“Keen? Not particularly.”

“Didn’t press it?”

“N—no.”

“Do you think he ever meant it?”

“Of course I do.”

“In fact, you have the utmost confidence in Mr. Croom?”

“The utmost.”

“Quite! You have heard of the expression ‘palming the cards’?”

“Yes.”

“You know what it means?”

“It means forcing a person to take a card that you wish him to take.”

“Precisely.”

“If you are suggesting that Mr. Croom was trying to force me to propose that we should spend the night in the car, you are wholly wrong; and it’s a base suggestion.”

“What made you think I was going to make that suggestion, Lady Corven? Had the idea been present to your mind?”

“No. When I suggested that we should spend the night in the car, Mr. Croom was taken aback.”

“Oh! How did he show that?”

“He asked me if I could trust him. I had to tell him not to be old-fashioned. Of course, I could trust him.”

“Trust him to act exactly as you wished?”

“Trust him not to make love to me. I was trusting him every time I saw him.”

“You had not spent a night with him before?”

“Of course I had not.”

“You use the expression ‘of course’ rather freely, and it seems to me with very little reason. You had plenty of opportunities of passing a night with him, hadn’t you—on the ship, and in your rooms where there was nobody but yourself?”

“Plenty, and I did not avail myself of them.”

“So you say; and if you did not, doesn’t it seem to you rather singular that you suggested it on this occasion?”

“No. I thought it would be rather fun.”

“Rather fun? Yet you knew this young man was passionately in love with you?”

“I regretted it afterwards. It wasn’t fair to him.”

“Really, Lady Corven, do you ask us to believe that you, a married woman of experience, didn’t realise the ordeal by fire through which you were putting him?”

“I did afterwards, and I was extremely sorry.”

“Oh, afterwards! I am speaking of before.”

“I’m afraid I didn’t before.”

“You are on your oath. Do you persist in swearing that nothing took place between you in or out of the car on the night of February the third in that dark wood?”

“I do.”

“You heard the enquiry agent’s evidence that, when about two in the morning he stole up to the car and looked into it, he saw by the light of his torch that you were both asleep and that your head was on the co-respondent’s shoulder?”

“Yes, I heard that.”

“Is it true?”

“If I was asleep how can I say, but I think it’s quite likely. I had put my head there early on.”

“Oh! You admit that?”

“Certainly. It was more comfortable. I had asked him if he minded.”

“And, of course, he didn’t?”

“I thought you didn’t like the expression ‘of course,’ but anyway he said he didn’t.”

“He had marvellous control, hadn’t he, this young man, who was in love with you?”

“Yes, I’ve thought since that he had.”

“You knew then that he must have, if your story is true. But is it true, Lady Corven; isn’t it entirely fantastic?”

Dinny saw her sister’s hands clenching on the rail, and a flood of crimson coming up into her cheeks and ebbing again before she answered:

“It may be fantastic, but it’s entirely true. Everything I’ve said in this box is true.”

“And then in the morning you woke up as if nothing had happened, and said: ‘Now we can go home and have breakfast!’ And you went? To your rooms?”

“Yes.”

“How long did he stay on that occasion?”

“About half an hour or a little more.”

“The same perfect innocence in your relations?”

“The same.”

“And the day after that you were served with this petition?”

“Yes.”

“Did it surprise you?”

“Yes.”

“Conscious of perfect innocence, you were quite hurt in your feelings?”

“Not when I thought about things.”

“Oh, not when you thought about things? What exactly do you mean by that?”

“I remembered that my husband had said I must look out for myself; and I realised how silly I was not to know that I was being watched.”

“Tell me, Lady Corven, why did you defend this action?”

“Because I knew that, however appearances were against us, we had done nothing.”

Dinny saw the Judge look towards Clare, take down her answer, hold up his pen, and speak.

“On that night in the car you were on a main road. What was to prevent your stopping another car and asking them to give you a lead into Henley?”

“I don’t think we thought of it, my Lord; I did ask Mr. Croom to try and follow one, but they went by too quickly.”

“In any case, what was there to prevent your walking into Henley and leaving the car in the wood?”

“I suppose nothing really, only it would have been midnight before we got to Henley; and I thought it would be more awkward than just staying in the car; and I always had wanted to try sleeping in a car.”

“And do you still want to?”

“No, my Lord, it’s overrated.”

“Mr. Brough, I’ll break for luncheon.”

Dinny refused all solicitations to lunch, and, taking her sister’s arm, walked her out into Carey Street. They circled Lincoln’s Inn Fields in silence.

“Nearly over, darling,” she said at last. “You’ve done wonderfully. He hasn’t really shaken you at all, and I believe the Judge feels that. I like the Judge much better than the jury.”

“Oh! Dinny, I’m so tired. That perpetual suggestion that one’s lying screws me up till I could scream.”

“That’s what he does it for. Don’t gratify him!”

“And poor Tony. I do feel a beast.”

“What about a ‘nice hot’ cup of tea? We’ve just time.”

They walked down Chancery Lane into the Strand.

“Nothing with it, dearest. I couldn’t eat.”

Neither of them could eat. They stirred the pot, drank their tea as strong as they could get it, and made their way silently back to the Court. Clare, not acknowledging even her father’s anxious glance, resumed her old position on the front bench, her hands in her lap and her eyes cast down.

Dinny was conscious of Jerry Corven sitting deep in confabulation with his solicitor and counsel. ‘Very young’ Roger, passing to his seat, said:

“They’re going to recall Corven.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

As if walking in his sleep, the Judge came in, bowed slightly to the Court’s presence, and sat down. ‘Lower than ever,’ thought Dinny.

“My Lord, before resuming my cross-examination of the respondent, I should be glad, with your permission, to recall the petitioner in connection with the point of which my friend made so much. Your Lordship will recollect that in his cross-examination of the petitioner he imputed to him the intention of securing a divorce from the moment of his wife’s departure. The petitioner has some additional evidence to give in regard to that point, and it will be more convenient for me to recall him now. I shall be very short, my Lord.”

Dinny saw Clare’s face raised suddenly to the Judge, and the expression on it made her heart beat furiously.

“Very well, Mr. Brough.”

“Sir Gerald Corven.”

Watching that contained figure step again into the box, Dinny saw that Clare too was watching, almost as if she wished to catch his eye.

“You have told us, Sir Gerald, that on the last occasion but one on which you saw your wife before you returned to Ceylon—the first of November, that is—you saw her at her rooms in Melton Mews?”

“Yes.”

Dinny gasped. It had come!

“Now on that occasion, besides any conversation that took place between you, what else occurred?”

“We were husband and wife.”

“You mean that the marital relationship between you was re-established?”

“Yes, my Lord.”

“Thank you, Sir Gerald; I think that disposes finally of my friend’s point; and it is all I wanted to ask.”