A Butterfly on the Wheel Part 32

Then he rose to his feet. "Now, Mrs. Admaston, having read this letter, do you still dare to repeat that until you had the misfortune to miss the train at Boulogne you had no intention of spending the night in Paris with Mr. Collingwood?"

Peggy did not answer.

She stared at the letter upon the judge's desk as if fascinated by it.

"My lord and the jury are waiting for an answer," Sir Robert repeated.

"Come, madam."

"And what answer can I give?" the tortured girl said faintly.

Sir Robert was showing her no mercy now. "The truth, madam, if you can,"

he said.

"The truth!" she answered. "What is the truth to you? It's not the truth you want. It's me--my very soul--that's what you want! Not to wring the truth out of me, but just so much of it as will serve your ends!"

"Mrs. Admaston," the President said compa.s.sionately, but with emphasis, "these outbursts do not a.s.sist your case."

"My case!" Peggy cried helplessly. "My lord, who will believe me in the face of this lying letter? It is a trap--a trap, I say! I have been hunted and hounded into it. I am not surprised now that innocent women in hundreds let their cases go by default rather than face the humiliation and torture of this awful place."

"Madam, I must insist upon an answer," Sir Robert said relentlessly.

"What am I to answer?" she cried again, wringing her hands with a terribly piteous gesture.

"If you ask me, Mrs. Admaston, let me advise you to answer the truth."

"The truth?"

"Yes, the truth--that this trip to Paris was all arranged between you and your lover"--his voice sank and became deeply impressive; "that at the very moment in which your husband was trying to reach you upon the telephone you were in that lover's arms?"

"It is a lie!" she said despairingly.

"The telephone bell rang several times before it was answered, did it not?"

"Yes, but----"

Sir Robert cut her short. "I suggest to you that even then you were in your lover's arms?" he said with bitter scorn.

"It is a lie!" Peggy answered once more.

"Then, Mrs. Admaston, and for the last time, I press for an answer. Do you still insist that you and your lover----"

She didn't allow him to finish his sentence. Desperate as she was, the hot words poured from her in a cataract of sound.

"How dare you suggest that he is my lover!" she cried. "I tell you that I have never loved him!--never--never--never--never! If I had loved him do you think that I would be here now? For months and months he has begged and entreated me to let my husband divorce me so that I could marry him. If I had loved him, do you think that I would have faced this horrible place? I have never loved him. I have been foolish--I have played with fire--I have loved his admiration. I did not know that the law--man's law--made no difference between the opportunity to do wrong and the wrong itself. I know now. Some day men who know women will make other laws--some of us must have our lives broken first. In the face of that letter and the evidence, no man would ever believe me, whatever I say; but I swear before G.o.d that it was all an accident--our being in Paris. I swear that I meant no harm by all my little lies. I swear I have done nothing wrong--nothing; but no one will believe me now--no one." Her voice sank and dropped, and she ended her outburst with a deep moan of pain.

"I think we will adjourn now," said the President, and there was pain in his voice also.

He gathered up the papers before him on his desk and rose. The court rose also.

There was an immediate hum and bustle, which broke out into the loud murmurs of subdued conversation as the judge left his seat and disappeared through the door at the back.

Peggy Admaston, wringing her hands, her face a white wedge of anguish, the pallor dreadfully accentuated by the burnished ma.s.ses of her dark hair, almost stumbled down the steps of the witness-box. Mr. M'Arthur and her solicitor--a little confused knot of people, indeed--hastened up to her, and with a grim face Sir Robert Fyffe, not looking in the girl's direction, arranged his papers and spoke earnestly to his junior.

The scene was one of indescribable excitement.

It was as though a thunderbolt had fallen, and people looked at each other with pale, questioning faces.

The hum died down for an instant, as the weeping woman was led gently from the court.

Then it recommenced louder than ever, mingled with the shuffling of innumerable feet.

CHAPTER VII

Directly the President had risen, Society streamed out into the great hall of the Law Courts.

Innumerable motor broughams and private carriages were waiting in Fleet Street, and despite the dullness of the afternoon the eager photographers of the ill.u.s.trated papers were waiting to get snap-shots of celebrated people as they pa.s.sed from the sordid theatre of Court No.

II. _en route_ for afternoon tea and scandal.

Henry Pa.s.she had an engagement, and, saying good-bye to Colonel Adams, hurried away. The other remained in the big central hall for a moment or two looking round to see if he could find an acquaintance.

To him, as he stood there, came Lord Ellerdine and struck him on the shoulder.

"Hullo, Adams!" he said, in a voice which was very subdued. "Thought I saw you in court. Been watching this dreadful business?"

Colonel Adams nodded. "Yes, Ellerdine," he said. "Henry Pa.s.she brought me. He much wanted to come. I hesitated whether I should go or not, and now I am very sorry I did. To see a charming little woman like Mrs.

Admaston tortured--that isn't very pleasant."

The other thrust his arm into the colonel's. "d.a.m.ned dreadful, isn't it?" he said in an agitated voice. "Well, look here, let's get out of this. What are you going to do?"

"I have nothing particular to do at present; but why do you ask, Ellerdine?"

"Look here," Lord Ellerdine replied--"we can't talk here, but I have got an idea." His voice glowed with pride as he said it. "I haven't mentioned it to a soul, and I don't want to mention it to any one concerned in the case. Upon my soul, Adams, it is a G.o.dsend to have met you. I want to hear what you think. Are you game to listen?"

Adams nodded. He liked Lord Ellerdine, as everybody did, though he had no higher opinion of that gentleman's intelligence than the rest of the world.

"Quite at your service, Ellerdine," he answered; "and if your idea is one that may possibly help Mrs. Admaston, I shall be more pleased still."

"Of course it is," Lord Ellerdine answered. "Well, let's go and talk it over. It is impossible in this infernal rush."

"All right," Colonel Adams replied, "Come to the Cocoa Tree, or, if you like, I will come with you to White's."

Lord Ellerdine shook his head. "We will have some tea," he said. "But I don't want to go west now until I have talked this idea of mine over with you. If you agree that there is anything in it, then we should only have to come back to this part of the world again. Can't we get a cup of tea somewhere about here?"

By this time the two men had walked outside the Law Courts and were standing among the motley crowd which was pouring out of the great central doorway and also the side approaches to the public galleries and courts.