that did it, I--I'll have him hanged before the army
leaves, I promise you. But now 'tis done, I hope ye're prepared to make
the best of it?"

I saw at once that his daughter had not yet confided in him; that he was
still entangled in my lie. So I thought it well to probe him deeper
while I might.

"What would you call 'the best' if I may ask?" said I, growing the
cooler with some better seeing of the way ahead.

"The marriage settlements!" he cried shrilly, coming to the point at
once, as any miser would. "'Tis the merest matter of form, as ye may
say, for your title to Appleby Hundred is well burnt out, I promise you.
But for the decent look of it you might make over your quitclaim to your
wife."

"Aye, truly; so I might."

"And so you should, sir; that you should, ye miserable, spying
runag"--he choked and coughed behind his hand and then began again
without the epithets. "'Tis the very least ye can do for her now, when
you have the rope fair around your curs--ahem--your--your rebel neck.
Only for the form's sake, to be sure, ye understand, for she'd inherit
after you in any case."

I saw his drift at last, and, not caring to spare him, sped the shaft of
truth and let it find the joint in his harness.

"'Tis as you say, Mr. Stair. But as it chances, Mistress Margery is not
my wife."

If I had flung the candle at him where he stood fumbling behind him for
the door-latch,'twould not have made him shrink or dodge the more.

"Wha--what's that ye say?" he piped in shrillest cadence. "Not married?
Then you--you--"

"I lied to save her honor--that was all. A wife might do the thing she
did and go scot free of any scandal; but not a maid, as you could see
and hear."

For some brief time it smote him speechless, and in the depth of his
astoundment he forgot his foolish fear of me and fell to pacing up and
down, though always with the table cannily between us. And as he
shuffled back and forth the thin lips muttered foolish nothings, with
here and there a tremulous oath. When all was done he dropped into a
chair and stared across at me with leaden eyes; and truly he had the
look of one struck with a mortal sickness.

"I think--I think you owe me something now beyond your keeping, Captain
Ireton," he quavered, at length, mumbling the words as do the palsied.

"Since you are Margery's father, I owe you anything a dying man can
pay," said I.

"Words; empty words," he fumed. "If it were a thing to do, now--"