“You admit everything, then.”
“I admit everything you know, of course. This man here could prove whatever I might deny. Besides, everybody knows that ring is mine; I did not know until to-day how I lost it, as you may guess; else I should have been prepared with some story.”
Ned Mitchell, who had brought the ring with him and had just produced it, thinking to confound the vicar, slipped it back into his pocket with uncertain fingers.
“And you are prepared for the consequences?”
“As much prepared as a man ever is for a very unpleasant contingency.”
“Even if the contingency is—what the law prescribes for discovered murderers?”
“You mean hanging?”
Ned Mitchell nodded, and the vicar paused.
“I won’t say that I am prepared for that; I can’t say that I ever contemplated such a possibility seriously. It would be a terrible precedent to hang a vicar. I should probably get off as of ‘unsound mind,’ and be confined ‘during her Majesty’s pleasure.’”
“And if they shouldn’t be so lenient?”