Free The Sea-Hawk by Rafael Sabatini Page A

Master Baine, of course, drew up the required document, and signed and sealed it, whilst Sir Andrew added his own signature and seal as witness thereunto.
    With this parchment that should be his buckler against any future need, Sir Oliver rode home, uplifted. For once it were safe to do so, that parchment should be spread before the eyes of Sir John Killigrew and Rosamund, and all might yet be well.

CHAPTER VI
    JASPER LEIGH
    I F that Christmas was one of sorrow at Godolphin Court, it was nothing less at Penarrow.
    Sir Oliver was moody and silent in those days, given to sit for long hours staring into the heart of the fire and repeating to himself again and again every word of his interview with Rosamund, now in a mood of bitter resentment against her for having so readily believed his guilt, now in a gentler sorrowing humour which made full allowance for the strength of the appearances against him.
    His half-brother moved softly about the house now in a sort of self-effacement, never daring to intrude upon Sir Oliver's abstractions. He was well acquainted with their cause. He knew what had happened at Godolphin Court, knew that Rosamund had dismissed Sir Oliver for all time, and his heart smote him to think that he should leave his brother to bear this burden that rightly belonged to his own shoulders.
    The thing preyed so much upon his mind that in an expansive moment one evening he gave it tongue.
    "Noll," he said, standing beside his brother's chair in the fire-lit gloom, and resting a hand upon his brother's shoulder, "were it not best to tell the truth?"
    Sir Oliver looked up quickly, frowning. "Art mad?" quoth he. "The truth would hang thee, Lal."
    "It might not. And in any case you are suffering something worse than hanging. Oh, I have watched you every hour this week past, and I know the pain thatabides in you. It is not just." And he insisted—"We had best tell the truth."
    Sir Oliver smiled wistfully. He put out a hand and took his brother's.
    "'Tis noble in you to propose it, Lal."
    "Not half so noble as it is in you to bear all the suffering for a deed that was my own."
    "Bah!" Sir Oliver shrugged impatiently; his glance fell away from Lionel's face and returned to the consideration of the fire. "After all, I can throw off the burden when I will. Such knowledge as that will enhearten a man through any trial."
    He had spoken in a harsh, cynical tone, and Lionel had turned cold at his words. He stood a long while in silence there, turning them over in his mind and considering the riddle which they presented him. He thought of asking his brother bluntly for the key to it, for the precise meaning of his disconcerting statement; but courage failed him. He feared lest Sir Oliver should confirm his own dread interpretation of it.
    He drew away after a time, and soon after went to bed. For days thereafter the phrase rankled in his mind—"I can throw off the burden when I will." Conviction grew upon him that Sir Oliver meant that he was enheartened by the knowledge that by speaking if he chose he could clear himself. That Sir Oliver would so speak he could not think. Indeed, he was entirely assured that Sir Oliver was very far from intending to throw off his burden. Yet he might come to change his mind. The burden might grow too heavy, his longings for Rosamund too clamorous, his grief at being in her eyes her brother's murderer too overwhelming.
    Lionel's soul shuddered to contemplate the consequences to himself. His fears were self-revelatory. He realized how far from sincere had been his proposal that they should tell the truth; he perceived that it had been no more than the emotional outburst of the moment, a proposal which if accepted he must most bitterly haverepented. And then came the reflection that if he were guilty of emotional outbursts that could so outrageously play the traitor to his real desires, were not all men subject to the same? Might not his brother, too, come to fall a prey to one of those moments