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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1457 ***
+
+MISTRESS WILDING
+
+By Rafael Sabatini
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I -- POT-VALIANCE
+
+CHAPTER II -- SIR ROWLAND TO THE RESCUE
+
+CHAPTER III -- DIANA SCHEMES
+
+CHAPTER IV -- TERMS OF SURRENDER
+
+CHAPTER V -- THE ENCOUNTER
+
+CHAPTER VI -- THE CHAMPION
+
+CHAPTER VII -- THE NUPTIALS OF RUTH WESTMACOTT
+
+CHAPTER VIII -- BRIDE AND GROOM
+
+CHAPTER IX -- MR. TRENCHARD'S COUNTERSTROKE
+
+CHAPTER X -- THEIR OWN PETARD
+
+CHAPTER XI -- THE MARPLOT
+
+CHAPTER XII -- AT THE FORD
+
+CHAPTER XIII -- “PRO RELIGIONE ET LIBERTATE”
+
+CHAPTER XIV -- HIS GRACE' IN COUNSEL
+
+CHAPTER XV -- LYME OF THE KING
+
+CHAPTER XVI -- PLOTS AND PLOTTERS
+
+CHAPTER XVII -- MR. WILDING'S RETURN
+
+CHAPTER XVIII -- BETRAYAL
+
+CHAPTER XIX -- THE BANQUET
+
+CHAPTER XX -- THE RECKONING
+
+CHAPTER XXI -- THE SENTENCE
+
+CHAPTER XXII -- THE EXECUTION
+
+CHAPTER XXIII -- MR. WILDING'S BOOTS
+
+CHAPTER XXIV -- JUSTICE
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. POT-VALIANCE
+
+Then drink it thus, cried the rash young fool, and splashed the contents
+of his cup full into the face of Mr. Wilding even as that gentleman, on
+his feet, was proposing to drink to the eyes of the young fool's sister.
+
+The moments that followed were full of interest. A stillness, a
+brooding, expectant stillness, fell upon the company--and it numbered
+a round dozen--about Lord Gervase's richly appointed board. In the soft
+candlelight the oval table shone like a deep brown pool, in which were
+reflected the gleaming silver and sparkling crystal that seemed to float
+upon it.
+
+Blake sucked in his nether-lip, his florid face a thought less florid
+than its wont, his prominent blue eyes a thought more prominent. Under
+its golden periwig old Nick Trenchard's wizened countenance was darkened
+by a scowl, and his fingers, long, swarthy, and gnarled, drummed
+fretfully upon the table. Portly Lord Gervase Scoresby--their host, a
+benign and placid man of peace, detesting turbulence--turned crimson now
+in wordless rage. The others gaped and stared--some at young Westmacott,
+some at the man he had so grossly affronted--whilst in the shadows of
+the hall a couple of lacqueys looked on amazed, all teeth and eyes.
+
+Mr. Wilding stood, very still and outwardly impassive, the wine
+trickling from his long face, which, if pale, was no paler than its
+habit, a vestige of the smile with which he had proposed the toast still
+lingering on his thin lips, though departed from his eyes. An elegant
+gentleman was Mr. Wilding, tall, and seeming even taller by virtue of
+his exceeding slenderness. He had the courage to wear his own hair,
+which was of a dark brown and very luxuriant; dark brown too were his
+sombre eyes, low-lidded and set at a downward slant. From those odd eyes
+of his, his countenance gathered an air of superciliousness tempered by
+a gentle melancholy. For the rest, it was scored by lines that stamped
+it with the appearance of an age in excess of his thirty years.
+
+Thirty guineas' worth of Mechlin at his throat was drenched, empurpled
+and ruined beyond redemption, and on the breast of his blue satin coat a
+dark patch was spreading like a stain of blood.
+
+Richard Westmacott, short, sturdy, and fair-complexioned to the point
+of insipidity, watched him sullenly out of pale eyes, and waited. It
+was Lord Gervase who broke at last the silence--broke it with an oath, a
+thing unusual in one whose nature was almost woman-mild.
+
+“As God's my life!” he spluttered wrathfully, glowering at Richard. “To
+have this happen in my house! The young fool shall make apology!”
+
+“With his dying breath,” sneered Trenchard, and the old rake's words,
+his tone, and the malevolent look he bent upon the boy increased the
+company's malaise.
+
+“I think,” said Mr. Wilding, with a most singular and excessive
+sweetness, “that what Mr. Westmacott has done he has done because he
+apprehended me amiss.”
+
+“No doubt he'll say so,” opined Trenchard with a shrug, and had caution
+dug into his ribs by Blake's elbow, whilst Richard made haste to prove
+him wrong by saying the contrary.
+
+“I apprehended you exactly, sir,” he answered, defiance in his voice and
+wine-flushed face.
+
+“Ha!” clucked Trenchard, irrepressible. “He's bent on self-destruction.
+Let him have his way, in God's name.”
+
+But Wilding seemed intent upon showing how long-suffering he could
+be. He gently shook his head. “Nay, now,” said he. “You thought, Mr.
+Westmacott, that in mentioning your sister, I did so lightly. Is it not
+so?”
+
+“You mentioned her, and that is all that matters,” cried Westmacott.
+“I'll not have her name on your lips at any time or in any place--no,
+nor in any manner.” His speech was thick from too much wine.
+
+“You are drunk,” cried indignant Lord Gervase with finality.
+
+“Pot-valiant,” Trenchard elaborated.
+
+Mr. Wilding set down at last the glass which he had continued to
+hold until that moment. He rested his hands upon the table, knuckles
+downward, and leaning forward he spoke impressively, his face very
+grave; and those present--knowing him as they did--were one and all lost
+in wonder at his unusual patience.
+
+“Mr. Westmacott,” said he, “I do think you are wrong to persist in
+affronting me. You have done a thing that is beyond forgiveness, and
+yet, when I offer you this opportunity of honourably retrieving...” He
+shrugged his shoulders, leaving the sentence incomplete.
+
+The company might have spared its deep surprise at so much mildness.
+There was but the semblance of it. Wilding proceeded thus of purpose
+set, and under the calm mask of his long white face his mind worked
+wickedly and deliberately. The temerity of Westmacott, whose nature was
+notoriously timid, had surprised him for a moment. But anon, reading the
+boy's mind as readily as though it had been a scroll unfolded for his
+instruction, he saw that Westmacott, on the strength of his position
+as his sister's brother, conceived himself immune. Mr. Wilding's avowed
+courtship of the lady, the hopes he still entertained of winning her,
+despite the aversion she was at pains to show him, gave Westmacott
+assurance that Mr. Wilding would never elect to shatter his all too
+slender chances by embroiling himself in a quarrel with her brother.
+And--reading him, thus, aright--Mr. Wilding put on that mask of
+patience, luring the boy into greater conviction of the security of
+his position. And Richard, conceiving himself safe in his entrenchment
+behind the bulwarks of his brothership to Ruth Westmacott, and heartened
+further by the excess of wine he had consumed, persisted in insults he
+would never otherwise have dared to offer.
+
+“Who seeks to retrieve?” he crowed offensively, boldly looking up into
+the other's face. “It seems you are yourself reluctant.” And he laughed
+a trifle stridently, and looked about him for applause, but found none.
+
+“You are overrash,” Lord Gervase disapproved him harshly.
+
+“Not the first coward I've seen grow valiant at a table,” put in
+Trenchard by way of explanation, and might have come to words with Blake
+on that same score, but that in that moment Wilding spoke again.
+
+“Reluctant to do what?” he questioned amiably, looking Westmacott
+so straightly between the eyes that the boy shifted uneasily on his
+high-backed chair.
+
+Nevertheless, still full of confidence in the unassailability of his
+position, the mad youth answered, “To cleanse yourself of what I threw
+at you.”
+
+“Fan me, ye winds!” gasped Nick Trenchard, and looked with expectancy at
+his friend Wilding.
+
+Now there was one factor with which, in basing with such craven
+shrewdness his calculations upon Mr. Wilding's feelings for his sister,
+young Richard had not reckoned. He was not to know that Wilding,
+bruised and wounded by Miss Westmacott's scorn of him, had reached that
+borderland where love and hate are so merged that they are scarce to be
+distinguished. Embittered by the slights she had put upon him--slights
+which his sensitive, lover's fancy had magnified a hundredfold--Anthony
+Wilding's frame of mind was grown peculiar. Of his love she would have
+none; his kindness she seemingly despised. So be it; she should taste
+his cruelty. If she scorned his wooing and forbade him to pursue it, at
+least it was not hers to deny him the power to hurt; and in hurting
+her that would not be loved by him some measure of fierce and bitter
+consolation seemed to await him.
+
+He realized, perhaps, not quite all this--and to the unworthiness of it
+all he gave no thought. But he realized enough as he toyed, as cat with
+mouse, with Richard Westmacott, to know that in striking at her through
+the worthless person of this brother whom she cherished--and who
+persisted in affording him this opportunity--a wicked vengeance would be
+his.
+
+Peace-loving Lord Gervase had heaved himself suddenly to his feet at
+Westmacott's last words, still intent upon saving the situation.
+
+“In Heaven's name...” he began, when Mr. Wilding, ever calm and smiling,
+though now a trifle sinister, waved him gently into silence. But that
+persisting calm of Mr. Wilding's was too much for old Nick Trenchard. He
+rose abruptly, drawing all eyes upon himself. It was time, he thought,
+he took a hand in this.
+
+In addition to his affection for Wilding and his contempt for
+Westmacott, he was filled with a fear that the latter might become
+dangerous if not crushed at once. Gifted with a shrewd knowledge of
+men, acquired during a chequered life of much sour experience, old
+Nick instinctively mistrusted Richard. He had known him for a fool,
+a weakling, a babbler, and a bibber of wine. Out of such elements a
+villain is soon compounded, and Trenchard had cause to fear the form
+of villainy that lay ready to Richard's hand. For it chanced that Mr.
+Trenchard was second cousin to that famous John Trenchard, so lately
+tried for treason and acquitted to the great joy of the sectaries of the
+West, and still more lately--but yesterday, in fact--fled the country to
+escape the rearrest ordered in consequence of that excessive joy. Like
+his more famous cousin, Nick Trenchard was one of the Duke of Monmouth's
+most active agents; and Westmacott, like Wilding, Vallancey, and one
+or two others at that board, stood, too, committed to the cause of the
+Protestant Champion.
+
+Out of his knowledge of the boy Trenchard was led to fear that if he
+were leniently dealt with now, tomorrow, when, sober, he came to realize
+the grossness of the thing he had done and the unlikelihood of its being
+forgiven him, there was no saying but that to protect himself he might
+betray Wilding's share in the plot that was being hatched. That in
+itself would be bad enough; but there might be worse, for he could
+scarcely betray Wilding without betraying others and--what mattered
+most--the Cause itself. He must be dealt with out of hand, Trenchard
+opined, and dealt with ruthlessly.
+
+“I think, Anthony,” said he, “that we have had words enough. Shall you
+be disposing of Mr. Westmacott to-morrow, or must I be doing it for
+you?”
+
+With a gasp of dismay young Richard twisted in his chair to confront
+this fresh and unsuspected antagonist. What danger was this that he had
+overlooked? Then, even as he turned, Wilding's voice fell on his ear,
+and each word of the few he spoke was like a drop of icy water on
+Westmacott's overheated brain.
+
+“I protest you are vastly kind, Nick. But I intend, myself, to have the
+pleasure of killing Mr. Westmacott.” And his smile fell now in mockery
+upon the disillusioned lad.
+
+Crushed by that bolt from the blue, Richard sat as if stunned, the flush
+receding from his face until his very lips were livid. The shock had
+sobered him, and, sobered, he realized in terror what he had done. And
+yet even sober he was amazed to find that the staff upon which with such
+security he had leaned should have proved rotten. True he had put much
+strain upon it; but then he had counted that it would stand much strain.
+
+He would have spoken, but he lacked words, so stricken was he. And even
+had he done so it is odds none would have heard him, for the late calm
+was of a sudden turned to garboil. Every man of that company--with
+the sole exception of Richard himself--was on his feet, and all were
+speaking at once, in clamouring, excited chorus.
+
+Wilding alone--the butt of their expostulations--stood quietly smiling,
+and wiped his face at last with a kerchief of finest lawn. Dominating
+the others in the Babel rose the voice of Sir Rowland Blake--impecunious
+Blake; Blake lately of the Guards, who had sold his commission as the
+only thing remaining him upon which he could raise money; Blake, that
+other suitor for Miss Westmacott's hand, the suitor favoured by her
+brother.
+
+“You shall not do it, Mr. Wilding,” he shouted, his face crimson. “No,
+by God! You were shamed forever. He is but a lad, and drunk.”
+
+Trenchard eyed the short, powerfully built man beside him, and laughed
+unpleasantly. “You should get yourself bled one of these days, Sir
+Rowland,” he advised. “There may be no great danger yet; but a man can't
+be too careful when he wears a narrow neckcloth.”
+
+Blake--a short, powerfully built man--took no heed of him, but looked
+straight at Mr. Wilding, who, smiling ever, calmly returned the gaze of
+those prominent blue eyes.
+
+“You will suffer me, Sir Rowland,” said he sweetly, “to be the judge of
+whom I will and whom I will not meet.”
+
+Sir Rowland flushed under that mocking glance and caustic tone. “But he
+is drunk,” he repeated feebly.
+
+“I think,” said Trenchard, “that he is hearing something that will make
+him sober.”
+
+Lord Gervase took the lad by the shoulder, and shook him impatiently.
+“Well?” quoth he. “Have you nothing to say? You did a deal of prating
+just now. I make no doubt but that even at this late hour if you were to
+make apology...”
+
+“It would be idle,” came Wilding's icy voice to quench the gleam of hope
+kindling anew in Richard's breast. The lad saw that he was lost, and he
+is a poor thing, indeed, who cannot face the worst once that worst is
+shown to be irrevocable. He rose with some semblance of dignity.
+
+“It is as I would wish,” said he, but his livid face and staring eyes
+belied the valour of his words. He cleared his huskiness from his
+throat. “Sir Rowland,” said he, “will you act for me?”
+
+“Not I!” cried Blake with an oath. “I'll be no party to the butchery of
+a boy unfledged.”
+
+“Unfledged?” echoed Trenchard. “Body o' me! 'Tis a matter Wilding will
+amend to-morrow. He'll fledge him, never fear. He'll wing him on his
+flight to heaven.”
+
+Of set purpose did Trenchard add this fuel to the blazing fire. It was
+no part of his views that this encounter should be avoided. If Richard
+Westmacott were allowed to live after what had passed, there were too
+many tall fellows might go in peril of their lives.
+
+Richard, meanwhile, had turned to the man on his left--young Vallancey,
+a notorious partisan of the Duke of Monmouth's, a hair-brained gentleman
+who was his own worst enemy.
+
+“May I count on you, Ned?” he asked.
+
+“Aye--to the death,” said Vallancey magniloquently.
+
+“Mr. Vallancey,” said Trenchard with a wry twist of his sharp features,
+“you grow prophetic.”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. SIR ROWLAND TO THE RESCUE
+
+From Scoresby Hall, near Weston Zoyland, young Westmacott rode home that
+Saturday night to his sister's house in Bridgwater, a sobered man and an
+anguished. He had committed a folly which was like to cost him his life
+to-morrow. Other follies had he committed in his twenty-five years--for
+he was not quite the babe that Blake had represented him, although he
+certainly looked nothing like his age. But to-night he had contrived to
+set the crown to all. He had good cause to blame himself and to curse
+the miscalculation that had emboldened him to launch himself upon
+a course of insult against this Wilding, whom he hated with all the
+currish and resentful hatred of the worthless for the man of parts.
+
+But there was more than hate in the affront that he had offered;
+there was calculation--to an even greater extent than we have seen. It
+happened that through his own fault young Richard was all but penniless.
+The pious, nonconformist soul of Sir Geoffrey Lupton--the wealthy uncle
+from whom he had had great expectations--had been so stirred to anger by
+Richard's vicious and besotted ways that he had left every guinea that
+was his, every perch of land, and every brick of edifice to Richard's
+half-sister Ruth. At present things were not so bad for the worthless
+boy. Ruth worshipped him. He was a sacred charge to her from their dead
+father, who, knowing the stoutness of her soul and the feebleness of
+Richard's, had in dying imposed on her the care and guidance of her
+graceless brother. But Ruth, in all things strong, was weak with Richard
+out of her very fondness for him. To what she had he might help himself,
+and thus it was that things were not so bad with him at present. But
+when Richard's calculating mind came to give thought to the future he
+found that this occasioned him some care. Rich ladies, even when they
+do not happen to be equipped in addition with Ruth's winsome beauty and
+endearing nature, are not wont to go unmarried. It would have pleased
+Richard best to have had her remain a spinster. But he well knew that
+this was a matter in which she might have a voice of her own, and it
+behoved him betimes to take wise measures where possible husbands were
+concerned.
+
+The first that came in a suitor's obvious panoply was Anthony Wilding,
+of Zoyland Chase, and Richard watched his advent with foreboding.
+Wilding's was a personality to dazzle any woman, despite--perhaps even
+because of--the reputation for wildness that clung to him. That he was
+known as Wild Wilding to the countryside is true; but it were unfair--as
+Richard knew--to attach to this too much importance; for the adoption
+of so obvious an alliteration the rude country minds needed but a slight
+encouragement. From the first it looked as if Ruth might favour him, and
+Richard's fears assumed more definite shape. If Wilding married her--and
+he was a bold, masterful fellow who usually accomplished what he aimed
+at--her fortune and estate must cease to be a pleasant pasture land for
+bovine Richard. The boy thought at first of making terms with Wilding;
+the idea was old; it had come to him when first he had counted the
+chances of his sister's marrying. But he found himself hesitating to
+lay his proposal before Mr. Wilding. And whilst he hesitated Mr.
