"Well,--I know not if my grandmother told you that I was intimate with some of these poor gentlemen that have paid the penalty of their treason of late?" "I know that you knew Percy and Winter--and, I dare say, Rookwood." "I knew them all, and Catesby too. And though I was not privy to the plot--not quite so bad as that!--yet I would have followed Mr Tom Winter almost anywhere,--ay, even into worse than I did." "Surely, Aubrey Louvaine, you never dreamed of perversion!" "Mr Marshall, I was ready to do anything Tom Winter bade me; but he never meddled with my religion. And--come, I may as well make a clean breast, as I have begun--I loved Dorothy Rookwood, and if she had held up a finger, I should have gone after. You think the Rookwoods Protestants, don't you? They are not." Mr Marshall sat in dismayed silence, for a moment. "I doubted them somewhat," he said: "but I never knew so much as you have told me. Then Mrs Dorothy--" "Oh, she would have none of me. She told me I was a beggar and a fool both, and she spake but the bitter truth. Yet it was bitter when she said it." "My poor boy!" said Mr Marshall, compassionately. "I thought Hans but a fool when he went and bound himself to yon mercer--he, the son of a Dutch Baron! But I see now--I was the fool, not he. Had I spent my days in selling silk stockings instead of wearing them, and taken my wages home to my mother like a good little boy, it had been better for me. I see, now,--now that the doors are all shut against me, and I dare not go home." "Yet tell me, Aubrey, for I scarce understand it--why dare you not go home?" As Aubrey laid the matter before him from the point of view presented by Lady Oxford, Mr Marshall's face grew graver every moment. He began to see that the circumstances were much more serious than he had apprehended. There was silence for a few minutes when Aubrey finished his account. Then the clergyman said-- "'Tis a tangle, and a tight one, my boy. Yet, by God's blessing, we may see our way out. Let us take one point at a time. These debts of yours--will you tell me, are they `debts of honour,' falsely so-called?" "Only twenty pounds. The rest is due partly to Patrick the tailor and others for goods, and partly to Tom Rookwood for money I borrowed of him." "How much to Tom Rookwood?" "Twenty pounds." "I will see what I can do with him," said Mr Marshall, thoughtfully. "If these Rookwoods are in no wise dragged into the plot, so that they have no land escheated, nor fines to pay, then I think he can afford to wait for his money--better, very like, than the tradesfolk. But, Aubrey, you must get another place. Bear with me if I ask you,--Could you bring your pride down to serve in a shop?" The young shapely head went up suddenly, as if in proud protest against this most unacceptable proposal. Then it dropped again, and the cane toyed with the plantain.