ied 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?"
"I know not, really," replied Wilton. "In fact, I know nothing upon
the subject, except that the Duke is virtually innocent of the crime
with which you would charge him. You made him listen to designs
which he abhorred; and because he did not betray you, you charge him
with participating in them. As for the witnesses Cook and Smith, I
have heard from the Earl of Byerdale that neither the one nor the
other have anything to say against the Duke."
Sir John Fenwick had listened with a bitter smile to what Wilton
said; but he replied almost fiercely, "You know nothing of what you
are talking. Are you blind enough or foolish enough to fancy that the
Earl of Byerdale is a friend of the Duke?"
"I really do not know," replied Wilton, calmly. "I suppose he is
neither very much his friend nor his enemy."
"And there, too, you are mistaken," answered Sir John Fenwick: "for
an envoy, you know marvellous little of the sender's situation."
"I only know," replied Wilton, "thus much, which you yourself cannot
deny, that to accuse the Duke, so as to bring him to trial for this
unfor