"I know her; a little darling! and as good as she is beautiful." Then Medway, with an inimitable scornful mimicry told the story of the pebble and the note, the alarm of the Highland troops, the arrest of the Elder and his son, the subsequent proceedings in court, the sympathy of the people with the Semples, and the contempt which no one tried to conceal for the informer. Then, changing his voice and attitude, he described Bradley's speechless grief, the Semple's wounded loyalty and indignation, and finally the passionate sorrow of the mistress and sister of the doomed man. "It is the most pitiful story of the age," he continued, "and if I were you, Henry, I would not permit civilians to usurp the power you ought to hold in your own hand. You have to bear the blame of all the crimes committed by this infamous court. Pardon the prisoner with a stroke of your pen, if only to put these fellows in their proper place." "But there was a cipher message in his possession--here it is. It was in the binding of a book he carried in his pocket." "He says he did not put it there. No one can read it. If you found a letter in the Babylonish speech, would you hang a man because you could not read the message he carried!" "Special pleading, Ernest. And he ought to have told who rebound the book, and to whom he was carrying it. The paper on which the cipher is written is my paper. Some one, not far from me, must have taken it." "Suppose you question Smith?" "Do you intend to say that Smith is a traitor?" "I say, ask Smith. I have no doubt he can read the Babylonish for you--if he will." "You alarm me. Am I surrounded by enemies?" "I think you have many round you. I have warned you often. My advice to you at this time is to pardon young Bradley." "Why are you taking such an interest in young Bradley?" "I have no secrets from you, he is my rival." "Preposterous! How could he rival you in anything?" "Yet he is my rival in the affections of Maria Semple." "Then let him hang! He will be out of your way." "No, he would be forever in my way. She would idolize him, make him a hero and a saint, and worship him in some secret shrine of memory as long as she lives. I am going to marry her, and I want no secret shrines. He is a very good-looking, ordinary young man; only the circumstances of the time lifted him out of the average and the commonplace. Let him go scot free that he may find his level which is far below the horizon of my peerless Maria." "I don't think I can let him go 'scot free,' Ernest. I should offend many if I did, and it would be made a precedent; suppose I imprison him during the continuance of the war!" "That is too romantic. Maria would haunt the prison and contrive some way of communication. He would still be her hero and her lover." "And you will marry this infatuated girl?"