Then he smiled bitterly to himself. What manner of man was he to train a youth to loftiness and honour?--he, a debauched ruler with a nickname for which, had he any sense of shame, he would have blushed! Again he remembered the lad's disposition towards himself; but these, he thought, he hoped, he knew that he would now be able to overcome. He closed the window, and turned to face his companion. He was himself again, and calm, for all that his face was haggard beyond its wont. “Hogan, where is the boy?” “I have detained him in the inn. Will you see him now?” “At once, Hogan. I am convinced.” The Irishman crossed the chamber, and opening the door he called an order to the trooper waiting in the passage. Some minutes they waited, standing, with no word uttered between them. At last steps sounded in the corridor, and a moment later Kenneth was rudely thrust into the room. Hogan signed to the trooper, who closed the door and withdrew. As Kenneth entered, Crispin advanced a step and paused, his eyes devouring the lad and receiving in exchange a glance that was full of malevolence. “I might have known, sir, that you were not far away,” he exclaimed bitterly, forgetting for the moment how he had left Crispin behind him on the previous night. “I might have guessed that my detention was your work.” “Why so?” asked Crispin quietly, his eyes ever scanning the lad's face with a pathetic look. “Because it is your way, I know not why, to work my ruin in all things. Not satisfied with involving me in that business at Castle Marleigh, you must needs cross my path again when I am about to make amends, and so blight my last chance. My God, sir, am I never to be rid of you? What harm have I done you?” A spasm of pain, like a ripple over water, crossed the knight's swart face. “If you but consider, Kenneth,” he said, speaking very quietly, “you must see the injustice of your words. Since when has Crispin Galliard served the Parliament, that Roundhead troopers should do his bidding as you suggest? And touching that business at Sheringham you are over-hard with me. It was a compact you made, and but for which, you forget that you had been carrion these three weeks.” “Would to Heaven that I had been,” the boy burst out, “sooner than pay such a price for keeping my life!” “As for my presence here,” Crispin continued, leaving the outburst unheeded, “it has naught to do with your detention.” “You lie!”