"With the general proposition I do, my Lord; the question here is, how far the present case may be considered as coming within your theory. Suppose now, just for argument's sake, I was to observe that there was no similarity between our situations; that while _you_ openly avow culpability, _I_ as distinctly deny it." "You prefer to die innocent, Dodd?" said he, puffing his cigar coolly as he spoke. "I prefer, my Lord, to maintain the vantage ground that I feel under my feet. Had you been patient enough to hear me out, I could have explained to your perfect satisfaction how I came here, and why. I could have shown you a reason for everything that may possibly seem strange or mysterious--" "As, for instance, the assumption of a name and title that did not belong to you,--a fortnight's close seclusion to avoid discovery,--the sudden departure for Ems, and headlong haste of your journey here,--and, finally, the attitude of more than persuasive eloquence in which I myself saw you. Of course, to a man of an ingenious and inventive turn, all these things are capable of at least some approach to explanation. Lawyers do the thing every day,--some, with tears in their eyes, with very affecting appeals to Heaven, according to the sums marked on the outside of the briefs. If your case had been one of murder, I could have got you a very clever fellow who would have invoked divine vengeance on his own head in open court if he were not in heart and soul assured of your spotless innocence! But now please to bear in mind that we are not in Westminster Hall. We are here talking frankly and honestly, man to man,--sophistry and special pleading avail nothing; and here I candidly tell you, that, turn the matter how you will, the advice I have given is the only feasible and practicable mode of escaping from this difficulty." If you think me prolix, my dear Purcell, in narrating so circumstantially every part of this curious interview, just remember that I am naturally anxious to bring to bear upon _your_ mind the force of argument to which _mine_ at last yielded. It is very possible I may not be able to present these reasonings with all the strength and vigor with which they appealed to myself. I may--like a man who plays chess with himself--favor one side a little more than the other, or it is possible that I may seem weaker in my self-defence than I ought to have been. However you interpret my conduct on this trying occasion, give me the benefit of never having for a moment forgotten the fame and fortune of that lovely creature whose fate was in my hands, and whom I have rescued at a heavy price. I do not wish to impose upon you the wearisome task of reading all that passed between my Lord and myself. The whole correspondence would fill a blue book, and be about as amusing as such folios usually are. I 'll spare you, therefore, the steps of the negotiation, and merely give you the heads of the treaty:--