"Why should I?"
"That you must tell me."
"There is a candor about you, Captain Ellerey, that compels straightforward treatment in return, and you shall have it. I have a misgiving that your presence here will tend to hamper my work, and by my work I mean England's interests. I do not pretend to know exactly in what direction you will hinder me, but I can guess, and you are too good a man to be crushed while striving against your own country. Go back to England. I thoroughly believe in you, and you shall have my hearty support in your endeavor to establish your innocency."
"You are very good, my lord, and I thank you; but I regret that I cannot comply with your wishes. I shall not leave Sturatzberg."
"You prefer to be crushed?"
"Yes, in the service of my adopted country. We fight with different weapons, Lord Cloverton."
"Then it is to be war between us?"
"You seem to say so. I cannot leave Sturatzberg."
"Is it not possible that some sense of honor may exist here, that officers here may not care to associate with one who has been convicted of cheating, even though he be a foreigner?"
"I am not afraid that Lord Cloverton will spread such a report of me."