"I must ask you to be more explicit," said he.

"You do not help me much," I retorted. "But see if you can understand:
my conscience is not very fine-spun; still, I have one. Now, there are
degrees of foul play, to some of which I have no particular objection.
I am sure with Mr. Carthew, I am not at all the person to forgo an
advantage; and I have much curiosity. But on the other hand, I have no
taste for persecution; and I ask you to believe that I am not the man to
make bad worse, or heap trouble on the unfortunate."

"Yes; I think I understand," said he. "Suppose I pass you my word that,
whatever may have occurred, there were excuses--great excuses--I may
say, very great?"

"It would have weight with me, doctor," I replied.

"I may go further," he pursued. "Suppose I had been there, or you had
been there: after a certain event had taken place, it's a grave question
what we might have done--it's even a question what we could have
done--ourselves. Or take me. I will be plain with you, and own that I am
in possession of the facts. You have a shrewd guess how I have acted in
that knowledge. May I ask you to judge from the character of my action,
something of the nature of that knowledge, which I have no call, nor yet
no title, to share with you?"

I cannot convey a sense of the rugged conviction and judicial emphasis
of Dr. Urquart's speech. To those who did not hear him, it may appear as
if he fed me on enigmas; to myself, who heard, I seemed to have received
a lesson and a compliment.