"Therefore, although it is uncomfortable to think that there has
been a spy in the house, for some months, we have every reason to
hope that our councils have not been overheard. Were it otherwise,
I should lose no time in making for the coast, and taking ship to
France, to wait quietly there until the king comes over."

"You have no documents, father, that the man could have found?"

"None, Charlie. We have doubtless made lists of those who could be
relied upon, and of the number of men they could bring with them,
but these have always been burned before we separated. Such letters
as I have had from France, I have always destroyed as soon as I
have read them. Perilous stuff of that sort should never be left
about. No; they may ransack the place from top to bottom, and
nothing will be found that could not be read aloud, without harm,
in the marketplace of Lancaster.

"So now, to bed, Charlie. It is long past your usual hour."



Chapter 2: Denounced.


"Charlie," Sir Marmaduke said on the following morning, at
breakfast, "it is quite possible that that villain who acted as
spy, and that other villain who employed him--I need not mention
names--may swear an information against me, and I may be arrested,
on the charge of being concerned in a plot. I am not much afraid of