"No, he must stay," returned the knight, banishing the wrinkles that had contracted his brow; "of course he must stay."
He was clearly off his guard now, and Manners breathed easier again; for, thanks to the efforts of Dorothy and Crowleigh, as well as to his own perceptions, he was by no means ignorant of the conspiracy of which he was the victim, and he wished to procrastinate the inevitable interview until a more favourable time presented itself for the purpose.
"Where did he come from?" continued the baron, drifting innocently farther and farther away from the purpose of the interview.
"Am I to trust thee with his secret then?" asked the lover.
"Of course, let me know all. I shall protect him, come what will."
"Then he is Sir Ronald Bury's brother."
"He is a better man than his brother, then," exclaimed Sir George, when he had overcome his astonishment. "Did Sir Everard fetch him from Nottingham?"
"Nay, from Dale Abbey."
"Ha!" ejaculated the baron, "say you so? The abbey is dismantled, and methought I knew every Catholic in the shire."
"Then, Sir George, you forgot the hermitage," was the prompt reply.