“Yes; I think I understand,” said he. “Suppose I pass you my word that, whatever may have occurred, there were excuses—great excuses—I may say, very great?”
“It would have weight with me, doctor,” I replied.
“I may go further,” he pursued. “Suppose I had been there, or you had been there. After a certain event had taken place, it’s a grave question what we might have done—it’s even a question what we could have done—ourselves. Or take me. I will be plain with you, and own that I am in possession of the facts. You have a shrewd guess how I have acted in that knowledge. May I ask you to judge from the character of my action something of the nature of that knowledge, which I have no call, nor yet no title, to share with you?”
I cannot convey a sense of the rugged conviction and judicial emphasis of Dr. Urquart’s speech. To those who did not hear him, it may appear as if he fed me on enigmas; to myself, who heard, I seemed to have received a lesson and a compliment.
“I thank you,” I said; “I feel you have said as much as possible, and more than I had any right to ask. I take that as a mark of confidence, which I will try to deserve. I hope, sir, you will let me regard you as a friend.”
He evaded my proffered friendship with a blunt proposal to rejoin the mess; and yet a moment later contrived to alleviate the snub. For, as we entered the smoking-room, he laid his hand on my shoulder with a kind familiarity—
“I have just prescribed for Mr. Dodd,” says he, “a glass of our Madeira.”
I have never again met Dr. Urquart; but he wrote himself so clear upon my memory that I think I see him still. And indeed I had cause to remember the man for the sake of his communication. It was hard enough to make a theory fit the circumstances of the Flying Scud; but one in which the chief actor should stand the least excused, and might retain the esteem or at least the pity of a man like Dr. Urquart, failed me utterly. Here at least was the end of my discoveries. I learned no more, till I learned all; and my reader has the evidence complete. Is he more astute than I was? or, like me, does he give it up?