"The death of Samoval and my own arrest thwarted our plans and prevented Dick's escape. That is the truth. Now that you have it I hope you like it, and I hope that you thoroughly relish your own behaviour in the matter."
There was a fluttering sigh of relief from Miss Armytage. Then silence followed, in which O'Moy stared at Tremayne, emotion after emotion sweeping across his mobile face.
"Dick Butler?" he said at last, and cried out: "I don't believe a word of it! Ye're lying, Tremayne."
"You have cause enough to hope so."
The captain was faintly scornful.
"If it were true, Una would not have kept it from me. It was to me she would have come."
"The trouble with you, O'Moy, is that jealousy seems to have robbed you of the power of coherent thought, or else you would remember that you were the last man to whom Una could confide Dick's presence here. I warned her against doing so. I told her of the promise you had been compelled to give the secretary, Forjas, and I was even at pains to justify you to her when she was indignant with you for that. It would perhaps be better," he concluded, "if you were to send for Una."
"It's what I intend," said Sir Terence in a voice that made a threat of the statement. He strode stiffly across the room and pulled open the door. There was no need to go farther. Lady O'Moy, white and tearful, was discovered on the threshold. Sir Terence stood aside, holding the door for her, his face very grim.
She came in slowly, looking from one to another with her troubled glance, and finally accepting the chair that Captain Tremayne made haste to offer her. She had so much to say to each person present that it was impossible to know where to begin. It remained for Sir Terence to give her the lead she needed, and this he did so soon as he had closed the door again. Planted before it like a sentry, he looked at her between anger and suspicion.
"How much did you overhear?" he asked her.
"All that you said about Dick," she answered without hesitation.
"Then you stood listening?"
"Of course. I wanted to know what you were saying."
"There are other ways of ascertaining that without stooping to keyholes," said her husband.
"I didn't stoop," she said, taking him literally. "I could hear what was said without that—especially what you said, Terence. You will raise your voice so on the slightest provocation."
"And the provocation in this instance was, of course, of the slightest. Since you have heard Captain Tremayne's story of course you'll have no difficulty in confirming it."
"If you still can doubt, O'Moy," said Tremayne, "it must be because you wish to doubt; because you are afraid to face the truth now that it has been placed before you. I think, Una, it will spare a deal of trouble, and save your husband from a great many expressions that he may afterwards regret, if you go and fetch Dick. God knows, Terence has enough to overwhelm him already."
At the suggestion of producing Dick, O'Moy's anger, which had begun to simmer again, was stilled. He looked at his wife almost in alarm, and she met his look with one of utter blankness.
"I can't," she said plaintively. "Dick's gone."
"Gone?" cried Tremayne.
"Gone?" said O'Moy, and then he began to laugh. "Are you quite sure that he was ever here?"
"But—" She was a little bewildered, and a frown puckered her perfect brow. "Hasn't Ned told you, then?"
"Oh, Ned has told me. Ned has told!" His face was terrible.
"And don't you believe him? Don't you believe me?" She was more plaintive than ever. It was almost as if she called heaven to witness what manner of husband she was forced to endure. "Then you had better call Mullins and ask him. He saw Dick leave."
"And no doubt," said Miss Armytage mercilessly, "Sir Terence will believe his butler where he can believe neither his wife nor his friend."
He looked at her in a sort of amazement. "Do you believe them, Sylvia?" he cried.
"I hope I am not a fool," said she impatiently.
"Meaning—" he began, but broke off. "How long do you say it is since Dick left the house?"
"Ten minutes at most," replied her ladyship.
He turned and pulled the door open again. "Mullins?" he called. "Mullins!"
"What a man to live with!" sighed her ladyship, appealing to Miss Armytage. "What a man!" And she applied a vinaigrette delicately to her nostrils.
Tremayne smiled, and sauntered to the window. And then at last came Mullins.
"Has any one left the house within the last ten minutes, Mullins?" asked Sir Terence.
Mullins looked ill at ease.
"Sure, sir, you'll not be after—"
"Will you answer my question, man?" roared Sir Terence.
"Sure, then, there's nobody left the house at all but Mr. Butler, sir."
"How long had he been here?" asked O'Moy, after a brief pause.
"'Tis what I can't tell ye, sir. I never set eyes on him until I saw him coming downstairs from her ladyship's room as it might be."
"You can go, Mullins."
"I hope, sir—"
"You can go." And Sir Terence slammed the door upon the amazed servant, who realised that some unhappy mystery was perturbing the adjutant's household.
Sir Terence stood facing them again. He was a changed man. The fire had all gone out of him. His head was bowed and his face looked haggard and suddenly old. His lip curled into a sneer.
"Pantaloon in the comedy," he said, remembering in that moment the bitter gibe that had cost Samoval his life.
"What did you say?" her ladyship asked him.
"I pronounced my own name," he answered lugubriously.
"It didn't sound like it, Terence."
"It's the name I ought to bear," he said. "And I killed that liar for it—the only truth he spoke."
He came forward to the table. The full sense of his position suddenly overwhelmed him, as Tremayne had said it would. A groan broke from him and he collapsed into a chair, a stricken, broken man.
CHAPTER XX. THE RESIGNATION
At once, as he sat there, his elbows on the table, his head in his hands, he found himself surrounded by those three, against each of whom he had sinned under the spell of the jealousy that had blinded him and led him by the nose.
His wife put an arm about his neck in mute comfort of a grief of which she only understood the half—for of the heavier and more desperate part of his guilt she was still in ignorance. Sylvia spoke to him kindly words of encouragement where no encouragement could avail. But what moved him most was the touch of Tremayne's hand upon his shoulder, and Tremayne's voice bidding him brace himself to face the situation and count upon them to stand by him to the end.
He looked up at his friend and secretary in an amazement that overcame his shame.
"You can forgive me, Ned?"
Ned looked across at Sylvia Armytage. "You have been the means of bringing me to such happiness as I should never have reached without these happenings," he said. "What resentment can I bear you, O'Moy? Besides, I understand, and who understands can never do anything but forgive. I realise how sorely you have been tried. No evidence more conclusive that you were being wronged could have been placed before you."
"But the court-martial," said O'Moy in horror. He covered his face with his hand. "Oh, my God! I am dishonoured. I—I—" He rose, shaking off the arm of his wife and the hand of the friend he had wronged so terribly. He broke away from them and strode to the window, his face set and white. "I think I was mad," he said. "I know I was mad. But to have done what I did—" He shuddered in very horror of himself now that he was bereft of the support of that evil jealousy that had fortified him against conscience itself and the very voice of honour. Lady O'Moy turned to them, pleading for explanation.