"My dear friend," said Gilbert, in his blandest tone, "you forget. It is by your invitation we are now conversing, and it is for your safety I proposed we should converse here in secresy. You said to me, 'I want your plain meaning.' If you have changed your mind, we will finish now, this moment, and will return to our dear Annette."
"No," said Chaytor, "we will not finish now. I will hear what you have to say."
"You are gracious. But pray believe me; I have not attempted to pry into your secrets. You have yourself revealed yourself to me by a thousand signs. I am a man gifted with a fair intelligence. I do not say to my mind, Observe, it observes intuitively, without command or direction. What is the result? I learn, not what you are, but what you are not."
"Indeed! And what am I not?"
"Plainly?"
"Quite plainly."
"My dear friend," said Gilbert Bidaud, with a smile and a confident nod, "you are not Basil Whittingham."
"That is your game, is it?" cried Chaytor, but his heart was chilled by the cold assurance of Gilbert's voice and manner.
"Not my game--yours. I did not intrude upon you; you intruded upon me. By your own design you came, and if there is a pit before you, it is you, not I, who have dug it. But you can yet save yourself."
"How?" said Chaytor involuntarily, and was instantly made aware of his imprudence by the amused smile which his exclamation called up to Gilbert's lips. "Curse it! I mean, what have I revealed, as you so cleverly express it?"