And this, I think, was the view that was taken by those present.
The court it was - being composed of honest gentlemen - that felt
the shame which she dissembled. There were the eyes that fell
away before the spurious effrontery of her own glance. They were
disconcerted one and all by this turn of events, without precedent
in the experience of any, and none more disconcerted - though not
in the same sense - than Sir Terence. To him this was checkmate
- fool's mate indeed. An unexpected yet ridiculously simple move
had utterly routed him at the very outset of the deadly game that
he was playing. He had sat there determined to have either
Tremayne's life or the truth, publicly avowed, of Tremayne's
dastardly betrayal. He could not have told you which he preferred.
But one or the other he was fiercely determined to have, and now
the springs of the snare in which he had so cunningly taken Tremayne
had been forced apart by utterly unexpected hands.

"It's a lie!" he bellowed angrily. But he bellowed, it seemed, upon
deaf ears. The court just sat and stared, utterly and hopelessly at
a loss how to proceed. And then the dry voice of Wellington followed
Sir Terence, cutting sharply upon the dismayed silence.

"How can you know that?" he asked the adjutant. "The matter is one
upon which few would be qualified to contradict Miss Armytage. You
will observe, Sir Harry, that even Captain Tremayne has not thought
it worth his while to do so."

Those words pulled the captain from the spell of sheer horrified
amazement in which he had stood, stricken dumb, ever since Miss
Armytage had spoken.