"
"Then why unnecessarily distress this lady?"
"Oh, for my own part, sir - " the prosecutor was submitting, when
Sir Terence cut in:
"I think that in the prisoner's interest perhaps Lady O'Moy will
not mind being distressed a little." It was at her he looked, and
for her and Tremayne alone that he intended the cutting lash of
sarcasm concealed from the rest of the court by his smooth accent.
"Mullins has said, I think, that her ladyship was on the balcony
when he came into the quadrangle. Her evidence therefore, takes us
further back in point of time than does Mullins's." Again the
sarcastic double meaning was only for those two. "Considering that
the prisoner is being tried for his life, I do not think we should
miss anything that may, however slightly, affect our judgment."
"Sir Terence is right, I think, sir," the judge-advocate supported.
"Very well, then," said the president. "Proceed, if you please."
"Will you be good enough to tell the court, Lady O'Moy, how you
came to be upon the balcony?"
Her pallor had deepened, and her eyes looked more than ordinarily
large and child-like as they turned this way and that to survey the
members of the court. Nervously she dabbed her lips with a
handkerchief before answering mechanically as she had been schooled:
"I heard a cry, and I ran out - "
"You were in bed at the time, of course?" quoth her husband,
interrupting.
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