"And yours will also be dug for you before long--when the Judge has sentenced you to death!" I cried.
"Enough!" exclaimed Sommerville, holding up his hand to command silence. "We want no recriminations, only the truth. You, and your friend Bertini, will have plenty of opportunity for defending yourselves when before the court. I think, Mademoiselle," he added, turning to where Lola was standing beside the man once believed to be dead, "you will have a strange story to relate to the Judge."
"She'll lie, no doubt," declared Jeanjean with a sneer. "She always does."
"No," the girl cried in her pretty, broken English, "I shall the truth speak. All of the truth."
"Yes," I urged, eagerly. "Reveal to us now the truth concerning the mystery on Cromer Cliffs. How it is that Edward Craig, the man who died, is now standing beside you!"
The prisoner, with a frantic struggle to free his arms, and throw himself upon her, to silence her lips, made a sudden dash forward. But his captors closed with him, pinioned him, and held him fiercely by the throat.
Lola, standing by, drew a long breath, but remained silent.
Her frail little figure seemed unbalanced, she was unnerved and trembling, two bright spots showing in the centre of her pale cheeks, as she stood there. Upon her shoulder rested the tender hand of the man whose end had been so wrapped in mystery.
"Speak, Lola," I urged again. "Have no fear of these men now. Tell us the plain truth."
"Yes, Lola," Craig added earnestly, "tell them the strange story. There is nothing now to be afraid of. Speak the truth and let the law deal with that assassin."
Again Jeanjean went into a perfect paroxysm of rage. But all to no purpose, though he bit his lips till the blood came. The men held him so firmly that he could move neither hand nor foot.
The heavy hand of Justice had fallen upon him!
"I think, Lola, I had better explain to them the circumstances in which we met," young Craig exclaimed with frankness. His hand was still upon her shoulder, his eyes gazing straight into hers with that intense love-light which, in this world of falsity and fraud, is one of the things which can never be feigned.
"Yes, do," she urged, clinging closely to him, her frail frame trembling, for she was still upset and unnerved.