"I nearly yielded to Lovat's letter," said the boy, hesitatingly.
"I know, I know, dear," she said with an infinity of indulgence in her gentle smile. "We won't speak of the past any more. Now let us arrange the future."
He tried to master his excitement, throwing off with an effort of will his feverishness and his morbid self-condemnation.
He had done a foolish and a cowardly thing; he knew that well enough. Fate had dealt him one of those cruel blows with which she sometimes strikes the venial offender, letting so often the more hardened criminal go scatheless.
For months now Philip had been a fugitive, disguised in rough clothes, hiding in barns and inns of doubtful fame, knowing no one whom he could really trust, to whom he dared disclose his place of temporary refuge, or confide a message for his sister. Treachery was in the air; he suspected everyone. The bill of attainder had condemned so many men to death, and rebel-hunting and swift executions were in that year of grace the order of the day.
"I could do nothing without you, dear," he said more quietly. "I must hide now like a hunted beast, and must be grateful for the sheltering roof of honest Stich. I have been branded as a traitor by Act of Parliament, my life is forfeit, and it is even a crime for any man to give me food and shelter. The lowest footpad who haunts the Moor has the right to shoot me like a mad dog."
"Don't! don't, dear!" she pleaded.
"I only wished you to understand that I was not such an abject coward as I seemed. I could not get to you or reach the Hall."
"I quite understood that, dear. Now, tell me, you wish me to take these letters to London?"
"At once. The sooner they are laid before the King and Council the better. I must get to the fountain head as quickly as possible. Once I am caught they will give me no chance of proving my innocence. I have been tried by Act of Parliament, found guilty and condemned to death. You realise that, dear, don't you?"