He had sat there determined to have either Tremayne's life or the truth, publicly avowed, of Tremayne's dastardly betrayal.

He could not have told you which he preferred.

But one or the other he was fiercely determined to have, and now the springs of the snare in which he had so cunningly taken Tremayne had been forced apart by utterly unexpected hands.
"It's a lie!" he bellowed angrily.

But he bellowed, it seemed, upon deaf ears.

The court just sat and stared, utterly and hopelessly at a loss how to proceed.