"I'm coming to it, if you'll have a second's patience. Yesterday morning, early, he went into Newcaster, and there he learnt not only that Mr Emmett had fallen from the table to the floor--in fact, and not in my imagination only--but also that it was the fall which had actually killed him, and not your blow at all."
"How came Strathmoira to discuss the subject with you?"
"He knew all; and I told him everything."
"Wasn't that rather a risky thing to do?"
"I didn't tell him anything till he had found out for himself all that I had to tell. Besides, are you hinting that he might have betrayed me? You say you know something of him; you can't know much! So far from betraying me he nearly got himself into the most frightful trouble through trying to keep me what he thought safe. I don't know what he wouldn't have done rather than let any what he would have called harm come to me. It frightens me when I think of it now."
"Lucky man!"
"I don't know why you say that. It seems to me that he was very unlucky ever to have come across me--I bring ill-luck to everyone! It is I who am lucky altogether beyond anything I deserve. However, I didn't mean to discuss Mr Frazer--I mean the Earl of Strathmoira--it seems such an extraordinary thing that an actual earl should have done all that he did for me."
"It does!"
"Yes, it does! I don't know what you mean, but it is an extraordinary thing! You can laugh at me."
"But I wasn't!"