The web of circumstantial evidence had enmeshed him. An hour ago
escape would have been easy. He would have had but to cry,
"I am the son of Sir Richard Devine. Come with me to yonder house,
and I will prove to you that I have but just quitted it,"--to place
his innocence beyond immediate question. That course of action
was impossible now. Knowing Sir Richard as he did, and believing,
moreover, that in his raging passion the old man had himself met
and murdered the destroyer of his honour, the son of Lord Bellasis
and Lady Devine saw himself in a position which would compel him
either to sacrifice himself, or to purchase a chance of safety
at the price of his mother's dishonour and the death of the man
whom his mother had deceived. If the outcast son were brought a prisoner
to North End House, Sir Richard--now doubly oppressed of fate--would be
certain to deny him; and he would be compelled, in self-defence,
to reveal a story which would at once bring his mother to open infamy,
and send to the gallows the man who had been for twenty years
deceived--the man to whose kindness he owed education and former fortune.
He knelt, stupefied, unable to speak or move.

"Come," cried Mogford again; "say, my lord, is this the villain?"

Lord Bellasis rallied his failing senses, his glazing eyes stared
into his son's face with horrible eagerness; he shook his head,
raised a feeble arm as though to point elsewhere, and fell back dead.

"If you didn't murder him, you robbed him," growled Mogford,
"and you shall sleep at Bow Street to-night. Tom, run on to meet the patrol,
and leave word at the Gate-house that I've a passenger
for the coach!--Bring him on, Jack!--What's your name, eh?"