Bentwood smiled in a mean and sinister way. He had tried to hide himself in a corner of the room. There was something so cringing and fawning about the fellow that Berrington longed to kick him. Sartoris spoke in a waspish whisper:
"So the land lies in that quarter," he said. "We have an informer amongst us. If I had known that before, my good Bentwood,—if I had known that before!"
Big as he was, Bentwood looked small and mean at that moment.
"You are quite mistaken," he cried. "You are altogether wrong, my dear Carl. I am as much of a prisoner as any of you. I was taken in fair fight outside after a desperate struggle. What have I to gain by an attitude of unreasonable obstinacy?"
"Oh, nothing," Sartoris replied. "But you can make things easy for yourself by affording the police information. You will probably get off with ten years. I would fight the thing out to the bitter end and chance it. But you and I are made of different stuff."
Mark Ventmore, watching the two men, thought so too, but he said nothing. One was a mere bag of bones, the other a fine figure of a man, but Mark would have preferred the cripple, who made no sign and showed no feeling as he tottered to the door, between the policemen. Mary would have said something to him, but he waved her back.
"Now don't you trouble about me any more," he said. "I shall be safe for some years to come, the law will see to that. We shall never meet again, for the simple reason that a physique like mine will not stand the prison treatment. I shall die there. Good bye."
Mary kept back her tears. She would have felt better if she could have seen even the slightest trace of remorse in her brother.
"Marry Berrington," he said. "He has been pretty faithful to you and you will be alone in the world now.
You should think yourself lucky with a man like that to fall back upon. I have to say adieu to the lot of you."