"What on earth do you mean?" Sir John exclaimed irritably. The truth that would save his soul rose to Vere's lips, but his coward spirit kept it from passing them. "I meant he is so young," he stammered. "I should have given the note to an older man. And then if he had not put that bandage on, I should have bled to death before the surgeon reached me." To Sir John, to be born a Haslem meant that a man could not lie. He had learned nothing from the old scandal buried in the graves of his reckless son, and the weak wicked woman he had married. Dr. Brown could have warned him that Vere needed the wisest training, and that drinking would surely rot the weak moral fibres he had inherited. Now at twenty he was, even when quite sober, a decaying soul. Ned roused from a stupor, as a man entered his cell. It was Sells, the blackguard of the "Lightfoot", whom his regiment had managed to get rid of, and who was now in the garrison at Kingston. He felt Sells taking the irons off his legs, and the memory of everything swept over him like a flame. He shuddered as if fire had touched his flesh, then walked out quietly. A man waiting put his hand on his shoulder, and led him out of doors into a still night, where a big moon showed they were in a stump-filled field outside the fort. They two were quite alone, and Ned felt some surprise. His escort's grip tightened upon his shoulder and he dug his fingers in convulsively. Ned said quietly--"Is it necessary to hold me so tightly, sir? I am not trying to run away." The sound of his prisoner's voice seemed to madden the man. With an oath he flung Ned from him with all his strength. Ned went down heavily among the limestone outcroppings, and picked himself up, bruised and shaken, to face in the moonlight--his father. Cursing him with the passion of a man utterly beside himself, Edgar broke out--"Why didn't you shoot yourself when you knew what you had done, instead of coming here to disgrace yourself, and your brothers and me? It's that infernal Methodism that's put the coward taint in your blood." Ned crimsoned at the attack on his faith, and answered as passionately as his father--"Why isn't my word as good as Vere Haslem's? I tell you I never saw the letter." He fell down again before his father's fist. There was blood on his lips where it had struck as he rose, and he did not try to speak again but stood with arms folded. He was indifferent if Edgar should kill him, which he seemed quite capable of doing. "Go," said Edgar thickly, "before I shoot you. Go to the Yankees, curse them! You're the worst thing I could wish them to have. I only bribed your guard to help you to escape so that your punishment shouldn't disgrace your brothers. But if I ever meet you on Canadian soil again, I'll shoot you on sight. Go, before I do it now."