the grim firmness all
gone from his face, and replaced by amazement, then unbelief followed
by inquiry; then unbelief again. The pallor of his cheeks seemed to
intensify. At last, however, he broke into a hard laugh.

"What lie is this you offer me? Zounds, man, are you not afraid?"

"It is no lie," Joseph cried, in accents so earnest that some of the
unbelief passed again from Galliard's face. "It is the truth-God's
truth. Your son lives."

"Hell-hound, it is a lie! On that fell night, as I swooned under
your cowardly thrust, I heard you calling to your brother to slit the
squalling bastard's throat. Those were your very words, Master Joseph."

"I own I bade him do it, but I was not obeyed. He swore we should give
the babe a chance of life. It should never know whose son it was, he
said, and I agreed. We took the boy away. He has lived and thrived."

The knight sank on to a chair as though bereft of strength. He sought to
think, but thinking coherently he could not. At last:

"How shall I know that you are not lying? What proof can you advance?"
he demanded hoarsely.

"I swear that what I have told you is true. I swear it by the cross
of our Redeemer!" he protested, with a solemnity that was not without
effect upon Crispin. Nevertheless, he sneered.

"I ask for proofs, man, not oaths. What proofs can you afford me?"

"There are the man and the woman whom the lad was reared by."

"And where shall I find them?"

Joseph opened his lips to answer, then closed them again. In his
eagerness he had almost parted with the information which he now
proposed to make the price of his life. He regained confidence at
Crispin's tone and questions, gathering from both that the knight was
willing to believe if proof were set before him. He rose to his feet,
and when next he spoke his voice had won back much of its habitual calm
deliberateness.

"That," said he, "I will tell you when you have promised to go hence,
leaving Gregory and me unharmed. I will supply you with what money you
may need, and I will give you a letter to those people, so couched
that what they tell you by virtue of it shall be a corroboration of my
words."

His elbow resting upon the table, and his hand to his brow so that it
shaded his eyes, sat Crispin long in thought, swayed by emotions and
doubts, the like of which he had never yet known in the whole of his
chequered life. Was Joseph lying to him?

That was the question that repeatedly arose, an