There are seconds in every man's life when the conviction of his own wrong-doing shatters the edifice of conceit and flings illusion headlong.

Such a second came to Hector Brunton, K.C., as he watched Lucy Towers step down from the side of the dock and make her way past the packed benches to the witness-box. With her--he could feel--went a wave, a great wave of human sympathy, the wave against which he, Hector Brunton, had been swimming for more than a year.

Paralyzed he watched her--watched her take the oath, kiss the book. His mind was a torment, a torment of conscience. Conscience howled: "You knew! You knew all the time that your principal witness was lying. You knew! You knew all the time that this woman was no adulteress. She's innocent, innocent, Hector Brunton; as innocent in intention as that other woman you've been hounding."

Cavendish's voice, the voice of his enemy, broke the spell.

"Mrs. Towers, while the oath you have just sworn is still fresh in your mind, I want you to answer this question. Have you ever, at any time in your life, been guilty of immorality with your cousin, Robert Fielding?"

"Never." The answer, so diffident yet so definite, might have been Aliette's; and to Ronnie, his brain still throbbing from its own unaccustomed eloquence, it seemed, just for a fraction of a second, as though the woman he defended were indeed his own.

"Various witnesses for the Crown have stated that you were on bad terms with your husband. Are those statements true?"

"I did my best to get on with him." The brown eyes never flinched. "But he was a cruel man, especially when he was in drink."

"Nevertheless, you were faithful to him?"

"Yes. Always."

"You heard Mrs. Peterson's evidence? She said," Ronnie referred to his notes, "that at half-past nine o'clock on the night of July 4, she saw you go into Robert Fielding's room. Have you any comment to make on that evidence?"

"It's a lie. I never visited him at night. Only by day."

"At half-past nine on the night of July 4, where were you?"

"I was in my own room, washing up the supper things."

"Was your husband with you?"

"No."

"Where was he?"

"I don't know."

"One other point about Mrs. Peterson's evidence. She told us, if you remember, that you made a statement: that you said to her that you would never be happy till your husband was dead. What have you to say about that statement?"

"It's another lie." The lips pursed, stubbornly--it seemed to Brunton--as his wife's own. "An absolute lie."

"One moment, please!" Mr. Justice Heber--every syllable of his question audible as the tinkle of glass--intervened. "I should like to be clear on this point, Mrs. Towers. The witness to whom your counsel refers made the following statements: that at half-past nine o'clock on the night of July 4 she saw you enter Robert Fielding's room; that you were in the habit of making such visits, and that she was standing in the passage between your room and hers when she saw you. Do I understand you positively to deny all three of those statements?"

"Yes, m'lord."

"And the witness in question further stated that you said to her: 'Bill isn't fit to be any woman's husband. I wish to God he was dead.' What have you to say to that?"

The woman in the witness-box did not hesitate. Deliberately her eyes met the judge's. Deliberately she answered his question: "My lord, I may have said that Bill wasn't fit to be any woman's husband. But I never said," the shy voice rose, "either to Maggie Peterson or to any one else, that I wished he was dead."

"She never said"--word for word Mr. Justice Heber wrote down his answer--"that she wished her husband was dead."

But Hector Brunton--bent over his brief--could not write. For now, not only conscience, but all his years spent in separating truth from falsehood, all the experience of a legal lifetime, told him of Lucy's innocence.

Again his enemy's voice broke the spell: "You heard the evidence of John Hodges. He said that you told him somewhere about the end of last June that you wished you had never married your husband. Have you anything you would like to say in answer to that?"

"Bill was there at the time. I only meant it for a joke."

"And now, before I ask you to tell his lordship and the jury, in your own words, what happened on the afternoon of July 5, I want you, if you can, to give me some idea of the feelings you entertained, before that date, for your husband."

It was a daring, an unpremeditated, though not a leading question; and, even as he put it, Ronnie perceived its danger. Suppose the woman in the witness-box, the little dignified woman whose hands rested so quietly on the rail, whose whole attitude indicated nothing but the intensest desire to speak truth, should speak too much truth, should destroy--with one fatal word--the house of protection he was building about her? But neither the heart nor the truth in Lucy Towers failed.

"It wouldn't be right"--the hands on the rail did not move--"for me to pretend that I cared for Bill. He made my life an absolute hell. He drank and he used to knock me about. Many's the time I've wished he was dead. But I never thought of killing him."