+Wilding made obvious headway. Still Richard dared not do it. There was
+a something in Wilding's eye that cried him danger. Thus, in the end,
+since he could not attempt a compromise with this fine fellow, the only
+course remaining was that of direct antagonism--that is to say, direct
+as Richard understood directness. Slander was the weapon he used in
+that secret duel; the countryside was well stocked with stories of Mr.
+Wilding's many indiscretions. I do not wish to suggest that these were
+unfounded. Still, the countryside, cajoled by its primitive sense of
+humour into that alliteration I have mentioned, found that having given
+this dog its bad name, it was under the obligation of keeping up his
+reputation. So it exaggerated. Richard, exaggerating those exaggerations
+in his turn, had some details, as interesting and unsavoury as they were
+in the main untrue, to lay before his sister.
+
+Now established love, it is well known, thrives wondrously on slander.
+The robust growth of a maid's feelings for her accepted suitor is but
+further strengthened by malign representations of his character. She
+seizes with joy the chance of affording proof of her great loyalty, and
+defies the world and its evil to convince her that the man to whom she
+has given her trust is not most worthy of it. Not so, however, with the
+first timid bud of incipient interest. Slander nips it like a frost; in
+deadliness it is second only to ridicule.
+
+Ruth Westmacott lent an ear to her brother's stories, incredulous only
+until she remembered vague hints she had caught from this person and
+from that, whose meaning was now made clear by what Richard told her,
+which, incidentally, they served to corroborate. Corroboration, too, did
+the tale of infamy receive from the friendship that prevailed between
+Mr. Wilding and Nick Trenchard, the old ne'er-dowell, who in his
+time--as everybody knew--had come so low, despite his gentle birth, as
+to have been one of a company of strolling players. Had Mr. Wilding
+been other than she now learnt he was, he would surely not cherish an
+attachment for a person so utterly unworthy. Clearly, they were birds of
+a plumage.
+
+And so, her maiden purity outraged at the thought that she had been in
+danger of lending a willing ear to the wooing of such a man, she
+had crushed this love which she blushed to think was on the point of
+throwing out roots to fasten on her soul, and was sedulous thereafter in
+manifesting the aversion which she accounted it her duty to foster for
+Mr. Wilding.
+
+Richard had watched and smiled in secret, taking pride in the cunning
+way he had wrought this change--that cunning which so often is given
+to the stupid by way of compensation for the intelligence that has been
+withheld them.
+
+And now what time discountenanced, Wilding fumed and fretted all in
+vain, Sir Rowland Blake, fresh from London and in full flight from his
+creditors, flashed like a comet into the Bridgwater heavens. He dazzled
+the eyes and might have had for the asking the heart and hand of Diana
+Horton--Ruth's cousin. Her heart, indeed, he had without the asking, for
+Diana fell straightway in love with him and showed it, just as he showed
+that he was not without response to her affection. There were some
+tender passages between them; but Blake, for all his fine exterior, was
+a beggar, and Diana far from rich, and so he rode his feelings with
+a hard grip upon the reins. And then, in an evil hour for poor Diana,
+young Westmacott had taken him to Lupton House, and Sir Rowland had his
+first glimpse of Ruth, his first knowledge of her fortune. He went down
+before Ruth's eyes like a man of heart; he went down more lowly still
+before her possessions like a man of greed; and poor Diana might console
+herself with whom she could.
+
+Her brother watched him, appraised him, and thought that in this broken
+gamester he had a man after his own heart; a man who would be ready
+enough for such a bargain as Richard had in mind; ready enough to
+sell what rags might be left him of his honour so that he came by the
+wherewithal to mend his broken fortunes.
+
+The twain made terms. They haggled like any pair of traders out of
+Jewry, but in the end it was settled--by a bond duly engrossed and
+sealed--that on the day that Sir Rowland married Ruth he should make
+over to her brother certain values that amounted to perhaps a quarter of
+her possessions. There was no cause to think that Ruth would be greatly
+opposed to this--not that that consideration would have weighed with
+Richard.
+
+But now that all essentials were so satisfactorily determined a vexation
+was offered Westmacott by the circumstance that his sister seemed nowise
+taken with Sir Rowland. She suffered him because he was her brother's
+friend; on that account she even honoured him with some measure of her
+own friendship; but to no greater intimacy did her manner promise to
+admit him. And meanwhile, Mr. Wilding persisted in the face of all
+rebuffs. Under his smiling mask he hid the smart of the wounds she dealt
+him, until it almost seemed to him that from loving her he had come to
+hate her.
+
+It had been well for Richard had he left things as they were and waited.
+Whether Blake prospered or not, leastways it was clear that Wilding
+would not prosper, and that, for the season, was all that need have
+mattered to young Richard.
+
+But in his cups that night he had thought in some dim way to precipitate
+matters by affronting Mr. Wilding, secure, as I have shown, in his
+belief that Wilding would perish sooner than raise a finger against
+Ruth's brother. And his drunken astuteness, it seemed, had been to
+his mind as a piece of bottle glass to the sight, distorting the image
+viewed through it.
+
+With some such bitter reflection rode he home to his sleepless couch.
+Some part of those dark hours he spent in bitter reviling of Wilding, of
+himself, and even of his sister, whom he blamed for this awful situation
+into which he had tumbled; at other times he wept from self-pity and
+sheer fright.
+
+Once, indeed, he imagined that he saw light, that he saw a way out
+of the peril that hemmed him in. His mind turned for a moment in the
+direction that Trenchard had feared it might. He bethought him of his
+association with the Monmouth Cause--into which he had been beguiled by
+the sordid hope of gain--and of Wilding's important share in that same
+business. He was even moved to rise and ride that very night for Exeter
+to betray to Albemarle the Cause itself, so that he might have Wilding
+laid by the heels. But if Trenchard had been right in having little
+faith in Richard's loyalty, he had, it seems, in fearing treachery
+made the mistake of giving Richard credit for more courage than was his
+endowment. For when, sitting up in bed, fired by his inspiration, young
+Westmacott came to consider the questions the Lord-Lieutenant of Devon
+would be likely to ask him, he reflected that the answers he must return
+would so incriminate himself that he would be risking his own neck in
+the betrayal. He flung himself down again with a curse and a groan, and
+thought no more of the salvation that might lie for him that way.
+
+The morning of that last day of May found him pale and limp and all
+a-tremble. He rose betimes and dressed, but stirred not from his chamber
+till in the garden under his window he heard his sister's voice, and
+that of Diana Horton, joined anon by a man's deeper tones, which he
+recognized with a start as Blake's. What did the baronet here so
+early? Assuredly it must concern the impending duel. Richard knew no
+mawkishness on the score of eavesdropping. He stole to his window and
+lent an ear, but the voices were receding, and to his vexation he caught
+nothing of what was said. He wondered how soon Vallancey would come, and
+for what hour the encounter had been appointed. Vallancey had remained
+behind at Scoresby Hall last night to make the necessary arrangements
+with Trenchard, who was to act for Mr. Wilding.
+
+Now it chanced that Trenchard and Wilding had business--business of
+Monmouth's--to transact in Taunton that morning; business which might
+not be delayed. There were odd rumours afloat in the West; persistent
+rumours which had come fast upon the heels of the news of Argyle's
+landing in Scotland; rumours which maintained that Monmouth himself was
+coming over from Holland. These tales Wilding and his associates had
+ignored. The Duke, they knew, was to spend the summer in retreat in
+Sweden, with (it was alleged) the Lady Henrietta Wentworth to bear him
+company, and in the mean time his trusted agents were to pave the way
+for his coming in the following spring. Of late the lack of direct news
+from the Duke had been a source of mystification to his friends in the
+West, and now, suddenly, the information went abroad--it was something
+more than rumour this time--that a letter of the greatest importance
+had been intercepted. From whom that letter proceeded or to whom it was
+addressed, could not yet be discovered. But it seemed clear that it
+was connected with the Monmouth Cause, and it behoved Mr. Wilding to
+discover what he could. With this intent he rode with Trenchard that
+Sunday morning to Taunton, hoping that at the Red Lion Inn--that
+meeting-place of dissenters--he might cull reliable information.
+
+It was in consequence of this that the meeting with Richard Westmacott
+was not to take place until the evening, and therefore Vallancey came
+not to Lupton House as early as Richard thought he should expect him.
+Blake, however--more no doubt out of a selfish fear of losing a valued
+ally in the winning of Ruth's hand than out of any excessive concern for
+Richard himself--had risen early and hastened to Lupton House, in the
+hope, which he recognized as all but forlorn, of yet being able to avert
+the disaster he foresaw for Richard.
+
+Peering over the orchard wall as he rode by, he caught a glimpse,
+through an opening between the trees, of Ruth herself and Diana on the
+lawn beyond. There was a wicket gate that stood unlatched, and availing
+himself of this Sir Rowland tethered his horse in the lane and threading
+his way briskly through the orchard came suddenly upon the girls.
+Their laughter reached him as he advanced, and told him they could know
+nothing yet of Richard's danger.
+
+On his abrupt and unexpected apparition, Diana paled and Ruth flushed
+slightly, whereupon Sir Rowland might have bethought him, had he been
+book-learned, of the axiom, “Amour qui rougit, fleurette; amour qui
+plit, drame du coeur.”
+
+He doffed his hat and bowed, his fair ringlets tumbling forward till
+they hid his face, which was exceeding grave.
+
+Ruth gave him good morning pleasantly. “You London folk are earlier
+risers than we are led to think,” she added.
+
+“'Twill be the change of air makes Sir Rowland matutinal,” said Diana,
+making a gallant recovery from her agitation.
+
+“I vow,” said he, “that I had grown matutinal earlier had I known what
+here awaited me.”
+
+“Awaited you?” quoth Diana, and tossed her head archly disdainful. “La!
+Sir Rowland, your modesty will be the death of you.” Archness became
+this lady of the sunny hair, tip-tilted nose, and complexion that
+outvied the apple-blossoms. She was shorter by a half-head than her
+darker cousin, and made up in sprightliness what she lacked of Ruth's
+gentle dignity. The pair were foils, each setting off the graces of the
+other.
+
+“I protest I am foolish,” answered Blake, a shade discomfited. “But I
+want not for excuse. I have it in the matter that brings me here.”
+ So solemn was his air, so sober his voice, that both girls felt a
+premonition of the untoward message that he bore. It was Ruth who asked
+him to explain himself.
+
+“Will you walk, ladies?” said Blake, and waved the hand that still held
+his hat riverwards, adown the sloping lawn. They moved away together,
+Sir Rowland pacing between his love of yesterday and his love of to-day,
+pressed with questions from both. He shaded his eyes to look at the
+river, dazzling in the morning sunlight that came over Polden Hill, and,
+standing thus, he unburdened himself at last.
+
+“My news concerns Richard and--Mr. Wilding.” They looked at him.
+Miss Westmacott's fine level brows were knit. He paused to ask, as if
+suddenly observing his absence, “Is Richard not yet risen?”
+
+“Not yet,” said Ruth, and waited for him to proceed.
+
+“It does credit to his courage that he should sleep late on such a day,”
+ said Blake, and was pleased with the adroitness wherewith he broke the
+news. “He quarrelled last night with Anthony Wilding.”
+
+Ruth's hand went to her bosom; fear stared at Blake from out her eyes,
+blue as the heavens overhead; a grey shade overcast the usual warm
+pallor of her face.
+
+“With Mr. Wilding?” she cried. “That man!” And though she said no more
+her eyes implored him to go on, and tell her what more there might be.
+He did so, and he spared not Wilding. The task, indeed, was one to which
+he applied himself with a certain zest; whatever might be the outcome
+of the affair, there was no denying that he was by way of reaping profit
+from it by the final overthrow of an acknowledged rival. And when he
+told her how Richard had flung his wine in Wilding's face when Wilding
+stood to toast her, a faint flush crept to her cheeks.
+
+“Richard did well,” said she. “I am proud of him.”
+
+The words pleased Sir Rowland vastly; but he reckoned without Diana.
+Miss Horton's mind was illumined by her knowledge of herself. In the
+light of that she saw precisely what capital this tale-bearer sought to
+make. The occasion might not be without its opportunities for her; and
+to begin with, it was no part of her intention that Wilding should be
+thus maligned and finally driven from the lists of rivalry with Blake.
+Upon Wilding, indeed, and his notorious masterfulness did she found what
+hopes she still entertained of winning back Sir Rowland.
+
+“Surely,” said she, “you are a little hard on Mr. Wilding. You speak as
+if he were the first gallant that ever toasted lady's eyes.”
+
+“I am no lady of his, Diana,” Ruth reminded her, with a faint show of
+heat.
+
+Diana shrugged her shoulders. “You may not love him, but you can't
+ordain that he shall not love you. You are very harsh, I think. To me it
+rather seems that Richard acted like a boor.”
+
+“But, mistress,” cried Sir Rowland, half out of countenance, and
+stifling his vexation, “in these matters it all depends upon the
+manner.”
+
+“Why, yes,” she agreed; “and whatever Mr. Wilding's manner, if I know
+him at all, it would be nothing but respectful to the last degree.”
+
+“My own conception of respect,” said he, “is not to bandy a lady's name
+about a company of revellers.”
+
+“Bethink you, though, you said just now, it all depended on the manner,”
+ she rejoined. Sir Rowland shrugged and turned half from her to her
+listening cousin. When all is said, poor Diana appears--despite her
+cunning--to have been short-sighted. Aiming at a defined advantage
+in the game she played, she either ignored or held too lightly the
+concomitant disadvantage of vexing Blake.
+
+“It were perhaps best to tell us the exact words he used, Sir Rowland,”
+ she suggested, “that for ourselves we may judge how far he lacked
+respect.”
+
+“What signify the words!” cried Blake, now almost out of temper.
+“I don't recall them. It is the air with which he pledged Mistress
+Westmacott.”
+
+“Ah yes--the manner,” quoth Diana irritatingly. “We'll let that be.
+Richard threw his wine in Mr. Wilding's face? What followed then? What
+said Mr. Wilding?”
+
+Sir Rowland remembered what Mr. Wilding had said, and bethought him
+that it were impolitic in him to repeat it. At the same time, not having
+looked for this cross-questioning, he was all unprepared with any likely
+answer. He hesitated, until Ruth echoed Diana's question.
+
+“Tell us, Sir Rowland,” she begged him, “what Mr. Wilding said.”
+
+Being forced to say something, and being by nature slow-witted and
+sluggish of invention, Sir Rowland was compelled, to his unspeakable
+chagrin, to fall back upon the truth.
+
+“Is not that proof?” cried Diana in triumph. “Mr. Wilding was reluctant
+to quarrel with Richard. He was even ready to swallow such an affront
+as that, thinking it might be offered him under a misconception of his
+meaning. He plainly professed the respect that filled him for Mistress
+Westmacott, and yet, and yet, Sir Rowland, you tell us that he lacked
+respect!”
+
+“Madam,” cried Blake, turning crimson, “that matters nothing. It was not
+the place or time to introduce your cousin's name.
+
+“You think, Sir Rowland,” put in Ruth, her air grave, judicial almost,
+“that Richard behaved well?”
+
+“As I would like to behave myself, as I would have a son of mine behave
+on the like occasion,” Blake protested. “But we waste words,” he cried.
+“I did not come to defend Richard, nor just to bear you this untoward
+news. I came to consult with you, in the hope that we might find some
+way to avert this peril from your brother.”
+
+“What way is possible?” asked Ruth, and sighed. “I would not... I would
+not have Richard a coward.”
+
+“Would you prefer him dead?” asked Blake, sadly grave.
+
+“Sooner than craven--yes,” Ruth answered him, very white.
+
+“There is no question of that,” was Blake's rejoinder. “The question
+is that Wilding said last night that he would kill the boy, and what
+Wilding says he does. Out of the affection that I bear Richard is born
+my anxiety to save him despite himself. It is in this that I come to
+seek your aid or offer mine. Allied we might accomplish what singly
+neither of us could.”
+
+He had at once the reward of his cunning speech. Ruth held out her
+hands. “You are a good friend, Sir Rowland,” she said, with a pale
+smile; and pale too was the smile with which Diana watched them. No more
+than Ruth did she suspect the sincerity of Blake's protestations.
+
+“I am proud you should account me that,” said the baronet, taking Ruth's
+hands and holding them a moment; “and I would that I could prove myself
+your friend in this to some good purpose. Believe me, if Wilding would
+consent that I might take your brother's place, I would gladly do so.”
+
+It was a safe boast, knowing as he did that Wilding would consent to
+no such thing; but it earned him a glance of greater kindliness from
+Ruth--who began to think that hitherto perhaps she had done him some
+injustice--and a look of greater admiration from Diana, who saw in him
+her beau-ideal of the gallant lover.
+
+“I would not have you endanger yourself so,” said Ruth.
+
+“It might,” said Blake, his blue eyes very fierce, “be no great danger,
+after all.” And then dismissing that part of the subject as if, like
+a brave man, the notion of being thought boastful were unpleasant, he
+passed on to the discussion of ways and means by which the coming duel
+might be averted. But when they came to grips with facts, it seemed that
+Sir Rowland had as little idea of what might be done as had the ladies.
