Yet you stand there
and confess to me the basest, the most dishonest villainy that I
have ever known a British officer to commit, and you tell me that
you have no explanation to offer for your conduct. Either I have
never known you, O'Moy, or I do not know you now. Which is it?"
O'Moy raised his arms, only to let them fall heavily to his sides
again.
"What explanation can there be?" he asked. "How can a man who has
been - as I hope I have - a man of honour in the past explain such
an act of madness? It arose out of your order against duelling,"
he went on. "Samoval offended me mortally. He said such things to
me of my wife's honour that no man could suffer, and I least of any
man. My temper betrayed me. I consented to a clandestine meeting
without seconds. It took place here, and I killed him. And then
I had, as I imagined - quite wrongly, as I know now - overwhelming
evidence that what he had told me was true, and I went mad."
Briefly he told the story of Tremayne's descent from Lady O'Moy's
balcony and the rest.
"I scarcely know," he resumed, "what it was I hoped to accomplish
in the end. I do not know - for I never stopped to consider
- whether I should have allowed Captain Tremayne to have been shot
if it had come to that.
Pages:
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354