ne. He had no friends and few
sympathizers, and he insisted upon defending himself. His cross
examination of the man who had been his friend created something like a
sensation. Amongst other things, he elicited the fact that Lumley, after
first seeing the two together, had gone and fetched Sir William. It was
a terrible half hour for Lumley, and when he left the box, amongst the
averted faces of his friends, the sweat was pouring down his face. I can
seem him now, as though it were yesterday. Then Lady Ruth followed. She
was quietly dressed; the effect she produced was excellent. She told
her story. She hinted at the insult. She spoke of the check. She had
imagined no harm in accepting Wingrave's invitation to tea. Men and
women of the hunt, who were on friendly terms, treated one another as
comrades. She spoke of the blow. She had seen it delivered, and so on.
And all the time, I sat within a few feet of Wingrave, and I knew that
in the black box before him were burning love letters from this woman,
to the man whose code of honor would ever have protected her husband
from disgrace; and I knew that I was listening to the thing which you,
Aynesworth, and many of your fellow story writers, have so wisely and so
ignorantly dilated upon--the vengeance of a woman denied. Only I heard
the words themselves, cold, earnest words, fall one by one from her
lips like a sentence of doom--and there was life in the thing, life and
death! When she had finished, the whole court was in a state of tension.
Everyone was leaning forward. It would be the most piquant, the most
wonderful cross examination every heard--the woman lying to save her
honor and to achieve her vengeance; the man on trial for his life.
Wingrave stood up. Lady Ruth raised her veil, and looked at him from
the witness box. There was the most intense silence I ever realized.
Who could tell the things which flashed from one to the other across the
dark well of the court; who could measure the fierce, silent scorn which
seemed to blaze from his eyes, as he held her there--his slave until he
chose to give the signal for release? At last he looked away towards
the judge, and the woman fell forward in the box gasping, a crumpled up,
nerveless heap of humanity.

"'My lord,' he said, 'I have no questions to ask this witness!'

"Everyone staggered. Wingrave's few friends were horrified. After that
there was, of course, no hope for him. He got fifteen years' penal
servitude."