"Ah." Ronnie paused in his examination--one of those long, indefinable pauses which have more value than speech. Now--feeling the jury with him--he was no longer haunted by thought of his own inefficiency, no longer afraid of Brunton. Not Brunton's self could shake such a witness. Already, the first faint foretaste of victory quickened his pulse. His questions grew more and more daring.

"You said, in your statement at the police-station: 'My husband didn't like me going to Bob's room. He was jealous of Bob.' Can you give us any further details about that?"

"Details!" Lucy, her eyes downcast, appeared to be considering the question. She shot a glance at Brunton. Then, quietly, she said, "Bill was always being jealous of some man or other--the same as Mr. Hodges said. But he hadn't got any reason to be jealous. I told him so, when he said I wasn't to go to Bob's room that afternoon. Me and Bob has always been pals--since we were kiddies. But if it hadn't been for Bob having no arms, I wouldn't have disobeyed Bill and gone to him.''

"I see. And can you tell me, coming to the afternoon of July 5, what your husband said when you threatened to disobey him--when you told him," Ronnie referred to his brief, "'I must go and help Bob because he can't feed himself'?"

"Bill said," the words were tremulous: "'If you don't stop here I'll come over and do in the pair of you.'"

"And what happened after that!"

"I just went to Bob's room."

"And did you say anything to your cousin about your husband's threats?"

"No."

"Can you tell me why you didn't?"

"Because"--unconsciously, the woman scored yet another point--"because I didn't want Bob to see I was frightened."

"And now"--Ronnie craned forward in his mounting excitement--"and now, Mrs. Towers, I want you to describe to his lordship and the jury, in your own words, exactly what happened in Robert Fielding's room on the afternoon of July 5."

"I made Bob his tea, and I was helping him eat it when Bill came in," began the woman.

No sounds save the scratch of reporters' pencils, the occasional tap of a boot-sole on the bare floor-boards, and the suppressed breathing of her tense audience interrupted the story Lucy Towers told her counsel and the court--a story so utterly resembling, yet so utterly differing from the toneless confession which the "hanging prosecutor" had read out the day before, a story so redolent of life and truth and certainty that, listening to it, it seemed as if one could actually see the dead man standing at the doorway of that bare tenement room, see the lifted stick in his hand, and hear his harsh, grim voice.

"Bill said, 'I'll do you in. I'll do you both in, damn you.' He had his stick in Ms hand. He lifted his stick. I was frightened. I thought he meant to kill Bob. I thought he meant to kill both of us. I remembered the pistol. I ran to the cupboard. I pulled out the pistol. I pointed it at him. Bob said, 'Look out, Bill. The gun's loaded.' Bill said, 'You can't frighten me.' I thought he was going to kill Bob, so I fired.

"So I fired." The little story ended to the indescribable, unbearable silence of men and women whose emotions are near to breaking-point. Through that unbearable silence, Ronnie's next question cut like a razor through taut string.

"You say that your husband carried a stick. Can you describe that stick?"

"It was a heavy stick."

"Can't you tell me any more about it?"

"Yes; it had a bit of lead in the handle."

"Was he holding the stick by the handle?"

"No. By the other end."

"And you thought he meant to kill your cousin with that loaded stick?"

"Yes. I felt sure of it. That was why I shot him."

Ronnie paused again, making sure that his point should sink home in the minds of the jury. Then, picking up his copy of the confession, he put his last questions: "I have here the statement which you made at the time of your arrest. You say, 'I'm not sorry I killed my husband.' Why did you say that?"

"Because I wasn't sorry--then."

"But you are sorry now?"

"Yes. I didn't mean to kill him. I don't know why I said that. I didn't quite know what I was saying."

"And there was one other thing you said. You said, 'I love Bob very much.' Is that true?"

"Yes." Lucy Towers answered fearlessly. "I do love him, but not in the way"--her eyes, which had scarcely left Ronnie's since the examination began, turned for a moment to Hector Brunton, huddled in his seat--"not in the way that he tried to make out."

"Thank you, Mrs. Towers. That's all I have to ask," finished Ronald Cavendish; and, seating himself, waited for Hector Brunton's onslaught.

But the onslaught tarried. Almost it seemed as if Hector Brunton were going to leave that cross-examination, on which the whole case hung, to his junior. For now Hector Brunton heard, louder than the whisper of conscience, the very whisper of God. "Thou art the man," whispered God; "thou art the murderer."

