"What has become of the woman you speak of as Pauline?" he asked. His very voice was changed. It was such as would proceed from one who had been prostrated by long and almost mortal sickness.
"I do not know," replied Vanbrugh. "I have neither seen nor heard from her since the day before she left her daughter."
"Say that I was disposed," said the Advocate, speaking very slowly, and pausing occasionally, as though he was apprehensive that he would lose control of speech, "to purchase your silence, do you think I should be safe in the event of her appearing on the scene? Would not her despair urge her to seek revenge upon the man who betrayed and deserted her, and who set her daughter's murderer free?"
"It might be so--but at all events she would be ignorant of your knowledge of Gautran's guilt. This danger at least would be averted. The secret is ours at present, and ours only."
"True. You believe that I knew Gautran to be guilty when I defended him?"
"I am forced to believe it. Explain, otherwise, why you permitted him to visit you secretly in the dead of night, and why you filled his pockets with gold."
"It cannot be explained. Yet what motive could I have had in setting him free?"
"It is not for me to say. What I know, I know. I pretend to nothing further."
"Do you suppose I care for money?" As the Advocate asked the question, he opened a drawer in the escritoire, and produced a roll of notes. "Take them; they are yours. But I do not purchase your silence with them. I give the money to you as a gift."
"And I thank you for it. But I must have more."