"Nevertheless, to this bargain you must be a party," the other answered violently. "Nay, my lord, I can make you a party, I have only to tell you a thing I know; and whether you will or no, for your own safety you must do what I ask." "For my own safety, Mr. Ferguson, I am not in the habit of doing anything I would not do for other reasons," the Duke answered coldly. "For the rest, if you have anything to tell me that concerns the King's service----" "Which King's?" the plotter cried, with a sneer. "I acknowledge one only--then, I say, I will hear it. But I will neither do nor promise anything in return." "You talk finely," Ferguson cried, "yet you cannot deny that before this I have told things that were worth knowing." "That were worth men's lives!" my lord answered, speaking in a low stern voice, and looking at him with a strange abhorrence. "Yes, Mr. Ferguson, I acknowledge that. That were worth men's lives. And it reminds me that you are growing old, and have blood on your hands; you only and God know how much. But some I know; the proof of it lies in my office. If you will take my advice, therefore, you will think rather of quitting the world and making your peace with heaven--if by any means it can be done--than of digging pits for better men than yourself. Man," he continued, looking fixedly at him, "do you never think of Ayloffe and Sidney? And Russell? And Monmouth? And Cornish? Of the men you have egged on to death, and the men you have--sold! God forgive you! God forgive you, for man never will!" I should fail, and lamentably, were I to try to describe either the stern feeling with which my lord uttered this solemn address--the more solemn as it came from a young man to an old one--or the horrid passion born of rage, fear, and remorse commingled, with which the intriguer received it. When my lord had ceased to speak, Ferguson broke into the most fearful imprecations; calling down vengeance not only on others for wrongs done to him, but on his own head if he had ever done aught but what was right; and this rant he so sprinkled with texts of scripture and scraps of the old Covenanters' language that for profanity and blasphemy I never heard the like. The Duke, after watching the exhibition for a time with eyes of pity and reprobation, ended by setting on his hat and turning to the door. This sufficed--as nothing else would have--to bring the conspirator to his senses. With a hideous chuckle, which brought his tirade to a fitting conclusion, "Not so fast, my lord! Not so fast," he cried, slapping his pocket. "The key is here. I have something to say before you go." "In God's name say it then!" the Duke cried, his face sick with disgust.