"A lie! _I_ wrote it!" said the Hon. Miss Grey.

Walter Butler turned to her, amazed, doubting his ears.

"A jest," she continued carelessly, "to amuse Mr. Renault."

"Amuse _him_! It is in his own hand!" stammered Butler.

"Apparently. But I wrote it, imitating his hand to plague him. It is
indifferently done," she added, with a shrug. "I hid it in the cupboard
he uses for his love-letters. How came it in your fingers, Mr. Butler?"

In blank astonishment he stood there, the letter half extended, his
eyes almost starting from his face. Slowly she moved forward,
confronting him, insolent eyes meeting his; and, ere he could guess
what she purposed, she had snatched the blotted fragment from him and
crushed it in her hand, always eying him until he crimsoned in the
focus of her white contempt.

"Go!" she said. Her low voice was passionless.

He turned his burning eyes from her to Lady Coleville, to Sir Peter,
then bent his gaze on me. What he divined in my face I know not, but
the flame leaped in his eyes, and that ghastly smile stretched the
muscles of his visage.

"My zeal, it seems, has placed me at a sorry disadvantage," he said.
"Error piled on error growing from a most unhappy misconstruction of my
purposes has changed faith to suspicion, amity to coldness. I know not
what to say to clear myself--" He turned his melancholy face to Elsin;
all anger had faded from it, and only deepest sadness shadowed the pale
brow. "I ventured to believe, in days gone by, that my devotion was not
utterly displeasing--that perhaps the excesses of a stormy and
impetuous youth might be condoned in the humble devotion of an honest
passion----"

The silence was intense. He turned dramatically to Sir Peter, his
well-shaped hand opening in graceful salute as he bowed.

"I ask you, sir, to lend a gentle judgment till I clear myself. And of
your lady, I humbly beg that mercy also." Again he bowed profoundly,
hand on hilt, a perfect figure of faultless courtesy, graceful,
composed, proudly enduring, proudly subduing pride.

Then he slowly raised his dark head and looked at me. "Mr. Renault," he
said, "it is my misfortune that our paths have crossed three times. I
trust they cross no more, but may run hereafter in pleasant parallel. I
was hasty, I was wrong to judge you by what you said concerning the
Oneidas. I am impatient, over-sensitive, quick to fire at what I deem
an insult to my King. I serve him as my hot blood dictates--and