"Where did he come from?" continued the baron, drifting innocently farther and farther away from the purpose of the interview. "Am I to trust thee with his secret then?" asked the lover. "Of course, let me know all. I shall protect him, come what will." "Then he is Sir Ronald Bury's brother." "He is a better man than his brother, then," exclaimed Sir George, when he had overcome his astonishment. "Did Sir Everard fetch him from Nottingham?" "Nay, from Dale Abbey." "Ha!" ejaculated the baron, "say you so? The abbey is dismantled, and methought I knew every Catholic in the shire." "Then, Sir George, you forgot the hermitage," was the prompt reply. Sir George had just caught sight of his good lady through the open lattice window, and as he saw her wending her way quickly along the path it painfully recalled him to a sense of his position. "I sent for thee," he said suddenly, changing the conversation and knitting his brow, "because I wished to see thee on a matter of much importance." "I am honoured by your confidence," promptly returned the esquire, making a gallant effort to escape the subject, "but pray on no account tell either Everard or Nicholas that it was I who gave the information. I was charged to tell no man, by my honour." Unluckily, Lady Vernon passed the door just as he was speaking, and the sound of her footsteps kept the subject too well in the baron's mind for him to wander from it again. "About Dorothy," he explained, ignoring the last remark. Manners was nonplussed; he attempted no rejoinder, and the baron paced the room again in great perturbation. At length he stopped. "'Tis an awkward piece of business," he said, "and I had much rather it had not fallen so; but I suppose it must be done." Still Manners vouchsafed no reply, and his silence added to the baron's discomfiture. For a long time neither of them spoke. The baron wiped the perspiration from his brow and tried to frame together the words which proved so troublesome to utter, while Manners sat, ill at ease, waiting to hear the worst. "Most young men fall in love," exclaimed the knight at length. He jerked the words out rather than spoke them, but they were at least uttered, and feeling that he had broken the ice he heaved a sigh of relief. "I did so myself," he innocently rambled on, "more than once." He had almost said "and once too many," but he paused with the words upon his lips, and the recollection that Lady Maude might not be far away decided him to leave the remark unexpressed. "I have done so, too, once and for ever," exclaimed Manners, mustering up courage enough to break into the subject at a stroke. He felt that it must all come out now, and the sooner it was over the better pleased would he be; therefore he plunged headlong into it, hoping, perchance, to fire the baron with a little of the same enthusiasm with which he was himself possessed.