The "hanging prosecutor" looked at the woman in the dock, and his courage failed before the accusing glance of her. The "hanging prosecutor" looked at the judge, at the massed spectators; and his heart quailed before the doubting glances of them. Then the "hanging prosecutor" looked at his enemy; and rage, the rage of the lusting male, took him by the throat. God's whisper forgotten, man's duty forgotten, all save this one last chance of vengeance forgotten; he rose, heavy as the wounded bull, to his ungainly feet. His brain, the cold sure-functioning legal brain, had not yet failed. He still knew his strength. But a red mist blinded his eyes, and through that red mist he saw, not Lucy Towers but Aliette; Aliette, whom every cheated fiber of his body yearned to torture--and, torturing, possess.

"You admit that you shot your husband?" The words--grim, bitter, devil-prompted--grated in Brunton's throat.

"Yes."

"You admit that you said, just after you had shot him, that you were not sorry for the deed?"

"That's written down."

"Answer my question, please. Do you admit that you said, just after your husband's death at your hands, that you were not sorry you had killed him?"

"That's written down," repeated Lucy Towers stubbornly. And the stubbornness sent a chill through the red mist; a chill that pierced to Hector Brunton's very marrow. Thus--thus stubborn and unwrithing--thus clear-eyed and contemptuous, had this same woman outfaced him, long and long ago in the bright, miserable drawing-room at Lancaster Gate.

"You have admitted"--there was a singing in the K.C.'s ears; he could hardly hear his own voice--"that you love your cousin, Robert Fielding. I put it to you that you are Robert Fielding's mistress."

"No."

"I put it to you that you went to Robert Fielding's room nightly."

"It's a lie."

"I put it to you that ever since Robert Fielding came to live at 25 Laburnum Grove you have been in the habit of misconducting yourself with him."

"It's a lie."

"I put it to you"--God! if only he could make her writhe; if only he could see one stab of pain twitch those cheeks--"that you love Robert Fielding."

"Not in the way you're trying to make out."

"I put it to you that it was because of your love for Robert Fielding that you shot your husband."

"No."

"Then why did you shoot him?"

"My lord,"--Cavendish's voice--"I protest. This is outrageous."

"I'm afraid, Mr. Cavendish,"--Heber's voice--"I must allow the question."

"Why did you shoot your husband?" Brunton heard his own voice, very faint through the buzz at his ears.

"I have already told you"--he heard Aliette's voice--"I killed him because I thought he was going to kill Bob."

"You meant to kill him, then?"

Again his enemy's protest. Again the judge's doubtful, "I feel I must allow the question." Again Aliette's stubborn reply:

"No. I never meant to kill him. I didn't think about that. I only wanted to save Bob."

Momentarily the red mist cleared from Brunton's sight. He knew this woman for Lucy Towers--Lucy Towers against whom, despite the flaws in the evidence, he had advised prosecution for wilful murder; knew himself doomed to failure with her--as he had always been doomed to failure with Aliette; knew that, against the sheer rock of truth in the one, as against the rock of sheer truth in the other, the spray of his lawless hate must beat in vain.

Then the red mist thickened, thickened and thickened, again before Brunton's smarting eyes. Rage kindled in his bowels, kindled from bowels to brain, burning away self-control. He was aware only of Cavendish--of Cavendish, utterly cold, utterly legal--of Cavendish protesting for his witness, protecting his witness--of Cavendish's will, thrusting bar after cold steel bar between himself and the woman.

The singing was still in Brunton's ears; and now it grew dark in court, so that the face of the woman faded from his sight; and now it grew light in court, so that the face of the woman showed itself to him as a white contemptuous sneer under the electrics; but still, blindly, he tortured her with his questions.

At last he heard his own voice clearly once again, "You deny, then, that you are an adulteress?"; heard her answer, "Yes. I deny that absolutely"; heard, as a murderer hearing his own sentence, Mr. Justice Heber's, "If that finishes your cross-examination, Mr. Brunton, I shall adjourn until ten o'clock tomorrow"; heard, as a murderer hears the tramp of feet outside his cell, Cavendish's quiet, "With your lordship's permission, there is one witness, one most important witness, whom I should like to call before the court adjourns"; listened, powerless to cross-examine, while the witness of Cartwright's finding tore Maggie Peterson's testimony in pieces.