that may mean recovery to him?"

"Father, dear," she murmured softly, "if I thought it was as
you say, I would leave you. But you know that you are but
attempting to conceal something from me something that I should
know, that I must know. Bethink you that it is of my lover
that you have spoken."

By a stupendous effort Gregory shaped a story that to him
seemed likely.

"Well, then, since know you must," he answered, "this is what
befell: we had all drunk over-deep to our shame do I confess it
- and growing tenderhearted for you, and bethinking me of your
professed distaste to Kenneth's suit, I told him that for all
the results that were likely to attend his sojourn at Castle
Marleigh, he might as well bear Crispin company in his
departure. He flared up at that, and demanded of me that I
should read him my riddle. Faith, I did by telling him that we
were like to have snow on midsummer's day ere he 'became your
husband. That speech of mine so angered him, being as he was
all addled with wine and ripe for any madness, that he sprang
up and drew on me there and then. The others sought to get
between us, but he was over-quick, and before I could do more
than rise from the table his sword was through my shoulder and
into the wainscot at my back. After that it was clear he could
not remain here, and I demanded that he should leave upon the
instant. Himself he was nothing loath, for he realized his
folly, and he misliked the gleam of Joseph's eye - which can be
wondrous wicked upon occasion. Indeed, but for my intercession