“Hogan,” he vowed, “I'll kill him for it. Fool, blind, pitiful fool that I am.”
Then—his face distorted by passion—he broke into a torrent of imprecations that was at length stemmed by Hogan.
“Wait, Cris,” said he, laying his hand upon the other's arm. “It is not all false. Joseph Ashburn sought, it is true, to betray you into the hands of Colonel Pride, sending you to the sign of the Anchor with the assurance that there you should have news of your son. That was false; yet not all false. Your son does live, and at the sign of the Anchor it is likely you would have had the news of him you sought. But that news would have come when too late to have been of value to you.”
Crispin tried to speak, but failed. Then, mastering himself by an effort, and in a voice that was oddly shaken:
“Hogan,” he cried, “you are torturing me! What is the sum of your knowledge?”
At last the Irishman produced Ashburn's letter to Colonel Pride.
“My men,” said he, “are patrolling the roads in wait for a malignant that has incurred the Parliament's displeasure. We have news that he is making for Harwich, where a vessel lies waiting to carry him to France, and we expect that he will ride this way. Three hours ago a young man unable clearly to account for himself rode into our net, and was brought to me. He was the bearer of a letter to Colonel Pride from Joseph Ashburn. He had given my sergeant a wrong name, and betrayed such anxiety to be gone that I deemed his errand a suspicious one, and broke the seal of that letter. You may thank God, Galliard, every night of your life that I did so.”
“Was this youth Kenneth Stewart?” asked Crispin.
“You have guessed it.”
“D—n the lad,” he began furiously. Then repressing himself, he sighed, and in an altered tone, “No, no,” said he. “I have grievously wronged him! have wrecked his life—or at least he thinks so now. I can hardly blame him for seeking to be quits with me.”