He was innocent! that was one great source of confidence and expectation, for he believed, and felt sure, that an innocent man had very seldom suffered. But still such things had occasionally taken place, beyond all doubt; and it behoved him to consider whether his own might not be one of those cases in which such an event was likely. As he looked at the evidence against himself, he could not but acknowledge that, as it stood at the present moment, there was a strong presumption of his guilt. He had been seen to threaten the murdered man, in the morning; he had been seen in the neighborhood of his house, on the night the murder was committed; he had been in known and acknowledged want of the money up to that hour; and then he had suddenly obtained possession of it in a manner of which he could give no probable account. Several of the notes had been certainly in possession of the murdered man a few hours before the crime was committed on his person; and one of them, he had himself remarked, while paying it to the lawyer, appeared stained with blood. "Were I upon a jury," he thought, "what verdict would I return! Guilty, undoubtedly--unless some clear explanation of such suspicious circumstances could be given and substantiated. Now, let me consider what I have to give, and how it can be proved.
"I have nothing but the bare supposition that the money was placed in my room by Henry Beauchamp, or by his servant; and although that surmise may be equal to a certainty in my own mind, it is likely to have little weight with others. Dr. Wilton, too, admits that he set out for London about three o'clock, when the money assuredly was not here! Can I be mistaken in supposing it to have been him! Can Blanche's suspicion be correct, that this is part of a plan to ruin my father and his family forever!"
As these ideas crossed William Delaware's mind, he shuddered with mingled feelings of horror at the thought of such guilt, and apprehension for the consequences to himself; but at the same time, as he suffered his mind to rest upon the suspicion, it acquired a degree of probability that he was not inclined to assign to it at first. He recalled the conduct which Lord Ashborough had pursued toward his father through life--the vindictive malice he had displayed during the two or three years that elapsed after their first quarrel, as young men--the cold grinding exactions, not unmingled with scorn, with which he had kept him through life at fortune's lowest ebb--the rude harshness with which he had repelled his first proposal for redeeming the annuity. Then the sudden change in his manners--the facility with which he agreed to that which he had so peremptorily declined--the business of the bills--the delay in the payment--and the fact of the lawyer having come down prepared with a writ against his father, before he could have known, except by collusion with the miser, whether the money would be paid or not--all these facts passed before his remembrance, and with that rapidity of conclusion which was one of his greatest weaknesses, he instantly became convinced that Lord Ashborough and his adviser would halt at no step which might crush his father, and his father's house; that the present charge originated in such motives; and that it would be supported against him by every artful device that hatred could frame, or wealth and skill could carry through. He did not, it is true, suppose that the unhappy man at Ryebury had been murdered with a view to the charge against him; but he did believe that the murder had been seized upon as an incident to render the crime more heinous; and, however it occurred that the two facts leaped so well together, he concluded that the money had been placed in his room for the express purpose of betraying himself and his family, by bringing against him some accusation, the very suspicion of which would ruin him in his profession, degrade him from his station in society, and sink his father beneath a load of shame and despair.