The young man watched him very narrowly, while he told his dreadful tale; and Thyatira in the passage sobbed, and opened her smelling-bottle, for she had been making urgent signs and piteous appeals from the background to the doctor to postpone this trial. But her master only clasped his hands, and closed his quivering eyelids. Without a word he heard the whole; though little starts, and twitching lips, and jerkings of his gaiter'd foot, made manifest that self-control was working at high pressure.
"And who has done this inhuman thing?" asked Mr. Penniloe at last; after hoping that he need not speak, until he felt that he could speak. "Such things have been done about Bristol; but never in our county. And my dear friend, my best friend Tom! We dare not limit the mercy of God; for what are we? Ah, what are we? But speaking as a frail man should, if there is any crime on earth——" He threw his handkerchief over his head; for what can the holiest man pronounce? And there was nothing that moved him more to shame, than even to be called a "holy man."
"The worst of it is," said Dr. Fox, with tears in his eyes, for he loved this man, although so unlike him in his ways of thought; "the worst of it is—or at least from a wretchedly selfish point of view, the worst—that all the neighbourhood has pitched upon the guilty person."
"Who is supposed to have done this horribly wicked thing? Not Gowler?"
"No sir; but somebody nearer home. Somebody well-known in the village."
"Tell me who it is, my dear fellow. I am sure there is no one here who would have done it."
"Everybody else is sure there is. And the name of the scoundrel is—James Fox."
"Fox, it is not a time for jokes. If you knew how I feel, you would not joke."
"I am not joking, sir," said Fox, and his trembling voice confirmed his words. "The universal conclusion is, that I am the villain that did it."