He took up a pen that lay beside him, and put the quill between his teeth.
“Your Royal Highness knows why I have come,” continued she, her eyes falling from his own and fixing themselves on the pen in his mouth. He removed it with his fat hand, and tossed it aside.
“There is absolute proof against Flemington,” said he. “He accuses himself. I presume you know that.”
“I do. This man—Captain Logie—has some strange attraction for him that I cannot understand, and did him some kindness that seems to have turned his head. His regard for him was a purely personal one. It was personal friendship that led him to—to the madness he has wrought. His hands are clean of conspiracy. I have come all this way to assure your Highness of that.”
“It is possible,” said Cumberland. “The result is the same. We have lost the man whose existence above ground is a danger to the kingdom.”
“I have come to ask you to take that difference of motive into consideration,” she went on. “Were the faintest shadow of conspiracy proved, I should not dare to approach you; my request should not pass my lips. I have been in correspondence with him during the whole of the campaign, and I know that he served the king loyally. I beg your Highness to remember that now. I speak of his motive because I know it.”
“You are fortunate, then,” he interrupted.
“Captain Callandar, to whom he gave himself up, wrote me two letters at his request, one in which he announced his arrest, and one which I received as I entered my coach to leave my door. Archie knows what is before him,” she added; “he has no hope of life and no knowledge of my action in coming to your Highness. But he wished me to know the truth—that he had conspired with no one. He is ready to suffer for what he has done, but he will not have me ashamed of him. Look, Sir——”
She pushed the letter over to him.
“His motives may go hang, madam,” said Cumberland.