For a second he hesitated; then:
“Blount,” he stammered, “Jasper Blount.”
He little thought how that fruit of his vanity was to prove his undoing thereafter.
“Verily,” sneered the sergeant, “it almost seemed you had forgotten it.” And from that sneer Kenneth gathered with fresh dread that the fellow mistrusted him.
“Whence are you, Master Blount?”
Again Kenneth hesitated. Then recalling Ashburn's high favour with the Parliament, and seeing that it could but advance his cause to state the true sum of his journey:
“From Castle Marleigh,” he replied.
“Verily, sir, you seem yet in some doubt. Whither do you go?”
“To London.”
“On what errand?” The sergeant's questions fell swift as sword-strokes.