He sat down opposite to me at the table,
and spoke out at last.
"'If I had ten thousand pounds at this moment,' he began,
'I would give the whole of it never to have compromised myself
in your desperate speculation on Mr. Armadale's death!'
"He said those words with an abruptness, almost with a violence,
which was strangely uncharacteristic of his ordinary manner.
Was he frightened himself, or was he trying to frighten me?
I determined to make him explain himself at the outset, so far as
I was concerned. 'Wait a moment, doctor,' I said. 'Do you hold me
responsible for what has happened?'
"'Certainly not,' he replied, stiffly. 'Neither you nor anybody
could have foreseen what has happened. When I say I would give
ten thousand pounds to be out of this business, I am blaming
nobody but myself. And when I tell you next that I, for one,
won't allow Mr. Armadale's resurrection from the sea to be the
ruin of me without a fight for it, I tell you, my dear madam, one
of the plainest truths I ever told to man or woman in the whole
course of my life. Don't suppose I am invidiously separating my
interests from yours in the common danger that now threatens us
both.
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