"Loaded, your Highness, is the technical term, observed Pocock. "That scoundrel there," pointing to Chichester, "once told me all about them things, at the time I was leagued with him and his baronet friend."
"I hope your Highness will not make this affair public," said Lord Dunstable, his manner having changed to the most cringing meekness. "Egerton—you cannot wish to ruin me altogether?"
"Would you not have ruined me?" inquired the young man, bitterly.
"Oh! what a blessed day it is for me to be a high-witness of the disposure of them scoundrels Marlborough and Winchester!" ejaculated the old butler, rubbing his hands joyfully together. "Send 'em to Newgate, my lord—send 'em to Newgate—and then let 'em be disported to the spinal settlements, my lord!"
"Pray have mercy upon me—for the sake of my father and mother!" said Dunstable, whose entire manner expressed the most profound alarm. "Your Highness is known to possess a good heart——"
"It is not to me that you must address yourself," interrupted Markham, in a severe tone. "Appeal to this young man whom you have basely defrauded of large sums—upon whom you have been preying for weeks past—and whom you have tutored in the ways that lead to destruction:—appeal to him, I say—and not to me."
"I am entirely in the hands of your Highness," observed Egerton, with a grateful glance towards the Prince.
"Then we will spare these men, bad and unprincipled though they be," exclaimed Richard: "we will spare them—not for their own sakes, Egerton—but for yours. Were it known, through the medium of the details of a public prosecution, that you have been so intimately connected with a gang of cheats and depredators, your character would be irretrievably lost; for the world is not generous enough to pause and reflect that you were only a victim. Therefore, as you are determined to retrieve the past, it will be prudent to forego any criminal proceedings against those who have made you their dupe."
"Your Highness has spoken harshly—very harshly," said Lord Dunstable; "and yet I feel I have deserved all that vituperation. But this leniency with which your lordship has treated me—and your forbearance, Egerton—will not have been ineffectual. I now see the fearful brink upon which I stood—and I shudder; for had you resolved to drag me before a tribunal of justice, I would have avoided that last disgrace by means of suicide."
The young nobleman spoke with a feeling and an evident sincerity that touched both our hero and Egerton; but Cholmondeley turned away in disgust from his penitent friend, and Harborough exchanged a contemptuous look with Chichester.