onveyed no meaning to Crispin.

"Who may Colonel Pride be?" he asked, after a pause.

Hogan was visibly disappointed.

"A certain powerful and vindictive member of the Rump, whose son you
killed at Worcester."

This time the shaft went home. Galliard sprang out of the chair, his
brows darkening, and his cheeks pale beyond their wont.

"Zounds, Hogan, do you mean that Joseph Ashburn was betraying me into
this man's hands?"

"You have said it."

"But--"

Crispin stopped short. The pallor of his face increased; it became
ashen, and his eyes glittered as though a fever consumed him. He sank
back into his chair, and setting both hands upon the table before him,
he looked straight at Hogan.

"But my son, Hogan, my son?" he pleaded, and his voice was broken as no
man had heard it yet. "Oh, God in heaven!" he cried in a sudden frenzy.
"What hell's work is this?"

Behind his blue lips his teeth were chattering now. His hands shook as
he held them, still clenched, before him. Then, in a dull, concentrated
voice:

"Hogan," he vowed, "I'll kill him for it. Fool, blind, pitiful fool that
I am."

Then--his face distorted by passion--he broke into a torrent of
imprecations that was at length stemmed by Hogan.

"Wait, Cris," said he, laying his hand upon the other's arm. "It is not
all false. Joseph Ashburn sought, it is true, to betray you into the
hands of Colonel Pride, sending you to the sign of the Anchor with the
assurance that there you should have news of your son. That was false;
yet not all false. Your son does live, and at the sign of the Anchor it
is likely you would have had the news of him you sought. But that news
would have come when too late to have been of value to you."

Crispin tried to speak, but failed. Then, mastering himself by an
effort, and in a voice that was oddly shaken:

"Hogan," he cried, "you are torturing me! What is the sum of your
knowledge?"

At last the Irishman produced Ashburn's letter to Colonel Pride.

"My men," said he, "are patrolling the roads in wait for a malignant
that has incurred the Parliament's displeasure. We have news that he is
making for Harwich, where a vessel lies waiting to carry him to France,
and we expect that he will ride this way. Three hours ago a young man
unable clearly to account for himself rode into our net, and was brought
to me. He was the bearer of a letter to Colonel Pride from Joseph
Ashburn. He had given my sergeant a wrong name, and betra