e same purport as his own. His face, however, was sad,
and his voice mournful, as, returning the epistles, he said--

"A grievous thing is it, that hypocrisy, so finished, should walk the
earth. It is a day of rebuke and of scandal to us, as magistrates,
that we should be so deceived."

"I am not altogether convinced," said Winthrop, who, steady in his
friendships, and prepossessed from the beginning in favor of the
Knight, was loth to think evil of him, "that these charges are true.
My own letters mention them only as reports--thine speak of them more
positively. Vouch you for the truth of your correspondent?"

"There is no man more truthful," answered Spikeman, who, had it been
necessary, would have been a guaranty for Beelzebub himself. "I have
known him long. He has never deceived me, nor can I imagine motive
therefor now."

"So fair, and yet so false!" murmured Winthrop; "and yet we know that
the evil one appears sometimes as an angel of light. I will not trust
in human appearance more. What shall be done with him on his return?"

"Let him be sent out of the colony, and they who are leagued in his
plots with him," said Spikeman. "I understand now the wonderful
eagerness of Master Arundel to be joined with him in this embassy.
Birds of a feather, says the proverb, do fly with greatest joy
together. Out upon this false Knight, for his pretended love of
retirement; upon his leman, this lady Geraldine, forsooth; and this
squire of dames, Master Miles Arundel, whose counterfeited affection
for my ward may be only another cloak for most pernicious plots."

"Thou art becoming suspicious of all the world. Master Spikeman," said
Winthrop, smiling.

"And is it not time to be suspicious, when those who have been honored
with the confidence of our government, and to whom we have entrusted
an important matter, are discovered to be no better than landlaufers
and conspirators?"

"Dost distrust the good faith of the Knight in his embassy?" inquired
the Governor.

"A bitter fountain cannot send forth sweet water, and should even the
undertaking of this false Knight be successful in appearance, would
not my suspicion be quieted."

"Come, Master Spikeman, remember that you may be called to sit as a
judge on the fate of this gentleman, and that it becomes men in our
positions to keep the mind free from injurious prepossessions, for
only thus may justice, which is a ray from the effulgent countenance
of Him who sits on the