“Far be it from me, Lawyer Lightwood! I was so troubled in my mind, that I wouldn’t have knowed more, no, not for the sum as I expect to earn from you by the sweat of my brow, twice told! I had put an end to the pardnership. I had cut the connection. I couldn’t undo what was done; and when he begs and prays, ‘Old pardner, on my knees, don’t split upon me!’ I only makes answer ‘Never speak another word to Roger Riderhood, nor look him in the face!’ and I shuns that man.”

Having given these words a swing to make them mount the higher and go the further, Rogue Riderhood poured himself out another glass of wine unbidden, and seemed to chew it, as, with the half-emptied glass in his hand, he stared at the candles.

Mortimer glanced at Eugene, but Eugene sat glowering at his paper, and would give him no responsive glance. Mortimer again turned to the informer, to whom he said:

“You have been troubled in your mind a long time, man?”

Giving his wine a final chew, and swallowing it, the informer answered in a single word: