as you would an outlaw, because forsooth
she has dared to love a Catholic; to murder her lover in her arms, and
drag her home again stained with his blood, to be forced by threats and
persecution to renounce that Church into whose maternal bosom she has
doubtless long since found rest and holiness!"

"If she has found holiness, it matters little to me where she has found
it, Master Eustace, but that is the very point that I should be glad to
know for certain."

"And you will go and discover for yourself?"

"Have you no wish to discover it also?"

"And if I had, what would that be to you?"

"Only," said Amyas, trying hard to keep his temper, "that, if we had the
same purpose, we might sail in the same ship."

"You intend to sail, then?"

"I mean simply, that we might work together."

"Our paths lie on very different roads, sir!"

"I am afraid you never spoke a truer word, sir. In the meanwhile, ere we
part, be so kind as to tell me what you meant by saying that you had met
this Spaniard at Lundy?"

"I shall refuse to answer that."

"You will please to recollect, Eustace, that however good friends we
have been for the last half-hour, you are in my power. I have a right to
know the bottom of this matter; and, by heaven, I will know it."

"In your power? See that you are not in mine! Remember, sir, that you
are within a--within a few miles, at least, of those who will obey me,
their Catholic benefactor, but who owe no allegiance to those Protestant
authorities who have left them to the lot of the beasts which perish."

Amyas was very angry. He wanted but little more to make him catch
Eustace by the shoulders, shake the life out of him, and deliver him
into the tender guardianship of Yeo; but he knew that to take him at
all was to bring certain death on him, and disgrace on the family; and
remembering Frank's conduct on that memorable night at Clovelly, he kept
himself down.

"Take me," said Eustace, "if you will, sir. You, who complain of us that
we keep no faith with heretics, will perhaps recollect that you asked me
into this room as your guest, and that in your good faith I trusted when
I entered it."

The argument was a worthless one in law; for Eustace had been a prisoner
before he was a guest, and Amyas was guilty of something very like
misprision of treason in not handing him over to the nearest justice.
However, all he did was, to go to the door, open it, and bowing to his
cousin, bid him walk ou