he smouldering eyes of
Sir Terence considering him with such malevolence that he was shocked
and bewildered. Was he prejudged already, and by his best friend? If
so, what must be the attitude of the others? But the kindly, florid
countenance of the president was friendly and encouraging; there was
eager anxiety for him in the gaze of his friend Caruthers. He glanced at
Lord Wellington sitting at the table's end sternly inscrutable, a mere
spectator, yet one whose habit of command gave him an air that was
authoritative and judicial.

At length he began to speak. He had considered his defence, and he
had based it mainly upon a falsehood--since the strict truth must have
proved ruinous to Richard Butler.

"My answer, gentlemen," he said, "will be a very brief one as brief,
indeed, as the prosecution merits--for I entertain the hope than no
member of this court is satisfied that the case made out against me is
by any means complete." He spoke easily, fluently, and calmly: a man
supremely self-controlled. "It amounts, indeed, to throwing upon me the
onus of proving myself innocent, and that is a burden which no British
laws, civil or miliary, would ever commit the injustice of imposing upon
an accused.

"That certain words of disagreement passed between Count Samoval and
myself on the eve of the affair in which the Count met his death, as
you have heard from various witnesses, I at once and freely admitted.
Thereby I saved the court time and trouble, and some other witnesses who
might have been caused the distress of having to testify against me.
But that the dispute ever had any sequel, that the further subsequent
discussion threatened at the time by Count Samoval ever took place,
I most solemnly deny. From the moment that I left Sir Terence's
luncheon-table on the Saturday I never set eyes on Count Samoval again
until I discovered him dead or dying in the garden here at Monsanto on
Sunday night. I can call no witnesses to support me in this, because it
is not a matter susceptible to proof by evidence. Nor have I troubled
to call the only witnesses I might have called--witnesses as to my
character and my regard for discipline--who might have testified that
any such encounter as that of which I am accused would be utterly
foreign to my nature. There are officers in plenty in his Majesty's
service who could bear witness that the practice of duelling is one that
I hold in the utmost abhorrence, since I have frequently avowe