Still, even heretics had a right to a fair trial; at least he, who although a soldier by profession, was a man who honestly detested unnecessary bloodshed, held that opinion.
Also long experience taught him great mistrust of the evidence of informers, who had a money interest in the conviction of the accused.
Lastly, it did not seem well to him that the name of a young and noble lady should be mixed up in such a business.

As they knew under the recent edicts, his powers in these cases were absolute; indeed, in his official capacity he was ordered at once to consign any suspected of Anabaptism or other forms of heresy to be dealt with by the appointed courts, and in the case of people who had escaped, to cause them, on satisfactory proof of their identity, to be executed instantly without further trial.

Under these circumstances, fearing that did the lady knew his purpose she might take fright, he had, he confessed, resorted to artifice, as he was very anxious both for her sake and in the interest of justice that she should bear testimony in the matter.

So he asked her to accompany him on a short drive while he attended to a business affair; a request to which she had graciously assented.
"Friends," he went on in a still more solemn voice, "the rest of my story is short.

Indeed I do congratulate myself on the decision that I took, for when confronted with the prisoner our young and honourable hostess was able upon oath to refute the story of the spy with the result that I in my turn was to save an unfortunate, and, as I believe, a half-crazed creature from an immediate and a cruel death.