ddle, and his horse's head was turned
northwards once more.

He rode through Newport some three hours later without drawing rein. By
the door of the Raven Inn stood a travelling carriage, upon which he did
not so much as bestow a look.

By the merest thread hangs at times the whole of a man's future life,
the destinies even of men as yet unborn. So much may depend indeed upon
a glance, that had not Crispin kept his eyes that morning upon the grey
road before him, had he chanced to look sideways as he passed the Raven
Inn at Newport, and seen the Ashburn arms displayed upon the panels of
that coach, he would of a certainty have paused. And had he done so, his
whole destiny would assuredly have shaped a different course from that
which he was unconsciously steering.

CHAPTER XXIII. GREGORY'S ATTRITION

Joseph's journey to London was occasioned by his very natural anxiety to
assure himself that Crispin was caught in the toils of the net he had so
cunningly baited for him, and that at Castle Marleigh he would trouble
them no more. To this end he quitted Sheringham on the day after
Crispin's departure.

Not a little perplexed was Cynthia at the topsy-turvydom in which that
morning she had found her father's house. Kenneth was gone; he had left
in the dead of night, and seemingly in haste and suddenness, since on
the previous evening there had been no talk of his departing. Her father
was abed with a wound that made him feverish. Their grooms were all
sick, and wandered in a dazed and witless fashion about the castle,
their faces deadly pale and their eyes lustreless. In the hall she had
found a chaotic disorder upon descending, and one of the panels of the
wainscot she saw was freshly cracked.

Slowly the idea forced itself upon her mind that there had been brawling
the night before, yet was she far from surmising the motives that could
have led to it. The conclusion she came to in the end was that the men
had drunk deep, that in their cups they had waxed quarrelsome, and that
swords had been drawn.

Of Joseph then she sought enlightenment, and Joseph lied right
handsomely, like the ready-witted knave he was. A wondrously plausible
story had he for her ear; a story that played cunningly upon her
knowledge of the compact that existed between Kenneth and Sir Crispin.

"You may not know," said he--full well aware that she did know--"that
when Galliard saved Kenneth's life at Worcester he exacted from the
lad t