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Updated: June 1, 2025
Again I write in the hope that I may prevail upon you to quit Scotland and your attachment to a king, whose fortunes prosper not, nor can prosper. Cynthia is pining, and if you tarry longer from Castle Marleigh she must perforce think you but a laggard lover.
Forced by the honesty of her pure soul to abandon the house of a father she knew at last for what he was, the refuge Crispin now offered her was very welcome. She had determined before he came to quit Castle Marleigh, and timely indeed was his offer of the means of escape from a life that was grown impossible. A great pity filled his heart.
The knight was leaning forward now, his eyes strained, his forehead beaded with perspiration, and his breathing heavy. "Read on," he begged hoarsely. His son, Jocelyn Marleigh, is the bearer of this letter, the man whom he has injured and who detests him, the youth with whom he has, by a curious chance, been in much close association, and whom he has known as Kenneth Stewart.
He was the heir of Castle Marleigh, and the usurpers sought to provide against the day when another revolution might oust them and restore the rightful owners.
He married your sister, did he not, and it was thus that, having no issue and the family being extinct, Castle Marleigh passed to you?" "He married our cousin," Gregory amended. "They were an ill-fated family." "Ill-fated, indeed, an all accounts be true," returned Crispin in a maudlin voice. "Poor Roland! Well, for old time's sake, I'll sleep in the King's chamber, Master Ashburn."
Then recalling Ashburn's high favour with the Parliament, and seeing that it could but advance his cause to state the true sum of his journey: "From Castle Marleigh," he replied. "Verily, sir, you seem yet in some doubt. Whither do you go?" "To London." "On what errand?" The sergeant's questions fell swift as sword-strokes. "With letters for Colonel Pride."
He braced himself for fresh resistance; not of action, for that he realized was futile, but of argument. "It is murder that you do," he cried. "No; it is justice. It has been long on the way, but it has come at last." "Bethink you, Mr. Marleigh " "Call me not by that name," cried the other harshly, fearfully.
And so the days sped on, and a week wore itself out in peace at Castle Marleigh, none dreaming of the volcano on which they stood. He needed it now more than ever, for he feared that the consideration of Cynthia might yet unman him.
Realizing at last the futility of his endeavours, he sighed and moved uneasily in his chair, whilst the broad, tanned face was clouded with regret. Crispin saw this, and approaching him, he laid a hand upon his shoulder. "I had counted upon your help to clear the Ashburns from Castle Marleigh and to aid me in my grim work when the time is ripe. But if you go " "Faith, I may aid you yet.
But as the stars pale and fade when the sun mounts the sky, so too were the lesser wrongs that marked his earthly pilgrimage of sin rendered pale or blotted into insignificance by the greater wrong he had done Ronald Marleigh a wrong which was not ended yet, but whose completion Joseph was even then working to effect.
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