“Ray, there is no love between you and me, and we need dissemble none.”
“And no hate—at least on my part,” Ralph added.
“I had good earnest of your affections,” answered the sheriff with a sneer; “five years' imprisonment.” Then waving his hand with a gesture indicative of impatience, he continued, “Let that be as it may. I come to talk of other matters.”
Resting on a bench, he added,—
“When the trial closed on Thursday, Justice Hide, who showed you more favor than seemed to some persons of credit to be meet and seemly, beckoned me to the antechamber. There he explained that the evidence against you being mainly circumstantial, the sentence might perchance, by the leniency of the King, be commuted to one of imprisonment for life.”
A cold smile passed over Ralph's face.
“But this great mercy—whereof I would counsel you to cherish no certain hope—would depend upon your being able and willing to render an account of how you came by the document—the warrant for your own arrest—which was found upon your person. Furnish a credible story of how you came to be possessed, of that instrument, and it may occur—I say it may occur—that by our Sovereign's grace and favor this sentence of death can yet be put aside.”
Sim had risen to his feet in obvious excitement.
Ralph calmly shook his head.
“I neither will nor can,” he said emphatically.