The Twisted Root

can name a dozen professional men who will say the same of her."
    "I do not doubt you, Dr. Forbes, I simply wanted you to say it for the court to hear. Thank you for your patience. I have nothing further to ask."
    Tobias half rose to his feet, then sat down again. He glanced across at Rathbone, and for the first time there was misgiving in his face, even anxiety.
    Again there was silence in the room. No one even noticed Harry Stourbridge stand up. It was not until he spoke that suddenly every eye turned to him.
    "My lord..." He cleared his throat. "I have listened to the evidence presented here from the beginning. I believe I now understand the truth. It is very terrible, but it must be told or an unbearable injustice will be done. Two women will be hanged who are innocent of any wrong."
    The silence prickled like the coming of a storm.
    "If you have information pertinent to this trial, then you should most certainly take the stand again, Major Stourbridge," the judge agreed. "Be advised that you are still under oath."
    "I am aware of it, my lord," Stourbridge answered, and walked slowly from his seat, across the open space and up the steps of the witness box. He waited until the judge told him to proceed, then in a hoarse, broken voice, with desperate reluctance, he began.
    "I come from a family of very considerable wealth, almost all of it in lands and property, with sufficient income to maintain them and some extra to provide a more than comfortable living. However, it is all entailed, and has been so for generations. I inherited it from my father, and it will pass to my son."
    He stopped for a few seconds, as if regathering his strength. There was not a sound in the room. Everyone understood that here was a man laboring under terrible emotions as he realized a truth that shattered his life.
    "If I had not had a son," he continued with difficulty, his voice trembling, "the property would have passed to my younger brother." Again he paused before gathering the strength to proceed. "My wife found it extremely difficult to carry a child. Time and again she conceived, and then miscarried within the first few months. We had almost given up hope when she came to visit me in Egypt while I was serving in the army there. It was a dangerous posting both because of the fighting and because of the natural hazards of disease. I was anxious for her, but she was determined to come, at all costs."
    Now he was speaking, the words poured out. Every man and woman in the room was listening intently. No one moved even a hand.
    "She stayed with me for over a month." His voice cracked. "She seemed to enjoy it. Then she returned by boat down the Nile to Alexandria. I have had much time to think over and over on what has happened, to try to understand why my wife was killed. She was a generous woman who never harmed anyone." He looked confused, beaten. "And why Miriam, whom we all cared for so much, should have wished her ill.
    "I tried to recall what had been said at the dinner table. Verona had spoken of Egypt and her journey back down the Nile. Lucius asked her about a particular excursion, and she said she had wished to go but had been unable because she had not been very well. She dismissed it as of no importance, only a quite usual complaint for her which had passed."
    His face was very white. He looked across at Lucius. "I’m so sorry," he said hoarsely. Then he faced forward again. "Yesterday evening I went and read her diary of the time, and found her reference to that day when she had written of the pain, and her distress, and then she had remembered Aiden’s words of reassurance that it would all be well if she kept her courage and told no one. And she had done exactly as he had said." His voice dropped. "Then at last I understood."
    Rathbone found himself hardly breathing, he was so intent upon Harry Stourbridge’s white face and tight, aching voice.
    "When she reached England again," Stourbridge continued, "she wrote and told me that during her stay with me she had become with child, and felt very well, and hoped that this time she would carry it until birth. I was overjoyed, for her even more than for myself."
    In the gallery a woman sobbed, her heart touched with pity, maybe with an empathy.
    Rathbone glanced up at Miriam. She looked as if she had seen death face-to-face.
    Harry Stourbridge did not look at her, or at Lucius, or at Aiden Campbell, but straight ahead of him into a vision of the past only he could see.
    "In