For, mark me, I do not intend to waste more time on you.

Answer me only this: When Master Pitt, as you pretend, came to summon you, did you know that he had been, as you have heard him confess, of Monmouth's following ?" "I did, My lord." "You did! Ha!" His lordship looked at the cringing jury and uttered a short, stabbing laugh.

"Yet in spite of that you went with him ?" "To succour a wounded man, as was my sacred duty." "Thy sacred duty, sayest thou ?" Fury blazed out of him again.

"Good God! What a generation of vipers do we live in! Thy sacred duty, rogue, is to thy King and to God.

But let it pass.