he daughter of Gregory Ashburn. His heart smote him at
the thought of how she--the innocent--must suffer with the guilty, and
at the contemplation of the sorrow which he must visit upon her. Out of
this sprang a constraint when in her company, for other than stiff and
formal he dared not be lest he should deem himself no better than the
Iscariot.

During the first days he had pent at Marleigh, he had been impatient for
Joseph Ashburn's return. Now he found himself hoping each morning that
Joseph might not come that day.

A courier reached Gregory from Windsor with a letter wherein his brother
told him that the Lord General, not being at the castle, he was gone on
to London in quest of him. And Gregory, lacking the means to inform him
that the missing Kenneth was already returned, was forced to possess his
soul in patience until his brother, having learnt what was to be learnt
of Cromwell, should journey home.

And so the days sped on, and a week wore itself out in peace at Castle
Marleigh, none dreaming of the volcano on which they stood. Each night
Crispin and Gregory sat together at the board after Kenneth and Cynthia
had withdrawn, and both drank deep--the one for the vice of it, the
other (as he had always done) to seek forgetfulness.

He needed it now more than ever, for he feared that the consideration of
Cynthia might yet unman him. Had she scorned and avoided him and having
such evidences of his ways of life he marvelled that she did not--he
might have allowed his considerations of her to weigh less heavily. As
it was, she sought him out, nor seemed rebuffed at his efforts to evade
her, and in every way she manifested a kindliness that drove him almost
to the point of despair, and well-nigh to hating her.

Kenneth, knowing naught of the womanly purpose that actuated her,
and seeing but the outward signs, which, with ready jealousy, he
misconstrued and magnified, grew sullen and churlish to her, to
Galliard, and even to Gregory.

For hours he would mope alone, nursing his jealous mood, as though in
this clownish fashion matters were to be mended. Did Cynthia but speak
to Crispin, he scowled; did Crispin answer her, he grit his teeth at the
covert meaning wherewith his fancy invested Crispin's tones; whilst did
they chance to laugh together--a contingency that fortunately for his
sanity was rare--he writhed in fury. He was a man transformed, and at
times there was murder in his heart. Had he been a swordsman