Mr. Marks did not speak immediately. He was lying quietly upon his side, staring reflectingly at Robert Audley.
"You was oncommon fond of that gent as disappeared at the Court, warn't you, sir?" he said at last.
Robert started at the mention of his dead friend.
"You was oncommon fond of that Mr. Talboys, I've heard say, sir," repeated Luke.
"Yes, yes," answered Robert, rather impatiently, "he was my very dear friend."
"I've heard the servants at the Court say how you took on when you couldn't find him. I've heered the landlord of the Sun Inn say how cut up you was when you first missed him. 'If the two gents had been brothers,' the landlord said, 'our gent,' meanin' you, sir, 'couldn't have been more cut up when he missed the other.'"
"Yes, yes, I know, I know," said Robert; "pray do not speak any more of this subject. I cannot tell you now much it distresses me."
Was he to be haunted forever by the ghost of his unburied friend? He came here to comfort the sick man, and even here he was pursued by this relentless shadow; even here he was reminded of the secret crime which had darkened his life.
"Listen to me, Marks," he said, earnestly; "believe me that I appreciate your grateful words, and that I am very glad to have been of service to you. But before you say anything more, let me make one most solemn request. If you have sent for me that you may tell me anything of the fate of my lost friend, I entreat you to spare yourself and to spare me that horrible story. You can tell me nothing which I do not already know. The worst you can tell me of the woman who was once in your power, has already been revealed to me by her own lips. Pray, then, be silent upon this subject; I say again, you can tell me nothing which I do not know."
Luke Marks looked musingly at the earnest face of his visitor, and some shadowy expression, which was almost like a smile, flitted feebly across the sick man's haggard features.
"I can't tell you nothin' you don't know?" he asked.
"Nothing."
"Then it ain't no good for me to try," said the invalid, thoughtfully. "Did she tell you?" he asked, after a pause.
"I must beg, Marks, that you will drop the subject," Robert answered, almost sternly. "I have already told you that I do not wish to hear it spoken of. Whatever discoveries you made, you made your market out of them. Whatever guilty secrets you got possession of, you were paid for keeping silence. You had better keep silence to the end."