The conclusion is obvious
enough to anyone who knows the facts of the case. Sir William was not
meant to live!
"Wingrave's trial was a famous one. He had no friends and few
sympathizers, and he insisted upon defending himself. His cross
examination of the man who had been his friend created something like
a sensation. Amongst other things, he elicited the fact that Lumley,
after first seeing the two together, had gone and fetched Sir William.
It was a terrible half hour for Lumley, and when he left the box,
amongst the averted faces of his friends, the sweat was pouring down
his face. I can seem him now, as though it were yesterday. Then Lady
Ruth followed. She was quietly dressed; the effect she produced was
excellent. She told her story. She hinted at the insult. She spoke of
the check. She had imagined no harm in accepting Wingrave's invitation
to tea. Men and women of the hunt, who were on friendly terms, treated
one another as comrades. She spoke of the blow. She had seen it
delivered, and so on. And all the time, I sat within a few feet of
Wingrave, and I knew that in the black box before him were burning
love letters from this woman, to the man whose code of honor would
ever have protected her husband from disgrace; and I knew that I was
listening to the thing which you, Aynesworth, and many of your fellow
story writers, have so wisely and so ignorantly dilated upon--the
vengeance of a woman denied.
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