"Once, my Liege," said Ella Brune, advancing, dressed in the garments she had worn immediately after her grandsire's death, "and then your Grace did as you always do, rendered justice both to the offender and the offended. I accuse this man of having done the deed that you have mentioned, and many another blacker still. I accuse him of having made use of him who stands beside him, Edward Dyram--pretending to be a servant of Sir Richard of Woodville, long after he had been driven in disgrace from his train--to obtain from the messenger of the Count of Charolois the letter which your Grace had sent. Speak," she continued, turning to Dyram, "Is it not true?"
The man hesitated, and turned red and white, but was silent.
"Speak," reiterated Ella Brune, "it is your last chance. Then read this letter, my Liege," she continued, "from the noble Count of Charolois, wherein he states, that he has traced out this foul and wicked plot, and----"
"I will confess I did," exclaimed Dyram; "I did get the letter. I did aid to forge the answer; but he, he--Richard of Woodville--struck me, and I vowed revenge."
"What more?" demanded the King, sternly. "If you hope for life speak truth. You have not defiled knightly rank; you have not degraded noble birth; you have not violated all that should keep men honest and true. There is some hope for you."
"Ha, knave!" exclaimed Simeon of Roydon, gazing at him fiercely; but Dyram hesitated and paused without reply; and Ella Brune proceeded, pointing with her fair hand to the papers which the King held open before him, and demanding, while her dark eyes fixed stern on Dyram's face, "And the letter from the prisoner of Montl'herry, to Sir John Grey, did you not erase the words with which it ended--they were, if I remember right, 'touching my ransom,'--and change the Christian name in the superscription?"
"No, no," cried the man vehemently, knowing that the charge might well affect his life. "No, I did not--nobody saw me do it; I say I did not."
"Fool!" cried Ella Brune, after giving him a moment to consider; "Your hate has been dangerous to others, your love has been dangerous to yourself--Give me that cup! My Lord the King, may I crave to see the letter I have named?"
Henry took it from the rest, and placed it in her hand; and, dipping her finger in a cup containing a clear white fluid, which the page of Sir John Grey brought forward, she ran it over the line immediately preceding Richard of Woodville's signature. The King gazed earnestly on the parchment as she did so, and, to his surprise, he beheld the words she had mentioned reappear--somewhat faint and indistinct, it is true, but legible enough to show that the meaning of the whole paper had been falsified by their erasure.
"That wretched man," said Ella Brune, pointing to Dyram, "in a foolish fit of tenderness towards my poor self, taught me the art of restoring writings long effaced; and now, by his own skill, I show you his own knavery."