“Defence? Innocence, of course.”
“Would to God I could back him up!” groaned Cameron.
Dunn gazed at him in dismay. “And can you not? You do not mean to tell me you are guilty?”
“Oh, I wish to heaven I knew!” cried Cameron wildly. “But there, let it go. Let the lawyers and the judge puzzle it out. 'Guilty or not guilty?' 'Hanged if I know, my lord. Looks like guilty, but don't see very well how I can be.' That will bother old Rae some; it would bother Old Nick himself. 'Did you forge this note?' 'My lord, my present ego recognizes no intent to forge; my alter ego in vino may have done so. Of that, however, I know nothing; it lies in that mysterious region of the subconscious.' 'Are you, then, guilty?' 'Guilt, my lord, lies in intent. Intent is the soul of crime.' It will be an interesting point for Mr. Rae and his lordship.”
“Look here, old chap,” asked Dunn suddenly, “what of Potts in this business?”
“Potts! Oh, hang it, Dunn, I can't drag Potts into this. It would be altogether too low-down to throw suspicion upon a man without the slightest ground. Potts is not exactly a lofty-souled creature. In fact, he is pronouncedly a bounder, though I confess I did borrow money of him; but I'd borrow money of the devil when I'm in certain moods. A man may be a bounder, however, without being a criminal. No, I have thought this thing out as far as I can, and I've made my mind up that I've got to face it myself. I've been a fool, ah, such a fool!” A shudder shook his frame. “Oh, Dunn, old man, I don't mind for myself, I can go out easily enough, but it's my little sister! It will break her heart, and she has no one else; she will have to bear it all alone.”
“What do you mean, Cameron?” asked Dunn sharply.
Cameron sprang to his feet. “Let it go,” he cried. “Let it go for to-night, anyway.” He seized a decanter which stood all too ready to his hand, but Dunn interposed.
“Listen to me, old man,” he said, in a voice of grave and earnest sadness, while he pushed Cameron back into a chair. “We have a desperately hard game before us, you and I,—this is my game, too,—and we must be fit; so, Cameron, I want your word that you will play up for all that's in you; that you will cut this thing out,” pointing to the decanter, “and will keep fit to the last fighting minute. I am asking you this, Cameron. You owe it to yourself, you owe it to me, you owe it to your sister.”
For some moments Cameron sat gazing straight before him, his face showing the agony in his soul. “As God's above, I do! I owe it to you, Dunn, and to her, and to the memory of my—” But his quivering lips could not utter the word; and there was no need, for they both knew that his heart was far away in the little mound that lay in the shadow of the church tower in the Cuagh Oir. The lad rose to his feet, and stretching out his hand to Dunn cried, “There's my hand and my honour as a Highlander, and until the last fighting moment I'll be fit.”