"What!" Clarice nearly fainted.
"You young scoundrel!" gasped Ackworth, his face growing red.
"That's right. Preach away and kick a chap when he's down. I didn't exactly forge the name, but I altered the figures of a cheque for twenty pounds given me by Jerce, to one for two hundred. So you see I am not quite a forger," ended Ferdy, cheerfully.
"Go on," commanded Anthony, curtly, and soothed the girl, who was weeping bitterly. "Hush, Clarice, darling. We have heard the worst now; nothing more shameful can be revealed."
"A forger and a murderer," cried Clarice, in agony--"my own brother."
"I am neither the one nor the other," said Ferdy, in a brazen manner. "If you'll only listen to me, I can explain. Jerce got the cheque and held it over me as a whip. He said that he would put me in gaol, if I did not do what he wanted. For a long time he left me alone, and then"--Ferdy sank his voice to a terrified whisper--"then he brought me the stamp of the Purple Fern, and told me that I was to kill Uncle Henry and stamp his forehead with the fern, so that the crime would look like the work of Osip."
"And you accepted?" shrieked Clarice, with horror.
"I accepted to gain time," said Ferdy, sulkily. "What else could I do? I was in Jerce's power, and could be sent to prison. But I never intended to kill Uncle Henry."
"Why did Jerce want him killed?" asked Ackworth, suddenly.
"Well, he said that Uncle Henry's disease puzzled him, and that the reason could not be found out, unless he was dead and his body was examined. It was scientific curiosity."