Was it _his_ fault that the scutcheon they left so fair was stained and blotted by a foul and treacherous deed?
The setting sun sent a flare of light through the great window, with its blazonment of arms and rich colouring, at the end of the gallery. It shone strangely on the dusty curtain which hung there over the last picture on the wall.
Force himself though he would, Sir Henry's hand trembled as he drew back the velvet folds.
And Michael, looking, saw the picture of a young man, dressed in the extravagant fashion of a period twenty years earlier. Rich setting to rich beauty.
Stephen Berrington, aged twenty-two, was a son any mother might have been proud of.
Surely it was no traitor's face, but rather that of a very pretty gentleman. Weak? Yes; chin and mouth proved that--a youth to be led rather than born to rule. And Satan had led him to his own destruction. So Sir Henry said, even whilst Stephen's mother wept for her son on her knees. A woman puts love before honour where a brave man makes the latter his deity.
Thus Michael looked on his father's face and found scorn overcoming the pity.
No wonder Morice Conyers had mocked him. Yet he would prove that a man can be a traitor's son, and yet no traitor himself. The blood drummed in his head and through his pulses at the thought.
Yes, he would prove that, and, by his own deeds, wipe out the stain which seemed ready to tear his shrinking soul.
The curtain fell back into its place. Sir Henry turned to his grandson.
They did not speak, but stood there in the dying sunlight, whilst grey eyes alone spoke their promise to sunken blue ones.
Then the old, withered hand fell on the lad's shoulder.
A rough night, cold and wet, with a thin sleet falling and the wind blowing from the north-east full against the great coach which lumbered on its way from Oxford to London.
Passengers inside huddled together, stamping benumbed feet and wishing for the journey's end. Passengers outside poured anathemas against the weather and the slowness of the horses into the depths of fur-lined coats, wherein their faces were buried.
Only two or three of the younger men perched near the driver were able to crack occasional jokes, whilst one alone strove huskily to troll a stanza of some popular ditty.