“He lays no claim to such for the past; but he would seem desirous to make some reparation for a long course of iniquity.”
“Charmed for his sake, and that of his well-wishers, if he have any. But, once again, sir, and at all the risk of appearing very impatient, what concern has all this for me?”
“A great deal, sir. The Moonshee declares that he has been for years back in close correspondence with a man we long since believed dead, and that this man was known to have communicated constantly with the law advisers of the India Board in a manner adverse to us, he being none other than the son of the notorious Sam Edwardes, whom he always addressed under cover to Captain Horace Stapylton, Prince's Hussars.”
“This is—strange enough, when one thinks of the quarter it comes from—perfectly true. I came to know Edwardes when on my voyage home, invalided. He took immense trouble about me, nursed and tended me, and, in return, asked as a favor to have some letters he was expecting addressed to my care. I neither knew who he was, nor cared. He got his letters, and I suppose read them; but of their contents, I, it is needless to say, know nothing. I am speaking of a dozen years ago, or, at least, eight or ten, for since that time I have never heard of either Edwardes or his friend.”
“He tells a different story. He asserts that to his letters, forwarded to the same address up to the period of last March, he regularly received replies; but at last finding that the writer was disposed to get rid of him, he obtained means to circulate a report of his death, and sailed for Europe to prefer his claims, whatever they be, in person.”
“And if every word of this were true, Mr. Barrington, which I don't suspect it is, how, in the name of common sense, does it concern me? I don't suppose I ever took my own letters at a post-office twice in my life. My servant, who has lived with me fourteen years, may, for aught I know, have been bribed to abstract these letters on their arrival; they would be easily recognized by the very superscription. This is one way the thing might have been done. There may have been fifty more, for aught I know or care.”
“But you don't deny that you knew Edwardes, and had a close intimacy with him?—a circumstance which you never revealed to Withering or myself.”
“It is not at all improbable I may have known half a dozen of that name. It is by no means an uncommon one, not to say that I have a singularly infelicitous memory for people's names. But for the last time, sir, I must protest against this conversation going any further. You have taken upon you, I would hope without intending it, the tone of a French Juge d'Instruction in the interrogation of a prisoner. You have questioned and cross-questioned me, asking how I can account for this, or explain that. Now, I am ready to concede a great deal to your position as my host, and to your years, but really I must entreat of you not to push my deference for these beyond the limits of the respect I owe myself. You very properly warned me at the opening of this conversation that it ought not to have the sanction of your roof-tree. I have only to beg that if it is to go any further, that it be conducted in such a shape as is usual between gentlemen who have an explanation to ask, or a satisfaction to demand.”
There was consummate craft in giving the discussion this turn. Stapylton well knew the nature of the man he was addressing, and that after the passing allusion to his character as a host, he only needed to hint at the possibility of a meeting to recall him to a degree of respect only short of deference for his opponent.
“I defer to you at once, Major Stapylton,” said the old man, with a bland courtesy, as he uncovered and bowed. “There was a time when I should scarcely have required the admonition you have given me.”