“Not all; no, not all, neither. Your father had got up into the saddle in an instant, and I labored out into the middle of the road. He saw me and stopped. 'Ye've earned nowt of late,' he said; 'tak this, my man, and gae off and pay your rent.' Then he put some money into my hand from his purse and galloped on. I thought he'd killed Wilson, and I crept along to look at the dead man. I couldn't find him at first, and groped about in the darkness till my hand touched his face. Then I thought he was alive, I did. The touch flayt me, and I fled away—I don't know how. Ralph, I saw the mark of my hand on his face when they drew me up to it next day in the bedroom of the inn. That night I paid my rent with your father's money, and then I went home.”
“It was my father's money, then—not Wilson's?” said Ralph.
“It was as I say,” Sim answered, as though hurt by the implication.
Ralph put his hand on Sim's shoulder. Self-condemned, this poor man's conscience was already a whirlpool that drew everything to itself.
“Tell me, Sim—that is, if you can—tell me how you came to suspect Wilson of these dealings.”
As he said this Ralph tapped with his fingers the warrant which Sim had returned to him.
“By finding that James Wilson was not his name.”
“So you found that, did you; how?”
“It was Mother Garth's doings, not mine,” said Sim.
“What did she tell you?”