‘I should go straight to the Podestà, or whatever he is, and say, “Here is the notorious Daniel Donogan, the rebel you are all afraid of.’”
‘How came you by my name?’ asked he curtly.
‘By accident. I overheard Dick telling it to his sister. It dropped from him unawares, and I was on the terrace and caught the words.’
‘I am in your hands completely,’ said he, in the same calm voice; ‘but I repeat my words: I’ll not run away.’
‘That is, because you trust to my honour.’
‘It is exactly so—because I trust to your honour.’
‘But how if I were to have strong convictions in opposition to all you were doing—how if I were to believe that all you intended was a gross wrong and a fearful cruelty?’
‘Still you would not betray me. You would say, “This man is an enthusiast—he imagines scores of impossible things—but, at least, he is not a self-seeker—a fool possibly, but not a knave. It would be hard to hang him.”’
‘So it would. I have just thought that.’
‘And then you might reason thus: “How will it serve the other cause to send one poor wretch to the scaffold, where there are so many just as deserving of it?”’