"Tom Pike."
"I hear a great deal said of you, Pike, that's not pleasant; that you are a poacher, and a—"
"Let them that say so prove it," interrupted Pike, his dark brows contracting.
"But how do you manage to live?"
"That's my business, and not Calne's. At any rate, Mr. Elster, I don't steal."
"I heard a worse hint dropped of you than any I have mentioned," continued Val, after a pause.
"Tell it out, sir. Let's have the whole catalogue at once."
"That the night my brother, Mr. Elster, was shot, you were out with the poachers."
"I dare say you heard that I shot him, for I know it has been said," fiercely cried the man. "It's a black lie!—and the time may come when I shall ram it down Calne's throat. I swear that I never fired a shot that night; I swear that I no more had a hand in Mr. Elster's death than you had. Will you believe me, sir?"
The accents of truth are rarely to be mistaken, and Val was certain he heard them now. So far, he believed the man; and from that moment dismissed the doubt from his mind, if indeed he had not dismissed it before.