"The water is very good water. It could do no harm. I wrote to the doctor—I invented the analysis, applying it from another. I told him about the discovery and the things said by the newspapers. There was no discovery; nobody had heard of the water; no physician sent any of his patients there; the only visitors from London were my lord and his friends."
"They were all his friends, then?"
"All. His reverence is in the pay of Beelzebub, I believe. The colonel is a bully and a gamester—Sir Harry is a well-known decoy—Lady Anastasia shares her bank with Lord Fylingdale. They were a nest of sharpers and villains, and their business and mine was to spread abroad reports of the shining virtue of his lordship."
"All this, or part of it, we found out or guessed. The vicar publicly denounced you all at his assembly. But what were you to get by it for yourself?"
"I was to have an appointment under government of £200 a year at least."
"Well?"
"I was to have it directly after the marriage. That was the promise. I have it in writing."
"And you have not got it?"
"No; and I shall not get it. When I claimed it his lordship asked me to read the promise. I showed it him. I had kept it carefully in my pocketbook. 'On the marriage of Lord Fylingdale with Miss Molly.' What do you think he said. Oh, villain! villain!"
"What did he say?"