I nodded.

"I must fly to them," he said, beginning once again to leave his bed.

"No, no!" I cried, holding forth my hands.

"You do not know," said he. "These are dangerous words."

"Will nothing make you understand, my lord?" said I.

His eyes besought me for the truth.

I flung myself on my knees by the bedside. "O, my lord," cried I, "think
on him you have left; think of this poor sinner whom you begot, whom
your wife bore to you, whom we have none of us strengthened as we could;
think of him, not of yourself; he is the other sufferer--think of him!
That is the door for sorrow--Christ's door, God's door: O! it stands
open. Think of him, even as he thought of you. '_Who is to tell the old
man?_'--these were his words. It was for that I came; that is why I am
here pleading at your feet."

"Let me get up," he cried, thrusting me aside, and was on his feet
before myself. His voice shook like a sail in the wind, yet he spoke
with a good loudness; his face was like the snow, but his eyes were
steady and dry. "Here is too much speech," said he. "Where was it?"

"In the shrubbery," said I.

"And Mr. Henry?" he asked. And when I had told him he knotted his old
face in thought.

"And Mr. James?" says he.

"I have left him lying," said I, "beside the candles."

"Candles?" he cried. And with that he ran to the window, opened it, and
looked abroad. "It might be spied from the road."

"Where none goes by at such an hour," I objected.

"It makes no matter," he said. "One might. Hark!" cries he. "What is
that?"

It was the sound of men very guardedly rowing in the bay; and I told him
so.

"The free-traders," said my lord. "Run at once, Mackellar; put these
candles out. I will dress in the meanwhile; and when you return we can
debate on what is wisest."

I groped my way downstairs, and out at the door. From quite a far way
off a sheen was visible, making points of brightness in the shrubbery;
in so black a night it might have been remarked for miles; and I blamed
myself bitterly for my incaution. How much more sharply when I reached
the place! One of the candlesticks was overthrown, and that taper
quenched. The other burned steadily by itself, and made a broad space of
light upon the frosted ground. All within that circle seemed, by the
force of contrast and the overhanging blackness, brighter than by day.
And there was the blood-stain in the midst; and a little farther off Mr.
Henry's sword, the pommel of