‘In the carriage the poor fellow sat like a dead man, huddled in one corner, without speech and motion; but once within doors, I insisted on his taking some wine, which revived him a little. “You cannot stop here,“ I said, speaking to him as severely as I could, for kindness only seemed to unnerve him; “I will send out and get you a bed at some inn. But if it will be any comfort to you to relieve your mind, I am ready to hear whatever you have to say.“ He made a movement towards his breast-pocket which filled me with apprehensions. “If you have a pistol there,“ I said, “give it to me at once. Whatever you may have done, however you may have wronged Margaret, you will surely not add self-slaughter to your other sins? You will not break her heart by killing yourself?”
‘“No, no,“ he murmured; “it is not that.”
‘I found it was impossible to get any connected narrative out of him, so I put a question or two.
‘“Who is this enemy of yours, and why should it be in his power to harm you?”
‘“Because he knows my secret—my shameful secret. His name is Reginald Talbot, and he was at one time my friend. We quarrelled about some poems of his, and from that moment he has done his best to ruin me. He tried to prove that I had forged one of the Shakespeare papers, and failed in it; he pretended to be satisfied at the time with the evidence in the matter, as the others were, but from that moment he dogged my footsteps. He is a sneaking, prying hound.
‘“One day, when I was at work in my chambers, forging manuscripts, I saw his face at my window; he had climbed up to it by a ladder, and perceived what I was about. There was no hope of concealment any longer, so I unlocked the door and let him in. I told him all—it is a long story, but it is written here (again he touched his breast-pocket), and besought him to have mercy upon me. His heart was like the nether millstone, as I knew it would be. He asked me with a sneer what I should do now, and whether I had any new treasure of Shakespeare’s with which to enrich the world. I told him of the ‘Vortigern,’ which I was then projecting, but which, of course, it was now in his power to put a stop to. Then he proposed a compromise. He was very vain of his verses, and he undertook, upon condition that he was allowed to write some portion of the play himself, to keep silence upon the matter. He had the same mad desire that I had, that the world should take his poetry to be from Shakespeare’s pen. I consented of course, for I had no choice. All his wrath against me seemed to have evaporated at once. He was intensely pleased; and from that time we worked together. Moreover, when the committee appointed to decide upon the genuineness of the Shakespeare manuscripts hesitated to accept them because there was no other witness to their discovery save myself, Talbot came forward, as we had agreed that he should do, and deposed that he had seen my patron from the Temple, and the collection from which the paper had been taken. His evidence carried the day and assured me of my position. On the other hand, Talbot wrote so feebly that I felt convinced not a line of his would survive criticism, and, unknown to him, I composed the whole play independently of his assistance.
‘“He had to leave London for Ireland, so I had no difficulty in deceiving him in this matter. We corresponded in cipher about it, and I led him to imagine that the ‘Vortigern,’ as accepted in Drury Lane, was the play that we had composed together. I thought if it were successful that I should be in a position to defy him, and that only those who were already my enemies would believe his story. He had told me that it was impossible for him to be in London the first night of its performance, and I flattered myself that I was quite safe. The instant I recognised his voice in the theatre, I felt that all was over with me. He would find out the absence of his own rhapsodies from the drama; and that I had deceived him, as indeed I had—whom have I not deceived? From that moment my fate was sealed.”
‘“Unhappy boy!“ cried I; “is it possible, then, that you acknowledge yourself to be a forger and a cheat?”
‘“I do,“ he answered; “here is the record of my transgression.”