In the end, however, the primary desire for vengeance and vengeance of the bitterest kind proved master of his mind. Captain Tremayne had been led by his villainy into a coil that should presently crush him, and Sir Terence promised himself an infinite balm for his outraged honour in the entertainment which the futile struggles of the victim should provide. With Captain Tremayne lay the cruel choice of submitting in tortured silence to his fate, or of turning craven and saving his miserable life by proclaiming himself a seducer and a betrayer. It should be interesting to observe how the captain would decide, and his punishment was certain whatever the decision that he took.
Sir Terence came to breakfast in the open, grey-faced and haggard, but miraculously composed for a man who had so little studied the art of concealing his emotions. Voice and glance were calm as he gave a good-morning to his wife and to Miss Armytage.
"What are you going to do about Ned?" was one of his wife's first questions.
It took him aback. He looked askance at her, marvelling at the steadiness with which she bore his glance, until it occurred to him that effrontery was an essential part of the equipment of all harlots.
"What am I going to do?" he echoed. "Why, nothing. The matter is out of my hands. I may be asked to give evidence; I may even be called to sit upon the court-martial that will try him. My evidence can hardly assist him. My conclusions will naturally be based upon the evidence that is laid before the court."
Her teaspoon rattled in her saucer. "I don't understand you, Terence. Ned has always been your best friend."
"He has certainly shared everything that was mine."
"And you know," she went on, "that he did not kill Samoval."
"Indeed?" His glance quickened a little. "How should I know that?"
"Well... I know it, anyway."
He seemed moved by that statement. He leaned forward with an odd eagerness, behind which there was something terrible that went unperceived by her.
"Why did you not say so before? How do you know? What do you know?"
"I am sure that he did not."
"Yes, yes. But what makes you so sure? Do you possess some knowledge that you have not revealed?"
He saw the colour slowly shrinking from her cheeks under his burning gaze. So she was not quite shameless then, after all. There were limits to her effrontery.
"What knowledge should I possess?" she filtered.
"That is what I am asking."
She made a good recovery. "I possess the knowledge that you should possess yourself," she told him. "I know Ned for a man incapable of such a thing. I am ready to swear that he could not have done it."
"I see: evidence as to character." He sank back into his chair and thoughtfully stirred his chocolate. "It may weigh with the court. But I am not the court, and my mere opinions can do nothing for Ned Tremayne."
Her ladyship looked at him wildly. "The court?" she cried. "Do you mean that I shall have to give evidence?"
"Naturally," he answered. "You will have to say what you saw."
"But—but I saw nothing."
"Something, I think."
"Yes; but nothing that can matter."
"Still the court will wish to hear it and perhaps to examine you upon it."
"Oh no, no!" In her alarm she half rose, then sank again to her chair. "You must keep me out of this, Terence. I couldn't—I really couldn't."
He laughed with an affectation of indulgence, masking something else.
"Why," he said, "you would not deprive Tremayne of any of the advantages to be derived from your testimony? Are you not ready to bear witness as to his character? To swear that from your knowledge of the man you are sure he could not have done such a thing? That he is the very soul of honour, a man incapable of anything base or treacherous or sly?"
And then at last Sylvia, who had been watching them, and seeking to apply to what she heard the wild expressions that Sir Terence had used to herself last night, broke into the conversation.
"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.
Mullins coming to set fresh covers, the conversation was allowed to lapse. Nor was it ever resumed, for at that moment, with no other announcement save such as was afforded by his quick step and the click-click of his spurs, a short, slight man entered the quadrangle from the doorway of the official wing.
The adjutant, turning to look, caught his breath suddenly in an exclamation of astonishment.
"Lord Wellington!" he cried, and was immediately on his feet.
At the exclamation the new-comer checked and turned. He wore a plain grey undress frock and white stock, buckskin breeches and lacquered boots, and he carried a riding-crop tucked under his left arm. His features were bold and sternly handsome; his fine eyes singularly piercing and keen in their glance; and the sweep of those eyes now took in not merely the adjutant, but the spread table and the ladies seated before it. He halted a moment, then advanced quickly, swept his cocked hat from a brown head that was but very slightly touched with grey, and bowed with a mixture of stiffness and courtliness to the ladies.
"Since I have intruded so unwittingly, I had best remain to make my apologies," he said. "I was on my way to your residential quarters, O'Moy, not imagining that I should break in upon your privacy in this fashion."
O'Moy with a great deference made haste to reassure him on the score of the intrusion, whilst the ladies themselves rose to greet him. He bore her ladyship's hand to his lips with perfunctory courtesy, then insisted upon her resuming her chair. Then he bowed—ever with that mixture of stiffness and deference—to Miss Armytage upon her being presented to him by the adjutant.
"Do not suffer me to disturb you," he begged them. "Sit down, O'Moy. I am not pressed, and I shall be monstrous glad of a few moments' rest. You are very pleasant here," and he looked about the luxuriant garden with approving eyes.
Sir Terence placed the hospitality of his table at his lordship's disposal. But the latter declined graciously.
"A glass of wine and water, if you will. No more. I breakfasted at Torres Vedras with Fletcher." Then to the look of astonishment on the faces of the ladies he smiled. "Oh yes," he assured them, "I was early astir, for time is very precious just at present, which is why I drop unannounced upon you from the skies, O'Moy." He took the glass that Mullins proffered on a salver, sipped from it, and set it down. "There is so much vexation, so much hindrance from these pestilential intriguers here in Lisbon, that I have thought it as well to come in person and speak plainly to the gentlemen of the Council of Regency." He was peeling off his stout riding-gloves as he spoke. "If this campaign is to go forward at all, it will go forward as I dispose. Then, too, I wanted to see Fletcher and the works. By gad, O'Moy, he has performed miracles, and I am very pleased with him—oh, and with you too. He told me how ably you have seconded him and counselled him where necessary. You must have worked night and day, O'Moy." He sighed. "I wish that I were as well served in every direction." And then he broke off abruptly. "But this is monstrous tedious for your ladyship, and for you, Miss Armytage. Forgive me."