“My master ’as ran hoff without payin’ me hanythink,” said he, cringing to Mr. Waddy. “Hi found them papers hamong ’is traps,” he continued, laying a packet on the table, “hand seein’ as they was marked with yer honour’s name, Hi thought yer honour mout give me five dollars fer a savink of ’em.”
“So you’ve been thieving as well as trying to poison,” said Ira, as he opened the door. “Here, boys,” he called to Chin Chin and Bowery, in the adjoining room. “Lug this beggar off. We’ll have him attended to to-morrow.”
“Hi yi! All same!” shouted Chin Chin, pouncing upon Figgins, and that worthy was dragged off with a Chinaman at his hair and the Bowery Boy playfully tapping him on the nob.
Mr. Waddy picked up the packet of papers, to toss it after Figgins, but held his hand, with a sudden start of astonishment as his eye caught the indorsement. He stared at it a moment, scarce believing that he saw aright; a swift presentiment shook him, turned him hot, cold——
“Gentlemen,” said he, a little hoarsely, “I do not desire to pry into Mr. Belden’s private papers, but this parcel is indorsed in my own hand, or a hand that seems my own, as relating to me. I shall take the liberty, in your presence, of ascertaining the contents.”
He opened them with trembling fingers: the whole plot burst upon him, foul, damnable, unspeakably vile.
“My God!” thought he. “They showed her these—she could not doubt my own hand. And I have wronged her all these fifteen years! Oh, how I pardon her!”
His hands were trembling still; his eyes were hot with tears—tears of joy, tears of thankfulness——
Old Budlong looked up, with a sudden jerk of the head. His eyes, too, were wet and his hands tremulous.
“Gentlemen,” said he, steadying his voice, which would have broken, “I’m an old man, but I’ve been a kind husband, and as devoted to my wife as I knew how. I sometimes thought she was a little gay and it made me unhappy—but I was old and she was young, and I never thwarted her. She has had everything she wished, and, gentlemen, I loved her like a wife and a daughter. She was a beautiful woman, you know, and I found her very poor, the daughter of one of my old cronies, and I put her where she belonged, among splendid things. I have never seen anything handsomer than she was, gentlemen, and I was proud of her.”