+True, he began by making the obvious suggestion that Richard should
+tender Wilding a full apology. That, indeed, was the only door of
+escape, and Blake shrewdly suspected that what the boy had been
+unwilling to do last night--partly through wine, and partly through
+the fear of looking fearful in the eyes of Lord Gervase Scoresby's
+guests--he might be willing enough to do to-day, sober and upon
+reflection. For the rest Blake was as far from suspecting Mr. Wilding's
+peculiar frame of mind as had Richard been last night. This his words
+showed.
+
+“I am satisfied,” said he, “that if Richard were to go to-day to Wilding
+and express his regret for a thing done in the heat of wine, Wilding
+would be forced to accept it as satisfaction, and none would think that
+it did other than reflect credit upon Richard.”
+
+“Are you very sure of that?” asked Ruth, her tone dubious, her glance
+hopefully anxious.
+
+“What else is to be thought?”
+
+“But,” put in Diana shrewdly, “it were an admission of Richard's that he
+had done wrong.”
+
+“No less,” he agreed, and Ruth caught her breath in fresh dismay.
+
+“And yet you have said that he did as you would have a son of yours do,”
+ Diana reminded him.
+
+“And I maintain it,” answered Blake; his wits worked slowly ever. It was
+for Ruth to reveal the flaw to him.
+
+“Do you not understand, then,” she asked him sadly, “that such an
+admission on Richard's part would amount to a lie--a lie uttered to save
+himself from an encounter, the worst form of lie, a lie of cowardice?
+Surely, Sir Rowland, your kindly anxiety for his life outruns your
+anxiety for his honour.”
+
+Diana, having accomplished her task, hung her head in silence,
+pondering.
+
+Sir Rowland was routed utterly. He glanced from one to the other of his
+companions, and grew afraid that he--the town gallant--might come to
+look foolish in the eyes of these country ladies. He protested again
+his love for Richard, and increased Ruth's terror by his mention of
+Wilding's swordsmanship; but when all was said, he saw that he had best
+retreat ere he spoiled the good effect which he hoped his solicitude had
+created. And so he spoke of seeking counsel with Lord Gervase Scoresby,
+and took his leave, promising to return by noon.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. DIANA SCHEMES
+
+Notwithstanding the brave face Ruth Westmacott had kept during his
+presence, when he departed Sir Rowland left behind him a distress
+amounting almost to anguish in her mind. Yet though she might suffer,
+there was no weakness in Ruth's nature. She knew how to endure. Diana,
+bearing Richard not a tenth of the affection his sister consecrated to
+him, was alarmed for him. Besides, her own interests urged the averting
+of this encounter. And so she held in accents almost tearful that
+something must be done to save him.
+
+This, too, appeared to be Richard's own view, when presently--within a
+few minutes of Blake's departure--he came to join them. They watched
+his approach in silence, and both noted--though with different eyes and
+different feelings--the pallor of his fair face, the dark lines under
+his colourless eyes. His condition was abject, and his manners, never
+of the best--for there was much of the spoiled child about Richard--were
+clearly suffering from it.
+
+He stood before his sister and his cousin, moving his eyes shiftily from
+one to the other, rubbing his hands nervously together.
+
+“Your precious friend Sir Rowland has been here,” said he, and it was
+not clear from his manner which of them he addressed. “Not a doubt but
+he will have brought you the news.” He seemed to sneer.
+
+Ruth advanced towards him, her face grave, her sweet eyes full of
+pitying concern. She placed a hand upon his sleeve. “My poor Richard...”
+ she began, but he shook off her kindly touch, laughing angrily--a mere
+cackle of irritability.
+
+“Odso!” he interrupted her. “It is a thought late for this mock
+kindliness!”
+
+Diana, in the background, arched her brows, then with a shrug turned
+aside and seated herself on the stone seat by which they had been
+standing. Ruth shrank back as if her brother had struck her.
+
+“Richard!” she cried, and searched his livid face with her eyes.
+“Richard!”
+
+He read a question in the interjection, and he answered it. “Had you
+known any real care, any true concern for me, you had not given cause
+for this affair,” he chid her peevishly.
+
+“What are you saying?” she cried, and it occurred to her at last that
+Richard was afraid. He was a coward! She felt as she would faint.
+
+“I am saying,” said he, hunching his shoulders, and shivering as he
+spoke, yet, his glance unable to meet hers, “that it is your fault that
+I am like to get my throat cut before sunset.”
+
+“My fault?” she murmured. The slope of lawn seemed to wave and swim
+about her. “My fault?”
+
+“The fault of your wanton ways,” he accused her harshly. “You have so
+played fast and loose with this fellow Wilding that he makes free of
+your name in my very presence, and puts upon me the need to get myself
+killed by him to save the family honour.”
+
+He would have said more in this strain, but something in her glance gave
+him pause. There fell a silence. From the distance came the melodious
+pealing of church bells. High overhead a lark was pouring out its song;
+in the lane at the orchard end rang the beat of trotting hoofs. It
+was Diana who spoke presently. Just indignation stirred her, and, when
+stirred, she knew no pity, set no limits to her speech.
+
+“I think, indeed,” said she, her voice crisp and merciless, “that the
+family honour will best be saved if Mr. Wilding kills you. It is in
+danger while you live. You are a coward, Richard.”
+
+“Diana!” he thundered--he could be mighty brave with women--whilst Ruth
+clutched her arm to restrain her.
+
+But she continued, undeterred: “You are a coward--a pitiful coward,” she
+told him. “Consult your mirror. It will tell you what a palsied thing
+you are. That you should dare so speak to Ruth...”
+
+“Don't!” Ruth begged her, turning.
+
+“Aye,” growled Richard, “she had best be silent.”
+
+Diana rose, to battle, her cheeks crimson. “It asks a braver man than
+you to compel my obedience,” she told him. “La!” she fumed, “I'll swear
+that had Mr. Wilding overheard what you have said to your sister, you
+would have little to fear from his sword. A cane would be the weapon
+he'd use on you.”
+
+Richard's pale eyes flamed malevolently; a violent rage possessed him
+and flooded out his fear, for nothing can so goad a man as an offensive
+truth. Ruth approached him again; again she took him by the arm, seeking
+to soothe his over-troubled spirit; but again he shook her off. And then
+to save the situation came a servant from the house. So lost in anger
+was all Richard's sense of decency that the mere supervention of the
+man would not have been enough to have silenced him could he have found
+adequate words in which to answer Mistress Horton. But even as he racked
+his mind, the footman's voice broke the silence, and the words the
+fellow uttered did what his presence alone might not have sufficed to
+do.
+
+“Mr. Vallancey is asking for you, sir,” he announced.
+
+Richard started. Vallancey! He had come at last, and his coming was
+connected with the impending duel. The thought was paralyzing to young
+Westmacott. The flush of anger faded from his face; its leaden hue
+returned and he shivered as with cold. At last he mastered himself
+sufficiently to ask:
+
+“Where is he, Jasper?”
+
+“In the library, sir,” replied the servant. “Shall I bring him hither?”
+
+“Yes--no,” he answered. “I will come to him.” He turned his back upon
+the ladies, paused a moment, still irresolute. Then, as by an effort,
+he followed the servant across the lawn and vanished through the ivied
+porch.
+
+As he went Diana flew to her cousin. Her shallow nature was touched with
+transient pity. “My poor Ruth...” she murmured soothingly, and set her
+arm about the other's waist. There was a gleam of tears in the eyes Ruth
+turned upon her. Together they came to the granite seat and sank to it
+side by side, fronting the placid river. There Ruth, her elbows on her
+knees, cradled her chin in her hands, and with a sigh of misery stared
+straight before her.
+
+“It was untrue!” she said at last. “What Richard said of me was untrue.”
+
+“Why, yes,” Diana snapped, contemptuous. “The only truth is that Richard
+is afraid.”
+
+Ruth shivered. “Ah, no,” she pleaded--she knew how true was the
+impeachment. “Don't say it, Diana.”
+
+“It matters little that I say it,” snorted Diana impatiently. “It is a
+truth proclaimed by the first glance at him.”
+
+“He is in poor health, perhaps,” said Ruth, seeking miserably to excuse
+him.
+
+“Aye,” said Diana. “He's suffering from an ague--the result of a lack
+of courage. That he should so have spoken to you! Give me patience,
+Heaven!”
+
+Ruth crimsoned again at the memory of his words; a wave of indignation
+swept through her gentle soul, but was gone at once, leaving an
+ineffable sadness in its room. What was to be done? She turned to Diana
+for counsel. But Diana was still whipping up her scorn.
+
+“If he goes out to meet Mr. Wilding, he'll shame himself and every man
+and woman that bears the name of Westmacott,” said she, and struck a new
+fear with that into the heart of Ruth.
+
+“He must not go!” she answered passionately. “He must not meet him!”
+
+Diana flashed her a sidelong glance. “And if he doesn't, will things be
+mended?” she inquired. “Will it save his honour to have Mr. Wilding come
+and cane him?”
+
+“He'd not do that?” said Ruth.
+
+“Not if you asked him--no,” was Diana's sharp retort, and she caught her
+breath on the last word of it, for just then the Devil dropped the seed
+of a suggestion into the fertile soil of her lovesick soul.
+
+“Diana!” Ruth exclaimed in reproof, turning to confront her cousin. But
+Diana's mind started upon its scheming journey was now travelling fast.
+Out of that devil's seed there sprang with amazing rapidity a tree-like
+growth, throwing out branches, putting forth leaves, bearing already--in
+her fancy--bloom and fruit.
+
+“Why not?” quoth she after a breathing space, and her voice was gentle,
+her tone innocent beyond compare. “Why should you not ask him?” Ruth
+frowned, perplexed and thoughtful, and now Diana turned to her with
+the lively eye of one into whose mind has leapt a sudden inspiration.
+“Ruth!” she exclaimed. “Why, indeed, should you not ask him to forgo
+this duel?”
+
+“How, how could I?” faltered Ruth.
+
+“He'd not deny you; you know he'd not.”
+
+“I do not know it,” answered Ruth. “But if I did, how could I ask it?”
+
+“Were I Richard's sister, and had I his life and honour at heart as you
+have, I'd not ask how. If Richard goes to that encounter he loses both,
+remember--unless between this and then he undergoes some change. Were I
+in your place, I'd straight to Wilding.”
+
+“To him?” mused Ruth, sitting up. “How could I go to him?”
+
+“Go to him, yes,” Diana insisted. “Go to him at once--while there is yet
+time.”
+
+Ruth rose and moved away a step or two towards the water, deep in
+thought. Diana watched her furtively and slyly, the rapid rise and fall
+of her maiden breast betraying the agitation that filled her as she
+waited--like a gamester--for the turn of the card that would show her
+whether she had won or lost. For she saw clearly how Ruth might be so
+compromised that there was something more than a chance that Diana would
+no longer have cause to account her cousin a barrier between herself and
+Blake.
+
+“I could not go alone,” said Ruth, and her tone was that of one still
+battling with a notion that is repugnant.
+
+“Why, if that is all,” said Diana, “then I'll go with you.”
+
+“I can't! I can't! Consider the humiliation.”
+
+“Consider Richard rather,” the fair temptress made answer eagerly. “Be
+sure that Mr. Wilding will save you all humiliation. He'll not deny you.
+At a word from you, I know what answer he will make. He will refuse to
+push the matter forward--acknowledge himself in the wrong, do whatever
+you may ask him. He can do it. None will question his courage. It has
+been proved too often.” She rose and came to Ruth. She set her arm
+about her waist again, and poured shrewd persuasion over her cousin's
+indecision. “To-night you'll thank me for this thought,” she assured
+her. “Why do you pause? Are you so selfish as to think more of the
+little humiliation that may await you than of Richard's life and
+honour?”
+
+“No, no,” Ruth protested feebly.
+
+“What, then? Is Richard to go out and slay his honour by a show of fear
+before he is slain, himself, by the man he has insulted?”
+
+“I'll go,” said Ruth. Now that the resolve was taken, she was brisk,
+impatient. “Come, Diana. Let Jerry saddle for us. We'll ride to Zoyland
+Chase at once.”
+
+They went without a word to Richard who was still closeted with
+Vallancey, and riding forth they crossed the river and took the road
+that, skirting Sedgemoor, runs south to Weston Zoyland. They rode with
+little said until they came to the point where the road branches on the
+left, throwing out an arm across the moor towards Chedzoy, a mile or so
+short of Zoyland Chase. Here Diana reined in with a sharp gasp of pain.
+Ruth checked, and cried to know what ailed her.
+
+“It is the sun, I think,” muttered Diana, her hand to her brow. “I am
+sick and giddy.” And she slipped a thought heavily to the ground. In an
+instant Ruth had dismounted and was beside her. Diana was pale, which
+lent colour to her complaint, for Ruth was not to know that the pallor
+sprang from her agitation in wondering whether the ruse she attempted
+would succeed or not.
+
+A short stone's-throw from where they had halted stood a cottage back
+from the road in a little plot of ground, the property of a kindly old
+woman known to both. There Diana expressed the wish to rest awhile, and
+thither they took their way, Ruth leading both horses and supporting her
+faltering cousin. The dame was all solicitude. Diana was led into her
+parlour, and what could be done was done. Her corsage was loosened,
+water drawn from the well and brought her to drink and bathe her brow.
+
+She sat back languidly, her head lolling sideways against one of the
+wings of the great chair, and languidly assured them she would be better
+soon if she were but allowed to rest awhile. Ruth drew up a stool to
+sit beside her, for all that her soul fretted at this delay. What if in
+consequence she should reach Zoyland Chase too late--to find that Mr.
+Wilding had gone forth already? But even as she was about to sit, it
+seemed that the same thought had of a sudden come to Diana. The girl
+leaned forward, thrusting--as if by an effort--some of her faintness
+from her.
+
+“Do not wait for me, Ruth,” she begged.
+
+“I must, child.”
+
+“You must not;” the other insisted. “Think what it may mean--Richard's
+life, perhaps. No, no, Ruth, dear. Go on; go on to Zoyland. I'll follow
+you in a few minutes.”
+
+“I'll wait for you,” said Ruth with firmness.
+
+At that Diana rose, and in rising staggered. “Then we'll push on at
+once,” she gasped, as if speech itself were an excruciating effort.
+
+“But you are in no case to stand!” said Ruth. “Sit, Diana, sit.”
+
+“Either you go on alone or I go with you, but go at once you must. At
+any moment Mr. Wilding may go forth, and your chance is lost. I'll not
+have Richard's blood upon my head.”
+
+Ruth wrung her hands in her dismay, confronted by a parlous choice.
+Consent to Diana's accompanying her in this condition she could not;
+ride on alone to Mr. Wilding's house was hardly to be thought of, and
+yet if she delayed she was endangering Richard's life. By the very
+strength of her nature she was caught in the mesh of Diana's scheme.
+She saw that her hesitation was unworthy. This was no ordinary cause, no
+ordinary occasion. It was a time for heroic measures. She must ride on,
+nor could she consent to take Diana.
+
+And so in the end she went, having seen her cousin settled again in the
+high chair, and took with her Diana's feeble assurances that she would
+follow her in a few moments, as soon as her faintness passed.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. TERMS OF SURRENDER
+
+“MR. WILDING rode at dawn with Mr. Trenchard, madam,” announced old
+Walters, the butler at Zoyland Chase. Old and familiar servant though he
+was, he kept from his countenance all manifestation of the deep surprise
+occasioned him by the advent of Mistress Westmacott, unescorted.
+
+“He rode... at dawn?” faltered Ruth, and for a moment she stood
+irresolute, afraid and pondering in the shade of the great pillared
+porch. Then she took heart again. If he rode at dawn, it was not in
+quest of Richard that he went, since it had been near eleven o'clock
+when she had left Bridgwater. He must have gone on other business first,
+and, doubtless, before he went to the encounter he would be returning
+home. “Said he at what hour he would return?” she asked.
+
+“He bade us expect him by noon, madam.”
+
+This gave confirmation to her thoughts. It wanted more than half an hour
+to noon already. “Then he may return at any moment?” said she.
+
+“At any moment, madam,” was the grave reply.
+
+She took her resolve. “I will wait,” she announced, to the man's
+increasing if undisplayed astonishment. “Let my horse be seen to.”
+
+He bowed his obedience, and she followed him--a slender, graceful
+figure in her dove-coloured riding-habit laced with silver--across the
+stone-flagged vestibule, through the cool gloom of the great hall, into
+the spacious library of which he held the door.
+
+“Mistress Horton is following me,” she informed the butler. “Will you
+bring her to me when she comes?”
+
+Bowing again in silent acquiescence, the white-haired servant closed the
+door and left her. She stood in the centre of the great room, drawing
+off her riding-gloves, perturbed and frightened beyond all reason at
+finding herself for the first time under Mr. Wilding's roof. He was
+most handsomely housed. His grandfather, who had travelled in Italy,
+had built the Chase upon the severe and noble lines which there he had
+learnt to admire, and he had embellished its interior, too, with many
+treasures of art which with that intent he had there collected.
+
+She dropped her whip and gloves on to a table, and sank into a chair
+to wait, her heart fluttering in her throat. Time passed, and in the
+silence of the great house her anxiety was gradually quieted, until at
+last through the long window that stood open came faintly wafted to her
+on the soft breeze of that June morning the sound of a church clock at
+Weston Zoyland chiming twelve. She rose with a start, bethinking her
+suddenly of Diana, and wondering why she had not yet arrived. Was the
+child's indisposition graver than she had led Ruth to suppose? She
+crossed to the windows and stood there drumming impatiently upon the
+pane, her eyes straying idly over the sweep of elm-fringed lawns towards
+the river gleaming silvery here and there between the trees in the
+distance.
