unity and smother him with a wet handkerchief. I would have done
it myself afterwards, on the sole opportunity that offered, had I not
been interrupted.

'I engaged, with Mrs. Sturk's approval, Doctor Dillon. I promised him
five hundred guineas to trepan him. That young villain, I could prove,
bled Alderman Sherlock to death to please the alderman's young wife.
Who'd have thought the needy profligate would have hesitated to plunge
his trepan into the brain of a dying man--a corpse, you may say,
already--for five hundred guineas? I was growing feverish under the
protracted suspense. I was haunted by the apprehension of Sturk's
recovering his consciousness and speech, in which case I should have
been reduced to my present rueful situation; and I was resolved to end
that cursed uncertainty.

'When I thought Dillon had forgot his appointment in his swinish vices,
I turned my mind another way. I resolved to leave Sturk to _nature_, and
clench the case against Nutter, by evidence I would have compelled Irons
to swear. As it turned out, _that_ would have been the better way. Had
Sturk died without speaking, and Nutter hanged for his death, the
question could have opened no more, and Irons would have been nailed to
my interest.

'I viewed the problem every way. I saw the danger from the first, and
provided many expedients, which, one after the other, fortune
frustrated. I can't confidently say even now that it would have been
wiser to leave Sturk to die, as the doctors said he must. I had a
foreboding, in spite of all they could say, he would wake up before he
died and denounce me. If 'twas a mistake, 'twas a fated one, and I could
not help it.

'So, Sir, you see I've nothing to blame myself for--though all has
broken down.

'I guessed when I heard the sound at the hall-door of my house that
Sturk or Irons had spoken, and that they were come to take me. Had I
broken through them, I might have made my escape. It was long odds
against me, but still I had a chance--that's all. And the matter
affecting my Lord Dunoran's innocence, I'm ready to swear, if it can
serve his son--having been the undesigned cause of some misfortunes to
you, my lord, in my lifetime.'

Lord Dunoran said nothing, he only bowed his head.

So Dangerfield, when his statement respecting the murder of Beauclerc
had been placed clearly in writing, made oath of its truth, and
immediately when this was over (he had, while they were preparing the
statement