I rose, giving him to understand that I was ready to take my leave, but he motioned me to resume my chair. After gazing vacantly out the window for a moment, he covered his face with his hands and answered:—
"I accept your explanation gladly, Baron Ned. I have wronged you. I have been in such turmoil of mind and conscience for so long a time that I am hardly responsible, and now I suppose I am in a fever because of the loss of blood."
I resumed my chair, the difference being settled between us, and in a moment we began to discuss the cause of Frances's sudden change.
It must be remembered that I knew nothing all this time of Hamilton's remote connection with Roger Wentworth's murder. The dimly hinted rumors that had reached my ears I had put down to Crofts's desire for a scapegoat, and the conversation between Frances and Nelly, and Nelly's conclusions, all came to me after this interview with Hamilton.
Failing to reach any conclusion after a long discussion of the subject, Hamilton and I began to speak on other topics, and I asked him where he had been and what he had been doing.
"I have been at the French court, gambling furiously, and hoarding my money," he answered. "I have not even bought a suit of clothes, and have turned every piece of lace and every jewel I possessed into cash."
"I supposed you were leaving off some of your old ways, gambling among them," I remarked, sorry to hear of his fall from grace.
"And so I have," he answered. "But I wanted a thousand pounds to use in a good cause, and felt that I was doing no wrong to rob a very bad Peter in France to pay a very good Paul at home. I have paid the good Paul, and am now done with cards and dice forever."
"I'm glad to hear you say so, George," I returned.
"Yes, I'll tell you how it was," he continued. Then he gave me an account of the killing of Roger Wentworth, the particulars of which I then learned for the first time. I allowed him to proceed in his narrative without interruption, and he finished by saying: "I learned that same evening that a thousand pounds had been stolen from a traveller. I suspected Crofts, Wentworth, and Berkeley of the robbery, but I did not know certainly that they had committed the crime, since I did not see them do it. The next morning I learned that a man had been killed by highwaymen, and as I felt sure that the murder had been committed in the affair I had witnessed, I went to France because I did not want to be called to testify in case criminal proceedings were instituted. In France I learned that the murdered man was young Wentworth's uncle.