The expert looked at both the men curiously, then threw down the paper contemptuously. "It is a palpable forgery," he said; "and not even a clever imitation of the King’s hand." And indeed, from some accident or other, the letters were, some of them, formed in a manner unusual to the King. Inglesant, weakened with illness and anxiety, could not restrain a movement of intense relief. He drew a long breath and stood erect, as if relieved from an oppressive weight. He raised his eyes, and they caught those of Lord Biron, which had been attracted towards him, and were fixed full on his face. Biron started again; there was not the least doubt that Inglesant rejoiced in the proof of the forgery of the warrant. That terrible doubt stood close now before his lordship and grasped him by the throat. Suppose, after all, this man whom he had imprisoned and despised, whose mission he had thwarted—this man whom all the royal party were calling by every contemptuous name, who stood there pale, cowed, beaten down;—suppose, after all, that this man, alone against these terrible odds, was all the time fighting a desperate battle for the King’s honour, forsaken by God and men! But the consequences which would follow, if this view of the matter were the true one, were, in Lord Biron’s estimation, too terrible to be thought of. "I wish to say," said Inglesant, looking straight before him, "that the Lord Biron obtained possession of that paper when he was in possession of information of which I was ignorant. His lordship would probably have behaved differently, but he thought he was speaking to a thief." There was something in this covert reproach, so worded, which so exactly accorded with what was passing in Lord Biron’s mind that it cut him to the quick. "I assure you, Mr. Inglesant," he said eagerly, "you are mistaken. Whatever I may think of the cause in which you are engaged, I have always wished to behave to you as to a gentleman. If you consider that you have cause of complaint against me, I shall be ready, when these unhappy complications are well over, as I trust they may be, to give you satisfaction and to beg your pardon afterwards." He said these last words so pointedly that Inglesant started, and saw at once that his fear had been well founded, and that, thrown off his guard by the success of the examination of the warrant, he had made a mistake. He looked up quickly at Biron—a strange terror in his face—and their eyes met. That they understood each other is probable; at any rate Inglesant’s look was so full of warning that Biron understood that if nothing more, and restrained himself at once. All this had passed almost unnoticed by the Committee, who were consulting together.