"Your case is based on Hill's confession, and that to my mind is false in many details," said Crewe. "Take, for instance, his account of how he came into contact with Birchill again. This girl Fanning, after a quarrel with Sir Horace, came over to Riversbrook with a message for Hill which was virtually a threat. Now does that seem probable? The girl who had been in the habit of visiting Sir Horace goes over to see Hill. No woman in the circumstances would do anything of the sort. She had too good an opinion of herself to take a message to a servant at a house from which she had been expelled by the owner, who had been keeping her. How would she have felt if she had run into Sir Horace? It is true that Sir Horace left for Scotland the day before, but it is improbable that the girl who had quarrelled with Sir Horace a fortnight before knew the exact date on which he intended to leave. And how did Hill behave when he got the message? According to his story, he consented to go and see Birchill under threat of exposure, and he consented to become an accomplice in the burglary for the same reason. Sir Horace knew all about Hill's past, so why should he fear a threat of exposure?" "Hill explained that," interposed Rolfe. "He pointed out that, though Sir Horace knew his past, he couldn't afford to have any scandal about it." "Quite so. But could Birchill afford to threaten a man who was under the protection of Sir Horace Fewbanks? Would Birchill pit himself against Sir Horace? I think that Sir Horace, knowing the law pretty thoroughly, would soon have found a way to deal with Birchill. If Hill was threatened by Birchill, his first impulse, knowing what a powerful protector he had in Sir Horace Fewbanks, would have been to go to him and seek his protection against this dangerous old associate of his convict days. According to Hill's own story, he was something in the nature of a confidential servant, trusted to some extent with the secrets of Sir Horace's double life. What more likely than such a man, threatened as he describes, should turn to his master who had shielded him and trusted him?" "I confess that is a point which never struck me," said Rolfe thoughtfully.