Kelly's finger stopped on one particular book, travelled away and came back to it. Wogan saw that the book was a Bible. The Parson took it from the shelf and turning over the leaves read a line here and there. Wogan knew very well what was passing through his mind. His thoughts had gone back to the little country parsonage and the quiet life with no weightier matter to disturb it than the trifling squabbles of his parish. 'You warned me, Nick,' he said, 'you warned me. But I was a fool and would not heed. Read that!' and with a bitter sort of laugh he handed the open Bible to Mr. Wogan, pointing to a verse. 'There's a text for the preacher.' The Bible was open at the Book of Proverbs, and Mr. Wogan read. 'The lips of a strange woman drop as a honey-comb and her mouth is smoother than oil. But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death. Her steps take hold on hell.' Mr. Wogan read the text aloud. 'The strange woman, Nick,' said Kelly, 'the strange woman,' and then in a fierce outburst, 'If I live the man who wrote that ballad shall rue it.' 'They give it to Lady Mary.' 'She never wrote it. Nick, who wrote the ballad? How did you get hold of it?' 'I found the Crow, quite tipsy, singing it to Tyrell, at Burton's, in the little room upstairs.' 'And where did the Crow get the ballad?' 'That is another uncomfortable circumstance. You know Talbot?' 'An honest man, and a good officer, at Preston or in Spain, but a sponge for drink. A pity he was ever let into the plot!' 'Well, he got the ballad from someone with whom he had been drinking at the Little Fox under the Hill, not a fashionable resort.' 'Did he name his friend?' 'He was drunk enough to begin by calling him Mr. Pope.' 'Mr. Pope, the poet?' 'He took that back; and said the poetry put Mr. Pope into his head. The man's real name, he remembered, was Scrotton. I can't guess who he was, friend or spy, but we may take it that he knows what the Crow knows.' 'Thank God for that!' cried Kelly. 'You rejoice on very singular occasions, and are grateful for very small mercies,' said Mr. Wogan, who found it his turn to be surprised. 'What are you so thankful for?' 'Thankful that a woman need not have done this thing, and that my folly may not be the cause of this disaster. Another knew everything--Pope--Scrotton--the ballad! Who wrote the ballad? Who of our enemies knew a word about Rose? Are you blind? Who was at Avignon, spying on me, when I first met Rose? Who hates Lady Oxford no less than he hates me? Whose name was the unhappy tippler trying to remember? Scrotton? Pope?' 'Scrope!' cried Wogan, cursing his own stupidity. 'Scrope it must have been, and the Crow swore that the man told him about the plot, and often talked it over.' 'That means, of course, that Scrope made him talk. The old curse of the Cause, that lost us Edinburgh Castle in the Fifteen, when the Scots stopped at the tavern to powder their hair. Our curse, Nicholas. Wine!'