"Ay, without conjuring up new troubles of thine own imagining." "'Tis easy said, but hath little meaning. Is the murder of yonder priest of my own imagining?" "No." "Is Neville's knife falling from his garments my own imagining?" "No." "Then where comes in the point of thy words?" "I mean that thou hast walked as fast to meet this trouble as thou shouldst have walked away from it. Was any with thee when thou didst find the knife?" "No, 'twas between the going of Huntoon and the coming of the others." "And didst show it to Neale or Cornwaleys?" "No--I was half stunned and walked on in silence; but when Neville came to meet me I was maddened by his impudent boldness, and I charged him with the crime then and there." "Were you two alone?" "Ay, but for Ralph Ingle and Elinor." "But for them! As well tell a secret to two hundred as to two. No flies get through a shut door; but once open, it may as well be kept so, and let them in and out at will. Therefore, as I said at the beginning, thou art a fool." "Thinkst thou I would defeat justice, and make myself sharer in such a guilty secret as that?" "I think thou art first of all Governor of this province, wherein the chief danger lies in the hatred that Catholic and Protestant have for each other. Now, once 'tis known,--nay, suspected, since for my single self I believe it not, though I own the proof is strong,--but once, as I say, let it be suspected that a Protestant hath murdered a Catholic, and then all the dogs of war are loosed at once. How can it be that thou who hadst the wit to deal with Ingle shouldst so have lost thy head here?" Brent was irritated by the explicitness of his sister's explanation, as a deaf person is irritated by a tone a shade louder than necessary. Really, he could take in her meaning without having it lined out to him as if he were a schoolboy. "Margaret, I have heard thee through because thou art my sister, and because thou hast in times past been a faithful counsellor; but in this I will be my own master, and I am in no humor to submit to orders from thee. Therefore say no more." "So be it, then, Brother! Thy folly be on thine own head; but bear in mind that folly ofttimes claims a more usurious interest than sin. I go back to Kent Fort at daylight, and shall do my best to quell the rising discontent; but I know not what will follow the news of the arrest of a Protestant, especially of such a Protestant,--a man like Christopher Neville, loved and trusted of all men."