No name was appended to the singular epistle nor signature of any kind. It needed none. Sir Richard Walwyn knew the writer to be Robert Kyrle, a lieutenant-colonel in the Royalist army, who at the beginning of the war had drawn sword for the Parliament. In days gone by they had fought side by side in a foreign land,--more recently in their own,--and Kyrle could well call Sir Richard an "old comrade-in-arms." Now they were in opposite camps; but if that letter could be relied upon as a truthful exponent of the writer's sentiments, they were likely soon to be in the same again. Already there had been a passage of notes between them, and the knight had now a full comprehension of what his anonymous correspondent meant, knew to whom the various initials referred--in short, understood everything purposed and proposed. "What's your opinion of it, Colonel Walwyn?" asked the Governor, after hearing the letter read, and receiving some necessary explanations. "Do you think we can trust him?" "I do, your Excellency; feel sure of it now. I know Kyrle better than most men, and something of his motives for going over to the other side. Nothing base or cowardly in them; instead, rather honourable thin otherwise. For, in truth, it was out of affection for his old father, whose property was threatened with wholesale confiscation. Walford, up the river, this side Ross, is their home. It is within cannon range of Goodrich Castle, right under, and Lingen would have been sure to make a ruin of it had Kyrle not gone over to the King. Now that the chances of war are with us again, and he thinks that danger past, his heart bounds back to what it once warmly beat for. I know it did, as he has oft told me, in tent and by camp fire." "To what?" asked Massey, himself a veteran of the Low Country campaigns, and feeling interest in souvenirs of sentiment. "This?" answered the knight, pointing to the device inside the letter, still in his hand. "I believe he will be true to it now, as he promises; and if we get nothing more by it than his sword, it's one worth gaining, your Excellency. Than Kyrle I don't know braver or better soldier." "Well, Colonel, since you seem so disposed to this thing, and confident of success, I'm willing we should make the attempt. At the worst we can but fail, though, indeed, failure may cost us a good many of our best men. Best they must be to form the forlorn hope." "If your Excellency permit, I and my Foresters will form that. With my confidence in them, and faith in Kyrle, I have no fear of failure--if the details of our scheme be carried out as designed." "They shall be, Sir Richard, so far as I can effect it. You may rely upon me for that. Nay, I leave the ordering and arrangement of everything to yourself." "Thanks, your Excellency. But the sooner we set about it the better. Kyrle, as you see, counsels the withdrawal at once." "But what about the reasons for doing so? Without that, he tells us--"