Hew was far from dying yet, as the doctor averred; and Sir Piers too—he 'had seen too much of that sort of thing up country, not to know all about it;' but, in his lowness and perturbation of spirit, Hew firmly believed that the hour of his demise was close indeed; and clinging to the hand of Sir Piers, while moaning and sobbing, he confessed how he had cheated and swindled often, and how he had maligned Cecil in many ways, and more than all, the cruel trick he had played him, on the night of the ball, by drugging his wine.
He uttered a veritable howl of dismay, and fell back in his bed, when he saw the sudden expression of horror, rage, and shame, that mingled in the face of the honourable old soldier, in whose heart there swelled up a great emotion of pity for Cecil.
He fiercely withdrew his hand from Hew's despairing and tenacious clutch, and started back a pace from the bed whereon the culprit lay.
'It is well that we have all heard this confession of a crime, as black as assassination—a confession which I request you both to commit to memory, and you, John Balderstone, most carefully to writing. As for you, sir,' he added, with a withering glance at Hew, 'I shall never look upon your face again, and now leave you with the doctor and your own conscience, if you have such a thing about you! Order my horse,' he concluded, as he rang the bell, and quitted the room without glancing again at Hew, whose wasted face was buried in the pillows, among which he was groaning heavily.
Buried in deep, anxious, and angry thoughts—angry with himself too—the general rode slowly home.
So—so—this was the secret and true character of Hew Montgomerie—a blackleg—a cheat—the perpetrator of a great villany, on an innocent man! 'When anything in which we have most believed, grows shadowy and unreal, we are apt to grow unreal to ourselves;' and the general, who had once believed greatly in Hew, now knew not what to think.
'Jealousy and avarice are the meanest of passions,' he thought, and terribly had Hew given full swing to both. 'Jealousy, I know, has driven people to incredible acts of deceit; but this act of Hew's has been, beyond all calculations, infamous!'
'It has been just as my heart foreboded!' said Mary to Mrs. Garth, when the revelation reached them, and the measure of her horror of Hew was now full. She then thanked Heaven for her wealth, that she might share it with the bruised and the fallen; but whither was he gone?
Alas! no one could find the smallest clue to it.
After the revelation, which fear of death had wrung from him, Hew recovered rapidly, and made many a solemn promise 'to eschew horseflesh and bits of painted pasteboard;' but it was only a case of 'the devil was sick,' etc., for when well he plunged into his old bad courses, far exceeding the allowance the general so generously made to him, and then he disappeared for a time.