of which we were in search, in your private cabinet--letters that
prove, beyond all doubt, that you are concerned in a plot similar
to that discovered three years ago, to assassinate his majesty the
king.'

"Sir Marmaduke sprang to his feet.

"'You have found letters of that kind in my cabinet?' he said, in a
dazed sort of way.

"The magistrate bowed, but did not speak.

"'Then, sir,' Sir Marmaduke exclaimed, 'you have found letters that
I have never seen. You have found letters that must have been
placed there by some scoundrel, who plotted my ruin. I assert to
you, on the honour of a gentleman, that no such letters have ever
met my eye, and that, if such a proposition had been made to me, I
care not by whom, I would have struck to the ground the man who
offered me such an insult.'

"'We are sorry, Sir Marmaduke Carstairs,' Mr. Peters said, 'most
sorry, both of us, that it should have fallen to our duty to take
so painful a proceeding against a neighbour; but, you see, the
matter is beyond us. We have received a sworn information that you
are engaged in such a plot. We are told that you are in the habit
of locking up papers of importance in a certain cabinet, and there
we find papers of a most damnatory kind. We most sincerely trust
that you may be able to prove your innocence in the matter, but we
have nothing to do but to take you with us, as a prisoner, to
Lancaster.'