“I want to talk to you about the Flying Scud and Mr. Carthew,” I resumed.  “Come:  you must have expected this.  I am sure you know all; you are shrewd, and must have a guess that I know much.  How are we to stand to one another? and how am I to stand to Mr. Carthew?”

“I do not fully understand you,” he replied, after a pause; and then, after another:  “It is the spirit I refer to, Mr. Dodd.”

“The spirit of my inquiries?” I asked.

He nodded.

“I think we are at cross-purposes,” said I.  “The spirit is precisely what I came in quest of.  I bought the Flying Scud at a ruinous figure, run up by Mr. Carthew through an agent; and I am, in consequence, a bankrupt.  But if I have found no fortune in the wreck, I have found unmistakable evidences of foul play.  Conceive my position:  I am ruined through this man, whom I never saw; I might very well desire revenge or compensation; and I think you will admit I have the means to extort either.”

He made no sign in answer to this challenge.

“Can you not understand, then,” I resumed, “the spirit in which I come to one who is surely in the secret, and ask him, honestly and plainly:  How do I stand to Mr. Carthew?”

“I must ask you to be more explicit,” said he.

“You do not help me much,” I retorted.  “But see if you can understand:  my conscience is not very fine-spun; still, I have one.  Now, there are degrees of foul play, to some of which I have no particular objection.  I am sure with Mr. Carthew, I am not at all the person to forgo an advantage; and I have much curiosity.  But on the other hand, I have no taste for persecution; and I ask you to believe that I am not the man to make bad worse, or heap trouble on the unfortunate.”

“Yes; I think I understand,” said he.  “Suppose I pass you my word that, whatever may have occurred, there were excuses—­great excuses—­I may say, very great?”

“It would have weight with me, doctor,” I replied.

“I may go further,” he pursued.  “Suppose I had been there, or you had been there:  after a certain event had taken place, it’s a grave question what we might have done—­it’s even a question what we could have done—­ourselves.  Or take me.  I will be plain with you, and own that I am in possession of the facts.  You have a shrewd guess how I have acted in that knowledge.  May I ask you to judge from the character of my action, something of the nature of that knowledge, which I have no call, nor yet no title, to share with you?”

I cannot convey a sense of the rugged conviction and judicial emphasis of Dr. Urquart’s speech.  To those who did not hear him, it may appear as if he fed me on enigmas; to myself, who heard, I seemed to have received a lesson and a compliment.

“I thank you,” I said.  “I feel you have said as much as possible, and more than I had any right to ask.  I take that as a mark of confidence, which I will try to deserve.  I hope, sir, you will let me regard you as a friend.”