+
+Suddenly she caught a sound of hoofs. Was this Diana? She sped to the
+other window, the one that stood open, and now she heard the crunch of
+gravel and the champ of bits and the sound of more than two pairs of
+hoofs. She caught a glimpse of Mr. Wilding and Mr. Trenchard.
+
+She felt the colour flying from her cheeks; again her heart fluttered in
+her throat, and it was in vain that with her hand she sought to repress
+the heaving of her breast. She was afraid; her every instinct bade her
+slip through the window at which she stood and run from Zoyland Chase.
+And then she thought of Richard and his danger, and she seemed to gather
+courage from the reflection of her purpose in this house.
+
+Men's voices reached her--a laugh, the harsh cawing of Nick Trenchard.
+
+“A lady!” she heard him cry. “'Od's heart, Tony! Is this a time for
+trafficking with doxies?” She crimsoned an instant at the coarse word
+and set her teeth, only to pale again the next. The voices were
+lowered so that she heard not what was said; one sharp exclamation she
+recognized to be in Wilding's voice, but caught not the word he uttered.
+There followed a pause, and she stirred uneasily, waiting. Then
+came swift steps and jangling spurs across the hall, the door opened
+suddenly, and Mr. Wilding, in a scarlet riding-coat, his boots white
+with dust, stood bowing to her from the threshold.
+
+“Your servant, Mistress Westmacott,” she heard him murmur. “My house is
+deeply honoured.”
+
+She dropped him a half-curtsy, pale and tongue-tied. He turned to
+deliver hat and whip and gloves to Walters, who had followed him, then
+closed the door and came forward into the room.
+
+“You will forgive that I present myself thus before you,” he said,
+in apology for his dusty raiment. “But I bethought me you might be in
+haste, and Walters tells me that already have you waited nigh upon an
+hour. Will you not sit, madam?” And he advanced a chair. His long white
+face was set like a mask; but his dark, slanting eyes devoured her. He
+guessed the reason of her visit. She who had humbled him, who had driven
+him to the very borders of despair, was now to be humbled and to despair
+before him. Under the impassive face his soul exulted fiercely.
+
+She disregarded the chair he proffered. “My visit... has no doubt
+surprised you,” she began, tremulous and hesitating.
+
+“I' faith, no,” he answered quietly. “The cause, after all, is not very
+far to seek. You are come on Richard's behalf.”
+
+“Not on Richard's,” she answered. “On my own.” And now that the ice was
+broken, the suspense of waiting over, she found the tide of her courage
+flowing fast. “This encounter must not take place, Mr. Wilding,” she
+informed him.
+
+He raised his eyebrows--fine and level as her own--his thin lips smiled
+never so faintly. “It is, I think,” said he, “for Richard to prevent it.
+The chance was his last night. It shall be his again when we meet. If he
+will express regret...” He left his sentence there. In truth he mocked
+her, though she guessed it not.
+
+“You mean,” said she, “that if he makes apology...?”
+
+“What else? What other way remains?”
+
+She shook her head, and, if pale, her face was resolute, her glance
+steady.
+
+“That is impossible,” she told him. “Last night--as I have the story--he
+might have done it without shame. To-day it is too late. To tender his
+apology on the ground would be to proclaim himself a coward.”
+
+Mr. Wilding pursed his lips and shifted his position. “It is difficult,
+perhaps,” said he, “but not impossible.”
+
+“It is impossible,” she insisted firmly.
+
+“I'll not quarrel with you for a word,” he answered, mighty agreeable.
+“Call it impossible, if you will. Admit, however, that it is all I
+can suggest. You will do me the justice, I am sure, to see that in
+expressing my willingness to accept your brother's expressions of regret
+I am proving myself once more your very obedient servant. But that it is
+you who ask it--and whose desires are my commands--I should let no man
+go unpunished for an insult such as your brother put upon me.”
+
+She winced at his words, at the bow with which he had professed himself
+once more her servant.
+
+“It is no clemency that you offer him,” she said. “You leave him a
+choice between death and dishonour.”
+
+“He has,” Wilding reminded her, “the chance of combat.”
+
+She flung back her head impatiently. “I think you mock me,” said she.
+
+He looked at her keenly. “Will you tell me plainly, madam,” he begged,
+“what you would have me do?”
+
+She flushed under his gaze, and the flush told him what he sought to
+learn. There was, of course, another way, and she had thought of it;
+but she lacked--as well she might, all things considered--the courage
+to propose it. She had come to Mr. Wilding in the vague hope that he
+himself would choose the heroic part. And he, to punish for her scorn
+of him this woman whom he loved to hating-point, was resolved that she
+herself must beg it of him. Whether, having so far compelled her, he
+would grant her prayer or not was something he could not just then
+himself have told you. She bowed her head in silence, and Wilding, that
+faint smile, half friendliness, half mockery, hovering ever on his
+lips, turned aside and moved softly towards the window. Her eyes, veiled
+behind the long lashes of their drooping lids, followed him furtively.
+She felt that she hated him in very truth. She marked the upright
+elegance of his figure, the easy grace of his movements, the fine
+aristocratic mould of the aquiline face, which she beheld in profile;
+and she hated him the more for these outward favours that must commend
+him to no lack of women. He was too masterful. He made her realize too
+keenly her own weakness and that of Richard. She felt that just now he
+controlled the vice that held her fast--her affection for her brother.
+And because of that she hated him the more. “You see, Mistress
+Westmacott,” said he, his shoulder to her, his tone sweet to the point
+of sadness, “that there is nothing else.” She stood, her eyes following
+the pattern of the parquetry, her foot unconsciously tracing it; her
+courage ebbed, and she had no answer for him. After a pause he spoke
+again, still without turning. “If that was not enough to suit your
+ends”--and though he spoke in a tone of ever-increasing sadness, there
+glinted through it the faintest ray of mockery--“I marvel you should
+have come to Zoyland--to compromise yourself to so little purpose.”
+
+She raised a startled face. “Com... compromise myself?” she echoed.
+“Oh!” It was a cry of indignation.
+
+“What else?” quoth he, and turned abruptly to confront her.
+
+“Mistress Horton was... was with me,” she panted, her voice quivering as
+on the brink of tears.
+
+“'Tis unfortunate you should have separated,” he condoled.
+
+“But... but, Mr. Wilding, I... I trusted to your honour. I accounted you
+a gentleman. Surely... surely, sir, you will not let it be known that...
+I came to you? You will keep my secret?”
+
+“Secret!” said he, his eyebrows raised. “'Tis already the talk of the
+servants' hall. By to-morrow 'twill be the gossip of Bridgwater.”
+
+Air failed her. Her blue eyes fixed him in horror out of her stricken
+face. Not a word had she wherewith to answer him.
+
+The sight of her, thus, affected him oddly. His passion for her surged
+up, aroused by pity for her plight, and awakened in him a sense of his
+brutality. A faint flush stirred in his cheeks. He stepped quickly to
+her, and caught her hand. She let it lie, cold and inert, within his
+nervous grasp.
+
+“Ruth, Ruth!” he cried, and his voice was for once unsteady. “Give it no
+thought! I love you, Ruth. If you'll but heed that, no breath of scandal
+can hurt you.”
+
+She swallowed hard. “As how?” she asked mechanically.
+
+He bowed low over her hand--so low that his face was hidden from her.
+
+“If you will do me the honour to become my wife...” he began, but got no
+further, for she snatched away her hand, her cheeks crimsoning, her eyes
+aflame with indignation. He stepped back, crimsoning too. She had dashed
+the gentleness from his mood. He was angered now and tigerish.
+
+“Oh!” she panted. “It is to affront me! Is this the time or place...”
+
+He cropped her flow of indignant speech ere it was well begun. He caught
+her in his arms, and held her tight, and so sudden was the act, so firm
+his grip that she had not the thought or force to struggle.
+
+“All time is love's time, all places are love's place,” he told her,
+his face close to her own. “And of all time and places the present ever
+preferable to the wise--for life is uncertain and short at best. I bring
+you worship, and you answer me with scorn. But I shall prevail, and you
+shall come to love me in very spite of your own self.”
+
+She threw back her head, away from his as far as the bonds he had cast
+about her would allow. “Air! Air!” she panted feebly.
+
+“Oh, you shall have air enough anon,” he answered with a half-strangled
+laugh, his passion mounting ever. “Hark you, now--hark you, for
+Richard's sake, since you'll not listen for my own nor yours. There is
+another course by which I can save both Richard's life and honour.
+You know it, and you counted upon my generosity to suggest it. But you
+overlooked the thing on which you should have counted. You overlooked my
+love. Count upon that, my Ruth, and Richard shall have naught to fear.
+Count upon that, and when we meet this evening, Richard and I, it is
+I who will tender the apology, I who will admit that I was wrong to
+introduce your name into that company last night, and that what Richard
+did was a just and well-deserved punishment upon me. This will I do if
+you'll but count upon my love.”
+
+She looked up at him fearfully, yet with flutterings of hope. “What is't
+you mean?” she asked him faintly.
+
+“That if you'll promise to be my wife...”
+
+“Your wife!” she interrupted him. She struggled to free herself,
+released one arm and struck him in the face. “Let me go, you coward!”
+
+He was answered. His arms melted from her. He fell back a pace, very
+white and even trembling, the fire all gone from his eye, which was now
+turned dull and deadly.
+
+“So be it,” he said, and strode to the bell-rope. “I'll not offend
+again. I had not offended now”--he continued, in the voice of one
+offering an explanation cold and formal--“but that when first I came
+into your life you seemed to bid me welcome.” His fingers closed upon
+the crimson bell-cord. She guessed his purpose.
+
+“Wait!” she gasped, and put forth her hand. He paused, the rope in his,
+his eye kindling anew. “You... you mean to kill Richard now?” she asked
+him.
+
+A swift lifting of his brows was his only answer. He tugged the cord.
+From the distance the peal of the bell reached them faintly.
+
+“Oh, wait, wait!” she begged, her hands pressed against her cheeks. He
+stood impassible--hatefully impassible. “....... if I were to consent
+to... this... how... how soon...?” He understood the unfinished
+question. Interest warmed his face again. He took a step towards her,
+but by a gesture she seemed to beg him come no nearer.
+
+“If you will promise to marry me within the week, Richard shall have no
+cause to fear either for his life or his honour at my hands.”
+
+She seemed now to be recovering her calm. “Very well,” she said, her
+voice singularly steady. “Let that be a bargain between us. Spare
+Richard's life and honour--both, remember!--and on Sunday next...” For
+all her courage her voice quavered and faltered. She dared add no more,
+lest it should break altogether.
+
+Mr. Wilding drew a deep breath. Again he would have advanced. “Ruth!”
+ he cried, and some repentance smote him, some shame shook him in
+his purpose. At that moment it was in his mind to capitulate
+unconditionally; to tell her that Richard should have naught to fear
+from him, and yet that she should go free as the winds. Her gesture
+checked him. It was so eloquent of aversion. He paused in his advance,
+stifled his better feelings, and turned once more, relentless. The door
+opened and old Walters stood awaiting his commands.
+
+“Mistress Westmacott is leaving,” he informed his servant, and bowed
+low and formally in farewell before her. She passed out without another
+word, the old butler following, and presently through the door that
+remained open came Trenchard, in quest of Mr. Wilding who stood bemused.
+
+Nick sauntered in, his left eye almost hidden by the rakish cock of his
+hat, one hand tucked away under the skirts of his plum-coloured coat,
+the other supporting the stem of a long clay pipe, at which he was
+pulling thoughtfully. The pipe and he were all but inseparable; indeed,
+the year before in London he had given appalling scandal by appearing
+with it in the Mall, and had there remained him any character to lose,
+he must assuredly have lost it then.
+
+He observed his friend through narrowing eyes--he had small eyes, very
+blue and very bright, in which there usually abode a roguish gleam.
+
+“My sight, Anthony,” said he, “reminds me that I am growing old. I
+wonder did it mislead me on the score of your visitor?”
+
+“The lady who left,” said Wilding with a touch of severity, “will be
+Mistress Wilding by this day se'night.”
+
+Trenchard took the pipe from his lips, audibly blew out a cloud of smoke
+and stared at his friend. “Body o' me!” quoth he. “Is this a time for
+marrying?--with these rumours of Monmouth's coming over.”
+
+Wilding made an impatient gesture. “I thought to have convinced you they
+are idle,” said he, and flung himself into a chair at his writing-table.
+
+Nick came over and perched himself upon the table's edge, one leg
+swinging in the air. “And what of this matter of the intercepted letter
+from London to our Taunton friends?”
+
+“I can't tell you. But of this I am sure, His Grace is incapable of
+anything so rash. Certain is it that he'll not stir until Battiscomb
+returns to Holland, and Battiscomb is still in Cheshire sounding the
+Duke's friends.”
+
+“Yet were I you, I should not marry just at present.”
+
+Wilding smiled. “If you were me, you'd never marry at all.”
+
+“Faith, no!” said Trenchard. “I'd as soon play at 'hot-cockles,' or
+'Parson-has-lost-his-cloak.' 'Tis a mort more amusing and the sooner
+done with.”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE ENCOUNTER
+
+Ruth Wesmacott rode back like one in a dream, with vague and hazy
+notions of what she saw or did. So overwrought was she by the interview
+from which she came, her mind so obsessed by it, that never a thought
+had she for Diana and her indisposition until she arrived home to
+find her cousin there before her. Diana was in tears, called up by the
+reproaches of her mother, Lady Horton--the relict of that fine soldier
+Sir Cholmondeley Horton, of Taunton.
+
+The girl had arrived at Lupton House a half-hour ahead of Miss
+Westmacott, and upon her arrival she had expressed surprise, either
+feigned or real, at finding Ruth still absent. Detecting the alarm
+that Diana was careful to throw into her voice and manner, her mother
+questioned her, and elicited the story of her faintness and of Ruth's
+having ridden on alone to Mr. Wilding's. So outraged was Lady Horton
+that for once in a way this woman, usually so meek and ease-loving,
+was roused to an energy and anger with her daughter and her niece that
+threatened to remove Diana at once from the pernicious atmosphere of
+Lupton House and carry her home to Taunton. Ruth found her still at her
+remonstrances, arrived, indeed, in time for her share of them.
+
+“I have been sore mistaken in you, Ruth!” the dame reproached her. “I
+can scarce believe it of you. I have held you up as an example to Diana,
+for the discretion and wisdom of your conduct, and you do this! You go
+alone to Mr. Wilding's house--to Mr. Wilding's, of all men!”
+
+“It was no time for ordinary measures,” said Ruth, but she spoke without
+any of the heat of one who defends her conduct. She was, the slyly
+watchful Diana observed, very white and tired. “It was no time to think
+of nice conduct. There was Richard to be saved.”
+
+“And was it worth ruining yourself to do that?” quoth Lady Horton, her
+colour high.
+
+“Ruining myself?” echoed Ruth, and she smiled never so weary a smile. “I
+have, indeed, done that, though not in the way you mean.”
+
+Mother and daughter eyed her, mystified. “Your good name is blasted,”
+ said her aunt, “unless so be that Mr. Wilding is proposing to make you
+his wife.” It was a sneer the good woman could not, in her indignation,
+repress.
+
+“That is what Mr. Wilding has done me the honour to propose,” Ruth
+answered bitterly, and left them gaping. “We are to be married this day
+se'night.”
+
+A dead silence followed the calm announcement. Then Diana rose. At the
+misery, the anguish that could impress so strange and white a look
+on Ruth's winsome face, she was smitten with remorse, her incipient
+satisfaction dashed. This was her work; the fruit of her scheming. But
+it had gone further than she had foreseen; and for all that no result
+could better harmonize with her own ambitions and desires, for the
+moment--under the first shock of that announcement--she felt guilty and
+grew afraid.
+
+“Ruth!” she cried, her voice a whisper of stupefaction. “Oh, I wish I
+had come with you!”
+
+“But you couldn't; you were faint.” And then--recalling what had
+passed--her mind was filled with sudden concern for Diana, even amid her
+own sore troubles. “Are you quite yourself again, Diana?” she inquired.
+
+Diana answered almost fiercely, “I am quite well.” And then, with a
+change to wistfulness, she added, “Oh, I would I had come with you!”
+
+“Matters had been no different,” Ruth assured her. “It was a bargain
+Mr. Wilding drove. It was the price I had to pay for Richard's life and
+honour.” She swallowed hard, and let her hands fall limply to her sides.
+“Where is Richard?” she inquired.
+
+It was her aunt who answered her. “He went forth half an hour agone with
+Mr. Vallancey and Sir Rowland.”
+
+“Sir Rowland had returned, then?” She looked up quickly.
+
+“Yes,” answered Diana. “But he had achieved nothing by his visit to Lord
+Gervase. His lordship would not intervene; he swore he hoped the cub
+would be flayed alive by Wilding. Those were his lordship's words, as
+Sir Rowland repeated them. Sir Rowland is in sore distress for Richard.
+He has gone with them to the meeting.”
+
+“At least, he has no longer cause for his distress,” said Miss
+Westmacott with her bitter smile, and sank as one exhausted to a chair.
+Lady Horton moved to comfort her, her motherliness all aroused for this
+motherless girl, usually so wise and strong, and seemingly wiser and
+stronger than ever in this thing that Lady Horton had deemed a weakness
+and a folly.
+
+Meanwhile, Richard and his two friends were on their way to the moors
+across the river to the encounter with Mr. Wilding. But before they
+had got him to ride forth, Vallancey had had occasion to regret that he
+stood committed to a share in this quarrel, for he came to know Richard
+as he really was. He had found him in an abject state, white and
+trembling, his coward's fancy anticipating a hundred times a minute the
+death he was anon to die.
