"And if she dies, that fortune will go—"
"I really don't know where it will go," Valentine answered carelessly: he thought the subject was altogether beside the question of Mr. Burkham's agitation, and it was the cause of that agitation which he was anxious to discover.
"If Mr. Sheldon can gain by his stepdaughter's death, fear him!" exclaimed the surgeon, with sudden passion; "fear him as you would fear death itself—worse than death, for death is neither so stealthy nor so treacherous as he is!"
"What in Heaven's name do you mean?"
"That which I thought my lips would never utter to mortal hearing—that which I dare not publicly proclaim, at the hazard of taking the bread out of the mouths of my wife and children. I have kept this hateful secret for eleven years—through many a sleepless night and dreary day. I will tell it to you; for if there is another life in peril, that life shall be lost through no cowardice of mine."
"What secret?" cried Valentine.
"The secret of that poor fellow's death. My God! I can remember the clasp of his hand, and the friendly look of his eyes, the day before he died. He was poisoned by Philip Sheldon!"
"You must be mad!" gasped Valentine, in a faint voice.
For one moment of astonishment and incredulity he thought this man must needs be a fool or a lunatic, so wildly improbable did the accusation seem. But in the next instant the curtain was lifted, and he knew that Philip Sheldon was a villain, and knew that he had never wholly trusted him.
"Never until to-day have I told this secret," said the surgeon; "not even to my wife."