useless to dwell on what I suffered after that.
I am only forty years old now. Look at my
face, and let it tell for me the story of some
miserable years. It ended in my drifting to
this place, and meeting with Mr. Candy. He
wanted an assistant. I referred him, on the
question of capacity, to my last employer. The
question of character remained. I told him
what I have told you——and more. I warned him
that there were difficulties in the way, even if
he believed me. 'Here, as elsewhere,' I said,
'I scorn the guilty evasion of living under an
assumed name: I am no safer at Frizinghall
than at other places from the cloud that follows
me, go where I may.' He answered, ' I don't
do things by halves——I believe you, and I pity
you. If you will risk what may happen, / will
risk it too.' God Almighty bless him! He
has given me shelter, he has given me employment,
he has given me rest of mind——and I have
the certain conviction (I have had it for some
months past) that nothing will happen now to
make him regret it."

"The slander has died out?" I said.

"The slander is as active as ever. But
when it follows me here, it will come too late."

"You will have left the place?"

"No, Mr. Blake——I shall be dead. For ten
years past, I have suffered from an incurable
internal complaint. I don't disguise from you
that I should have let the agony of it kill me
long since, but for one last interest in life,
which makes my existence of some importance
to me still. I want to provide for a person——
very dear to me——whom I shall never see
aga'in. My own little patrimony is hardly
sufficient to make her independent of the world.
The hope, if I could only live long enough, of
increasing it to a certain sum, has impelled me
to resist the disease by such palliative means as
I could devise. The one effectual palliative in
my case, is——opium. To that all-potent and
all-merciful drug, I am indebted for a respite
of many years from my sentence of death.
But even the virtues of opium have their
limit. The progress of the disease has
gradually forced me from the use of opium,
to the abuse of it. I am feeling the penalty
at last. My nervous system is shattered;
my nights are nights of horror. The end
is not far off now. Let it come——I have not
lived and worked in vain. The little sum is
nearly made up; and I have the means of
completing it, if my last reserves of life fail me
sooner than I expect. I hardly know how I
have wandered into telling you this. I don't
think I am mean enough to appeal to your
pity. Perhaps, I fancy you may be all the
readier to believe me, if you know that what
I have said to you, I have said with the certain
knowledge in me that I am a dying man.
There is no disguising, Mr. Blake, that you
interest me. I have attempted to make my poor
friend's loss of memory the means of bettering
my acquaintance with you. I have speculated
on the chance of your feeling a passing curiosity
about what lie wanted to say, and of my
being able to satisfy it. Is there no excuse for
my intruding myself on you? Perhaps there is
some excuse. A man who has lived as I have
lived has his bitter moments when he ponders
over human destiny. You have youth, health,
riches, a place in the world, a prospect before
you——you, and such as you, show me the sunny
side of human life, and reconcile me with the
world that I am leaving, before I go. However
this talk between us may end, I shall not
forget that you have done me a kindness in
doing that. It rests with you, sir, to say
what you proposed saying, or to wish me good
morning."

I had but one answer to make to that appeal.
Without a moment's hesitation, I told him the
truth, as unreservedly as I have told it in these
pages.

He started to his feet, and looked at me with
breathless eagerness as I approached the leading
incident of my story.

"It is certain that I went into the room," I
said; "it is certain that I took the Diamond.
I can only meet those two plain facts by
declaring that, do what I might, I did it without
my own knowledge——"

Ezra Jennings caught me excitedly by the
arm.

"Stop!" he said. " You have suggested
more to me than you suppose. Have you ever
been accustomed to the use of opium?"

"I never tasted it in my life."

"Were your nerves out of order, at this time
last year? Were you unusually restless and
irritable?"

"Yes."

"Did you sleep badly?"

"Wretchedly. Many nights I never slept at
all."

"Was the birthday night an exception? Try,
and remember. Did you sleep well on that one
occasion?"

"I do remember! I slept soundly."

He dropped my arm as suddenly as he had
taken it——and looked at me with the air of a
man whose mind was relieved of the last doubt
that rested on it.

"This is a marked day in your life, and in
mine," he said, gravely. " I am absolutely certain,
Mr. Blake, of one thing——I have got what
Mr. Candy wanted to say to you, this morning,
in the notes that I took at my patient's bedside.
Wait! that is not all. I am firmly persuaded that
I can prove you to have been unconscious of
what you were about, when you entered the room
and took the Diamond. Give me time to think,
and time to question you. I believe the vindication
of your innocence is in my hands!"

"Explain yourself, for God's sake! What
do you mean?"

In the excitement of our colloquy, we had
walked on a few steps, beyond the clump of
dwarf trees which had hitherto screened us
from view. Before Ezra Jennings could answer
me, he was hailed from the high road by a man,
in great agitation, who had been evidently on
the look-out for him.