"You do not seem afraid of the gaol, Gautran."
"Not when you threaten me with it, master, for you are jesting with me. It is not worth your while; I am a poor creature to make sport of."
"Yet I am dangerously near handing you over to justice."
"For what, master, for what? For coming into your room, and not finding you there, throwing myself in a corner like a dog?"
"It is sufficient--and you have stolen my wine. These are crimes which the law is ready to punish, especially in men with evil reputations."
"You are right, I've no doubt; you know more about the law than I do. I don't intend to dispute with you, master. But when they got hold of me they would question me, and my tongue would be loosened against my will. I say again, you are jesting with me. How warm and comfortable it is in this grand room, and how miserable outside! Ah, why wasn't I born rich? It was a most unfortunate accident."
"Your tongue would be loosened against your will! What could you say?"
"What everybody suspects, but could not prove, master, thanks to you. They owe me a grudge in the prison yonder--lawyers and judges and gaolers--and nothing would please them better than to hear what I could tell them--that I killed the girl, and that you knew I killed her. You don't look pleased, master. You drove me to say it."
"You slanderous villain!"
"I don't mind what you call me, master. I can bear anything from you. I am your slave, and there is nothing you could set me to do that I am not ready to perform. I mean it, master. Try me--only try me! Think of something fearful, something it would take a bold, desperate man to do, and see if I shrink from it. The gaoler was right when he said I was a lucky dog to get such an Advocate as you to defend me. You knew the truth--you knew I did the deed--you knew no one else could save me--and you wanted to show them how clever you were, and what a fool any lawyer was to think he could stand against you. And you did it, master, you did it. How mad they must be with you! I wonder how much they would give to cry Quits! And you've done even more than that, master. The spirit which has been with me night and day, in prison and out of prison, lying by me in bed, standing by my side in the court--you saw it there, master--dogging me through the streets and lanes, hiding behind trees and gliding upon me when I thought I had escaped it--it is gone, master, it is gone! It will not come where you are. It is afraid of you. I don't care whether it is a holy or an unholy power you possess, I am your slave, and you can do with me as you will. But you must not send me to prison again--no, you must not do that! Why, master, simple as I am, and ignorant of the law, I feel that you are joking with me, when you threaten to summon your servants to march me off to gaol for coming into your house. I should say to them, 'You are a pack of fools. Don't you see he is jesting with you? Here have we been talking together for half an hour, and he has given me his best brandy as a mark of friendship. There is the bottle--feel the rim of it, and you will find it wet. Look at the glass, if you don't believe me. Smell it--smell my breath.' Why, then they would ask you again if you were in earnest, and you would have to send them away. Master, I was never taught to read or write, and there is very little I know--but I know well that there is a time to do a thing and a time not to do it, and that unless a thing is done at the proper time, there is no use afterwards attempting it. I will tell you something, though I dare say I might save myself the trouble, for you can read what is in me. If Madeline, when she ran from me along the river's bank, had escaped me, it is likely she would be alive at this moment, for the fiend that spurred me on to kill her might never again have been so strong within me, might never again have had such power over me as he had that night. But he was too strong for me, and that was the time to do the deed, and she had to die. Do you think I don't pity her? I do, when she is not tormenting me. But when she follows me, as she has done to-night, when she stands looking at me with eyes in which there is fire, but no light, I feel that I could kill her over again if I dared, and if I could get a good grip of her. Are all spirits silent? Have they no voice to speak? It is terrible, terrible! I must buy masses for her soul, and then, perhaps, she will rest in peace. Master, give me another glass of that rare brandy of yours. Talking is dry work."