In the moment of silence that followed, the singing of a caged bird in the court-yard outside was the one sound stirring in the room.  Maitre Voigt touched Bintrey, and pointed to Obenreizer.  “Look at him!” said the notary, in a whisper.

The shock had paralysed every movement in the villain’s body, but the movement of the blood.  His face was like the face of a corpse.  The one vestige of colour left in it was a livid purple streak which marked the course of the scar where his victim had wounded him on the cheek and neck.  Speechless, breathless, motionless alike in eye and limb, it seemed as if, at the sight of Vendale, the death to which he had doomed Vendale had struck him where he stood.

“Somebody ought to speak to him,” said Maitre Voigt.  “Shall I?”

Even at that moment Bintrey persisted in silencing the notary, and in keeping the lead in the proceedings to himself.  Checking Maitre Voigt by a gesture, he dismissed Marguerite and Vendale in these words:—­“The object of your appearance here is answered,” he said.  “If you will withdraw for the present, it may help Mr. Obenreizer to recover himself.”

It did help him.  As the two passed through the door and closed it behind them, he drew a deep breath of relief.  He looked round him for the chair from which he had risen, and dropped into it.

“Give him time!” pleaded Maitre Voigt.

“No,” said Bintrey.  “I don’t know what use he may make of it if I do.”  He turned once more to Obenreizer, and went on.  “I owe it to myself,” he said—­“I don’t admit, mind, that I owe it to you—­to account for my appearance in these proceedings, and to state what has been done under my advice, and on my sole responsibility.  Can you listen to me?”

“I can listen to you.”

“Recall the time when you started for Switzerland with Mr. Vendale,” Bintrey begin.  “You had not left England four-and-twenty hours before your niece committed an act of imprudence which not even your penetration could foresee.  She followed her promised husband on his journey, without asking anybody’s advice or permission, and without any better companion to protect her than a Cellarman in Mr. Vendale’s employment.”

“Why did she follow me on the journey? and how came the Cellarman to be the person who accompanied her?”

“She followed you on the journey,” answered Bintrey, “because she suspected there had been some serious collision between you and Mr. Vendale, which had been kept secret from her; and because she rightly believed you to be capable of serving your interests, or of satisfying your enmity, at the price of a crime.  As for the Cellarman, he was one, among the other people in Mr. Vendale’s establishment, to whom she had applied (the moment your back was turned) to know if anything had happened between their master and you.  The Cellarman alone had something to tell her.  A senseless superstition, and a