"Hum! You make out so good a case for him that one might almost
believe you instructed by the gentleman himself. Yet I gather
that nothing has since been heard of him?"
"Nothing, sir, since he vanished from Tavora, nearly, two months ago.
And I have only repeated to your lordship the tale that was told by
the sergeant and the troopers who reported the matter to Sir Robert
Craufurd on their return."
He was very thoughtful. Leaning on the balustrade, he looked out
across the sunlit valley, turning his boldly chiselled profile to
his companion. At last he spoke slowly, reflectively: "But if this
were really so - a mere blunder - I see no sufficient grounds to
threaten him with capital punishment. His subsequent desertion, if
he has deserted - I mean if nothing has happened to him - is really
the graver matter of the two."
"I gathered, sir, that he was to be sacrificed to the Council of
Regency - a sort of scapegoat."
He swung round sharply, and the sudden blaze of his eyes almost
terrified her. Instantly he was cold again and inscrutable. "Ah!
You are oddly well informed throughout. But of course you would
be," he added, with an appraising look into that intelligent face
in which he now caught a faint likeness of Jack Armytage.
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