Then he remembered Lady Patience's enthusiastic narrative, and said, smiling indulgently,—
"Odd's my life! but I did not know gentlemen of the road were so chivalrous!"
"Your Royal Highness..." continued Sir Humphrey.
"Silence, sir!"
Then the Duke rose from his chair, and went up close to Bathurst, who, half-dreaming, had listened to all that was going on around him, but had scarce heard, for he was looking at Patience and thinking only of her.
"Your name, sir?" asked the Duke very kindly, for the look of love akin to worship which illumined Jack Bathurst's face had made a strong appeal to his own manly heart.
"Jack Bathurst," replied the young man, almost mechanically, and rousing himself with an effort in response to the Duke's kind words, "formerly captain in the White Dragoons."
"Bathurst? ... Bathurst?" repeated the Duke, not a little puzzled. "Ah, yes!" he added after a slight pause, "who was condemned and cashiered for striking his superior officer after a quarrel."
"The same, your Royal Highness."
"'Twas Colonel Otway, who, we found out afterwards, was a scoundrel, a liar, and a cheat," said His Highness with sudden eager enthusiasm, "and fully deserving the punishment you, sir, had been brave enough to give him."