hing back,
that you have secrets from the lady who has no doubt promised by now to
become your wife as the shortest way to mending her recent folly?"

Tremayne was bewildered. His answer, apparently an irrelevance, was the
mere enunciation of the thoughts O'Moy's announcement had provoked.

"Do you mean to say that you have known throughout that I did not kill
Samoval?" he asked.

"Of course. How could I have supposed you killed him when I killed him
myself?"

"You? You killed him!" cried Tremayne, more and more intrigued. And--

"You killed Count Samoval?" exclaimed Miss Armytage.

"To be sure I did," was the answer, cynically delivered, accompanied by
a short, sharp laugh. "When I have settled other accounts, and put all
my affairs in order, I shall save the provost-marshal the trouble of
further seeking the slayer. And you didn't know then, Sylvia, when you
lied so glibly to the court, that your future husband was innocent of
that?"

"I was always sure of it," she answered, and looked at Tremayne for
explanation.

O'Moy laughed again. "But he had not told you so. He preferred that you
should think him guilty of bloodshed, of murder even, rather than tell
you the real truth. Oh, I can understand. He is the very soul of honour,
as you remarked yourself, I think, the other night. He knows how much
to tell and how much to withhold. He is master of the art of discreet
suppression. He will carry it to any lengths. You had an instance of
that before the court this morning. You may come to regret, my dear,
that you did not allow him to have his own obstinate way; that you
should have dragged your own spotless purity in the mud to provide
him with an alibi. But he had an alibi all the time, my child; an
unanswerable alibi which he preferred to withhold. I wonder would you
have been so ready to make a shield of your honour could you have known
what you were really shielding?"

"Ned!" she cried. "Why don't you speak? Is he to go on in this fashion?
Of what is he accusing you? If you were not with Samoval that night,
where were you?"

"In a lady's room, as you correctly informed the court," came O'Moy's
bitter mockery. "Your only mistake was in the identity of the lady. You
imagined that the lady was yourself. A delusion purely. But you and I
may comfort each other, for we are fellow-sufferers at the hands of this
man of honour. My wife was the lady who entertained this gallant in her
room that night."

"My God, O