"Your face answers with eloquence: 'Yes, my friend, and be brief;' but your great heart trembles, and shrinks from the deep cup of vengeance which I offer, although you long have sought to taste it.
"No? you deny the imputation? But, mademoiselle, you tremble and are pale as the winter moon; wherefore? Ah, you apprehend my halting meaning; you perceive the mists of possibility with those keen eyes, and you urge, 'Haste, haste, and assure me of the truth!'
"Eh, bien! you shall taste of a cup more mellow than this one of revenge. I hasten to hold it to the lips of Margaret la Fidele!
"I learn as much of my Mortlake's history as my interest in him prompts me to search out.
"I hear that he was banished to Tasmania twelve years ago for a daring act of forgery; that he has come back with a ticket of leave two years since, and, seizing the first opportunity, has presented himself with freedom, and escaped from the espionage of the law.
"That the detectives sent on the track of Roland Mortlake have met the detectives on the track of the fugitive ticket of leave man, and that O'Grady has confessed that they are identical.
"O'Grady, being a companion-convict, and having shared in that enterprise for freedom, is well qualified to put the detectives upon his track, and does so. Thus our friend Mortlake vanishes from the scene; one month ago the prosperous heir of Castle Brand—to-day, the convict waiting sentence for the murder of the true heir of Castle Brand.
"But, mademoiselle, the little tale is not complete without the eclaircissement; permit me to draw aside the curtain from my secret.
"You shall give the word that draws the bolt, and drop out Mortlake into a murderer's grave; or you shall raise the warning hand that stays the doom upon the felon's platform, and waves him back to Tasmania for life in the chain-gang.
"How you have that power is my secret, mademoiselle; shall I tell it you for one thousand pounds?"