+
+Vallancey had hailed him cheerily.
+
+“The day is yours, Dick,” he had cried, when Richard entered the library
+where he awaited him. “Wild Wilding has ridden to Taunton this morning
+and is to be back by noon. Odsbud, Dick!--twenty miles and more in the
+saddle before coming on the ground. Heard you ever of the like madness?
+He'll be stiff as a broom-handle--an easy victim.”
+
+Richard listened, stared, and, finding Vallancey's eyes fixed steadily
+upon him, attempted a smile and achieved a horrible grimace.
+
+“What ails you, man?” cried his second, and caught him by the wrist. He
+felt the quiver of the other's limb. “Stab me!” quoth he, “you are in no
+case to fight. What the plague ails you?”
+
+“I am none so well this morning,” answered Richard feebly. “Lord
+Gervase's claret,” he added, passing a hand across his brow.
+
+“Lord Gervase's claret?” echoed Vallancey in horror, as at some
+outrageous blasphemy. “Frontignac at ten shillings the bottle!” he
+exclaimed.
+
+“Still, claret never does lie easy on my stomach,” Richard explained,
+intent upon blaming Lord Gervase s wine--since he could think of nothing
+else--for his condition.
+
+Vallancey looked at him shrewdly. “My cock,” said he, “if you're to
+fight we'll have to mend your temper.” He took it upon himself to ring
+the bell, and to order up two bottles of Canary and one of brandy. If he
+was to get his man to the ground at all--and young Vallancey had a due
+sense of his responsibilities in that connection--it would be well to
+supply Richard with something to replace the courage that had oozed
+out overnight. Young Richard, never loath to fortify himself, proved
+amenable enough to the stiffly laced Canary that his friend set before
+him. Then, to divert his mind, Vallancey, with that rash freedom that
+had made the whole of Somerset know him for a rebel, set himself to talk
+of the Protestant Duke and his right to the crown of England.
+
+He was still at his talk, Richard listening moodily what time he was
+slowly but surely befuddling himself, when Sir Rowland--returning from
+Scoresby Hall--came to bring the news of his lack of success. Richard
+hailed him noisily, and bade him ring for another glass, adding, with
+a burst of oaths, some appalling threats of how anon he should serve
+Anthony Wilding. His wits drowned in the stiff liquor Vallancey had
+pressed upon him, he seemed of a sudden to have grown as fierce and
+bloodthirsty as any scourer that ever terrorized the watch.
+
+Blake listened to him and grunted. “Body o' me!” swore the town gallant.
+“If that's the humour you're going out to fight in, I'll trouble you for
+the eight guineas I won from you at Primero yesterday before you start.”
+
+Richard reared himself, by the help of the table, and stood a thought
+unsteadily, his glance laboriously striving to engage Blake's.
+
+“Damn me!” quoth he. “Your want of faith dishgraces me--and 't 'shgraces
+you. Shalt ha' the guineas when we're back--and not before.”
+
+“Hum!” quoth Blake, to whom eight guineas were a consideration in these
+bankrupt days. “And if you don't come back at all upon whom am I to
+draw?”
+
+The suggestion sank through Dick's half-fuddled senses, and the scare it
+gave him was reflected on his face.
+
+“Damn you, Blake!” swore Vallancey between his teeth. “Is that a decent
+way to talk to a man who is going out? Never heed him, Dick! Let him
+wait for his dirty guineas till we return.”
+
+“Thirty guineas?” hiccoughed Richard. “It was only eight.
+Anyhow--wait'll I've sli' the gullet of's Mr. Wilding.” He checked on
+a thought that suddenly occurred to him. He turned to Vallancey with a
+ludicrous solemnity. “'Sbud!” he swore. “'S a scurvy trick I'm playing
+the Duke. 'S treason to him--treason no less.” And he smote the table
+with his open hand.
+
+“What's that?” quoth Blake so sharply, his eyes so suddenly alert that
+Vallancey made haste to cover up his fellow rebel's indiscretion.
+
+“It's the brandy-and-Canary makes him dream,” said he with a laugh, and
+rising as he spoke he announced that it was high time they should set
+out. Thus he brought about a bustle that drove the Duke's business from
+Richard's mind, and left Blake without a pretext to pursue his quest
+for information. But the mischief was done, and Blake's suspicions were
+awake. He bethought him now of dark hints that Richard had let fall
+to Vallancey in the past few days, and of hints less dark with which
+Vallancey--who was a careless fellow at ordinary times--had answered.
+And now this mention of the Duke and of treason to him--to what Duke
+could it refer but Monmouth?
+
+Blake was well aware of the wild tales that were going round, and he
+began to wonder now was aught really afoot, and was his good friend
+Westmacott in it?
+
+If there was, he bethought him that the knowledge might be of value,
+and it might help to float once more his shipwrecked fortunes. The haste
+with which Vallancey had proffered a frivolous explanation of Richard's
+words, the bustle with which upon the instant he swept Richard and Sir
+Rowland from the house to get to horse and ride out to Bridgwater were
+in themselves circumstances that went to heighten those suspicions of
+Sir Rowland's. But lacking all opportunity for investigation at the
+moment, he deemed it wisest to say no more just then lest he should
+betray his watchfulness.
+
+They were the first to arrive upon the ground--an open space on the
+borders of Sedgemoor, in the shelter of Polden Hill. But they had not
+long to wait before Wilding and Trenchard rode up, attended by a groom.
+Their arrival had an oddly sobering effect upon young Westmacott, for
+which Mr. Vallancey was thankful. For during their ride he had begun to
+fear that he had carried too far the business of equipping his principal
+with artificial valour.
+
+Trenchard came forward to offer Vallancey the courteous suggestion that
+Mr. Wilding's servant should charge himself with the care of the horses
+of Mr. Westmacott's party, if this would be a convenience to
+them. Vallancey thanked him and accepted the offer, and thus the
+groom--instructed by Trenchard--led the five horses some distance from
+the spot.
+
+It now became a matter of making preparation, and leaving Richard to
+divest himself of such garments as he might deem cumbrous, Vallancey
+went forward to consult with Trenchard upon the choice of ground. At
+that same moment Mr. Wilding lounged forward, flicking the grass with
+his whip in an absent manner.
+
+“Mr. Vallancey,” he began, when Trenchard turned to interrupt him.
+
+“You can leave it safely to me, Tony,” he growled. “But there is
+something I wish to say, Nick,” answered Mr. Wilding, his manner mild.
+“By your leave, then.” And he turned again to Valiancey. “Will you be so
+good as to call Mr. Westmacott hither?”
+
+Vallancey stared. “For what purpose, sir?” he asked.
+
+“For my purpose,” answered Mr. Wilding sweetly. “It is no longer my wish
+to engage with Mr. Westmacott.
+
+“Anthony!” cried Trenchard, and in his amazement forgot to swear.
+
+“I propose,” added Mr. Wilding, “to relieve Mr. Westmacott of the
+necessity of fighting.”
+
+Vallancey in his heart thought this might be pleasant news for his
+principal. Still, he did not quite see how the end was to be attained,
+and said so.
+
+“You shall be enlightened if you will do as I request,” Wilding
+insisted, and Vallancey, with a lift of the brows, a snort, and a shrug,
+turned away to comply.
+
+“Do you mean,” quoth Trenchard, bursting with indignation, “that you
+will let live a man who has struck you?”
+
+Wilding took his friend affectionately by the arm. “It is a whim of
+mine,” said he. “Do you think, Nick, that it is more than I can afford
+to indulge?”
+
+“I say not so,” was the ready answer; “but...”
+
+“I thought you'd not,” said Mr. Wilding, interrupting. “And if any
+does--why, I shall be glad to prove it upon him that he lies.” He
+laughed, and Trenchard, vexed though he was, was forced to laugh with
+him. Then Nick set himself to urge the thing that last night had plagued
+his mind: that this Richard might prove a danger to the Cause; that
+in the Duke's interest, if not to safeguard his own person from some
+vindictive betrayal, Wilding would be better advised in imposing a
+reliable silence upon him.
+
+“But why vindictive?” Mr. Wilding remonstrated. “Rather must he have
+cause for gratitude.”
+
+Mr. Trenchard laughed short and contemptuously. “There is,” said he, “no
+rancour more bitter than that of the mean man who has offended you and
+whom you have spared. I beg you'll ponder it.” He lowered his voice as
+he ended his admonition, for Vallancey and Westmacott were coming up,
+followed by Sir Rowland Blake.
+
+Richard, although his courage had been sinking lower and lower in a
+measure as he had grown more and more sober with the approach of the
+moment for engaging, came forward now with a firm step and an arrogant
+mien; for Vallancey had given him more than a hint of what was toward.
+His heart had leapt, not only at the deliverance that was promised him,
+but out of satisfaction at the reflection of how accurately last night
+he had gauged what Mr. Wilding would endure. It had dismayed him then,
+as we have seen, that this man who, he thought, must stomach any affront
+from him out of consideration for his sister, should have ended by
+calling him to account. He concluded now that upon reflection Wilding
+had seen his error, and was prepared to make amends that he might
+extricate himself from an impossible situation, and Richard blamed
+himself for having overlooked this inevitable solution and given way to
+idle panic.
+
+Vallancey and Blake watching him, and the sudden metamorphosis that was
+wrought in him, despised him heartily, and yet were glad--for the sake
+of their association with him--that things were as they were.
+
+“Mr. Westmacott,” said Wilding quietly, his eyes steadily set upon
+Richard's own arrogant gaze, his lips smiling a little, “I am here not
+to fight, but to apologize.”
+
+Richard's sneer was audible to all. Oh, he was gathering courage fast
+now that there no longer was the need for it. It urged him to lengths of
+daring possible only to a fool.
+
+“If you can take a blow, Mr. Wilding,” said he offensively, “that is
+your own affair.”
+
+And his friends gasped at his temerity and trembled for him, not knowing
+what grounds he had for counting himself unassailable.
+
+“Just so,” said Mr. Wilding, as meek and humble as a nun, and Trenchard,
+who had expected something very different from him, swore aloud and with
+some circumstance of oaths. “The fact is,” continued Mr. Wilding, “that
+what I did last night, I did in the heat of wine, and I am sorry for
+it. I recognize that this quarrel is of my provoking; that it was
+unwarrantable in me to introduce the name of Mistress Westmacott, no
+matter how respectfully; and that in doing so I gave Mr. Westmacott
+ample grounds for offence. For that I beg his pardon, and I venture to
+hope that this matter need go no further.”
+
+Vallancey and Blake were speechless in astonishment; Trenchard
+livid with fury. Westmacott moved a step or two forward, a swagger
+unmistakable in his gait, his nether-lip thrust out in a sneer.
+
+“Why,” said he, his voice mighty disdainful, “if Mr. Wilding apologizes,
+the matter hardly can go further.” He conveyed such a suggestion of
+regret at this that Trenchard bounded forward, stung to speech.
+
+“But if Mr. Westmacott's disappointment threatens to overwhelm him,” he
+snapped, very tartly, “I am his humble servant, and he may call upon me
+to see that he's not robbed of the exercise he came to take.”
+
+Mr. Wilding set a restraining hand upon Trenchard's arm.
+
+Westmacott turned to him, the sneer, however, gone from his face.
+
+“I have no quarrel with you, sir,” said he, with an uneasy assumption of
+dignity.
+
+“It's a want that may be soon supplied,” answered Trenchard briskly,
+and, as he afterwards confessed, had not Wilding checked him at that
+moment, he had thrown his hat in Richard's face.
+
+It was Vallancey who saved the situation, cursing in his heart the
+bearing of his principal.
+
+“Mr. Wilding,” said he, “this is very handsome in you. You are of the
+happy few who may tender such an apology without reflection upon your
+courage.”
+
+Mr. Wilding made him a leg very elegantly. “You are vastly kind, sir,”
+ said he.
+
+“You have given Mr. Westmacott the fullest satisfaction, and it is with
+an increased respect for you--if that were possible--that I acknowledge
+it on my friend's behalf.”
+
+“You are, sir, a very mirror of the elegancies,” said Mr. Wilding, and
+Vallancey wondered was he being laughed at. Whether he was or not, he
+conceived that he had done the only seemly thing. He had made handsome
+acknowledgment of a handsome apology, stung to it by the currishness of
+Richard.
+
+And there the matter ended, despite Trenchard's burning eagerness to
+carry it himself to a different consummation. Wilding prevailed upon
+him, and withdrew him from the field. But as they rode back to Zoyland
+Chase the old rake was bitter in his inveighings against Wilding's folly
+and weakness.
+
+“I pray Heaven,” he kept repeating, “that it may not come to cost you
+dear.”
+
+“Have done,” said Mr. Wilding, a trifle out of patience. “Could I wed
+the sister having slain the brother?”
+
+And Trenchard, understanding at last, accounted himself a numskull that
+he had not understood before. But he none the less deemed it a pity
+Richard had been spared.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. THE CHAMPION
+
+As vainglorious was Richard Westmacott's retreat from the field of
+unstricken battle as his advance upon it had been inglorious. He spoke
+with confidence now of the narrow escape that Wilding had had at
+his hands, of the things he would have done to Wilding had not that
+gentleman grown wise in time. Sir Rowland, who had seen little of
+Richard's earlier stricken condition, was in a measure imposed upon by
+his blustering tone and manner; not so Vallancey, who remembered the
+steps he had been forced to take to bolster up the young man's courage
+sufficiently to admit of his being brought to the encounter. Richard so
+disgusted him that he felt if he did not quit his company soon, he would
+be quarrelling with him himself. So, congratulating him, in a caustic
+manner that Richard did not relish, upon the happy termination of the
+affair, Vallancey took his leave of him and Blake at the cross-roads,
+pleading business with Lord Gervase, and left them to proceed without
+him to Bridgwater.
+
+Blake, whose suspicions of some secret matter to which Vallancey
+and Richard were wedded, had been earlier excited by Westmacott's
+indiscretions, was full of sly questions now touching the business which
+might be taking Vallancey to Scoresby. But Richard was too full of
+the subject of the fear he had instilled into Wilding to afford his
+companion much satisfaction on any other score. Thus they came to Lupton
+House, and as Richard swaggered down the lawn into the presence of the
+ladies--Ruth and her aunt were occupying the stone bench, Diana the
+circular seat about the great oak in the centre of the lawn--he was a
+very different person from the pale, limp creature they had beheld there
+some few hours earlier. Loud and offensive was he now in self-laudation,
+and so indifferent to all else that he left unobserved the little smile,
+half wistful, half scornful, that visited his sister's lips when he
+sneeringly told how Mr. Wilding had chosen that better part of valour
+which discretion is alleged to be.
+
+It needed Diana, who, blinded by no sisterly affection, saw him exactly
+as he was, and despised him accordingly, to enlighten him. It may also
+be that in doing so at once she had ends of her own to serve; for Sir
+Rowland was still of the company.
+
+“Mr. Wilding afraid?” she cried, her voice so charged with derision that
+it inclined to shrillness. “La! Richard, Mr. Wilding was never afraid of
+any man.”
+
+“Faith!” said Rowland, although his acquaintance with Mr. Wilding was
+slight and recent. “It is what I should think. He does not look like a
+man familiar with fear.”
+
+Richard struck something of an attitude, his fair face flushed, his pale
+eyes glittering. “He took a blow,” said he, and sneered.
+
+“There may have been reasons,” Diana suggested darkly, and Sir Rowland's
+eyes narrowed at the hint.
+
+Again he recalled the words Richard had let fall that afternoon. Wilding
+and he were fellow workers in some secret business, and Richard had said
+that the encounter was treason to that same business, whatever it might
+be. And of what it might be Sir Rowland had grounds upon which to found
+at least a guess. Had perhaps Wilding acted upon some similar feelings
+in avoiding the duel? He wondered; and when Richard dismissed Diana's
+challenge with a fatuous laugh, it was Blake who took it up.
+
+“You speak, ma'am,” said he, “as if you knew that there were reasons,
+and knew, too, what those reasons might be.”
+
+Diana looked at Ruth, as if for guidance before replying. But Ruth sat
+calm and seemingly impassive, looking straight before her. She was,
+indeed, indifferent how much Diana said, for in any case the matter
+could not remain a secret long. Lady Horton, silent too and listening,
+looked a question at her daughter.
+
+And so, after a pause: “I know both,” said Diana, her eyes straying
+again to Ruth; and a subtler man than Blake would have read that glance
+and understood that this same reason which he sought so diligently sat
+there before him.
+
+Richard, indeed, catching that sly look of his cousin's, checked his
+assurance, and stood frowning, cogitating. Then, quite suddenly, his
+voice harsh:
+
+“What do you mean, Diana?” he inquired.
+
+Diana shrugged and turned her shoulder to him. “You had best ask Ruth,”
+ said she, which was an answer more or less plain to both the men.
+
+They stood at gaze, Richard looking a thought foolish. Blake, frowning,
+his heavy lip caught in his strong, white teeth.
+
+Ruth turned to her brother with an almost piteous attempt at a smile.
+She sought to spare him pain by excluding from her manner all suggestion
+that things were other than she desired.
+
+“I am betrothed to Mr. Wilding,” said she.
+
+Sir Rowland made a sudden forward movement, drew a deep breath, and as
+suddenly stood still. Richard looked at his sister as she were mad and
+raving. Then he laughed, between unbelief and derision.
+
+“It is a jest,” said he, but his accents lacked conviction.
