rely with herself whether she
escapes him or not."

"And you have caused me to be detained while she has been carried off,"
exclaimed Sir Jocelyn, furiously. "Fool that I was to trust you! You are
in league with the villains."

"Think of me what you please, and say what you will--you shall not anger
me," rejoined the promoter. "I discovered your flight from the place of
refuge I had procured for you, and guessing where you had come, followed
you hither. Your danger is not past. Vainly will you seek Sir Francis
Mitchell. You will not find him,--but you _will_ find a serjeant-at-arms
with a Star-Chamber warrant for your arrest. To this you can offer no
resistance; and what will follow? I will tell you:--immediate
incarceration in the Fleet Prison. And when safely lodged there, how,
may I ask, are you to liberate Aveline?"

"I must trust to chance," replied Sir Jocelyn. "I can no longer place
any reliance upon you. Stand aside, and let me pass. I would not harm
you."

"You cannot injure one whose intentions are friendly to you as mine are.
Listen to me, and let what I have to say sink deeply into your breast.
Do anything rather than render yourself amenable to the accursed
tribunal I have named. Abandon mistress, friend, relative--all who are
near and dear to you--if they would bring you within its grasp."

"And do you venture to give me this shameful council? Do you think I
will attend to it?" cried Sir Jocelyn.

"I am sure you will, if you hear me out--and you _shall_ hear me," the
promoter exclaimed with so much authority that the young man, however
impatient, could not refuse attention, to him. "Look me in the face, Sir
Jocelyn! Regard me well! Behold these ineffaceable marks made by the
heated iron, and the sharpened knife! How came they there? From a
sentence of the Star-Chamber. And as my offence was the same as yours,
so your sentence will correspond with mine. Your punishment will be the
same as mine--branding and mutilation. Ha! I perceive I have touched you
now."

"What was your offence, unhappy man?" asked Sir Jocelyn, averting his
gaze from the hideous aspect which, now lighted up with mingled emotions
of rage and despair, had become absolutely appalling.

"The same as your own, as I have said," replied the other;--"a few hasty
words impugning the justice of this vindictive court. Better had I have
cut out my tongue than have given utterance to them. But my case more
nearly resembled yours than I hav