hrough
a whole summer night in talk with him, questioning him upon this person
and that person, and thus gradually drawing from him all the little
history of his native place during the two years that were sped since he
had left it. In this we gather an impression of the wistful longings the
fierce nostalgia that must have overcome the renegade and his endeavours
to allay it by his endless questions. The Cornish lad had brought him up
sharply and agonizingly with that past of his upon which he had closed
the door when he became a Muslim and a corsair. The only possible
inference is that in those hours of that summer's night repentance
stirred in him, and a wild longing to return. Rosamund should reopen for
him that door which, hard-driven by misfortune, he had slammed. That she
would do so when once she knew the truth he had no faintest doubt. And
there was now no reason why he should conceal the truth, why he should
continue to shield that dastardly half-brother of his, whom he had come
to hate as fiercely as he had erstwhile loved him.

In secret he composed a long letter giving the history of all that had
happened to him since his kidnapping, and setting forth the entire truth
of that and of the deed that had led to it. His chronicler opines that
it was a letter that must have moved a stone to tears. And, moreover,
it was not a mere matter of passionate protestations of innocence, or of
unsupported accusation of his brother. It told her of the existence of
proofs that must dispel all doubt. It told her of that parchment indited
by Master Baine and witnessed by the parson, which document was to be
delivered to her together with the letter. Further, it bade her seek
confirmation of that document's genuineness, did she doubt it, at the
hands of Master Baine himself. That done, it besought her to lay the
whole matter before the Queen, and thus secure him faculty to return to
England and immunity from any consequences of his subsequent regenade
act to which his sufferings had driven him. He loaded the young
Cornishman with gifts, gave him that letter to deliver in person, and
added instructions that should enable him to find the document he was
to deliver with it. That precious parchment had been left between the
leaves of an old book on falconry in the library at Penarrow, where it
would probably be found still undisturbed since his brother would not
suspect its presence and was himself no scholar. Pitt was to seek out
N