And I explained the circumstance.

The cross-eyed Q.C. held his fat sides with his hands, looking
incredulously at me, and smiled. His vast width of waistcoat shook with
silent merriment. 'You are a very clever young lady,' he murmured. 'You
can explain away anything. But don't you think it just as likely that it
was a plot between you two, and that owing to some mistake the plot came
off unsuccessful?'

'I do not,' I cried, crimson. 'I never saw the Count before that
morning.'

He tried another tack. 'Still, wherever you went, this man
Higginson--the only other person, you admit, who knows about the
previous existence of the will--turned up simultaneously. He was always
turning up--at the same place as you did. He turned up at Lucerne, as a
faith-healer, didn't he?'

'If you will allow me to explain,' I cried, biting my lip.

He bowed, all blandness. 'Oh, certainly,' he murmured. 'Explain away
everything!'

I explained, but of course he had discounted and damaged my explanation.

He made no comment. 'And then,' he went on, with his hands on his hips,
and his obtrusive rotundity, 'he turned up at Florence, as courier to
Mr. Ashurst, at the very date when this so-called will was being
concocted?'

'He was at Florence when Mr. Ashurst dictated it to me,' I answered,
growing desperate.

'You admit he was in Florence. Good! Once more he turned up in India
with my client, Lord Southminster, upon whose youth and inexperience he
had managed to impose himself. And he carried him off, did he not, by
one of these strange coincidences to which _you_ are peculiarly liable,
on the very same steamer on which _you_ happened to be travelling?'

'Lord Southminster told me he took Higginson with him because a rogue
suited his book,' I answered, warmly.

'Will you swear his lordship didn't say "_the_ rogue suited his
book"--which is quite another thing?' the Q.C. asked blandly.

'I will swear he did not,' I replied. 'I have correctly reported him.'

'Then I congratulate you, young lady, on your excellent memory. My lud,
will you allow me later to recall Lord Southminster to testify on this
point?'

The judge nodded.

'Now, once more, as to your relations with the various members of the
Ashurst family. You introduced yourself to Lady Georgina Fawley, I
believe, quite casually, on a seat in Kensington Gardens?'

'That is true,' I answered.

'You had never seen her before?'

'Never.'

'And you promptly offered to go