her. Under the lash of his bitter, half-scornful
accents, her anger mounted, whelming for a moment even her anguish in
her brother's death.

"You false deceiver!" she cried. "There are those who heard you vow his
death. Your very words have been reported to me. And from where he lay
they found a trail of blood upon the snow that ran to your own door.
Will you still lie?"

They saw the colour leave his face. They saw his arms drop limply to his
sides, and his eyes dilate with obvious sudden fear.

"A... a trail of blood?" he faltered stupidly.

"Aye, answer that!" cut in Sir John, fetched suddenly from out his
doubts by that reminder.

Sir Oliver turned upon Killigrew again. The knight's words restored to
him the courage of which Rosamund's had bereft him. With a man he could
fight; with a man there was no need to mince his words.

"I cannot answer it," he said, but very firmly, in a tone that brushed
aside all implications. "If you say it was so, so it must have been. Yet
when all is said, what does it prove? Does it set it beyond doubt that
it was I who killed him? Does it justify the woman who loved me to
believe me a murderer and something worse?" He paused, and looked at her
again, a world of reproach in his glance. She had sunk to a chair, and
rocked there, her fingers locking and interlocking, her face a mask of
pain unutterable.

"Can you suggest what else it proves, sir?" quoth Sir John, and there
was doubt in his voice.

Sir Oliver caught the note of it, and a sob broke from him.

"O God of pity!" he cried out. "There is doubt in your voice, and
there is none in hers. You were my enemy once, and have since been in a
mistrustful truce with me, yet you can doubt that I did this thing. But
she... she who loved me has no room for any doubt!"

"Sir Oliver," she answered him, "the thing you have done has broken
quite my heart. Yet knowing all the taunts by which you were brought to
such a deed I could have forgiven it, I think, even though I could
no longer be your wife; I could have forgiven it, I say, but for the
baseness of your present denial."

He looked at her, white-faced an instant, then turned on his heel and
made for the door. There he paused.

"Your meaning is quite plain," said he. "It is your wish that I shall
take my trial for this deed." He laughed. "Who will accuse me to the
Justices? Will you, Sir John?"

"If Mistress Rosamund so desires me," replied the knight.

"Ha! Be it so. But