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In the midst of this secret conflict, there came a letter from old Adam Lyndsay, asking to see his daughter's child; for life was waning slowly, and he desired to forgive, as he hoped to be forgiven when the last hour came. The letter was to me, and, as I read it, I saw a way where-by I might be spared the hard task of telling Effie she was to be free.

Constantine had no sooner seated himself and surveyed the lady, than he was lost in admiration, inly affirming that he had never seen so beautiful a creature, and that for such a prize the Duke, or any other man, might well be pardoned treachery or any other crime: he scanned her again and again, and ever with more and more admiration; where-by it fared with him even as it had fared with the Duke.

After this promising introduction Ellesmere goes on to propound views which in an extraordinary way combine real good sense and sharp worldly wisdom with a parade of all sorts of mean shifts and contemptible tricks where-by to take advantage of the weakness, folly, and wickedness of human nature.

He sent for some prisoners he had made in the country, and said to them, "right courteously," according to Froissart, "'Is there here any man who knows of a passage below Abbeville, where-by we and our army might cross the river without peril? And a varlet from a neighboring mill, whose name history has preserved as that of a traitor, Gobin Agace, said to the king, 'Sir, I do promise you, at the risk of my head, that I will guide you to such a spot, where you shall cross the River Somme without peril, you and your army. 'Comrade, said the king to him, 'if I find true that which thou tellest us, I will set thee free from thy prison, thee and all thy fellows for love of thee, and I will cause to be given to thee a hundred golden nobles and a good stallion." The varlet had told the truth; the ford was found at the spot called Blanche-Tache, whither Philip had sent Godemar du Fay with a few thousand men to guard it.

It led to the perfecting of barrage-fire where-by casualties were reduced in our infantry to an astonishing degree. It gave confidence to our troops by enabling them to get to hand-grips with the German, and discover that he was individually no fighter. It weakened the morale of the German army enormously, and convinced the German soldier that his cause was lost.