His manner, even more than his words, convinced Gilbert Barton was absolved, but the mystery remained. "You won't deny that you have friends?" he said.
"Maybe," Sandy replied, in a short, rough tone. "That's nothin' to you," he continued; "but what I've got to say is, whether or no you're a friend to Deb., she thinks you are. Do you mean to look after her, once't in a while, or are you one o' them that forgits a good turn?"
"I have told her," said Gilbert, "that she shall always have a home and a shelter in my house. If it's any satisfaction to you, here's my hand on it!"
"I believe you, Potter. Deb.'s done ill by me; she shouldn't ha' bullied me when I was sore and tetchy, and fagged out with _your_ curst huntin' of me up and down! But I'll do that much for her and for you. Here; bend your head down; I've got to whisper."
Gilbert leaned his ear to the highwayman's mouth.
"You'll only tell _her,_ you understand?"
"Say to her these words,--don't forgit a single one of 'em!--Thirty steps from the place she knowed about, behind the two big chestnut-trees, goin' towards the first cedar, and a forked sassyfrack growin' right over it. What she finds, is your'n."
"Sandy!" Gilbert exclaimed, starting from his listening posture.
"Hush, I say! You know what I mean her to do,--give you your money back. I took a curse with it, as you said. Maybe that's off o' me, now!"
"It is!" said Gilbert, in a low tone, "and forgiveness--mine and my mother's--in the place of it. Have you any"--he hesitated to say the words--"any last messages, to her or anybody else, or anything you would like to have done?"
"Thank ye, no!--unless Deb. can find my black hair and whiskers. Then you may give 'em to Barton, with my dutiful service."
He laughed at the idea, until his chains rattled.
Gilbert's mind was haunted with the other and darker doubt, and he resolved, in this last interview, to secure himself against its recurrence. In such an hour he could trust the prisoner's words.
"Sandy," he asked, "have you any children?"
"Not to my knowledge; and I'm glad of it."
"You must know," Gilbert continued, "what the people say about my birth. My mother is bound from telling me who my father was, and I dare not ask her any questions. Did you ever happen to know her, in your younger days, or can you remember anything that will help me to discover his name?"