he sighed, and in an altered tone, "No, no," said he. "I have
grievously wronged him! have wrecked his life - or at least he
thinks so now. I can hardly blame him for seeking to be quits
with me."

"The lad," returned Hogan, "must be himself a dupe. He can
have had no suspicion of the message he carried. Let me read
it to you; it will make all clear."

Hogan drew a taper nearer, and spreading the paper upon the
table, he smoothed it out, and read:

HONOURED SIR,

The bearer of the present should, if he rides well, outstrip
another messenger I have dispatched to you upon a fool's
errand, with a letter addressed to one Mr. Lane at the sign of
the Anchor. The bearer of that is none other than the
notorious malignant, Sir Crispin Galliard, by whose hand your
son was slain under your very eyes at Worcester, whose capture
I know that you warmly desire and with whom I doubt not you
will know how to deal. To us he has been a source of no little
molestation; his liberty, in fact, is a perpetual menace to our
lives. For some eighteen years this Galliard has believed dead
a son that my cousin bore him. News of this son, whom I have
just informed him lives - as indeed he does - is the bait
wherewith I have lured him to your address. Forewarned by the
present, I make no doubt you will prepare to receive him
fittingly. But ere that justice he escaped at Worcester be
meted out to him at Tyburn or on Tower Hill, I would have you