and all the
world could not save me.'

'Perhaps--perhaps Charles Nutter's the man; and Mr. Dangerfield knows
something of him,' cried Mervyn.

Irons made no answer, but sat quite silent for some seconds, by the
fire, the living image of apathy.

'If you name me, or blab one word I told you, I hold my peace for ever,'
said he, slowly, with a quiet oath, but very pale, and how blue his chin
looked--how grim his smile, with his face so shiny, and his eyelids
closed. You're to suppose, Sir, 'tis possible Mr. Dangerfield has a
guess at him. Well, he's a clever man, and knows how to put this and
that together; and has been kind to Dr. Sturk and his family. He's a
good man, you know; and he's a long-headed gentleman, they say; and if
he takes a thing in hand, he'll be as like as another to bring it about.
But sink or swim my mind's made up. Charles Archer, wherever he is, will
not like my going--he'll sniff danger in the wind, Sir. I could not
stay--he'd have had me--you see, body and soul. 'Twas time for me to
go--and go or stay, I see nothing but bad before me. 'Twas an evil day I
ever saw his face; and 'twould be better for me to have a cast for my
life at any rate, and that I'm nigh-hand resolved on; only you see my
heart misgives me--and that's how it is. I can't quite make up my mind.'

For a little while Mervyn stood in an agony of irresolution. I'm sure I
cannot understand all he felt, having never been, thank Heaven! in a
like situation. I only know how much depended on it, and I don't wonder
that for some seconds he thought of arresting that lank, pale, sinister
figure by the fire, and denouncing him as, by his own confession, an
accessory to the murder of Beauclerc. The thought that he would slip
through his fingers, and the clue to vindication, fortune, and
happiness, be for ever lost, was altogether so dreadful that we must
excuse his forgetting for a moment his promise, and dismissing patience,
and even policy, from his thoughts.

But 'twas a transitory temptation only, and common sense seconded
honour. For he was persuaded that whatever likelihood there was of
leading Irons to the critical point, there was none of driving him
thither; and that Irons, once restive and impracticable, all his hopes
would fall to the ground.

'I am going,' said Irons, with quiet abruptness; 'and right glad the
storm's up still,' he added, in a haggard rumination, and with a strange
smile of suffering. 'In dark an' storm--curs