As usual under these circumstances, Fate put her lean, sharp-pointed finger into this grim pie, and it was the small incident which settled the big issue in the end, for even as Rupert stood there, shamed, hesitating, fighting the inward battle, there came a timid rap at the door, and a serving-man entered, bearing a missive which was tied down with green cord but otherwise left unsealed.
"What is this?" asked Rupert Kestyon, who seemed to be descending from the stars, in so dazed a manner did he gaze at the man who was handing him the letter.
"A man hath just brought it, my lord; he said that the message was urgent but would not say from whence he came—he went away down the street very quickly as soon as I had taken the letter from him."
"Good; you may go."
With hands still trembling from recent emotion, Rupert Kestyon, as soon as the servant had gone, tore open the missive, on the outside cover of which he had at once recognised the ill-formed scrawls which emanated from the untutored pen of Mistress Peyton. It was addressed in that same illiterate but deeply loved hand to Mister Rupert Kestyon, erstwhile my lord of Stowmaries, and began:
"Honord Sir.
"This is to warn you that the villan Daniel Pye hath informed against you, he did make brag of it befor my servants to-day saying that you will be arrested for treson and he be thus revenged upon me. i think it were best you did not com to my house until this clowd has clered away. But i am yr frend always."
The lady had signed the missive with her name in full. The hot blood rushed to Rupert Kestyon's face, for despite his own natural vanity he could not help but see the callous indifference as to his own fate which pierced through the fair Julia's carefully-worded warning.
Without a word, however, he folded the letter and slipped it into the inner pocket of his coat. Then he turned once more to his cousin.
"Is there no other way?" he asked, whilst the weakness of his nature, the vacillation peculiar to his character, was very apparent now, in the ever-shifting expression of his face, the pains he took to avoid looking Michael quite square in the face.