"I know not who is accused, sire," replied Lucy, looking up with an air of surprise; "I have not heard that the murderer was discovered."
"The gentleman on whom strong suspicion lights," rejoined the King, in a stern tone, "is an escaped prisoner from this castle, Hugh de Monthermer."
Lucy clasped her hands with a start, and turned as pale as death. But the next instant, the blood rushed glowing into her face, and throwing back her head with a sparkling eye and a curling lip, she cried--"It is false! my lord the King--it is false!--I know whence this foul suspicion has arisen. Ay, and perhaps art may have overdone itself. I have gained a light I never thought of till now, which may yet perhaps bring the felon to justice."
The King seemed somewhat surprised at the sudden energy which had taken possession of the fair and gentle being before him.
"Pray tell me," he said, after gazing at her for a moment "whence you think this suspicion has arisen, since you say you know."
"It has sprung, sire," replied Lucy, in a calmer tone--"it has sprung from a letter which was given to my father shortly before his death. He was with me at the time. We were speaking of him who is now accused of a deed that he never dreamed of, and my father showed me the letter, saying, it came from him. I answered instantly that it was not his writing, which I have often seen. My father replied that he must have made some clerk write for him, as is so common. The explanation satisfied me, and I thought no more of it till this moment; but now I see that letter was a forgery to lure my poor father to his death."
"You read the letter, then?" enquired the King.
"I did," replied Lucy.
"Can you repeat what it contained?" asked Edward, with a look of keen anxiety.
"The matter, not the words," answered Lucy, her voice slightly faltering. "It told my father that Hugh de Monthermer, doomed to death unheard, though innocent, had escaped from the castle of Nottingham, leaving behind his fair fame undefended; and it besought the Earl to meet him alone at the place called the Bull's hawthorn."