The young woman looked round with compassion upon Jemmy Burke, and the tears started to her eyes. “I pity him!” she exclaimed, “I pity him—that good old man;” and, as she uttered the words, she wept aloud.
“This, I fear, is getting rather a serious affair,” said Vanston, in a low voice to Chevydale—“I see how the tide is likely to turn.”
Chevydale merely nodded, as if he also comprehended it. “You were about to add some other name?” said he; “in the mean time compose yourself and proceed.”
Hycy Burke's face at this moment had become white as a sheet; in fact, to any one of common penetration, guilt and a dread of the coming disclosure were legible in every lineament of it.
“Who was the other person you were about to mention?” asked Vanston.
“His own son, sir, Mr. Hycy Burke, there.”
“Ha!” exclaimed Chevydale; “Mr. Hycy Burke, do you say? Mr. Burke,” he added, addressing that gentleman, “how is this? Here is a grave and serious charge against you. What have you to say to it?”
“That it would be both grave and serious,” replied Hycy, “if it possessed but one simple element, without which all evidence is valueless—I mean truth. All I can say is, that she might just as well name either of yourselves, gentlemen, as me.”
“How do you know that Hogan committed the robbery?” asked Hycy.
“Simply bekaise I seen him. He broke open the big chest above stairs.”