not at all the person to forego 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."

He evaded my proffered friendship with a blunt proposal to rejoin the
mess; and yet a moment later contrived to alleviate the snub. For, as we
entered the smoking-room, he laid his hand on my shoulder with a kind
familiarity--

"I have just prescribed for Mr. Dodd," says he, "a glass of our
Madeira."

I have never again met Dr. Urquart; but he wrote himself so clear upon
my memory that I think I see him still. And indeed I had cause to
remember the man for the sake of his communication. It was hard enough
to make a theory fit the circumstances of the _Flying Scud_; but one in
which the chief actor should stand the least excused, and might retain
the esteem or at least the pity of a man like Dr. Urquart, failed me
utterly. Here at least was the end of my discoveries. I learned no more,
till I learned all; and my reader has the evidence complete. Is he more
astute than I was? or, like me, does he give it up?

CHAPTER XVIII

CROSS-QUESTIONS AND CROOKED ANSWERS

I have said hard words