Part 58 (2/2)
”You saw,” Rosamund interrupted ”But you did not knohat had been concerted”
For a ain They were as round, whose every effort to win to a safer footing but occasioned a fresh slide of soil Then Sir John sneered, and made his riposte
”No doubt she will be prepared to swear that her betrothed, Master Lionel Tressilian, accoly upon that elopement”
”No,” she answered ”As for Lionel Tressilian he was carried off that he ht expiate his sins--sins which he had fathered upon his brother there, sins which are the subject of your other count against him”
”Nohat can you mean by that?” asked his lordshi+p
”That the story that Sir Oliver killed my brother is a calumny; that the murderer was Lionel Tressilian, who, to avoid detection and to coht be sold into slavery”
”This is toowith us, she makes white black and black white She has been bewitched by that crafty rogue, by Moorish arts that”
”Wait!” said Lord Henry, raising his hand ”Give me leave” He confronted her very seriously ”This this is a grave state that you conceive to be a proof--of what you are saying?”
But Sir John was not to be repressed ”'Tis but the lying tale this villain told her He has bewitched her, I say 'Tis plain as the sunlight yonder”
Sir Oliver laughed outright at that Hisexultant, buoyant, and joyous, and this was the first expression of it ”Bewitched her? You're detere First 'twas piracy, then abduction and murder, and now 'tis witchcraft!”
”Oh, a moment, pray!” cried Lord Henry, and he confesses to some heat at this point ”Do you seriously tell us, Mistress Rosamund, that it was Lionel Tressilian who murdered Peter Godolphin?”
”Seriously?” she echoed, and her lips were twisted in a little smile of scorn ”I not ht of God
It was Lionel who murdered my brother and it was Lionel who put it about that the deed was Sir Oliver's It was said that Sir Oliver had run away froainst him, and I to my shame believed the public voice But I have since discovered the truth”
”The truth, do you say, mistress?” cried the impetuous Sir John in a voice of passionate conteain his Lordshi+p was forced to intervene
”Have patience, ht ”The truth will prevail in the end, never fear, Killigrew”
”Meanwhile we are wasting tirumbled Sir John, and on that fell moodily silent
”Are we further to understand you to say, mistress,” Lord Henry resumed, ”that the prisoner's disappearance froht, as was supposed, but to his having been trepanned by order of his brother?”
”That is the truth as I stand here in the sight of Heaven,” she replied in a voice that rang with sincerity and carried conviction to more than one of the officers seated at that table ”By that act the ht not only to save hi to the Tressilian estates Sir Oliver was to have been sold into slavery to the Moors of Barbary Instead the vessel upon which he sailed was captured by Spaniards, and he was sent to the galleys by the Inquisition When his galley was captured by Muslim corsairs he took the only way of escape that offered He became a corsair and a leader of corsairs, and then”
”What else he did we know,” Lord Henry interrupted ”And I assure you it would all weigh very lightly with us or with any court if what else you say is true”
”It is true I swear it, ravely ”But can you prove it?”
”What better proof can I offer you than that I love him, and have married him?”
”Bah!” said Sir John
”That, entle, ”is proof that yourself you believe this a story But it is not proof that the story itself is true You had it, I suppose,” he continued smoothly, ”from Oliver Tressilian himself?”
”That is so; but in Lionel's own presence, and Lionel hi its truth”