“And how was the colonel to be applied to, after his conscience was wrought up to pay?”

“The doctor was to open the subject, and undertake to negotiate with me, to whom he was to hand over the money—­one penny of which I never would have received.”

“The matter is now in better hands,” said I.  “Will you be staunch and firm in detailing all you know of the scheme?”

“Yes, though I should not receive a farthing.”

“And you will be willing to go to the Moated Grange, and, if necessary, swear to those things?”

“I will; and, sir, serious though the whole affair has been to me—­for I am poor, and have children—­I sometimes wondered, if I did not laugh, at the queer, far-brought, devilish designs of the doctor.  Oh, he is a very dragon that for cunning!  I heard him say he would impress a painted piece of paper on the child’s back, so as to leave a mark, and swear it was a mother’s mark, graven by the hands of the Almighty.  Oh the blasphemy and wickedness of man!”

“Go, dress yourself,” said I, “and come with me to the Grange.”

“I will, if you can give me some minutes to get a neighbour to take charge of George and Anne.”  And away she went to get this family arrangement completed, while I sat panting with desire to free my friend from the agony of his condition.

It was about seven o’clock of that same evening that Mrs. Gourlay and I reached the Moated Grange.  I got her shown into an ante-room, to wait the issue of my interview with Graeme.  It happened that the doctor and he were together, and it even seemed as if they were converging towards a medium state of confidence.  I could observe from the looks of the victim that he had been so far at least drawn into a recital of facts (the nature of which it was not difficult for me to conjecture), for I heard the word Gourlay fall from his lips, as the last of a sentence which my entry had cut short.  Indeed, I may as well state here that Graeme afterwards admitted to me that when I entered he was in the midst of a confession of the whole secret of the false play, to which confession he had been first driven by his internal monitor; and secondly, led or rather pulled on by the arch-ambidexter, whose game it was to cheat the cheater, and get the money from him upon some pretence of seeking out Mrs. Gourlay and paying the money to her.  I was, in short, in the very nick of time, and could hardly help smiling at the strange part I was playing in what was, as I thought, one of those serious melodramatic farces of which (in the Frenchman’s sense) this strange world of laughter and groans is made up.

“Dr. Rogers,” said I, after the customary greetings, “it is well I have found you.  I picked up a poor woman by the way who lay under the seizure of premature labour, and knowing the generosity of my friend, I brought her here for succour and relief.  She is in the green parlour, and, I fear, in exigency.  Come.”