A Butterfly on the Wheel Part 29

Sentence after sentence was wrung from her by torture.

"I think perhaps he might not have liked it," she said in a fainting voice.

The bully came out in Sir Robert's voice. All along the line he was being tremendously successful....

"Perhaps! Would _any_ man like it? Do you think, madam, that you were treating your husband fairly in encouraging this very charming gentleman's attentions?"

Very faint, very slow, very hesitating, and extremely weary, "I did not encourage them," the answer came.

"We shall see. Didn't it make you feel very embarra.s.sed to find yourself sitting up in a strange hotel into the small hours of the morning, with this man making pa.s.sionate love to you?"

There was a dead silence in the court. Once more the person on the rack had nothing to say.

"Or had this _liaison_ gone too far by this time for you to feel embarra.s.sed?"

Mr. M'Arthur jumped up.

His face blazed with simulated fury. "My lord," he barked, "I protest against these insulting suggestions."

The excited voice of the counsel rather failed of its effect as the judge looked down upon him. "Sir Robert is within his rights, Mr.

M'Arthur," he said. "He would not ask these questions without good reason."

Sir Robert Fyffe saw his chance at once. He glanced at the jury; he made a little deprecating motion of his head to the President. "Too good reason, my lord! My duty is not a pleasant one.... Was this the first time, Mrs. Admaston, that you had received Mr. Collingwood in this state of undress--when the rest of the household was asleep?"

Peggy had clasped her hands. She threw them apart with a wild gesture and clutched the rail of the witness-box. "My lord!" she said, "I a.s.sure you that nothing has ever taken place between us."

The President gazed at her with calm compa.s.sion.

He had heard appeals like this one too often. He was not there to be influenced by emotions, or to be prejudiced by his natural kindness of heart.

He was there to judge.

"You must answer Sir Robert, Mrs. Admaston," he said quietly.

"We used to sit up late sometimes at Lord Ellerdine's and talk," Peggy admitted.

There were murmurs all over the court. Society was interested.

Sir Robert Fyffe leant forward to the solicitor in front of him, said something in an undertone, and then looked up.

"Was that at Lord Ellerdine's place in Yorks.h.i.+re?"

"Yes."

"When were you last there?"

"About a year ago," Peggy replied.

"Indeed! About a year ago----"

"Hardly a year."

"At anyrate, several months before the Paris trip Mr. Collingwood was sitting up in your room into the small hours of the morning making pa.s.sionate love to you?"

Mrs. Admaston said nothing at all.

"Is not that so?" the insistent voice inquired.

"There was no harm, Sir Robert," was the hesitating answer.

"No harm! Did Lord Ellerdine know?"

"No."

"Did your husband know?"

"No."

And now into the voice of the great counsel began to creep a note of contempt, which was doubtless perfectly genuine. He had met the woman he was cross-examining in society. He had liked her. But, as every one knew, Sir Robert's own domestic life was one of singular happiness and accord.

It is pretty certain that--having known Admaston and his wife--he was becoming genuinely indignant at what he thought the treachery of the girl.

"Was this another of those perfectly harmless things which you didn't care to tell your husband about?" he said.

"I saw no harm in it," Peggy replied, and in answer to the colder note in Sir Robert's voice her own became stubborn.

"But you would not have liked him to know? Well! You have now admitted that Mr. Collingwood had been making pa.s.sionate love to you for months before the trip to Paris. We are getting at the truth gradually. I suppose that he made these declarations of love several times at Lord Ellerdine's?"

"I think he spoke to me on two or three occasions," Peggy almost murmured.

"And was this really the first time he declared his love for you?"

"Yes, the first time."

"You are sure?"

"Quite sure."

"And you still went about everywhere with him--but you were careful not to tell your husband the truth?"

"My husband trusted me. I never abused his trust."

As Peggy said this, the foreman of the jury, a plump, shortish, clean-shaved gentleman who in private life was a chemist, looked up with a puzzled expression upon his face.

He thought he detected a ring of real sincerity in the witness's voice which the facts did not seem to justify.

"Was not this an abuse of his trust?" Sir Robert said--perhaps more gravely than he had spoken yet.