but I have done a grievous wrong to yonder noble creature, and to one worthy as herself I must repair it. You know my brother?"
"I do: and marvel how he can be brother of thine."
The rebuke passed unnoticed, and Francis hurriedly continued:
"I ask but to write a few lines to him. I shall place it unsealed in your hands, so that you need fear no treason; though I trust that even a Roundhead may have honour enough not to read it; and to that honour I must trust for its delivery."
"I reck not," replied his companion, "that worldly and vain honour which you set up as an idol, and worship beyond your God; but for Robert Evelyn's own sake, that letter shall reach his hands in safety."
Writing materials were soon brought, and Evelyn commenced his epistle: it ran thus—
"Dear Robert,—
"Caught at last, and by those rascally Roundheads, whom you call patriots and saints, in a few minutes more I shall be shot—that is, if their clumsy carbines take good aim—to be sure they can fire near enough their mark not to miss. But I write to tell you what you will hear through
