ou suggest? And touching that business at Sheringham you are over-hard
with me. It was a compact you made, and but for which, you forget that
you had been carrion these three weeks."

"Would to Heaven that I had been," the boy burst out, "sooner than pay
such a price for keeping my life!"

"As for my presence here," Crispin continued, leaving the outburst
unheeded, "it has naught to do with your detention."

"You lie!"

Hogan caught his breath with a sharp hiss, and a dead silence followed.
That silence struck terror into Kenneth's heart. He encountered
Crispin's eye bent upon him with a look he could not fathom, and much
would he now have given to recall the two words that had burst from him
in the heat of his rage. He bethought him of the unscrupulous, deadly
character attributed to the man to whom he had addressed them, and in
his coward's fancy he saw already payment demanded. Already he
pictured himself lying cold and stark in the streets of Waltham with
a sword-wound through his middle. His face went grey and his lips
trembled.

Then Galliard spoke at last, and the mildness of his tone filled Kenneth
with a new dread. In his experience of Crispin's ways he had come to
look upon mildness as the man's most dangerous phase:

"You are mistaken," Crispin said. "I spoke the truth; it is a habit of
mine--haply the only gentlemanly habit left me. I repeat, I have had
naught to do with your detention. I arrived here half an hour ago, as
the captain will inform you, and I was conducted hither by force, having
been seized by his men, even as you were seized. No," he added, with a
sigh, "it was not my hand that detained you; it was the hand of Fate."
Then suddenly changing his voice to a more vehement key, "Know you on
what errand you rode to London?" he demanded. "To betray your father
into the hands of his enemies; to deliver him up to the hangman."

Kenneth's eyes grew wide; his mouth fell open, and a frown of perplexity
drew his brows together. Dully, uncomprehendingly he met Sir Crispin's
sad gaze.

"My father," he gasped at last. "'Sdeath, sir, what is it you mean? My
father has been dead these ten years. I scarce remember him."

Crispin's lips moved, but no word did he utter. Then with a sudden
gesture of despair he turned to Hogan, who stood apart, a silent
witness.

"My God, Hogan," he cried. "How shall I tell him?"

In answer to the appeal, the Irishman turned to Kenneth.

"You have been in error, sir