "Captain
Tremayne," he said, "let me beg you to realise the serious position in
which you are placed."

"I assure you, sir, that I realise it fully."

"Do you realise that the statements you have made to account for your
movements during the half-hour that you were at Monsanto have been
disproved? You have heard Private Bates's evidence to the effect that
at the time when you say you were at work in the offices, those offices
remained in darkness. And you have heard Sir Terence's statement that
the documents upon which you claim to have been at work were at the
time in his own hands. Do you realise what inference the court will be
compelled to draw from this?"

"The court must draw whatever inference it pleases," answered the
captain without heat.

Sir Terence stirred. "Captain Tremayne," said