‘Are they come? are all come? Is Philip Meadowes come, and Shepley, and Judge Matthews?’ he said, in an anxious, loud voice.
‘All are come, sir; calm yourself and lie back. My Lord here is willing to hear aught you may have to say,’ said Munro, laying Prior back against the pillows. Matthews stepped forward and stood beside the bed, but at sight of him Prior started up again.
‘The Judge! the Judge!’ he cried, ‘and before day shines I’ll stand before the Judge of All!’
‘Sir, sir, compose yourself,’ said Matthews, as he took a seat by the side of the bed and laid his hand kindly enough across the coverlet. ‘I am come to hear your story; take your time, I shall listen, however long it may be.’
‘Easily told, easily,’ said Prior. He seemed to have strung himself up to tell all his story, for he rattled it off now like a schoolboy who repeats his letters. ‘Easily told—just that I did it—killed Richard Meadowes. I took off my shoes and followed him, trusting to the dark night. Oh, it was all as easy as could be. Then I told him I was Philip—just for vengeance—just because Phil was the only thing he loved on earth, and I wished to make his heart bleed at the last. “I am Philip,” I said in this high voice’—(he broke out into it as he spoke)—‘just as Philip there speaks—and Meadowes believed me. He died believing it. Oh, I paid him out for his treachery, for a thousand treacheries, and he thought his own boy had turned traitor at the last! And I’m glad I did it, for he had thrown me over like an old shoe when I had served his turn. Oh, sin’s easy, easy; nothing so easy as sinning at the first, but now, how am I to die? how am I to die?’
He tossed himself back against the pillows, his arms flung above his head. Philip came forward and stood looking pityingly down at him.
‘Now you have cleared me of this crime, Prior,’ he said, ‘let your mind be easy of that. I am here alive and well, as you see. You have my forgiveness, if that is any comfort to you. Is this all you have to tell us?’
‘All? all?—that’s but the end of a hideous story; the beginning was so long ago I scarce remember it. Always money, money. There was the matter of Anne Champion; but he was to pay every debt I had, you know, and I was hard pressed at the time. Lord lay not that sin to my charge! ’Twas Meadowes’ sin, not mine; and there was that other affair in the year ’24 that——’
‘There,’ said Phil, turning away, ‘I for one have heard all I wish to hear.’
But Prior talked on:—