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 "From a dear friend, I'll bet a shilling," he confided to a tea-cup.

"Very," says I, crumpling up the Captain's insolence and throwing it in the grate; and added, "Prue, you must excuse me for five minutes; I must see that dear friend of ours, the Captain, on something of importance."

"The Captain!" says he, all attention.

I was too preoccupied to heed him in any way whatever, and foolishly repaired to the library without troubling to set at rest any suspicion of the facts he might entertain. I found the Captain and his bodyguard, the Corporal, playing backgammon and smoking the horridest tobacco that ever did offend me.

"Your pardon, gentlemen," says I, "and as you are at such an important matter, 'twere best that I withdraw perhaps."

The Captain put his pipe down and begged me to be seated, while the Corporal, evidently acting under orders, rose, stepped to the door, but did not go outside.

"Sir," I began, "I am come to ask you again to revise that paper. I will not have his lordship saddled with a misdemeanour which he never did commit. 'Twas I that set the rebel free, and 'tis I that will abide the consequence."

The Captain grimly shook his head.

"My dear lady," he replied, "it cannot be. Your father is morally responsible for the crime that hath been wrought in his house against the King.