A minute afterwards Edward Clare came up to him, and took him by the arm.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘what passed between you and Treverton?’
‘A good deal, yet it amounts to very little. I am sorry for him.’
‘Then you do not believe that he killed his wife?’
‘I don’t know. It is a profound mystery. I should advise you to let things take their own course. What good will it do for you to make that poor wife of his miserable? If he is guilty, punishment will come sooner or later. If he is innocent, it would be a hard thing for you to persecute him.’
‘What, do you suppose I am such a milksop as to let him go on his way unquestioned? I, who have loved Laura, and lost her? Suppose him even innocent of the murder—which is more than I am ready to believe,—he is guilty of a cruel fraud upon his present wife, of an impudent fraud upon the trustees to Jasper Treverton’s estate, of whom my father is one. He has no more right to yonder Manor House than I have. His marriage with Laura Malcolm is no marriage. Am I to hold my peace, knowing all this?’
‘To reveal what you know will be to break Mrs. Treverton’s heart, and to reduce her to beggary. Hardly the act of a friend.’
‘I may give her pain, but I shall not reduce her to beggary. She has a small income of her own.’
‘And the Manor House estate will be devoted to the creation of an hospital.’
‘Those are the conditions of Jasper Treverton’s will.’