“Every word!” cried the old gentleman, “every word that has passed between you and this detested villain, is known to me. Shadows on the wall have caught your whispers, and brought them to my ear; the sight of the persecuted child has turned vice itself and given it the courage and almost the attributes of virtue. Murder has been done, to which you were morally if not really a party.”
“No, no,” interposed Monks. “I—I—know nothing of that; I was going to inquire the truth of the story when you overtook me. I didn’t know the cause, I thought it was a common quarrel.”
“It was the partial disclosure of your secrets,” replied Mr. Brownlow. “Will you disclose the whole?”
“Yes, I will.”
“Set your hand to a statement of truth and facts, and repeat it before witnesses?”
“That I promise too.”
“Remain quietly here until such a document is drawn up, and proceed with me to such a place as I may deem most advisable, for the purpose of attesting it?”
“If you insist upon that, I’ll do that also,” replied Monks.
“You must do more than that,” said Mr. Brownlow. “Make restitution to an innocent and unoffending child, for such he is, although the offspring of a guilty and most miserable love. You have not forgotten the provisions of the will. Carry them into execution so far as your brother is concerned, and then go where you please. In this world you need meet no more.”