He has no
recollection of having recently performed any prompt or chivalrous
action. The Prince has doubtless been misinformed.' That gives us half
an hour--neither too much time, nor too little."
"But that's folly!" protested Blake; "how can you carry it through?"
"Leave that to me. I've got out of tighter places than this one. And,"
he added, turning to Vernon, "if you ever looked ill in your life,
prepare to do it now."
Vernon was looking dreamily over Markeld's note.
"He uses adjectives well, doesn't he?" he asked. "'Such a course would
be neither ingenuous nor fair.' 'Pon my word, I quite agree with him!"
"Remember, you're under orders," said Collins, sternly.
"Under reasonable orders, perhaps," admitted Vernon, quietly, with a
little tightening of the muscles of the face. "I don't admit that either
you or Blake is infallible. What is it you propose to do?"
"We propose, in the first place, to send Markeld this note."
Vernon took it and read it at a glance.
"A note which is, of course, a lie," he observed, dispassionately, as he
handed it back.
"It is not a lie!" retorted Collins, flushing hotly. "It is, on the
contrary, the absolute truth."
"There are many ways of lying," remarked Vernon, still more coolly. "It
isn't so much the letter as the spirit which constitutes a lie.
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