hat blind court there below,
along with me, you shall soon see what chance a traitor hath with a true
man, and a kennel-blooded Puritan with Peveril of the Peak."

Bridgenorth smiled with much composure. "When I was younger and more
warm-blooded," he replied, "I refused your challenge, Sir Geoffrey; it
is not likely I should now accept it, when each is within a stride of
the grave. I have not spared, and will not spare, my blood, when my
country wants it."

"That is when there is any chance of treason against the King," said Sir
Geoffrey.

"Nay, my father," said Julian, "let us hear Master Bridgenorth! We have
been sheltered in his house; and although we now see him in London, we
should remember that he did not appear against us this day, when perhaps
his evidence might have given a fatal turn to our situation."

"You are right, young man," said Bridgenorth; "and it should be
some pledge of my sincere goodwill, that I was this day absent from
Westminster, when a few words from my mouth had ended the long line of
Peveril of the Peak: it needed but ten minutes to walk to Westminster
Hall, to have ensured your condemnation. But could I have done this,
knowing, as I now know, that to thee, Julian Peveril, I owe the
extrication of my daughter--of my dearest Alice--the memory of her
departed mother--from the snares which hell and profligacy had opened
around her?"

"She is, I trust safe," said Peveril eagerly, and almost forgetting his
father's presence; "she is, I trust, safe, and in your own wardship?"

"Not in mine," said the dejected father; "but in that of one in whose
protection, next to that of Heaven, I can most fully confide."

"Are you sure--are you very sure of that?" repeated Julian eagerly. "I
found her under the charge of one to whom she had been trusted, and who
yet----"

"And who yet was the basest of women," answered Bridgenorth; "but he who
selected her for the charge was deceived in her character."

"Say rather you were deceived in his; remember that when we parted in
Moultrassie, I warned you of that Ganlesse--that----"

"I know your meaning," said Bridgenorth; "nor did you err in describing
him as a worldly-wise man. But he has atoned for his error by recovering
Alice from the dangers into which she has plunged when separated from
you; and besides, I have not thought meet again to entrust him with the
charge that is dearest to me."

"I thank God your eyes are thus far opened!" said Julian.