"Thus," thought Sir William, "I shall have all the grace of appearing perfectly communicative, while my party will derive very little advantage from anything I may tell him." He therefore took Ravenswood aside into the deep recess of a window in the hall, and resuming the discourse of the proceeding evening, expressed a hope that his young friend would assume some patience, in order to hear him enter in a minute and explanatory detail of those unfortunate circumstances in which his late honourable father had stood at variance with the Lord Keeper.

The Master of Ravenswood coloured highly, but was silent; and the Lord Keeper, though not greatly approving the sudden heightening of his auditor's complexion, commenced the history of a bond for twenty thousand merks, advanced by his father to the father of Allan Lord Ravenswood, and was proceeding to detail the executorial proceedings by which this large sum had been rendered a debitum fundi, when he was interrupted by the Master.
"It is not in this place," he said, "that I can hear Sir William Ashton's explanation of the matters in question between us.

It is not here, where my father died of a broken heart, that I can with decency or temper investigate the cause of his distress.

I might remember that I was a son, and forget the duties of a host.

A time, however, there must come, when these things shall be discussed, in a place and in a presence where both of us will have equal freedom to speak and to hear." "Any time," the Lord Keeper said, "any place, was alike to those who sought nothing but justice.