+
+“It is the truth,” Ruth assured him quietly.
+
+“The truth?” His brow darkened ominously--stupendously for one so fair.
+“The truth, you baggage...?” He began and stopped in very fury.
+
+She saw that she must tell him all.
+
+“I promised to wed Mr. Wilding this day se'night so that he saved your
+life and honour,” she told him calmly, and added, “It was a bargain that
+we drove.” Richard continued to stare at her. The thing she told him
+was too big to be swallowed at a mouthful; he was absorbing it by slow
+degrees.
+
+“So now,” said Diana, “you know the sacrifice your sister has made to
+save you, and when you speak of the apology Mr. Wilding tendered you,
+perhaps you'll speak of it in a tone less loud.”
+
+But the sarcasm was no longer needed. Already poor Richard was very
+humble, his make-believe spirit all snuffed out. He observed at last
+how pale and set was his sister's face, and he realized something of
+the sacrifice she had made. Never in all his life was Richard so near
+to lapsing from the love of himself; never so near to forgetting his
+own interests, and preferring those of Ruth. Lady Horton sat silent, her
+heart fluttering with dismay and perplexity. Heaven had not equipped her
+with a spirit capable of dealing with a situation such as this. Blake
+stood in make believe stolidity dissembling his infinite chagrin and
+the stormy emotions warring within him, for some signs of which Diana
+watched his countenance in vain.
+
+“You shall not do it!” cried Richard suddenly. He came forward and laid
+his hand on his sister's shoulder. His voice was almost gentle. “Ruth,
+you shall not do this for me. You must not.”
+
+“By Heaven, no!” snapped Blake before she could reply. “You are right,
+Richard. Mistress Westmacott must not be the scapegoat. She shall not
+play the part of Iphigenia.”
+
+But Ruth smiled wistfully as she answered him with a question, “Where is
+the help for it?”
+
+Richard knew where the help for it lay, and for once--for just a
+moment--he contemplated danger and even death with equanimity.
+
+“I can take up this quarrel again,” he announced. “I can compel Mr.
+Wilding to meet me.”
+
+Ruth's eyes, looking up at him, kindled with pride and admiration. It
+warmed her heart to hear him speak thus, to have this assurance that he
+was anything but the coward she had been so disloyal as to deem him; no
+doubt she had been right in saying that it was his health was the cause
+of the palsy he had displayed that morning; he was a little wild, she
+knew; inclined to sit over-late at the bottle; with advancing manhood,
+she had no doubt, he would overcome this boyish failing. Meanwhile
+it was this foolish habit--nothing more--that undermined the inherent
+firmness of his nature. And it comforted her generous soul to have this
+proof that he was full worthy of the sacrifice she was making for him.
+Diana watched him in some surprise, and never doubted but that his offer
+was impulsive, and that he would regret it when his ardour had had time
+to cool.
+
+“It were idle,” said Ruth at last--not that she quite believed it, but
+that it was all-important to her that Richard should not be imperilled.
+“Mr. Wilding will prefer the bargain he has made.”
+
+“No doubt,” growled Blake, “but he shall be forced to unmake it.” He
+advanced and bowed low before her. “Madam,” said he, “will you grant
+me leave to champion your cause and remove this troublesome Mr. Wilding
+from your path?”
+
+Diana's eyes narrowed; her cheeks paled, partly from fear for Blake,
+partly from vexation at the promptness of an offer that afforded a fresh
+and so eloquent proof of the trend of his affections.
+
+Ruth smiled at him in a very friendly manner, but gently shook her head.
+
+“I thank you, sir,” said she. “But it were more than I could permit.
+This has become a family affair.”
+
+There was in her tone something which, despite its friendliness,
+gave Sir Rowland his dismissal. He was not at best a man of keen
+sensibilities; yet even so, he could not mistake the request to
+withdraw that was implicit in her tone and manner. He took his leave,
+registering, however, in his heart a vow that he would have his way with
+Wilding. Thus must he--through her gratitude--assuredly come to have his
+way with Ruth.
+
+Diana rose and turned to her mother. “Come,” she said, “we'll speed Sir
+Rowland. Ruth and Richard would perhaps prefer to remain alone.”
+
+Ruth thanked her with her eyes. Richard, standing beside his sister with
+bent head and moody gaze, did not appear to have heard. Thus he remained
+until he and his half-sister were alone together, then he flung himself
+wearily into the seat beside her, and took her hand.
+
+“Ruth,” he faltered, “Ruth!”
+
+She stroked his hand, her honest, intelligent eyes bent upon him in
+a look of pity--and to indulge this pity for him, she forgot how much
+herself she needed pity.
+
+“Take it not so to heart,” she urged him, her voice low and crooning
+--as that of a mother to her babe. “Take it not so to heart, Richard.
+I should have married some day, and, after all, it may well be that Mr.
+Wilding will make me as good a husband as another. I do believe,” she
+added, her only intent to comfort Richard; “that he loves me; and if he
+loves me, surely he will prove kind.”
+
+He flung himself back with an exclamation of angry pain. He was white to
+the lips, his eyes bloodshot. “It must not be--it shall not be--I'll not
+endure it!” he cried hoarsely.
+
+“Richard, dear...” she began, recapturing the hand he had snatched from
+hers in his gust of emotion.
+
+He rose abruptly, interrupting her. “I'll go to Wilding now,” he cried,
+his voice resolute. “He shall cancel this bargain he had no right to
+make. He shall take up his quarrel with me where it stood before you
+went to him.”
+
+“No, no, Richard, you must not!” she urged him, frightened, rising too,
+and clinging to his arm.
+
+“I will,” he answered. “At the worst he can but kill me. But at least
+you shall not be sacrificed.”
+
+“Sit here, Richard,” she bade him. “There is something you have not
+considered. If you die, if Mr. Wilding kills you...” she paused.
+
+He looked at her, and at the repetition of the fate that would probably
+await him if he persevered in the course he threatened, his purely
+emotional courage again began to fail him. A look of fear crept
+gradually into his face to take the room of the resolution that had been
+stamped upon it but a moment since.
+
+He swallowed hard. “What then?” he asked, his voice harsh, and, obeying
+her command and the pressure on his hand, he resumed his seat beside
+her.
+
+She spoke now at length and very gravely, dwelling upon the circumstance
+that he was the head of the family, the last Westmacott of his line,
+pointing out to him the importance of his existence, the insignificance
+of her own. She was but a girl, a thing of small account where the
+perpetuation of a family was at issue. After all, she must marry
+somebody some day, she repeated, and perhaps she had been foolish in
+attaching too much importance to the tales she had heard of Mr.
+Wilding. Probably he was no worse than other men, and after all he was
+a gentleman of wealth and position, such a man as half the women in
+Somerset might be proud to own for husband.
+
+Her arguments and his weakness--his returning cowardice, which made him
+lend an ear to those same arguments--prevailed with him; at least they
+convinced him that he was far too important a person to risk his life in
+this quarrel upon which he had so rashly entered. He did not say that
+he was convinced; but he said that he would give the matter thought,
+hinting that perhaps some other way might present itself of cancelling
+the bargain she had made. They had a week before them, and in any case
+he promised readily in answer to her entreaties--for her faith in
+him was a thing unquenchable--that he would do nothing without taking
+counsel with her.
+
+Meanwhile Diana had escorted Sir Rowland to the main gates of Lupton
+House, in front of which Miss Westmacott's groom was walking his horse,
+awaiting him.
+
+“Sir Rowland,” said she at parting, “your chivalry makes you take this
+matter too deeply to heart. You overlook the possibility that my cousin
+may have good reason for not desiring your interference.”
+
+He looked keenly at this little lady to whom a month ago he had been
+on the point of offering marriage. His coxcombry might readily have
+suggested to him that she was in love with him, but that his conscience
+and inclinations urged him to assure himself that this was not the case.
+
+“What shall that mean, madam?” he asked her.
+
+Diana hesitated. “What I have said is plain,” she answered, and it was
+clear that she held something back.
+
+Sir Rowland flattered himself upon the shrewdness with which he read
+her, never dreaming that he had but read just what she intended he
+should.
+
+He stood squarely before her, shaking his great head. “Not plain enough
+for me,” he said. Then his tone softened to one of prayer. “Tell me,” he
+besought her.
+
+“I can't! I can't!” she cried in feigned distress. “It were too
+disloyal.”
+
+He frowned. He caught her arm and pressed it, his heart sick with
+jealous alarm. “What do you mean? Tell me, tell me, Mistress Horton.”
+
+Diana lowered her eyes. “You'll not betray me?” she stipulated.
+
+“Why, no. Tell me.”
+
+She flushed delicately. “I am disloyal to Ruth,” she said, “and yet I am
+loath to see you cozened.”
+
+“Cozened?” quoth he hoarsely, his egregious vanity in arms. “Cozened?”
+
+Diana explained. “Ruth was at his house to-day,” said she, “closeted
+alone with him for an hour or more.”
+
+“Impossible!” he cried.
+
+“Where else was the bargain made?” she asked, and shattered his last
+doubt. “You know that Mr. Wilding has not been here.”
+
+Yet Blake struggled heroically against conviction.
+
+“She went to intercede for Richard,” he protested. Miss Horton looked
+up at him, and under her glance Sir Rowland felt that he was a man of
+unfathomable ignorance. Then she turned aside her eyes and shrugged her
+shoulders very eloquently. “You are a man of the world, Sir Rowland. You
+cannot seriously suppose that any maid would so imperil her good name in
+any cause?”
+
+Darker grew his florid countenance; his bulging eyes looked troubled and
+perplexed.
+
+“You mean that she loves him?” he said, between question and assertion.
+
+Diana pursed her lips. “You shall draw your own inference,” quoth she.
+
+He breathed heavily, and squared his broad shoulders, as one who braces
+himself for battle against an element stronger than himself.
+
+“But her talk of sacrifice?” he cried.
+
+Diana laughed, and again he was stung by her contempt of his
+perceptions. “Her brother is set against her marrying him,” said she.
+“Here was her chance. Is it not very plain?”
+
+Doubt stared from his eyes. “Why do you tell me this?”
+
+“Because I esteem you, Sir Rowland,” she answered very gently. “I would
+not have you meddle in a matter you cannot mend.”
+
+“Which I am not desired to mend, say rather,” he replied with heavy
+sarcasm. “She would not have my interference!” He laughed angrily. “I
+think you are right, Mistress Diana,” he said, “and I think that more
+than ever is there the need to kill this Mr. Wilding.”
+
+He took his departure abruptly, leaving her scared at the mischief she
+had made for him in seeking to save him from it, and that very night he
+sought out Wilding.
+
+But Wilding was from home again. Under its placid surface the West
+Country was in a ferment. And if hitherto Mr. Wilding had disdained the
+insistent rumours of Monmouth's coming, his assurance was shaken now by
+proof that the Government, itself, was stirring; for four companies of
+foot and a troop of horse had been that day ordered to Taunton by the
+Deputy-Lieutenant. Wilding was gone with Trenchard to White Lackington
+in a vain hope that there he might find news to confirm his persisting
+unbelief in any such rashness as was alleged on Monmouth's part.
+
+So Blake was forced to wait, but his purpose suffered nothing by delay.
+
+Returning on the morrow, he found Mr. Wilding at table with Nick
+Trenchard, and he cut short the greetings of both men. He flung his
+hat--a black castor trimmed with a black feather--rudely among the
+dishes on the board.
+
+“I have come to ask you, Mr. Wilding,” said he, “to be so good as to
+tell me the colour of that hat.”
+
+Mr. Wilding raised one eyebrow and looked aslant at Trenchard, whose
+weather-beaten face was suddenly agrin with stupefaction.
+
+“I could not,” said Mr. Wilding, “deny an answer to a question set so
+courteously.” He looked up into Blake's flushed and scowling face with
+the sweetest and most innocent of smiles. “You'll no doubt disagree with
+me,” said he, “but I love to meet a man halfway. Your hat, sir, is as
+white as virgin snow.”
+
+Blake's slow wits were disconcerted for a moment. Then he smiled
+viciously. “You mistake, Mr. Wilding,” said he. “My hat is black.”
+
+Mr. Wilding looked more attentively at the object in dispute. He was in
+a trifling mood, and the stupidity of this runagate debtor afforded him
+opportunities to indulge it. “Why, true,” said he, “now that I come to
+look, I perceive that it is indeed black.”
+
+And again was Sir Rowland disconcerted. Still he pursued the lesson he
+had taught himself.
+
+“You are mistaken again,” said he, “that hat is green.”
+
+“Indeed?” quoth Mr. Wilding, like one surprised and he turned to
+Trenchard, who was enjoying himself. “What is your own opinion of it,
+Nick?”
+
+Thus appealed to, Trenchard's reply was prompt. “Why, since you ask
+me,” said he, “my opinion is that it's a noisome thing not meet for a
+gentleman's table.” And he took it up, and threw it through the window.
+
+Sir Rowland was entirely put out of countenance. Here was a deliberate
+shifting of the quarrel he had come to pick, which left him all at sea.
+It was his duty to himself to take offence at Mr. Trenchard's action.
+But that was not the business on which he had come. He became angry.
+
+“Blister me!” he cried. “Must I sweep the cloth from the table before
+you'll understand me?”
+
+“If you were to do anything so unmannerly I should have you flung out
+of the house,” said Mr. Wilding, “and it would distress me so to treat
+a person of your station and quality. The hat shall serve your purpose,
+although Mr. Trenchard's concern for my table has removed it. Our
+memories will supply its absence. What colour did you say it was?”
+
+“I said it was green,” answered Blake, quite ready to keep to the point.
+
+“Nay, I am sure you were wrong,” said Wilding with a grave air.
+“Although I admit that since it is your own hat, you should be the best
+judge of its colour, I am, nevertheless, of opinion that it is black.”
+
+“And if I were to say that it is white?” asked Blake, feeling mighty
+ridiculous.
+
+“Why, in that case you would be confirming my first impression of it,”
+ answered Wilding, and Trenchard let fly a burst of laughter at sight
+of the baronet's furious and bewildered countenance. “And since we are
+agreed on that,” continued Mr. Wilding, imperturbable, “I hope you'll
+join us at supper.”
+
+“I'll be damned,” roared Blake, “if ever I sit at table of yours, sir.”
+
+“Ah!” said Mr. Wilding regretfully. “Now you become offensive.”
+
+“I mean to be,” said Blake.
+
+“You astonish me!”
+
+“You lie! I don't,” Sir Rowland answered him in triumph. He had got it
+out at last.
+
+Mr. Wilding sat back in his chair, and looked at him, his face
+inexpressibly shocked.
+
+“Will you of your own accord deprive us of your company, Sir Rowland,”
+ he wondered, “or shall Mr. Trenchard throw you after your hat?”
+
+“Do you mean...” gasped the other, “that you'll ask no satisfaction of
+me?”
+
+“Not so. Mr. Trenchard shall wait upon your friends to-morrow, and I
+hope you'll afford us then as felicitous entertainment as you do now.”
+
+Sir Rowland snorted, and, turning on his heel, made for the door.
+
+“Give you a good night, Sir Rowland,” Mr. Wilding called after him.
+“Walters, you rascal, light Sir Rowland to the door.”
+
+Poor Blake went home deeply vexed; but it was no more than the beginning
+of his humiliation at Mr. Wilding's hands--for what can be more
+humiliating to a quarrel--seeking man than to have his enemy refuse to
+treat him seriously? He and Mr. Wilding met next morning, and before
+noon the tale of it had run through Bridgwater that Wild Wilding was at
+his tricks again. It made a pretty story how twice he had disarmed and
+each time spared the London beau, who still insisted--each time more
+furiously--upon renewing the encounter, till Mr. Wilding had been forced
+to run him through the sword-arm and thus put him out of all case of
+continuing. It was a story that heaped ridicule upon Sir Rowland and did
+credit to Mr. Wilding.
+
+Richard heard it, and trembled, enraged and impotent. Ruth heard it, and
+was stirred despite herself to a feeling of gratitude towards Wilding
+for the patience and toleration he had displayed.
+
+There for a while the matter rested, and the days passed slowly. But Sir
+Rowland's nature--mean at bottom--was spurred to find him some other
+way of wiping out the score that lay 'twixt him and Mr. Wilding, a score
+mightily increased by the shame that Mr. Wilding had put upon him in
+that encounter from which--whatever the issue--he had looked to cull
+great credit in Ruth's eyes.
+
+He had been thinking constantly of the incautious words that Richard
+had let fall, thinking of them in conjunction with the startling rumours
+that were now the talk of the whole countryside. He laid two and two
+together, and the four he found them make afforded him some hope. Then
+he realized--as he might have realized before had he been shrewder--that
+Richard's mood was one that made him ripe for any villainy. He thought
+that he was much in error if a treachery existed so black that Richard
+would quail before it, if it but afforded him the means of ridding
+himself and the world of Mr. Wilding. He was considering how best to
+approach the subject, when it happened that one night when Richard sat
+at play with him in his own lodging, the boy grew talkative through
+excess of wine. It happened naturally enough that Richard sought an
+ally in Blake, just as Blake sought an ally in Richard. Indeed, their
+fortunes--so far as Ruth was concerned--were bound up together. The
+baronet saw that Richard, half-fuddled, was ripe for any confidences
+that might aim at the destruction of his enemy. He questioned him
+adroitly, and drew from him the story of the rising that was being
+planned, and of the share that Mr. Wilding--one of the Duke of
+Monmouth's chief movement-men--bore in the business that was toward.
