'You are convinced that he has it?'

'There must be papers in the book valuable to him; perhaps some that
he had rather were not seen. Most likely he secured it in the
morning. You remember he was there before the police.'

'Ay! ay! ay! the scoundrel! But, Leonard, what possessed you not to
speak out at the inquest, when we might have searched every soul on
the premises?'

'I did not see it then. I was stunned by the horror of the thing--
the room where I had been so lately, and that blood on my own rifle
too. It was all I could do at one time not to faint, and I had no
notion they would not take my explanation; then, when I found it
rejected, and everything closing in on me, I was in a complete maze.
It was not till yesterday, when I was alone again, after having gone
over my defence with Mr. Bramshaw, and shown what I could prove, that
I saw exactly how it must have been, as clear as a somnambulist. I
sometimes could fancy I had seen Sam listening at the window, and
have to struggle not to think I knew him under the stable wall.'

'And you are not such a--such a--so absurd as to sacrifice yourself
to any scruple, and let the earth be cumbered with a rascal who, if
he be withholding the receipt, is committing a second murder! It is
not generosity, it is suicide.'

'It is not generosity,' said the boy, 'for if there were any hope,
that would not stop me; but no one heard nor saw but myself, and I
neither recognized him--no, I did not--nor heard anything definite