“I am getting an old man, Mr. Mallock,” he said, suddenly turning on me; “and I would that affairs were better settled than they are.  They are better than they were—­I do not dispute that—­but these endless little matters distress me.  Why cannot folk be at peace and charitable one with another?”

I said nothing; but I knew of what he was thinking.  It was the old business of religion which so much entered into everything and distorted men’s judgments:  for he had just been speaking of His Grace of Monmouth.

“Why cannot men serve God according to their own conscience?” he said, “and leave others to do the same.”

“Sir,” I said, “there is but one Church of God where men are at unity with one another.”

He paid no attention to that; and his face suddenly contracted strangely.

“Did you hear any gossip—­I mean about myself—­after the death of the Jesuit Fathers?”

I told him No; for I had heard nothing of it at that time.

He came and sat down, motioning me too to a seat; for I had stood up when he did.

“Well,” he said, “it is certainly strange enough, and I should not have believed it, if it had not happened to myself.”

Again he stopped with an odd look.

“Well,” he said, “here is the tale; and I will swear to it.  You know how unwilling I was to sign the death-warrants.”

“Yes, Sir; all the world knows that.”

“And all the world knows that I did it,” he said with a vehement kind of bitterness.  “Yes; I did it, for there was no way out of it that I could see.  It was they or the Crown must go.  But I never intended it; and I swore I would not.”

“Yes, Sir,” I said quietly, “you said so to me.”

“Did I?  Well, I said so to many.  I even swore that my right hand might rot off if I did it.”

His heavy face was all working.  I had seldom seen him so much moved.

“Yes,” he said, “that was what I swore.  Well, Mr. Mallock, did you ever hear what followed?”

“No, Sir,” I said again.

“It was within that week, that when I awakened one morning I felt my right hand to be all stiff.  I thought nothing of it at the first; I believed I must have strained it at tennis.  Well; that day I said nothing to anyone; but I rubbed some ointment on my hand that night.”

He stopped again, lifted his right hand a little and looked at it, as if meditating on it.  It was a square strong man’s hand, but very well shaped and very brown; it had a couple of great rings on the fingers.

“Well,” he said, “the next morning a sore had broken out on it; and I sent for a physician.  He told me it was nothing but a little humour in the blood, and he bade me take care of my diet.  I said nothing to anyone else, and bade him not speak of it; and that night I put on some more ointment; and the next morning another sore was broken out, between the finger and the thumb, so that I could not hold a pen without pain; and it was then, for the first time, that I remembered what I had sworn.”