“Renounce Joan!” he hissed in the boy’s ear; “renounce her utterly and for ever!  Write at my bidding such words as I shall demand of thee, and thou shalt save thyself the worst of the agonies I will else inflict upon thee.  Basildene thou shalt never get —­ I can defy thee there, do as thou wilt; besides, if thou departest alive from this prison house, thou wilt have had enough of striving to thwart the will of Peter Sanghurst —­ but Joan thou shalt renounce of thine own free will, and shalt so renounce her that her love for thee will be crushed and killed!  Here is the inkhorn, and here the parchment.  The ground will serve thee for a table, and I will tell thee what to write.  Take then the pen, and linger not.  Thou wouldst rejoice to write whatever words I bid thee didst thou know what is even now preparing in yon chamber below thy prison house.  Take the pen and sit down.  It is but a short half-hour’s task.”

The strong man thrust the quill into the slight fingers of the boy; but Raymond suddenly wrenched his hand away, and flung the frail weapon to the other end of the cell.  He saw the vile purpose in a moment.  Peter knew something of the nature of the woman he passionately desired to win for his wife, and he well knew that no lies of his invention respecting the falsity of her young lover would weigh one instant with her.  Even the death of his rival would help him in no whit, for Joan would cherish the memory of the dead, and pay no heed to the wooing of the living.  There was but one thing that would give him the faintest hope, and that was the destruction of her faith in Raymond.  Let him be proved faithless and unworthy, and her love and loyalty must of necessity receive a rude shock.  Sanghurst knew the world, and knew that broken faith was the one thing a lofty-souled and pure-minded woman finds it hardest to forgive.  Raymond, false to his vows, would no longer be a rival in his way.  He might have a hard struggle to win the lady even then, but the one insuperable obstacle would be removed from his path.

And Raymond saw the purpose in a moment.  His quick and sharpened intelligence showed all to him in a flash.  Not to save himself from any fate would he so disgrace his manhood —­ prove unworthy in the hour of trial, deny his love, and by so doing deny himself the right to bear all for her dear sake.

Flinging the pen to the ground and turning upon Sanghurst with a great light in his eyes, he told him how he read his base purpose, his black treachery, and dared him to do his worst.

“My worst, mad boy, my worst!” cried the furious man, absolutely foaming at the mouth as he drew back, looking almost like a venomous snake couched for a spring.  “Is that, then, thy answer —­ thy unchangeable answer to the only loophole I offer thee of escaping the full vengeance awaiting thee from thy two most relentless foes?  Bethink thee well how thou repeatest such words.  Yet once again I bid thee pause.  Take but that pen and do as I bid thee —­”