“God help me! I wish I were,” he said pitifully, “for the mad must be free from the agony which I have to bear.”
Fred rose to his feet and looked at the old man aghast. Then, as if for the first time, he seemed to realise that his father was not wandering in his mind, and clasping the thin arms tightly, he pressed him back into a sitting position upon the bed, bending over him, and, in his great strength, holding him helplessly there, as he said quickly, and with a fierce ring in his voice:
“Why, father, do you know what you are saying? You do not think I killed Lady Teigne?”
“Hypocrite!” cried the old man fiercely.
“Speak out, man!” cried Fred, as fiercely now. “What do you mean? How dare you charge me with such a crime!”
“Hypocrite!” panted the old man again. “You cannot shield yourself now. It is a punishment for my weakness that day—that night. I would not have done it,” he cried wildly, “but I was at my last gasp for money. Everything was against me. I had not a shilling, and there all that day the devil was dancing the jewels of that miserable old woman before my eyes.”
“Father!” cried Fred, “for God’s sake, don’t tell me you killed her—for God’s sake don’t. No, no; it is not true.”
“Silence! hypocrite! murderer!” cried the old man. “Listen. I tell you that all that day the devil was dancing those diamonds before my eyes. I saw them in the glittering waters of the sea. I turned to Claire, and her eyes shone like diamonds. The night came, and the sky was all studded with gems, and they were sparkling and reflected in the water. Diamonds—always diamonds; and above stairs, in that room, a casket with necklet and bracelets, all diamonds, and the devil always whispering in my ear that I had but to get two or three taken out and replaced with paste, while I pledged the real stones for a few months, and redeemed them as soon as I could turn myself round. Do you hear me?”
“Yes, I hear you,” said Fred, with a strange look of horror intensifying in his face.
“I fought against the temptation. I struggled with it, as I said that I had always been a weak, foolish fashion-seeker, but an honest gentleman. I swore that I would not defile myself by such a crime; but there were my bills; there was the demand for money for a score of pressing necessities, and the fiend whispered to me that it would not be a crime, only taking them from that miserable old worldly creature as a loan.”