“Sir Christopher,” answered Winthrop, with some hesitation, “it were hardly orderly to communicate them to you now.  Before the Council, perhaps, should you hear them first.  And yet see I no reason why, in harmony with the merciful spirit of our law, they should not be disclosed.  We desire to overpower no man by surprise, or to deprive truth of a single aid.  You shall know.”

Here Winthrop entered into the particulars, which it is, we trust, unnecessary to set down, as the reader is supposed to be already informed of them.  He mentioned the contents of the letters from England, but did not exhibit them, concealing nothing except what appertained to the examination of the Lady Geraldine, all inquiries respecting which he either evaded or directly refused to answer.  Courteously, indeed, was it done; nor could Sir Christopher deny that the information was rightfully withheld.  It was only in accordance with the usual proceedings of courts of justice, when those who are considered accomplices are examined apart from one another, in order that they may not, by a knowledge of each other’s answers, be better able to frame their own.

To every accusation Sir Christopher opposed a steady denial.  “That falsely suspected as I am,” he said, “of other crimes and misdemeanors, I should also be deemed an usurper of a title that does not belong to me, surprises me not.  But grant me time to send home (as the English in the colonies affectionately call England to this day,) and I will prove my knighthood honorably won upon a stricken field, by irrefragable testimony.  I will not deny that I have the honor of an acquaintance with Sir Ferdinando Gorges, but I am in no sense his agent, nor in any wise hold communication with him, save as a friend.  For the note-book found at my lodgings, and deemed conclusive proof that I am a Catholic, I aver that the memorandum therein contained refers not to myself but to one whom it concerns not you that I should name; and it furnishes no evidence against me, except what arises out of the fact that I acknowledge one who is of Rome to be my friend.”

“Whatever my private thoughts,” said Winthrop, “it were useless to express them, seeing that thy fate hangs not entirely upon me.  With no unnecessary severity,” he continued, in a kinder tone than he had hitherto adopted during the conversation, “will I treat one, whom, before these unhappy suspicions were raised, I was beginning to love as a brother; and, if thou wilt pledge me thine honor neither to attempt escape, nor by word or deed to practise aught against the Commonwealth, thou shalt have liberty of the precincts of the settlement until the Council shall take further orders.”

“I accept thine offer,” answered Sir Christopher, “and plight thee my knightly troth to observe the conditions.  And in this, my adversity, it is a consolation to know that the noblest spirit who is to sit in judgment on me, believes me not wholly lost to the duties and sensibilities of a gentleman.”