n my honour," said he, mastering his feelings, "that
this is but a letter from the lady I hope to make my wife. Assuredly,
sir, you will not now insist upon reading it."

"Assuredly I shall."

"But, sir--"

"Master Stewart, I am resolved, and were you to talk from now till
doomsday, you would not turn me from my purpose. So good night to you."

"Sir Crispin," cried the boy, his voice quavering with passion, "while I
live you shall not read that letter!"

"Hoity-toity, sir! What words! What heroics! And yet you would have me
believe this paper innocent?"

"As innocent as the hand that penned it, and if I so oppose your reading
it, it is because thus much I owe her. Believe me, sir," he added, his
accents returning to a beseeching key, "when again I swear that it is no
more than such a letter any maid may write her lover. I thought that you
had understood all this when you rescued me from those bullies at
The Mitre. I thought that what you did was a noble and generous deed.
Instead--" The lad paused.

"Continue, sir," Galliard requested coldly. "Instead?"

"There can be no instead, Sir Crispin. You will not mar so good an
action now. You will give me my letter, will you not?"

Callous though he was, Crispin winced. The breeding of earlier days--so
sadly warped, alas!--cried out within him against the lie that he
was acting by pretending to suspect treason in that woman's pothooks.
Instincts of gentility and generosity long dead took life again,
resuscitated by that call of conscience. He was conquered.

"There, take your letter, boy, and plague me no more," he growled, as he
held it out to Kenneth. And without waiting for reply or acknowledgment,
he turned on his heel, and entered the palace. But he had yielded
overlate to leave a good impression and, as Kenneth turned away, it was
with a curse upon Galliard, for whom his detestation seemed to increase
at every step.

CHAPTER V. AFTER WORCESTER FIELD

The morn of the third of September--that date so propitious to Cromwell,
so disastrous to Charles--found Crispin the centre of a company of
gentlemen in battle-harness, assembled at The Mitre Inn. For a toast he
gave them "The damnation of all crop-ears."

"Sirs," quoth he, "a fair beginning to a fair day. God send the evening
find us as merry."

It was not to be his good fortune, however, to be in the earlier work
of the day. Until afternoon he was kept within the walls of Worcester,
chafing to be