Again the other Duke delayed his answer: but when he spoke his voice was both kind and earnest. "Frankly, I am," he said. "If you know so much, Duke, you know that it would have an ill-appearance." "How?" said my lord. "Let me tell you that all Sir John knows or can know, the King knows--and has known for some time." This time there was no doubt that the Lord Steward was startled. "You cannot mean it, Duke," he said, in a constrained voice, and with a gesture of reproach. "You cannot mean that it was with his Majesty's knowledge you had a meeting with Sir John, he being outlawed at the time and under ban? That were to make His Majesty at best an abettor of treason; and at worst a viler thing! For to incite to treason and then to persecute the traitor--but it is impossible!" "I have not the least notion what your Grace means," my lord said, in a freezing tone. "What is this folly about a meeting with Sir John?" The Duke of Devonshire was as proud as my patron; and nothing in the great mansion which he was then building in the wilds of the Derbyshire Peak was likely to cause the gaping peasants more astonishment than he felt at this setback. "I don't understand your Grace," he said, at last, in a tone of marked offence. "Nor I you," my lord answered, thoroughly roused. "I am afraid--I have said too much," said the other, stiffly. "Or too little," my lord retorted. "You must go on now." "Must? Must?" quoth the Duke, whose high spirit had ten years before led him to strike a blow that came near to costing him his estate. "Ay, must--in justice," said my lord. "In justice to me as well as to others." After a brief pause, "That is another thing," answered the Lord Steward civilly. "But--is it possible, Duke, that you know so much, and do not know that Sir John asserts that you met him at Ashford two days only before his capture, and entrusted him with a ring and a message--both for St. Germain's?" "At Ashford?" "Yes." "This is sheer madness," my lord cried, holding his hand to his head. "Are you mad, Devonshire, or am I?" Whether the Duke, having heard Sir John's story and marked his manner of telling it, had prejudged the cause, or thought that my lord over-acted surprise, he did not immediately answer; and when he did speak, his tone was dry, though courteous. "Well, of course--it may be Sir John who is mad," he said. "D----n Sir John," my lord answered, sitting up in the coach and fairly facing his companion. "You do not mean to tell me that you believe this story of a cock and a bull, and a--a----" "A ring," said the Duke of Devonshire, quietly. "Well?" "Well, Duke, it is this way," the Lord Steward replied. "Sir John has something to say about three others. Lord Marlborough, Ned Russell, and Godolphin. And what he says about them I know in the main to be true. Therefore----"