Oliver smiled. "Not a doubt but that lies will flow from you more
readily than truth. But we shall have truth, too, in the end, never
doubt it." He was mocking, and there was a subtle purpose underlying
his mockery. "And you shall tell a full story," he continued, "in all
its details, so that Mistress Rosamund's last doubt shall vanish. You
shall tell her how you lay in wait for him that evening in Godolphin
Park; how you took him unawares, and...."
"That is false!" cried Lionel in a passion of sincerity that brought him
to his feet.
It was false, indeed, and Oliver knew it, and deliberately had recourse
to falsehood, using it as a fulcrum upon which to lever out the truth.
He was cunning as all the fiends, and never perhaps did he better
manifest his cunning.
"False?" he cried with scorn. "Come, now, be reasonable. The truth,
ere torture sucks it out of you. Reflect that I know all--exactly as
you told it me. How was it, now? Lurking behind a bush you sprang upon
him unawares and ran him through before he could so much as lay a hand
to his sword, and so...."
"The lie of that is proven by the very facts themselves," was the
furious interruption. A subtle judge of tones might have realized that
here was truth indeed, angry indignant truth that compelled conviction.
"His sword lay beside him when they found him."
But Oliver was loftily disdainful. "Do I not know? Yourself you drew
it after you had slain him.
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