Then all at once it came to him what was implied in that unlucky speech of Laurence's.

The grim intensity returned to his eyes as he erected himself and bent his brows, white with premature age, upon the boy, who confronted him with the fearlessness born of youth and ignorance.
"Ah," he said, "this is interesting; you have changed your nation.

You were an Irishman to De Sille in Paris, to the clerk Henriet, and to the choir at Machecoul.

Yet to me you admit in the very first words you speak that you are a Scot and saw me at the Castle of Thrieve." Even yet the old Laurence might have turned the corner.

He had, as we know, graduated as a liar ready and expert.