wept back of the stockade. Law turned upon him at
length squarely.

"Sir Arthur," said he, "I think you would tell me something concerned
with the Lady Catharine Knollys. Do you bring any message from her?"

The face of Pembroke flamed scarlet with sudden wrath. "Message!" said
he. "Message from Lady Catharine Knollys to you? By God! sir, her only
message could be her hope that she might never hear your name again."

"You have still your temper, Sir Arthur, and you speak harsh enough."

"Harsh or not," rejoined Pembroke, "I scarce can endure her name upon
your lips. You, who scouted her, who left her, who took up with the
lewdest woman in all Great Britain, as it now appears--you who would
consort with this creature--"

"In this matter," said John Law, simply, "you are not my prisoner, and I
beg you to speak frankly. It shall be man and man between us."

"How you could have stooped to such baseness is what mortal man can
never understand," resumed Sir Arthur, bitterly. "Good God! to abandon a
woman like that so heartlessly--"

"Sir Arthur," said John Law, his voice trembling, "I do myself the very
great pleasure of telling you that you lie!"

For a moment the two stood silent, facing each other, the face of each
stony, gone gray with the emotions back of it.

"There is light," said Pembroke, "and abundant space."

They turned and paced back farther toward the open forest glade. Yet now
and again their steps faltered and half paused, and neither man cared to
go forward or to return. Pembroke's face, stern as it had been, again
took on the imprint of a growing hesitation.

"Mr. Law," said he, "there is something in your attitude which I admit
puzzles me. I ask you in all honor, I ask you on the hilt of that sword
which I know you will never disgrace, why did you thus flout the Lady
Catharine Knollys? Why did you scorn her and take up with this woman
yonder in her stead?"

"Sir Arthur," said John Law, with trembling lips, "I must be very low
indeed in reputation, since you can ask me question such as this."

"But you must answer!" cried Sir Arthur, "and you must swear!"

"If you would have my answer and my oath, then I give you both. I did
not do what you suggest, nor can I conceive how any man should think me
guilty of it. I loved Lady Catharine Knollys with all my heart. 'Twas my
chief bitterness, keener than even the thought of the gallows itself,
that she forsook me in my trouble. Then, bitter as any man