“Then you are misinformed. I have won less than the others,—far less than I might have done. The fact is, Hoare, I have been playing a back game,—what jockeys call, holding my stride.”
“Well, take care you don't wait too long,” said Hoare, sententiously.
“How do you mean?” said Linton, sitting up, and showing more animation than he had exhibited before.
“You have your secret—I have mine,” replied Hoare, dryly, as he replaced the bills in his pocket-book and clasped it.
“What if we exchange prisoners, Hoare?”
“It would be like most of your compacts, Mr. Linton, all the odds in your own favor.”
“I doubt whether any man makes such compacts with you,” replied Linton; “but why higgle this way? 'Remember,' as Peacham says, 'that we could hang one another;' and there is an ugly adage about what happens when people such as you and I 'fall out.'”
“So there is; and, strange enough, I was just thinking of it. Come, what is your secret?”
“Read that,” said Linton, placing Enrique's letter in his hand, while he sat down, directly in front, to watch the effect it might produce.
Hoare read slowly and attentively; some passages he re-read three or four times; and then, laying down the letter, he seemed to reflect on its contents.