"You false deceiver!" she cried. "There are those who heard you vow his
death. Your very words have been reported to me. And from where he lay
they found a trail of blood upon the snow that ran to your own door.
Will you still lie?"
They saw the colour leave his face. They saw his arms drop limply to
his sides, and his eyes dilate with obvious sudden fear.
"A...a trail of blood?" he faltered stupidly.
"Aye, answer that!" cut in Sir John, fetched suddenly from out his
doubts by that reminder.
Sir Oliver turned upon Killigrew again. The knight's words restored to
him the courage of which Rosamund's had bereft him. With a man he could
fight; with a man there was no need to mince his words.
"I cannot answer it," he said, but very firmly, in a tone that brushed
aside all implications. "If you say it was so, so it must have been.
Yet when all is said, what does it prove? Does it set it beyond doubt
that it was I who killed him? Does it justify the woman who loved me to
believe me a murderer and something worse?" He paused, and looked at
her again, a world of reproach in his glance. She had sunk to a chair,
and rocked there, her fingers locking and interlocking, her face a mask
of pain unutterable.
"Can you suggest what else it proves, sir?" quoth Sir John, and there
was doubt in his voice.
Sir Oliver caught the note of it, and a sob broke from him.
"O God of pity!" he cried out.
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