"Pray, sir, may I ask," he said, immediately, with a certain anxious quivering of the lip, but with perfect civility, "if you have been successful in your search?"
"I have not, sir," replied Langford, honestly; "I have not found what I sought."
"Then I presume, sir, that you are not disposed to pursue further your claims in this matter?" rejoined the other, in a hesitating manner.
"You are wrong, sir," replied Langford; "I shall pursue it upon such proofs as are in my possession. If it were but for the purpose of clearing my mother's fame, I would do so, even if there existed no chance of my recovering my right."
"It is a noble feeling, sir," said Sir Henry, with an urbane smile; "but perhaps there may be a method of compromising this affair. Allow me one word with you," and so saying, he drew Langford aside into the recess of one of the windows. "For my own part," he continued, "I am not ambitious. I am a widower, and shall certainly never marry again. I have but two daughters--you are a single man--"
"But one engaged to be married very shortly," replied his auditor, making him a low bow; and Sir Henry went back to Sir Walter Herbert, saying, in a fierce and impatient tone, "Let us proceed with the business before us at once, Sir Waller. I say the man must be committed, and I call upon you as a magistrate to do so."
"I do not see the case as you do," answered the good Knight of Moorhurst; and as he spoke, Langford approached the table also, and, raising his eyes to the prisoner, at once recognised the poor half-witted man, Silly John Graves. Though surprised and grieved, he said nothing, having learned in a hard and difficult school to govern his first emotions. Standing beside Sir Walter Herbert, however, and feeling that internal conviction of the man's honesty and truth which is gained, not alone from great and significant notions, but from small signs and casual traits, which betray rather than display the heart, he determined to interpose in the poor man's defence, and not to suffer the overbearing vehemence of Sir Henry Heywood to crush the calm simplicity of truth, as overbearing vehemence so generally does in this world.
"Why, Sir Waller Herbert," exclaimed Sir Henry Heywood, in the same sharp tone, "has not the man been found carrying out of Danemore Castle a valuable cup and silver cover? Has he not been taken in the very act?"
"I took nothing but what was my own," said Silly John, gazing upon Sir Henry Heywood with a shy look, which mingled in strange harmony terror, and contempt, and hatred; "I took nothing but what was my own, or what ought never to have been there, or what no one there had a right to."
"What, then," exclaimed Sir Henry Heywood, "you took more beside the cup?"