The judge caught quickly at the new name.

“You removed, or, more plainly, you murdered Lord Lydstone at the instigation of your accomplice—­is that so?”

Ledantec would not confess to this, but the judge felt certain that he had come upon the track of another dreadful crime.

“There is enough against you,” he went on slowly, “to convict you a dozen times over, enough to send you to the guillotine.  Your only hope will be to make a clean breast of everything.  By helping us to convict your accomplice you may save your forfeited life.”

“But I shall be sent to the galleys; to Toulon or Brest.  Life as a French galley-slave is worse than death.”

“You will not think so when the alternative is put before you,” said the judge, dryly; “and my advice to you is to make a full confession.”

Ledantec shook his head, but it was with far less assurance than he had shown at the beginning of his examination.  It was clear that he saw himself fast in the toils; that the law held him tight in its clutch; that unqualified submission was the only course to pursue.

He had spoken fully and unreservedly, confessing freely to every guilty deed in his long career of wickedness, possessing the judge with every detail of his own and his accomplice’s crimes, when that accomplice was brought up for interrogation in her turn.

She was ghastly pale:  the rough ordeal of imprisonment had robbed her dress and demeanour of all its coquetry; but she faced the magistrate with self-possessed, insolent effrontery, and met his stern look with cold, unflinching eyes.

“Why am I brought here?” she began, fiercely.  “How dare you detain me?  You and your masters shall answer for this ill-usage.  I am an English lady, belonging to one of the proudest families in the country.  The British Embassy, the British nation, will call you to the strictest account.”

“Ta! ta! ta!” said the judge, with a gesture of the hand essentially French; “I think you are slightly mistaken; you are no more English than I am.  I know you, and all about you, Cyprienne Vergette—­otherwise Gascoigne, otherwise Wilders.

“Shall I tell you a little of your early history?  How you eloped from Gibraltar, where your father was Vice-Consul; how you came to Paris with your lover; your marriage, your life, your desertion of your husband, your association with Ledantec, your second marriage, your plots against Milord Essendine and his family, your murder—­”

“It is a lie!” she interrupted him, hastily.  “I never committed murder.”

“You compassed Lord Lydstone’s death, although you did not strike the blow.  You would have caused the death of another English officer, but, happily, he has escaped your murderous intrigues.”

Only that morning the French journals had copied from the English an account of McKay’s almost providential escape on the 18th of June.

“But your last attempt has failed utterly.  Mr.—­” he referred to his papers for the name—­“McKay is safe within the British lines.  The agent you employed to inveigle him into danger is dead, but with his last breath he confessed that he had had his orders from you.  Now, Cyprienne Vergette, what have you to say?”