"By me alone!--incited by me!" cried Lady Exeter; "why, I opposed him.
It is impossible he can have confessed thus. Hast thou done so,
villain?"

"I have," replied Luke Hatton, sullenly.

"Then thou hast avouched a lie--a lie that will damn thee," said Lady
Exeter. "Lord Roos knows it to be false, and can exculpate me. Speak, my
Lord, I charge you, and say how it occurred."

But the young nobleman remained silent.

"Not a word--not a word in my favour," the Countess exclaimed, in a
voice of anguish. "Nay, then I am indeed lost!"

"You are lost past redemption," cried Lady Lake with an outburst of
fierce exultation, and a look as if she would have trampled her beneath
her feet. "You have forfeited honour, station, life. Guilty of
disloyalty to your proud and noble husband, you have sought to remove by
violent deaths those who stood between you and your lover. Happily your
dreadful purpose has been defeated; but this avowal of your criminality
with Lord Roos, signed by yourself and witnessed by his lordship and his
Spanish servant,--this shall be laid within an hour before the Earl of
Exeter."

"My brain turns round. I am bewildered with all these frightful
accusations," exclaimed the Countess distractedly. "I have made no
confession,--have signed none."

"Methought you said I had witnessed it, Madam?" cried Lord Roos, almost