what the newspapers had said.
Rathbone turned back to the witness stand.
"Count Lansdorff?"
"Gisela is not barren," Rolf said between his teeth. "She had a child from an illicit affair many years before she married Friedrich - "
There was a gasp of indrawn breath around the room so sharp it was a hiss. Harvester shot to his feet, then found he had no idea what to say. Beside him, Gisela was as white as paper.
One of the jurors coughed and choked.
Rathbone was too stunned to speak.
"She did not want it," Rolf went on, his voice stinging with contempt. "She wanted to get rid of it, abort it - " Again he was forced to stop by the noise in the courtroom. The gallery erupted in anger, revulsion and distress. A woman screamed. Someone called out curses, random, indiscriminate.
The judge banged his gavel, his eyes puckered with distress.
Harvester looked as if he had been struck in the face.
Rolf's voice, harsh and loud, cut across them all.
"But the father wanted the child, and told her he would expose her if she destroyed it, but if she bore it, alive, he would take it and love it."
There was sobbing in the gallery.
The jurors were ashen-faced.
"She gave birth to a son," Rolf said. "The father took it. He struggled for a year to care for the boy himself, then he fell in love with a woman of his own rank and station, a woman of gentleness and nobility who was prepared to raise the boy as her own. Conceivably, the boy has never known he was not hers."
Rathbone had to clear his throat before he could find his voice.
"Can you prove that, Count Lansdorff? These are terrible charges."
"Of course!" Rolfs lips curled in scorn. "Do you imagine I would make them from the witness stand if I could not? Zorah Rostova may be a fool... but I am not!
"Her second child was not so fortunate," he continued, his voice like breaking ice. "She conceived to Friedrich, and this one she succeeded in aborting herself. Apparently, she had some knowledge of herbs. It is an art some women choose to cultivate - for health or cosmetic reasons, among others. And to concoct aphrodisiacs or procure abortions. She was ill after this, and was attended for a short time by a doctor. I do not know if you can force him to testify, but he would not lie to you under oath. The matter distressed him profoundly." His face was contorted with emotion. "But if his profession seals his tongue, ask Florent Barberini. He will swear to it, if you press him. He has no such binding loyalties." He stopped abruptly.
Rathbone had no alternative. The court was hanging on a breath.
"But the child you say she bore, Count Lansdorff? Gisela's son! That is surely provable?"
Rolf looked one more time at the judge.
The judge's face was filled with regret but unyielding.
"I am sorry, Count Lansdorff, but the charge you make is too terrible to go unproved, true or false. You must answer if you can."
"The affair was with Baron Bernd Ollenheim," Rolf said huskily. "He took his child, and when he married, his wife loved the boy as her own."
He had nothing else to say, but the emotion of the court would not have jjermitted him to speak anyway. As suddenly as the breaking of a storm, their adoration for Gisela had turned to hatred.
Harvester looked like a man who had witnessed a fatal accident. His face was bereft of color, and he made half movements and then changed his mind, opened his mouth as though to speak and found he had no words.
Gisela herself sat like a woman turned to stone. Whatever she felt, there was no reflection of it written on her features. There was nothing that seemed like regret. Not once did she turn to see if she could recognize Bernd Ollenheim in the gallery, and she could hardly have failed to realize he was there - from Rolf's steady gaze, filled with pity, and from the movement of the crowd as it too realized at whom he had gazed.
Rathbone looked at Zorah. Had she known this? Had she been waiting for Rolf to expose it, hoping, trusting it would come?
From the motionless amazement in her face he could only deduce that it was as shocking to her as it was to everyone else, except Gisela herself.
It was seconds, minutes, before the hubbub died down sufficiently for Rathbone to be heard.
"Thank you, Count Lansdorff," he said