CHAPTER X
BY THE HILT OF THE SWORD
Law passed on out at the gate of the stockade and down to the bivouac, where Pembroke and his men had spent the night.
"Now, Sir Arthur," said he to the latter, when he had found him, "come. I am ready to talk with you. Let us go apart."
Pembroke joined him, and the two walked slowly away toward the encircling wood which swept back of the stockade. Law turned upon him at length squarely.
"Sir Arthur," said he, "I think you would tell me something concerned with the Lady Catharine Knollys. Do you bring any message from her?"
The face of Pembroke flamed scarlet with sudden wrath. "Message!" said he. "Message from Lady Catharine Knollys to you? By God! sir, her only message could be her hope that she might never hear your name again."
"You have still your temper, Sir Arthur, and you speak harsh enough."
"Harsh or not," rejoined Pembroke, "I scarce can endure her name upon your lips. You, who scouted her, who left her, who took up with the lewdest woman in all Great Britain, as it now appears—you who would consort with this creature—"
"In this matter," said John Law, simply, "you are not my prisoner, and I beg you to speak frankly. It shall be man and man between us."