"Give me a moment's time, Helps. So he has come. It would have been all right but for this confounded uncertainty with regard to the Esperance. But it is all right, of course. Plans such as mine don't fail, they are too carefully made. All the same, I am shaken, Helps. Helps, I am growing into an old man."
"You do look queer, Mr. Paget; have a little brandy, sir; you'd better."
"Thank you; a little, then. Open that cupboard, you will find the flask. Brandy steadies the nerves. Now I am better. Helps, it was in this room I made terms with young Wyndham."
"God forgive you, sir, it was."
"Why do you say that? You did not disapprove at the time."
"I didn't know Mr. Wyndham, sir; had I known, I wouldn't have allowed breathing man to harm a hair of his head."
"How would you have prevented it?"
"How?"
The old clerk's face took an ugly look.
"Split on you, and gone to prison, of course," he said. "Now, shall I send Mr. George Carmichael in? It was for his sake you did it. My God, what a sin you sinned! I see Mr. Wyndham's face every night of my life. Good God, why should men like him be hurled out of the world because of sinners like you and me?"