"By God!" he cried in that deep booming voice of his, "there spoke a traitor! You do not care, you say, what plots may be hatched against His Majesty's life and crown! Yet you ask me to believe you a true and loyal subject." Blake was angered; he was at best a short-tempered man.

Deliberately he floundered further into the mire.
"I have not asked Your Grace to believe me anything," he answered hotly.
"It is all one to me what Your Grace believes me.

I take it I have not been fetched hither to be confronted with what Your Grace believes.

You have preferred a lying charge against me; I ask for proofs, not Your Grace's beliefs and opinions." "By God, sir, you are a daring rogue!" cried Albemarle.
Sir Rowland's eyes blazed.

"Anon, Your Grace, when, having failed of your proofs, you shall be constrained to restore me to liberty, I shall ask Your Grace to unsay that word." Albemarle stared, confounded, and in that moment the door opened, and Trenchard sauntered in, cane in hand, his hat under his arm, a wicked smile on his wizened face.
Leaving Blake's veiled threat unanswered, the Duke turned to the old rake.