"I don't care what it is!" cried the boy. "It's mine!"
He was almost in tears, stamping his foot, much as in old days when Gwen, a born tease, had stolen his woolly bear, and refused to give it up.
The man made him feel like a baby—he, a King's officer.
"Forgive me," replied the other. "It is mine."
"Finding's keeping, I suppose!" sneered the boy, ablaze. "You take it by brute force—you steal it—and it's yours! And I daresay you call yourself a gentleman!"
"When I said it was mine," replied the other with the grave tenderness of a gentleman dealing with an angry woman, "I meant it was mine. It was given me by a lady. These are her initials on the stopper—E.H., d'you see?—If I was to surrender this bottle to you, two things would happen. My work of weeks past would be undone, and a noble woman would be hung unjustly." He put the bottle into his pocket. "And now to prove to you that it really is mine I will tell you what it contains, shall I?—A letter on tissue paper signed A. F. Is it not so?"
The flames in the boy's soul were beaten back.
"How d'you know?" sullenly.
"I wrote it."
Breathing through his nostrils, Kit eyed him.