"A lie! A lie to save that foul
villain's neck!"
Rosamund leaned towards him, and her smile was almost a sneer. "Your
wits were ever sluggish, Sir John," she said. "Else you would not need
reminding that I could have no object in lying to save him if he had done
me the wrong that is imputed to him." Then she looked at the others. "I
think, sirs, that in this matter my word will outweigh Sir John's or any
man's in any court of justice."
"Faith, that's true enough!" ejaculated the bewildered Lord Henry. "A
moment, Killigrew!" And again he stilled the impetuous Sir John. He
looked at Sir Oliver, who in truth was very far from being the least
bewildered in that company. "What do you say to that, sir?" he asked.
"To that?" echoed the almost speechless corsair. "What is there left to
say?" he evaded.
"'Tis all false," cried Sir John again. "We were witnesses of the
event--you and I, Harry--and we saw...."
"You saw, Rosamund interrupted. "But you did not know what had been
concerted."
For a moment that silenced them again. They were as men who stand upon
crumbling ground, whose every effort to win to a safer footing but
occasioned a fresh slide of soil. Then Sir John sneered, and made his
riposte.
"No doubt she will be prepared to swear that her betrothed, Master Lionel
Tressilian, accompanied her willingly upon that elopement."
"No," she answered. "As for Lionel Tressilian he was carried off that he
might expiate his sins--sins which he had fathered upon his brother
there, sins which are the subject of your other count against him.
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