Gray eagerly poured himself a glass of rich wine; and as he felt the generous fluid warm him, his blood seemed to flow easier through his veins, and he appeared to have lifted half of his cares from his heart.
“Now—now,” said Learmont, impatiently. “Tell me all.”
“I will. Early this evening, I went into a small hostel, in Pimlico, near to the public office of this Hartleton—”
“Yes—yes.”
“And there was one,” continued Gray, lying with a volubility that would have taken any one in,—“there one belonging to the magistrate’s office, who had already taken more drink than his brains would stand.”
“You—you—plied him well.”
“I did when my suspicions were awakened. He was talking loudly, and amongst other things, he said ‘His master had an eye upon a certain squire, not a hundred miles from Westminster, who bid fair for Tyburn.’”
“The knave!—What—what more?”
“On that I thought, of course, on you,” said Gray, with a sneering malice in his tone.
“Well—well—what followed?”