GREGORY ASHBURN

Twice Crispin read the letter through. Then with set teeth and
straining eyes he sat lost in thought.

Here indeed was a strange chance! This boy whom he had met at
Perth, and enrolled in his company, was a friend of Ashburn's -
the lover of Cynthia. Who might this Cynthia be?

Long and deep were his ponderings upon the unfathomable ways of
Fate - for Fate he now believed was here at work to help him,
revealing herself by means of this sign even at the very moment
when he decried his luck. In memory he reviewed his meeting
with the lad in the yard of Perth Castle a fortnight ago.
Something in the boy's bearing, in his air, had caught
Crispin's eye. He had looked him over, then approached, and
bluntly asked his name and on what business he was come there.
The youth had answered him civilly enough that he was Kenneth
Stewart of Bailienochy, and that he was come to offer his sword
to the King. Thereupon he had interested himself in the lad's
behalf and had gained him a lieutenancy in his own company.
Why he was attracted to a youth on whom never before had he set
eyes was a matter that puzzled him not a little. Now he held,
he thought, the explanation of it. It was the way of Fate.

This boy was sent into his life by a Heaven that at last showed
compassion for the deep wrongs he had suffered; sent him as a
key wherewith, should the need occur, to open him the gates of
Castle Marleigh.