"What?" I asked.
He looked at me for a moment intently, as if debating within himself whether to trust me; then at last he laid a hand tremulously on my arm, and stared up into my face.
"I have shammed, sir," he said. "I have lied; I have plotted. I shall not fail now; I have come out of the darkness into the light. I have come to life!"
His excitement, now that he had once let himself go, was tremendous; he seemed a bigger and a stronger man than I had imagined. He stood there, shaking his clenched fists above his head, and crying out that he was alive, and almost weeping with excitement.
"What are you going to do?" I asked him, breathlessly.
"I am going to kill Bardolph Just, as he killed my young master, Mr. Gregory Pennington! I have tried twice; the third time I shall succeed!" he replied.
CHAPTER XV.
I BID THE DOCTOR FAREWELL.
I did my best to calm the man Capper. I feared that in his excitement he might betray his purpose to someone else, and someone not so well disposed towards him. I soothed him as well as I could, and presently got him by the arm and walked him away. For a long way we went in silence, until at last, having climbed to Hampstead Heath, I led him into a by-path there, and presently sat beside him on a seat, prepared to listen to his story. He was calmer by this time; the only evidence of the passions, so long suppressed and now working in him, was shown when, every now and then, he ground his right fist into the palm of his other hand, as though in that action he ground the face of his enemy.