It is a fearsome burden to know your own brother--though I thank God he is no more than my half-brother--guilty of so foul a deed." "How ?" cried Killigrew, amazed.

"You say that?
You believed it yourself ?" Master Lionel looked confused, a look which Sir John entirely misunderstood and interpreted entirely in the young man's favour.

And it was thus and in that moment that was sown the generous seed of the friendship that was to spring up between these two men, its roots fertilized by Sir John's pity that one so gentle-natured, so honest, and so upright should be cursed with so villainous a brother.
"I see, I see," he said.

And he sighed.

"You know that we are daily expecting an order from the Queen to her Justices to take the action which hitherto they have refused against your...