daughter’s safety, the conspiracy was itself discovered, so that he had no time or opportunity to reveal the plot, unless at a period when his so doing might have endangered, perhaps, the life of Lady Laura.  All this, my good sir, I shall have to prove, if the Duke’s trial is forced on.  To sum the matter up, it must be shown upon that trial that you and the Duke were at bitter enmity, and that therefore your charge is likely to be malicious; that you carried off his daughter as a sort of hostage; and that he was under reasonable apprehensions on her account, in case he should tell what he knew of the conspiracy; that I found you associating intimately with all the condemned traitors the very day before the arrest of some of them, and that the Duke did not recover his daughter by my means, till the plot itself was discovered.  Now you will judge, Sir John, how this may affect your own trial.  I warn you of the matter, because I have a promise, a positive promise, that I shall not be brought forward to give evidence in this business without my own consent; but once having proffered my testimony in favour of the Duke, I cannot refuse it, should any link in the chain of evidence be wanting against you which I can supply.”

Sir John Fenwick had listened to every word that Wilton said in bitter silence; and when he had done, he gnashed his teeth one against the other, saying, with a look of hatred, “You should have been a lawyer, young sir, you should have been a lawyer.  You have missed your vocation.”

“Lawyers, Sir John Fenwick,” replied Wilton, “are often, even against their will, obliged to support falsehood; but I merely tell you the truth.  You have brought a charge against the Duke, as far as I can understand, of which he is virtually innocent, to all intents and purposes—­”

“Who told you I had brought a charge against him at all?” demanded Sir John Fenwick.  “Who told you what that charge was?  It must be all guess-work, upon your part.  Depend upon it, if I have brought a charge at all, it is one that I can prove.”

“I may have been mistaken,” replied Wilton, “and I hope I am, Sir John.  I hope that you have brought no charge, and that if you have, it is not of the nature that I supposed; for as I have shown you, it would be most unwise and imprudent of you so to do.  You would not injure the Duke in any other way than by a long imprisonment, and you would, in all probability, insure your own condemnation, while you were uselessly attempting to do evil to another.  At all events, Sir John, you must not take it ill of me that I point this out to you, and if you will take the warning I have given, it may be of great benefit to you.”

“How should I take it?” demanded Sir John Fenwick, still frowning upon him from under his bent brows.  “What I have said I have said, and I shall not go back from it.  There may be other witnesses, too, against the Duke, that you know not of.  What think you of Smith?  What think you of Cook?”