Then with set teeth and straining eyes he sat lost in thought.
Here indeed was a strange chance! This boy whom he had met at Perth, and enrolled in his company, was a friend of Ashburn's--the lover of Cynthia.

Who might this Cynthia be?
Long and deep were his ponderings upon the unfathomable ways of Fate--for Fate he now believed was here at work to help him, revealing herself by means of this sign even at the very moment when he decried his luck.

In memory he reviewed his meeting with the lad in the yard of Perth Castle a fortnight ago.

Something in the boy's bearing, in his air, had caught Crispin's eye.

He had looked him over, then approached, and bluntly asked his name and on what business he was come there.