"
"Would you have considered it wrong to sit on his knee?"
Seeing how her case was weakening--realizing how he was belittling
her scruples--she had admitted that she would not think it wrong,
hoping that the ready admission of that would remedy the effect of
her previous indecision.
"Then am I to understand--" asked Traill with a voice stirred in
well-simulated anger, "am I to understand that because you loved the
co-respondent, you kissed him, thinking no wrong in it and yet,
thinking no wrong in sitting on his knee or having his arms about
you, you yet--loving him--refused these things in which you saw no
harm? Is that what you wish his lordship and the jury to understand?"
"I--I--may have let him put his arms round me--perhaps I did sit on
his knee--once or twice."
"Then why," shouted Traill, "when the last witness affirmed that she
had seen you sitting in the drawing-room with the co-respondent's
arm round your neck, did you so vehemently deny it?"
Into the trap she had fallen--into the trap which with his cold
cunning he had laid for her--and from that moment, rigidly denying
her misconduct on her oath before God, the wretched creature was
brought on the rack of his questioning to almost every admission but
that of adultery.
Pages:
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324