+
+When, towards midnight, Richard Westmacott went home, he left in Sir
+Rowland's hands an instrument which the latter accounted potential not
+only for the destruction of Anthony Wilding, but perhaps also for laying
+the foundations to the building of his own fortunes anew.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. THE NUPTIALS OF RUTH WESTMACOTT
+
+Here was Sir Rowland Blake in high fettle at knowing himself armed with
+a portentous weapon for the destruction of Anthony Wilding. Upon closer
+inspection of it, however, he came to realize--as Richard had realized
+earlier--that it was double-edged, and that the wielding of it must be
+fraught with as much danger for Richard as for their common enemy. For
+to betray Mr. Wilding and the plot would scarce be possible without
+betraying young Westmacott, and that was unthinkable, since to ruin
+Richard--a thing he would have done with a light heart so far as Richard
+was himself concerned--would be to ruin his own hopes of winning Ruth.
+
+Therefore, during the days that followed, Sir Rowland was forced to
+fret in idleness what time his wound was healing; but if his arm was
+invalided, his eyes and ears were sound, and he remained watchful for an
+opportunity to apply the knowledge he had gained. Richard mentioned the
+subject no more, so that Blake almost came to wonder whether the boy
+remembered what in his cups he had betrayed.
+
+Meanwhile Mr. Wilding moved serene and smiling on his way. Daily there
+were great armfuls of flowers deposited at Lupton House--his lover's
+offering to his mistress--and no day went by but that some richer gift
+accompanied them. Now it was a collar of brilliants, anon a rope of
+pearls, again a priceless ring that had been Mr. Wilding's mother's.
+Ruth received with reluctance these pledges of his undesired affection.
+It were idle to reject them, considering that she was to marry him; yet
+it hurt her sorely to retain them. On her side she made no dispositions
+for the marriage, but went about her daily tasks as though she were to
+remain a maid at Lupton House for a time as yet indefinite.
+
+In Diana, Wilding had--though he was far from guessing it--an entirely
+exceptional ally. Lady Horton, too, was favourably disposed towards him.
+A foolish, worldly woman, who never probed beneath life's surface, nor
+indeed dreamed that anything existed in life beyond that to which her
+five senses testified, she was content placidly to contemplate the
+advantages that must accrue to her niece from this alliance.
+
+And so mother and daughter in Mr. Wilding's absence pleaded his cause
+with his refractory bride-elect. But they pleaded it to little real
+purpose. Something perhaps they achieved in that Ruth grew more or
+less resigned to the fate that awaited her. By repeating to herself the
+arguments she had employed to Richard--that she must wed some day, and
+that Mr. Wilding would prove no doubt as good a husband as another--she
+came in a measure to believe them.
+
+Richard meanwhile appeared to avoid her. Lacking the courage to adopt
+the heroic measures which at first he had promised, yet had he grace
+enough to take shame at his inaction. But if he was idle so far as
+Mr. Wilding was concerned, there was no lack of work for him in other
+connections. The clouds of war were gathering in that summer sky, and
+about to loose the storm gestating in them upon that fair country of
+the West, and young Westmacott, committed as he stood to the Duke of
+Monmouth's party, was forced to take his share in the surreptitious
+bustle that was toward. He was away two days in that week, having been
+summoned to a meeting of the leading gentlemen of the party at White
+Lackington, where he was forced into the unwelcome company of his future
+brother-in-law, to meet with courteous, deferential treatment from that
+imperturbable gentleman.
+
+Wilding, indeed, seemed to have forgotten that any quarrel had ever
+existed between them. For the rest, he came and went, supremely calm, as
+if he were, and knew himself to be, most welcome at Lupton House. Thrice
+in the course of that week of waiting he rode over from Zoyland Chase
+to pay his duty to Mistress Westmacott, and Ruth was persuaded on each
+occasion by her aunt and cousin to receive him. Indeed, how could she
+well refuse?
+
+His manner was ever all that could be desired. Gallant, affectionate,
+deferential. He was in word and look and tone Ruth's most obedient
+servant. Had she been less prejudiced she must have admired the
+admirable restraint with which he kept all exultation from his manner,
+for, after all, it is difficult to force a victory as he had forced his,
+and not to triumph.
+
+It is to be feared that during that week he neglected a good deal of his
+duty to the Duke, leaving Trenchard to supply his place and undertake
+tasks of a seditious nature that should have been his own.
+
+At heart, however, in spite of the stories current and the militia at
+Taunton, Wilding remained convinced--as did most of the other leading
+partisans of the Protestant Cause--that no such madness as this
+premature landing could be in contemplation by the Duke. Besides, were
+it so, they must unfailingly have definite word of it; and they had
+none.
+
+Trenchard was less assured, but Wilding laughed at the old rake's
+forebodings, and serenely went about the business of his marriage.
+
+On the eve of the wedding he paid Ruth his last visit in the quality
+of a lover, and was received by her in the garden. He found her looking
+paler than her wont, and there was a cloud of sadness on her brow, a
+haunting sadness in her eyes. It touched him to the soul, and for a
+moment he wavered in his purpose. He stood beside her--she seated on
+the old lichened seat--and a silence fell between them, during which
+Mr. Wilding's conscience wrestled with his stronger passion. It was his
+habit to be glib, talking incessantly what time he was in her company,
+and seeing to it that his talk was shallow and touched at nothing
+belonging to the deeps of human life. Thus was it, perhaps, that this
+sudden and enduring silence affected her most oddly; it was as if she
+had absorbed some notion of what was passing in his mind. She looked up
+suddenly into his face, so white and so composed. Their eyes met, and he
+stooped to her suddenly, his long brown ringlets tumbling forward. She
+feared his kiss, yet never moved, staring up with fixed, dilated eyes as
+if fascinated by his dark, brooding gaze. He paused, hovering above her
+upturned face as hovers the hawk above the dove.
+
+“Child,” he said at last, and his voice was soft and winning from very
+sadness, “child, why do you fear me?”
+
+The truth of it went home to her. She feared him; she feared the
+strength that lay behind that calm; she feared the masterfulness of his
+wild but inscrutably hidden nature; she was afraid to surrender to
+such a man as this, afraid that in the hot crucible of his love her own
+nature would be dissolved, transmuted, and rendered part of his. Yet,
+though the truth was now made plain to her, she thrust it from her.
+
+“I do not fear you,” said she, and her voice at least rang fearlessly.
+
+“Do you hate me, then?” he asked. Her glance grew troubled and fell
+away from his; it sought the calm of the river, gleaming golden in the
+sunset. There was a pause. Wilding sighed heavily, and straightened
+himself from his bending posture.
+
+“You should not have sought thus to compel me, she said presently.
+
+“I own it,” he answered a thought bitterly. “I own it. Yet what hope had
+I but in compulsion?” She returned him no answer. “You see,” he said,
+with increasing bitterness, “you see, that had I not seized the chance
+that was mine to win you by compulsion I had not won you at all.”
+
+“It might,” said she, “have been better so for both of us.”
+
+“Better for neither,” he replied. “Ah, think it not! In time, I swear,
+you shall not think it. For you shall come to love me, Ruth,” he added
+with a note of such assurance that she turned to meet again his gaze.
+He answered the wordless question of her eyes. “There is,” said he, “no
+love of man for woman, so that the man be not wholly unworthy, so that
+his passion be sincere and strong, that can fail in time to arouse
+response.” She smiled a little pitiful smile of unbelief. “Were I a
+boy,” he rejoined, his earnestness vibrating now in a voice that was
+usually so calm and level, “offering you protestations of a callow
+worship, you might have cause to doubt me. But I am a man, Ruth--a
+tried, and haply a sinful man, alas!--a man who needs you, and who will
+have you at all costs.”
+
+“At all costs?” she echoed, and her lip took on a curl. “And you call
+this egotism by the name of love! No doubt you are right,” she continued
+with an irony that stung him, “for love it is--love of yourself.”
+
+“And is not all love of another founded upon the love of self?” he asked
+her, startling her with a question that revealed to her clear-sighted
+mind a truth undreamed of. “When some day--please Heaven--I come to find
+favour in your eyes, and you come to love me, what will it mean but that
+you have come to find me necessary to yourself and to your happiness?
+Would you deny me now your love if you felt that you had need of mine?
+I love you because I love myself, you say. I grant it you. But you'll
+confess that if you do not love me yet, it is for the same reason, and
+that when you do come to love me the reason will be still the same.”
+
+“You are very sure that I shall come to love you,” said she, shifting
+woman-like the ground of argument now that she found insecure the place
+on which at first she had taken her stand.
+
+“Were I not, think you I should compel you to the church to-morrow?”
+
+She trembled at his calm assurance. It was as if she almost feared that
+what he said might come to pass.
+
+“Since you bear such faith in your heart,” said she, “were it not
+nobler, more generous, that you should set yourself to win me first and
+wed me afterwards?”
+
+“It is the course I should, myself, prefer,” he answered quietly. “But
+it is a course denied me. I was viewed here with disfavour, almost
+denied your house. What chance had I whilst I might not come near you,
+whilst your mind was poisoned against me by the idle, vicious prattle
+that goes round and round the countryside, increasing ever in bulk from
+constant repetition?”
+
+“Do you say that these tales are groundless?” she asked, with a sudden
+lifting of the eyes, a sudden keen eagerness that did not escape him.
+
+“I would to God I could,” he cried, “since from your manner I see that
+would improve me in your sight. But there is just sufficient truth in
+them to forbid me, as I am, I hope, a gentleman, from giving them a full
+denial. Yet in what am I worse than my fellows? Are you of those who
+think a husband should come to them as one whose youth has been the
+youth of cloistered nun? Heaven knows, I am not one to draw parallels
+'twixt myself and any other, yet you compel me. Whilst you deny me, you
+receive this fellow Blake--a London night-scourer, a broken gamester
+who has given his creditors leg-bail, and who woos you that with your
+fortune he may close the doors of the debtor's gaol that's open to
+receive him.”
+
+“This is unworthy in you,” she exclaimed, her tone indignant--so
+indignant that he experienced his first pang of jealousy.
+
+“It would be were I his rival,” he answered quietly. “But I am not. I
+have saved you from becoming the prey of such as he by forcing you to
+marry me.”
+
+“That I may become the prey of such as you, instead,” was her retort.
+
+He looked at her a moment, smiling sadly. Then, with pardonable
+self-esteem when we think of what manner of man it was with whom he now
+compared himself, “Surely,” said he, “it is better to become the prey of
+the lion than the jackal.”
+
+“To the victim it can matter little,” she answered, and he saw the tears
+gathering in her eyes.
+
+Compassion moved him. It rose in arms to batter down his will, and in a
+weaker man had triumphed. Mr. Wilding bent his knee and went down beside
+her.
+
+“I swear,” he said impassionedly, “that as my wife you shall never count
+yourself a victim. You shall be honoured by all men, but by none more
+deeply than by him who will ever strive to be worthy of the proud title
+of your husband.” He took her hand and kissed it reverentially. He rose
+and looked at her. “To-morrow,” he said, and bowing low before her went
+his way, leaving her with emotions that found their vent in tears, but
+defied her maiden mind to understand them.
+
+The morrow came her wedding-day--a sunny day of early June, and
+Ruth--assisted by Diana and Lady Horton--made preparation for her
+marriage as spirited women have made preparation for the scaffold,
+determined to show the world a brave, serene exterior. The sacrifice was
+necessary for Richard's sake. That was a thing long since determined.
+Yet it would have been some comfort to her to have had Richard at her
+side; it would have lent her strength to have had his kiss of thanks
+for the holocaust which for him she was making of all that a woman holds
+most dear and sacred. But Richard was away--he had been absent since
+yesterday, and none could tell her where he tarried.
+
+With Lady Horton and Diana she took her way to Saint Mary's Church at
+noon, and there she found Mr. Wilding--very fine in a suit of sky-blue
+satin, laced with silver--awaiting her. And with him was old Lord
+Gervase Scoresby, his friend and cousin, the very incarnation of
+benignity and ruddy health.
+
+For a wonder Nick Trenchard was not at Mr. Wilding's side. But Nick
+had definitely refused to be of the party, emphasizing his refusal by
+certain choice reflections wholly unflattering to the married state.
+
+Some idlers of the town were the only witnesses--and little did they
+guess the extent of the tragedy they were witnessing. There was no
+music, and the ceremony was brief and soon at an end. The only touch of
+joy, of festiveness, was that afforded by the choice blooms with which
+Mr. Wilding had smothered nave and choir and altar-rails. Their perfume
+hung heavy as incense in the temple.
+
+“Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?” droned the parson's
+voice, and Wilding smiled defiantly a smile which seemed to answer him,
+“No man. I have taken her for myself.”
+
+Lord Gervase stood forward as her sponsor, and as in a dream Ruth felt
+her hand lying in Mr. Wilding's cool, firm grasp.
+
+The ecclesiastic's voice droned on, his voice hanging like the hum of
+some great Insect upon the scented air. It was accomplished, and they
+were welded each to the other until death should part them.
+
+Down the festooned nave she came on his arm, her step unfaltering,
+her face calm; black misery in her heart. Behind followed her aunt and
+cousin and Lord Gervase. On Mr. Wilding's aquiline face a pale smile
+glimmered, like a beam of moonlight upon tranquil waters, and it abode
+there until they reached the porch and were suddenly confronted by Nick
+Trenchard, red of face for once, perspiring, excited, and dust-stained
+from head to foot.
+
+He had arrived that very instant; and, urged by the fearful news that
+brought him, he had come resolved to pluck Wilding from the altar be the
+ceremony done or not. But in that he reckoned without Mr. Wilding--for
+he should have known him better than to have hoped to succeed. He
+stepped forward now, and gripped him with his dusty glove by the
+sleeve of his shimmering bridegroom's coat. His voice came harsh with
+excitement and smouldering rage.
+
+“A word with you, Anthony!”
+
+Mr. Wilding turned placidly to regard him. “What now?” he asked, his
+bride's hand retained in the crook of his elbow.
+
+“Treachery!” snapped Trenchard in a whisper. “Hell and damnation! Step
+aside, man.”
+
+Mr. Wilding turned to Lord Gervase, and begged of him to take charge of
+Mistress Wilding. “I deplore this interruption,” he told her, no whit
+ruffled by what he had heard. “But I shall rejoin you soon. Meanwhile,
+his lordship will do the honours for me.” This last he said with his
+eyes moving to Lady Horton and her daughter.
+
+Lord Gervase, in some surprise, but overruled by his cousin's calm,
+took the bride on his arm and led her from the churchyard to the waiting
+carriage. To this he handed her, and after her her aunt and cousin.
+Then, mounting himself, they drove away, leaving Wilding and Trenchard
+among the tombstones, whither the messenger of evil had meanwhile led
+his friend. Trenchard rapped out his story briefly.
+
+“Shenke,” said he, “who was riding from Lyme with letters for you from
+the Duke, was robbed of his dispatches late last night a mile or so this
+side Taunton.”
+
+“Highwaymen?” inquired Mr. Wilding, his tone calm, though his glance had
+hardened.
+
+“Highwaymen? No! Government agents belike. There were two of them, he
+says--for I have the tale from himself--and they met him at the Hare and
+Hounds at Taunton, where he stayed to sup last night. One of them gave
+him the password, and he conceived him to be a friend. But afterwards,
+growing suspicious, he refused to tell them too much. They followed
+him, it appears, and on the road they overtook and fell upon him; they
+knocked him from his horse, possessed themselves of the contents of his
+wallet, and left him for dead--with his head broken.”
+
+Mr. Wilding drew a sharp breath. His wits worked quickly. He was, he
+realized, in deadly peril. One thought he gave to Ruth. If the worst
+came to pass here was one who would rejoice in her freedom. The
+reflection cut through him like a sword. He would be loath to die
+until he had taught her to regret him. Then his mind returned to what
+Trenchard had told him.
+
+“You said a Government agent,” he mused slowly. “How would a Government
+agent know the password?”
+
+Trenchard's mouth fell open. “I had not thought...” he began. Then ended
+with an oath. “'Tis a traitor from inside.”
+
+Wilding nodded. “It must be one of those who met at White Lackington
+three nights ago,” he answered.
+
+Idlers--the witnesses of the wedding--were watching them with interest
+from the path, and others from over the low wall of the churchyard,
+as well they might, for Mr. Wilding's behaviour was, for a bridegroom,
+extraordinary. Trenchard did not relish the audience.
+
+“We had best away,” said he. “Indeed,” he added, “we had best out
+of England altogether before the hue and cry is raised. The bubble's
+pricked.”
+
+Wilding's hand fell on his arm, and its grasp was steady. Wilding's eyes
+met his, and their gaze was calm.
+
+“Where have you bestowed this messenger?” quoth he.
+
+“He is here in Bridgwater, in bed, at the Bell Inn, whence he sent for
+you to Zoyland Chase. Suspecting trouble, I rode to him at once myself.”
+
+“Come, then,” said Wilding. “We'll go talk with him. This matter needs
+probing ere we decide on flight. You do not seem to have sought to
+discover who were the thieves, nor other matters that it may be of use
+to know.”
+
+“Rat me!” swore Trenchard. “I was in haste to bring you news of
+it. Besides, there were other things to talk of. There is news that
+Albemarle has gone to Exeter, and that Sir Edward Phelips and Colonel
+Luttrell have been ordered to Taunton by the King.”
+
+Mr. Wilding stared at him with sudden dismay.
+
+“Odso!” he exclaimed. “Is King James taking fright at last?” Then
+he shrugged his shoulders and laughed; “Pshaw!” he cried. “They are
+starting at a shadow.”
