“I am a respectable man,” the rogue whined. “I am—that is I was, I mean, sir—don’t be hard on me—Lord Dynmore’s own valet. I will tell you all, sir.”
“I know you!” rejoined Clode, looking harshly at him. “You were here this morning. And Mr. Lindo gave you money.”
“You are an ungrateful scoundrel!” Stephen Clode answered, cutting the man short. “That is what you are! And in a few days you will be a convicted felon, with the broad-arrow on your clothes, my man!”
To hear his worst anticipations thus put into words was too much for the poor wretch. He fell on his knees, feebly crying for mercy, mercy! “You are a minister of the gospel. Give me this one more chance, sir!” he prayed.
“Stop that noise!” growled the curate fiercely, his dark face rendered more rugged by the light and shadow cast by the single candle. “Be silent! do you hear? and get up and speak like a man, if you can. Tell me all—how you came here, and what you came for, and perhaps I may let you escape. But the truth, mind, the truth!” he added truculently.
The knave was too thoroughly terrified to think of anything else. “Lord Dynmore dismissed me,” he muttered, his breath coming quickly. “He missed some money in Chicago, and he gave me enough to carry me home, and bade me go to the devil! I landed in Liverpool without a shilling—sir, it is God’s truth—and I remembered the gentleman Lord Dynmore had just put in the living here. I had known him, and he had given me half a sovereign more than once. And I thought I would come to him. So I pawned my clothes, and came on.”
“Yes, yes!” exclaimed the curate, leaning forward, with fierce impatience in his tone. “And then?”
“Well? When you came here? What happened? Go on, fool!” He could scarcely control himself.
“I found a stranger,” whimpered the man—“another Mr. Lindo. He had got in here somehow.”
“Well? But there,” added the curate with a sudden change of manner, “how do you know that Lord Dynmore meant to put the clergyman you used to know in here?”
“Because I heard him read a letter from his agents about it,” the fellow replied at once. “And from what his lordship said I knew it was his old pal—his old friend, sir, I mean, begging your pardon humbly, sir.”
“And when did you learn,” said the curate more quickly, “that the gentleman here was not your Mr. Lindo?”