XI

HOW A LIE WAS MADE THE VERY TRUTH


For some small instant I dared not loose my eye-grip on the colonel, to
glance aside at Falconnet, or Gilbert Stair, or at the woman close
beside me. If I had flinched or wavered, or let an eyelid droop but by
the thickness of a hair, this keen-eyed colonel would have been upon me
to cut the ground beneath my feet and leave me dangling by the lie.

But as it was, I faced him down; and winning him, won all. There was a
muttered oath from Falconnet, a tremulous cry of rage from where her
father stood; and then I sought my lady's eyes to read my sentence in
them.

She gave me but a glance, and though I tried as I had never tried before
to read her meaning it was hid from me. But this I marked; that she did
draw aside from me, and that her face was cold and still, and that her
lips were pressed together as if not all nor any should ever make her
speak again.

At this sharp crisis, when a look or word would cost me more than death
and my dear lady her honor, it was the colonel who, all unwittingly,
stood my friend. A breath of doubt upon my lie and we were lost; and
once I thought he would have breathed it. But he did not. Instead, he