Wingrave looked reflectively seaward. The matter was not entirely clear to him. Yet he was sure that this young man was telling the truth, so far as he could divine it.
“Well,” he said, “you have made your attempt and failed. If fortune had favored you, you might at this moment have been a murderer. I might have warned you, by the bye, that I am an exceedingly hard man to kill.”
Richardson looked uneasily around.
“I ain’t admitting anything, you know,” he said.
“Precisely! Well, what are you going to do now? Are you satisfied with your first reverse, or are you going to renew the experiment?”
“I’ve had enough,” was the dogged answer. “I’ve been made a fool of. I can see that. I shall return home by the next steamer. I never ought to have got mixed up in this.”
“I am inclined to agree with you,” Wingrave remarked calmly. “Do I understand that if I choose to forget this little episode, you will return to England by the next steamer?”
“I swear it,” Richardson declared.
“And in the meantime, that you make no further attempt of a similar nature?”
“Not I!” he answered with emphasis. “I’ve had enough.”