"Your name, sir!"
"Mortimer Davenant."
Judge Conway gazed at the speaker with stupor.
"You that person?--you the son of General Arthur Davenant?"
"Yes, I am the son of General Arthur Davenant of the Confederate States
army--General Davenant, whom you hate and despise as a felon and
murderer--and I have come here to-night to relieve him of that
imputation; to tell you that it was I and not he, who murdered your
brother!
"A moment, if you please, sir," continued the speaker, in the same low,
cold tone, "do not interrupt me, I beg. I have little time, and intend
to be brief. You believe that your brother, George Conway, was put to
death by General Davenant. Here is the fact of the matter: I saw him at
Dinwiddie Court-House; knew he had a large sum of money on his person;
followed him, attacked him, murdered him--and with General Davenant's
pen-knife, which I had accidentally come into possession of. Then I
stole the knife from the court-house, to prevent his conviction;--wrote
and sent to him on the day of his trial a full confession of the
murder, signed with my name--and that confession he would not use; he
would not inculpate his son; for ten years he has chosen rather to
labor under the imputation of murder, than blacken the name of a
castaway son, whose character was wretched already, and whom he
believed dead.
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