"My God, Hogan," he cried. "How shall I tell him?"

In answer to the appeal, the Irishman turned to Kenneth.

"You have been in error, sir, touching your parentage," quoth
he bluntly. "Alan Stewart, of Bailienochy, was not your
father."

Kenneth looked from one to the other of them.

"Sirs, is this a jest?" he cried, reddening. Then, remarking
at length the solemnity of their countenances, he stopped
short. Crispin came close up to him, and placed a hand upon
his shoulder. The boy shrank visibly beneath the touch, and
again an expression of pain crossed the poor ruffler's face.

"Do you recall, Kenneth," he said slowly, almost sorrowfully,
"the story that I told you that night in Worcester, when we sat
waiting for dawn and the hangman?"

The lad nodded vacantly.

"Do you remember the details? Do you remember I told you how,
when I swooned beneath the stroke of Joseph Ashburn's sword,
the last words I heard were those in which he bade his brother
slit the throat of the babe in the cradle? You were, yourself,
present yesternight at Castle Marleigh when Joseph Ashburn told
me Gregory had been mercifully inclined; that my child had not
died; that if I gave him his life he would restore him to me.
You remember?"