I should be
angry with you, O'Moy, for what you have done. But I find my anger
vanishing in regret. I should scorn you for the lie you have acted,
for your scant regard to your oath in the court-martial, for your
attempt to combat an imagined villainy by a real villainy. But I
realise what you have suffered, and in that suffering lies the
punishment you fully deserve for not having taken the straight
course, for not having taxed me there and then with the thing that
you suspected."
"The gentleman is about to lecture me upon morals, Sylvia." But
Tremayne let pass the interruption.
"It is quite true that I was in Una's room while you were killing
Samoval. But I was not alone with her, as you have so rashly
assumed. Her brother Richard was there, and it was on his behalf
that I was present. She had been hiding him for a fortnight. She
begged me, as Dick's friend and her own, to save him; and I
undertook to do so. I climbed to her room to assist him to descend
by the rope ladder you saw, because he was wounded and could not
climb without assistance. At the gates I had the curricle waiting
in which I had driven up. In this I was to have taken him on board
a ship that was leaving that night for England, having made
arrangements with her captain.
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