Green laughed bitterly. "I am forced," he said, "to bear much that I would not countenance. But look here--she goes on to say that it is the daughter of the Duke. 'Young, and beautiful, and gentle,' she says--that matches well, does it not, Wilton, ha?--I who has been torn from her father, the Duke of Gaveston, in this daring and shameful manner, and brought hither by water with the intention, as I believe, of sending her over to France in the ship that we have hired. I have seen her twice, and spoken with her for some time, and I beseech you, if it be possible, find means of setting her free.'--Ay, but how may that be?" continued Green. "If they have got her, and risk their necks to have her, they will take care to keep her sure. They have men enough for that purpose, and they have taken care to render me nearly powerless." "I should have thought," replied Wilton, whose joy at the discovery of where Laura really was had instantly blown up the flame of hope so brightly, that objects distant and difficult to be reached seemed by that light to be close at hand--"I should have thought, from what I have seen and what I suspect, that you could have commanded a sufficient force at any moment to set all opposition at defiance, especially when you were engaged in a lawful and generous cause." "I should have thought so, too," replied Green, "two days ago. But times have changed, Wilton, times have changed, and, like the wind of a tropical climate, turned round in a single moment. On my soul," he continued, vehemently, "one would think that men were absolutely insane. Here a set of people, whose lives are all in my own hand, dare to tamper with my friends and comrades, to bribe them, to hire them away from me, ay, and to do it so openly that I cannot fail to see it, and that too, at the very moment when they know that I hate and abhor their proceedings, and when they have just reason to suppose that I will take means to frustrate their base and cowardly designs, and only waver between the propriety of doing so, and the wish not to give them over to the death they well deserve." "If they have so acted," replied Wilton--"if they have shown such base ingratitude towards you, as well as designs dangerous to the country--for I will not affect to doubt or misunderstand you--why not boldly, and at once, give them up to justice? Understand me, I wish to hear nothing more of these men. I wish to be perfectly ignorant of their whole proceedings. I wish to have no information whatsoever, except my own suspicions, for if I had, I should feel myself bound immediately to cause their arrest. But from what you have said in regard to Sir John Fenwick; from what the Duke has said on various occasions; and from what I myself have remarked, I am strongly inclined to believe that there are matters going on which can but end in ruin to those engaged in them, if not in all the horrors of a civil war."