"You deny any part in the plot to kill me?"
"I do."
"But you knew there was such an attempt made this afternoon?"
"I heard some such rumor."
"But," persisted Jaltor, "you did not think it necessary that you learn if your friend—your brother, as you said a moment ago—had been injured in that attempt?"
"I was assured you were not even scratched," Garlud replied quietly.
"Humph!" Jaltor paced up and down a time or two, his face working, the great hands opening and closing spasmodically. Abruptly he stopped in front of the other and bent until his face almost touched Garlud's.
"Before you walked into this room, if anyone had asked for your opinion of Heglar what would you have said?"
"That I knew him well and liked and respected him."
"Would you have said he was an honorable man?"