"Why do you apply these words to Captain Tremayne?" she asked.
He turned sharply to meet the opposition he detected in her. "I
don't apply them. On the contrary, I say that, as Una knows, they
are not applicable."
"Then you make an unnecessary statement, a statement that has
nothing to do with the case. Captain Tremayne has been arrested
for killing Count Samoval in a duel. A duel may be a violation of
the law as recently enacted by Lord Wellington, but it is not an
offence against honour; and to say that a man cannot have fought a
duel because a man is incapable of anything base or treacherous or
sly is just to say a very foolish and meaningless thing."
"Oh, quite so," the adjutant, admitted. "But if Tremayne denies
having fought, if he shelters himself behind a falsehood, and says
that he has not killed Samoval, then I think the statement assumes
some meaning."
"Does Captain Tremayne say that?" she asked him sharply.
"It is what I understood him to say last night when I ordered him
under arrest."
"Then," said Sylvia, with full conviction, "Captain Tremayne did
not do it."
"Perhaps he didn't," Sir Terence admitted. "The court will no doubt
discover the truth. The truth, you know, must prevail," and he
looked at his wife again, marking the fresh signs of agitation she
betrayed.
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