"As innocent as the hand that penned it, and if I so oppose
your reading it, it is because thus much I owe her. Believe
me, sir," he added, his accents returning to a beseeching key,
"when again I swear that it is no more than such a letter any
maid may write her lover. I thought that you had understood
all this when you rescued me from those bullies at The Mitre.
I thought that what you did was a noble and generous deed.
Instead - " The lad paused.

"Continue, sir," Galliard requested coldly. "Instead?"

"There can be no instead, Sir Crispin. You will not mar so
good an action now. You will give me my letter, will you not?"

Callous though he was, Crispin winced. The breeding of earlier
days - so sadly warped, alas! - cried out within him against
the lie that he was acting by pretending to suspect treason in
that woman's pothooks. Instincts of gentility and generosity
long dead took life again, resuscitated by that call of
conscience. He was conquered.

"There, take your letter, boy, and plague me no more," he
growled, as he held it out to Kenneth. And without waiting for
reply or acknowledgment, he turned on his heel, and entered the
palace. But he had yielded overlate to leave a good impression
and, as Kenneth turned away, it was with a curse upon Galliard,
for whom his detestation seemed to increase at every step.