“After this, he broke out into the wildest abuse of Hawke, making him out--as it was not hard to do--the greatest villain alive, mingling the attack with a variety of details of the vast sums he had latterly been receiving. 'There are,' he said, 'more than two thousand in hard cash in his hands at this moment, and a number of railway shares and some Peruvian bonds, part of his first wife's fortune, which he has just recovered by a lawsuit.' So close and accurate were all these details, so circumstantial every part of the story, that I perceived the plan must have been long prepared, and only waiting for a favorable moment for execution. With this talk he occupied the whole way, till I reached my lodgings. “'And now, Paul,' said he, 'before we part, give me your word of honor once more.' “'There 's my pledge,' said I, 'and there 's my hand. So long as I hear nothing, and see nothing, I know nothing.' And we said good-night, and separated. “So long as I was talking with Collins,” continued Paten,--“so long, in fact, as I was taking my own side in the discussion,--I did not see any difficulty in thus holding myself aloof from the scheme, and not taking any part whatever in the game played out before me; but when I found myself alone in my room, and began to conjure up an inquest and a trial, and all the searching details of a cross-examination, I trembled from head to foot. I remember to this hour how I walked to and fro in my room, putting questions to myself aloud, and in the tone of an examining counsel, till my heart sickened with fear; and when at last I lay down, wearied but not sleepy, on my bed, it was to swear a solemn vow that nothing on earth should induce me to go over to Jersey.