Thomson muttered to himself and then was silent; all waited breathlessly in painful silence. Would he solve the riddle, and tell the story of the crime for which a guiltless man had been condemned by a jury of his peers years before?
“No, it won’t neither,” they heard him say, and then he spoke aloud: “Everything must be made clear?”
“Yes,” said Warren, “if you wish to help this poor girl whom you have wronged so cruelly.”
“It won’t be against you when you get on the other side, Thomson. Free your mind, my friend; it’ll do you good. Terrible, verily, sir, is the Lord our God, but full of mercy,” said Parson Steward.
“I’ll take your word for it, Parson, but I never was much on religion: perhaps I’d fared better if I had been. Well, then, I killed Lord George. I swore to bring disgrace upon the entire Carlingford family. And I have done it; I have had a rich revenge. I was Lord George’s valet; my sister, Miss Venton’s maid. Lord George could never resist a pretty face, and my sister was more than that. Miss Venton loved Captain Henry, and Lord George found her an indifferent woman. She but obeyed her father’s orders, and so Lord George made love to the maid, deceived her, and when he tired of his toy abandoned her to the usual fate of such women—the street. I found her when it was too late, and I swore revenge so long as one lived with a drop of the blood in his veins.
“One day the brothers quarrelled bitterly over Miss Venton; then was my chance. I shot Lord George in the back, and fled, knowing that suspicion would fall on Capt. Henry. It did; and two of my enemies were out of my way, for the Captain was tried and convicted and lived an outcast among savages for years; that was my little scheme for getting even. For the sake of his daughter Lillian, Colonel Titus killed White Eagle and held Winona as a slave, thus cutting off the last direct heir to Carlingford.”
The faint voice ceased. The narrative was finished with great difficulty; the man failed rapidly. With a great effort he added: “Will you call it square, young fellow?—you and Winona—and Judah? I’ve done you bad, but I’ve told the truth at last. Mr. Maxwell—you know the rest—I reckon you’ll marry the heiress—I’m glad.—Land in Canidy soon, boys; they’ll be after you inside a week—big Government force——.” Warren preserved his impassiveness by a struggle; the others followed the faint voice of the dying man with breathless attention; they felt that every word of this important confession was true.
Maxwell was filled with a hope that agitated him almost beyond control.
“Why, surely,” he said, at length, in a voice that trembled in spite of himself, as he rose and joined Winona and Judah at the bedside. “I’m awfully grateful to you for telling me this; it makes my work easy.”
“I sort o’ hated to tell, fer a fac’,” he said, falling back into his usual vernacular, “but I’m glad I done it.” His voice failed; a gray shadow crept over the white face; all was still.