“What have I not suffered since you left this, Michel!” said D'Esmonde, as he rested his forehead on the other's shoulder. “There is not an image of terror my mind has not conjured up. Shame, ignominy, ruin, were all before me; and had you stayed much longer away, my brain could not have borne it.”
“But, D'Esmonde, my friend—”
“Nay, nay, do not reason with me; what I feel—what I suffer—has no relation to the calm influences of reason. I alone can pilot myself through the rocks and quicksands of this channel. Tell me of your mission—how has it fared?”
“Less well than I hoped for,” said the other, slowly.
“I thought as much,” replied D'Esmonde, in a tone of deep dejection. “You saw him?”
“Yes, our interview lasted nigh an hour. He received me coldly, but courteously, and entered into the question with a kind of calm acquiescence that at first gave me good encouragement.”
“To end in disappointment!” cried D'Esmonde, bitterly; and the other made no reply. “Go on, Michel,” said the Abbé, after a pause; “tell me all.”
“I began,” resumed the other, “by a brief reference to Godfrey's murder, and the impenetrable mystery in which, up to this hour, it would appear to be veiled. I related all that you had told me of the relationship between him and the Daltons, and the causes which had broken off their friendship. With these he seemed conversant, though I am unable to say whether he knew more or less than what I was communicating. I dwelt as long and as forcibly as I deemed safe on the character and habits of old Dalton, hinting at his reckless, unprincipled career, and the wild and lawless notions he entertained on every subject. To my great surprise, and I confess to my discomfiture, he stopped me short by saying,——
“'You would imply, then, that he was the guilty man.'
“'You go too fast, Mr. Grounsell,' said I, calmly; 'I have come to confer and take counsel with you, not to form rash or hasty notions on a matter of such deep gravity. If the circumstances I shall lay before you possess the same importance in your eyes that they do in mine, it may be that your own conclusions will be even more than suspicious.' I then entered upon the story of Meekins, and how a comrade of his, an Irishman, called Noonan, confessed to him that he was the murderer of Mr. Godfrey; that he had never known him, nor had any intercourse with him; but was employed for the act by old Dalton, who was then residing at Bruges. This Noonan, who was possessed of several letters of Dalton's, had joined a Genoese vessel, fitted out for the slave-trade, and was killed in action. Meekins had frequent conversations with him on the subject of the murder, and, although a stranger from another country, knew every detail of the scene and locality perfectly from description.