"I repeat it, that this note came into your hands by an act of
robbery--perhaps of murder."
"Murder!" replied the man, indignantly. "Give me back the note, sir, and
provoke me no farther."
"No," replied the other, "I shall not; and you must consider yourself
my prisoner. You not only do not deny, but seem to admit, the charge of
robbery, and you shall not pass out of my hands until you render me an
account of the person from whom you took this note. You see," he added,
producing a case of pistols--for, in accordance with the hint he had
received in the anonymous note, he resolved never to go out without
them--"I am armed, and that resistance is useless."
The man gave a proud but ghastly smile, as he replied--dropping his
stick, and pulling from his bosom a pair of pistols much larger, and
more dangerous than those of the stranger,
"You see, that if you go to that I have the advantage of you."
"Tell me," I repeat, "what has become of Mr. Fenton, from whom you took
it."
"Fenton!" exclaimed the other, with surprise; "is that the poor young
man that's not right in his head?"
"The same.
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