"Hilliston guilty!" said Paynton, rising. "What do you mean?"
"Oh, it is only a theory," said Claude hastily. "But my friend Tait, who was at Horriston a few days ago, found out all kinds of things which implicated one person and another. He found——"
"Don't tell me—don't tell me," said Paynton hastily. "I cannot talk to you longer or else I shall be ill. This interview has already tried me too much. Here," he added, unlocking a drawer in his desk, "take these papers. You will find in them a full account of all I know of the matter."
"You were, then, an eye-witness?" said Claude, joyfully slipping the roll of manuscript into his pocket. He had been more successful than he had hoped to be.
Paynton pressed his hands together, and looked eagerly at Claude. "I can bear it no longer," he said impatiently, laying his hands on the shoulders of the astonished young man. "Boy—boy, can you not guess who I am?"
"No," replied Larcher, rising to his feet in some wonder, "I do not know who you can be, unless you are Jeringham."
"I am not Jeringham. He is dead."
"Aye, murdered. Can you not see—can you not guess? Claude, the man who was killed at Horriston was not George Larcher, it was Mark Jeringham!"
"But you—you——"