my story stood, I had not known that. Should not my
word then be taken, considering all the other services I had done to His
Majesty?

With regard to the second point, first let them divest their minds of
any prejudice caused by the first; for the first was not proved. Having
done that, it was necessary to remember how carefully I had reported
every movement of the King's enemies to himself--Mr. Chiffinch. It was
true that there had been found other papers in the hiding-hole which he
himself had not seen, but he had at least known the substance of
them--except of course of the cypher of which he had already treated.
With regard to the affair at the Rye it was necessary to remember that
my policy throughout had been to report all that I had learned and to
interpret it as directly contrary to the truth; and that this policy had
proved successful. (I saw the Colonel give a very odd look as this was
said; and I saw that Mr. Chiffinch had seen it too.) At the worst it had
been an error of judgment on my part that I had recommended the road by
the Rye; but it was an error that had had no bad consequences; and to
have recommended it was only in accordance with all my policy of taking
as true the precise opposite to all that the conspirators had told me.
So far as my policy was sound, all that I knew was that the Rye road
would be safe on that one day; of the Royston road I knew little or
nothing. As regards the incident of the cleaver, I had spoken of that to
him immediately I returned to town; and, surely, it was true that a
single man with a cleaver could do very little damage to a galloping
coach. In short, though the evidence might be interpreted as against
me--(here he shot a look at the Colonel)--it might also be interpreted
for me, and, that this was the fairer interpretation, he pleaded my
record of other services done to the King.

When he ended, there was a dead silence; and I think I knew even at that
moment that the worst at any rate had been averted. But I was not sure:
and I waited.

* * * * *

Sir George Jeffreys was the first to move. He had remained motionless,
smiling a little, while the page had been speaking, watching him as a
man may watch an actor who pleases him. At the end, after a little
pause, he jerked his head a little, as if to throw off the situation. I
think he had had no malice to me, but had watched the whole affair as a
kind of sport, which was what he did up