“Then go to Cromwell, at Windsor or wherever he may be, and seek to learn from him if Kenneth is a prisoner. If he is not, then clearly he is dead.”
Joseph made a gesture of impatience.
“Can you not leave Fate alone?”
“Think you I have no conscience, Joseph?” cried the other with sudden vigour.
“Pish! you are womanish.”
“Nay, Joseph, I am old. I am in the autumn of my days, and I would see these two wed before I die.”
“And are damned for a croaking, maudlin' craven,” added Joseph. “Pah! You make me sick.”
There was a moment's silence, during which the brothers eyed each other, Gregory with a sternness before which Joseph's mocking eye was forced at length to fall.
“Joseph, you shall go to the Lord General.”
“Well,” said Joseph weakly, “we will say that I go. But if Kenneth be a prisoner, what then?”