+
+“Heaven send,” prayed Trenchard, “that the shadow does not prove to have
+a substance immediately behind it.”
+
+“Folly!” said Wilding. “When Monmouth comes, indeed, we shall not lack
+forewarning. Come,” he added briskly. “We'll see this messenger and
+endeavour to discover who were these fellows that beset him.” And he
+drew Trenchard from among the tombstones to the open path, and thus from
+the churchyard and the eyes of the gaping onlookers.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. BRIDE AND GROOM
+
+And so the bridegroom, in all his wedding finery, made his way with
+Trenchard to the Bell Inn, in the High Street, whilst his bride,
+escorted by Lord Gervase, was being driven to Zoyland Chase, of which
+she was now the mistress.
+
+But she was not destined just yet to cross its threshold. For scarcely
+were they over the river when a horseman barred their way, and called
+upon the driver to pull up. Lady Horton, in a panic, huddled herself
+in the great coach and spoke of tobymen, whilst Lord Gervase thrust
+his head from the window to discover that the rider who stayed their
+progress was Richard Westmacott. His lordship hailed the boy, who,
+thereupon, walked his horse to the carriage door.
+
+“Lord Gervase,” said he, “will you bid the coachman put about and drive
+to Lupton House?”
+
+Lord Gervase stared at him in hopeless bewilderment. “Drive to Lupton
+House?” he echoed. The more he saw of this odd wedding, the less he
+understood of it. It seemed to the placid old gentleman that he was
+fallen among a parcel of Bedlamites. “Surely, sir, it is for Mistress
+Wilding to say whither she will be driven,” and he drew in his head and
+turned to Ruth for her commands. But, bewildered herself, she had none
+to give him. It was her turn to lean from the carriage window to ask her
+brother what he meant.
+
+“I mean you are to drive home again,” said he. “There is something
+I must tell you. When you have heard me it shall be yours to decide
+whether you will proceed or not to Zoyland Chase.”
+
+Hers to decide? How was that possible? What could he mean? She pressed
+him with some such questions.
+
+“It means, in short,” he answered impatiently, “that I hold your
+salvation in my hands. For the rest, this is not the time or place to
+tell you more. Bid the fellow put about.”
+
+Ruth sat back and looked once more at her companions. But from none did
+she receive the least helpful suggestion. Lady Horton made great prattle
+to little purpose; Lord Gervase followed her example, whilst Diana,
+whose alert if trivial mind was the one that might have offered
+assistance, sat silent. Ruth pondered. She bethought her of Trenchard's
+sudden arrival at Saint Mary's, his dust-stained person and excited
+manner, and of how he had drawn Mr. Wilding aside with news that seemed
+of moment. And now her brother spoke of saving her; it was a little late
+for that, she thought. Outside the coach his voice still urged her, and
+it grew peevish and angry, as was usual when he was crossed. In the end
+she consented to do his will. If she were to fathom this mystery that
+was thickening about her there seemed to be no other course. She turned
+to Lord Gervase.
+
+“Will you do as Richard says?” she begged him.
+
+His lordship blew out his chubby cheeks in his astonishment; he
+hesitated a moment, thinking of his cousin Wilding; then, with a shrug,
+he leaned from the window and gave the order she desired. The carriage
+turned about, and with Richard following lumbered back across the bridge
+and through the town to Lupton House. At the door Lord Gervase took his
+leave of them. He had acted as Ruth had bidden him; but he had no wish
+to be further involved in this affair, whatever it might portend. Rather
+was it his duty at once to go acquaint Mr. Wilding--if he could find
+him--with what was taking place, and leave it to Mr. Wilding to take
+what measures might seem best to him. He told them so, and having told
+them, left them.
+
+Richard begged to be alone with his sister, and alone they passed
+together into the library. His manner was restless; he trembled with
+excitement, and his eyes glittered almost feverishly.
+
+“You may have thought, Ruth, that I was resigned to your marriage with
+this fellow Wilding,” he began; “or that for other reasons I thought it
+wiser not to interfere. If you thought that you wronged me. I--Blake and
+I--have been at work for you during these last days, and I rejoice
+to say our labours have not been idle.” His manner grew assertive,
+boastful, as he proceeded.
+
+“You know, of course,” said she, “that I am married.”
+
+He made a gesture of disdain. “No matter,” said he exultantly.
+
+“It matters something, I think,” she answered. “O Richard, Richard, why
+did you not come to me sooner if you possessed the means of sparing me
+this thing?”
+
+He shrugged impatiently; her remonstrance seemed to throw him out of
+temper. “Oons!” he cried; “I came as soon as was ever possible, and,
+depend upon it, I am not come too late. Indeed, I think I am come in the
+very nick of time.” He drew a sheet of paper from an inside pocket of
+his coat and slapped it down upon the table. “There is the wherewithal
+to hang your fine husband,” he announced in triumph.
+
+She recoiled. “To hang him?” she echoed. With all her aversion to Mr.
+Wilding it was plain she did not wish him hanged.
+
+“Aye, to hang him,” Richard repeated, and drew himself to the full
+height of his short stature in pride at the thing he had achieved. “Read
+it.”
+
+She took the paper almost mechanically, and for some moments she studied
+the crabbed signature before realizing whose it was. Then she started.
+
+“From the Duke of Monmouth!” she exclaimed.
+
+He laughed. “Read it,” he bade her again, though there was no need for
+the injunction, for already she was deciphering the crabbed hand and
+the atrocious spelling--for His Grace of Monmouth's education had been
+notoriously neglected. The letter, which was dated from The Hague, was
+addressed “To my good friend W., at Bridgwater.” It began, “Sir,” spoke
+of the imminent arrival of His Grace in the West, and gave certain
+instructions for the collection of arms and the work of preparing men
+for enlistment in his Cause, ending with protestations of His Grace's
+friendship and esteem.
+
+Ruth read the epistle twice before its treasonable nature was made clear
+to her; before she understood the thing that was foreshadowed. Then
+she raised troubled eyes to her brother's face, and in answer to the
+question of her glance he made clear to her the shrewd means by which
+they had become possessed of this weapon that should destroy their enemy
+Mr. Wilding.
+
+Blake and he, forewarned--he said not how--of the coming of this
+messenger, had lain in wait for him at the Hare and Hounds, at Taunton.
+They had sought at first to become possessed of the letter without
+violence. But, having failed in this through having aroused the
+messenger's suspicions, they had been forced to follow and attack him on
+a lonely stretch of road, where they had robbed him of the contents of
+his wallet. Richard added that the letter was, no doubt, one of several
+sent over by Monmouth to some friend at Lyme for distribution among his
+principal agents in the West. It was regrettable that they should
+have endeavoured to take gentle measures with the courier, as this had
+forewarned him, and he had apparently been led to remove the
+letter's outer wrapper--which, no doubt, bore Wilding's full name and
+address--against the chance of such an attack as they had made upon him.
+Nevertheless, as it was, that letter “to my good friend W.,” backed by
+Richard's and Blake's evidence of the destination intended for it, would
+be more than enough to lay Mr. Wilding safely by the heels.
+
+“I would to Heaven,” he repeated in conclusion, “I could have come in
+time to save you from becoming his wife. But at least it is in my power
+to make you very speedily his widow.”
+
+“That,” said Ruth, still retaining the letter, “is what you propose to
+do?”
+
+“What else?”
+
+She shook her head. “It must not be, Richard,” she said. “I'll not
+consent to it.”
+
+Taken aback, he stared at her; then laughed unpleasantly. “Odds my life!
+Are you in love with the man? Have you been fooling us?”
+
+“No,” she answered. “But I'll be no party to his murder.”
+
+“Murder, quotha! Who talks of murder?” Her shrewd eyes searched his
+face. “How came you by your knowledge that this courier rode to Mr.
+Wilding?” she asked him suddenly, and the swift change that overspread
+his countenance showed her that she had touched him in a tender spot,
+assured her of the thing she had suddenly come to suspect--a suspicion
+which at the same time started from and explained much that had been
+mysterious in Richard's ways of late. “You had knowledge of this
+conspiracy,” she pursued, answering her own question before he had time
+to speak, “because you were one of the conspirators.”
+
+“At least I am so no longer,” he blurted out.
+
+“I thank Heaven for that, Richard; for your life is very dear to me. But
+it would ill become you to make such use as this of the knowledge
+you came by in that manner. It were a Judas's act.” He would have
+interrupted her, but her manner dominated him. “You will leave this
+letter with me, Richard,” she continued.
+
+“Damn me! no...” he began.
+
+“Ah, yes, Richard,” she insisted. “You will give it to me, and I shall
+thank you for the gift. It shall prove a weapon for my salvation, never
+fear.”
+
+“It shall, indeed,” he cried, with an ugly laugh; “when I have ridden to
+Exeter to lay it before Albemarle.”
+
+“Not so,” she answered him. “It shall be a weapon of defence--not of
+offence. It shall stand as a buckler between me and Mr. Wilding. Trust
+me, I shall know how to use it.”
+
+“But there is Blake to consider,” he expostulated, growing angry. “I am
+pledged to him.”
+
+“Your first duty is to me...”
+
+“Tut!” he interrupted. “Blake feels that he owes it to his loyalty to
+lay this letter before the Lord-Lieutenant, and, for that matter, so do
+I.”
+
+“Sir Rowland would not cross my wishes in this,” she answered him.
+
+“Folly!” he cried, now thoroughly aroused. “Give me that letter.”
+
+“Nay, Richard,” she answered, and waved him back.
+
+But he advanced nevertheless.
+
+“Give it me,” he bade her, waxing fierce. “Gad! It was folly to have
+told you of it. I had not done so but that I never thought you such a
+fool as to oppose yourself to the thing we intend.”
+
+“Listen, Richard...” she besought him.
+
+But he was grown insensible to pleadings.
+
+“Give me that letter,” he insisted, and caught her wrist. Her other
+hand, however--the one that held the sheet--was already behind her back.
+
+The door was suddenly thrust open, and Diana appeared. “Ruth,” she
+announced, “Mr. Wilding is here.”
+
+At the mention of that name, Richard let her free. “Wilding!” he
+ejaculated, his fierceness all blown out of him. He had imagined that
+already Mr. Wilding would be in full flight. Was the fellow mad?
+
+“He is following me,” said Diana, and, indeed, a step could be heard in
+the passage.
+
+“The letter!” growled Richard in a frenzy, between fear and anger now.
+“Give it me! Give it me, do you hear?”
+
+“Sh! You'll betray yourself,” she cried. “He is here.”
+
+And at that same moment Mr. Wilding's tall figure, still arrayed in his
+bridegroom's finery of sky-blue satin, loomed in the doorway. He was
+serene and calm as ever. Neither the discovery of the plot by the
+abstraction of the messenger's letter, nor Ruth's strange conduct--of
+which he had heard from Lord Gervase--had sufficed to ruffle, outwardly
+at least, the inscrutable serenity of his air and manner. He paused
+to make his bow, then advanced into the room, with a passing glance at
+Richard still spurred and booted and all dust-stained.
+
+“You appear to have ridden far, Dick,” said he, smiling, and Richard
+shivered in spite of himself at the mocking note that seemed to ring
+faintly at the words. “I saw your friend, Sir Rowland, in the garden,”
+ he added. “I think he waits for you.”
+
+Though Richard could not fail to apprehend the implied dismissal, he
+was minded at first to disregard it. But Mr. Wilding, turning, held the
+door, addressing Diana.
+
+“Mistress Horton,” said he, “will you give us leave?”
+
+Diana curtsied and passed out, and Mr. Wilding's eye falling upon the
+lingering Richard at that moment, Richard thought it best to follow her
+example. But he went with rage in his heart at being forced to leave
+that precious document behind him.
+
+As Mr. Wilding, his back to her a moment, closed the door, Ruth slipped
+the paper hurriedly into the bosom of her low-necked gown. He turned to
+her, calm but very grave, and his dark eyes seemed to reproach her.
+
+“This is ill done, Ruth,” said he.
+
+“Ill done, or well done,” she answered him, “done it is, and shall so
+remain.”
+
+He raised his brows. “Ah,” said he, “I appear, then, to have
+misapprehended the situation. From what Gervase told me, I understood it
+was your brother forced you to return.”
+
+“Not forced, sir,” she answered him.
+
+“Induced, then,” said he. “It but remains me to induce you to repair
+what I think was a mistake.”
+
+She shook her head. “I have returned home for good,” said she.
+
+“You'll pardon me,” said he, “that I am so egotistical as to prefer
+Zoyland Chase to Lupton House. Despite the manifold attractions of the
+latter, I do not intend to take up my abode here.”
+
+“You are not asked to.”
+
+“What, then?”
+
+She hated him for the smile, for his masterful air, which seemed to
+imply that he humoured her because he scorned to use authority, but that
+when he did use it, hers must it be to obey him. Again she felt that
+everlasting calm, arguing such latent forces, was the thing she hated
+most in him.
+
+“I think I had best be plain with you,” said she. “I have fulfilled my
+part of the bargain that we made. I intend to do no more. I promised
+that if you spared my brother, I would go to the altar with you to-day.
+I have carried out my contract to the letter. It is at an end.”
+
+“Indeed,” said he; “I think it has not yet begun.” He advanced towards
+her, and took her hand. She yielded it, unwilling though she was. “This
+is unworthy of you, madam,” said he, his tone grave and deferential.
+“You think to escape fulfilling the spirit of your bargain by adhering
+to the letter of it. Not so,” he ended, and shook his head, smiling
+gently. “The carriage is still at your door. You return with me to
+Zoyland Chase to take possession of your home.”
+
+“You mistake,” said she, and tore her hand from his. “You say that what
+I have done is unworthy. I admit it; but it is with unworthiness that we
+must combat unworthiness. Was your attitude towards me less unworthy?”
+
+“I'll make amends for it if you'll come home,” said he.
+
+“My home is here. You cannot compel me.”
+
+“I should be loath to,” he admitted, sighing.
+
+“You cannot,” she insisted.
+
+“I think I can,” said he. “There is a law..”
+
+“A law that will hang you if you invoke it,” she cut in quickly. “This
+much can I safely promise you.”
+
+She had need to say no more to tell him everything. At all times half a
+word was as much to Mr. Wilding as a whole sentence to another. She saw
+the tightening of his lips, the hardening of his eyes, beyond which he
+gave no other sign that she had hit him.
+
+“I see,” said he. “It is another bargain that you make. I do suspect
+there is some trader's blood in the Westmacott veins. Let us be clear.
+You hold the wherewithal to ruin me, and you will use it if I insist
+upon my husband's rights. Is it not so?”
+
+She nodded in silence, surprised at the rapidity with which he had read
+the situation.
+
+“I admit,” said he, “that you have me between sword and wall.” He
+laughed shortly. “Let me know more,” he begged her. “Am I to understand
+that so long as I leave you in peace--so long as I do not insist upon
+your becoming my wife in more than name--you will not wield the weapon
+that you hold?”
+
+“You are to understand so,” she answered.
+
+He took a turn in the room, very thoughtful. Not of himself was he
+thinking now, but of the Duke of Monmouth. Trenchard had told him some
+ugly truths that morning of how in his love-making he appeared to have
+shipwrecked the Cause ere it was well launched. If this letter got
+to Whitehall there was no gauging--ignorant as he was of what was in
+it--the ruin that might follow; but they had reason to fear the worst.
+He saw his duty to the Duke most clearly, and he breathed a prayer of
+thanks that Richard had chosen to put that letter to such a use as this.
+He knew himself checkmated; but he was a man who knew how to bear defeat
+in a becoming manner. He turned suddenly.
+
+“The letter is in your hands?” he inquired.
+
+“It is,” she answered.
+
+“May I see it?” he asked.
+
+She shook her head--not daring to show it or betray its whereabouts lest
+he should use force to become possessed of it--a thing, indeed, that was
+very far from his purpose.
+
+He considered a moment, his mind intent now rather upon the Duke's
+interest than his own.
+
+“You know,” quoth he, “the desperate enterprise to which I stand
+committed. But it is a bargain between us that you do not betray me nor
+that enterprise so long as I leave you rid of my presence.”
+
+“That is the bargain I propose,” said she.
+
+He looked at her a moment with hungry eyes, and she found his glance
+almost more than she could bear, so strong was its appeal. Besides,
+it may be that she was a thought beglamoured by the danger in which he
+stood, which seemed to invest him with a certain heroic dignity.
+
+“Ruth,” he said at length, “it may well be that that which you desire
+may speedily come to pass; it may well be that in the course of this
+rebellion that is hatching you may be widowed. But at least I know that
+if my head falls it will not be my wife who has betrayed me to the axe.
+For that much, believe me, I am supremely grateful.”
+
+He advanced. He took her unresisting hand again and bore it to his lips,
+bowing low before her. Then erect and graceful he turned on his heel and
+left her.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. MR. TRENCHARD'S COUNTERSTROKE
+
+Now, however much it might satisfy Mr. Wilding to have Ruth's word for
+it that so long as he left her in peace neither he nor the Cause had any
+betrayal to fear from her, Mr. Trenchard was of a very different mind.
+
+He fumed and swore and worked himself into a very passion. “Zoons,
+man!” he cried, “it would mean utter ruin to you if that letter reached
+Whitehall.”
+
+“I realize it; but my mind is easy. I have her promise.”
+
+“A woman's promise!” snorted Trenchard, and proceeded with great
+circumstance of expletives to damn “everything that daggled a
+petticoat.”
+
+“Your fears are idle,” Wilding assured him. “What she says, she will
+do.”
+
+“And her brother?” quoth Trenchard. “Have you bethought you of that
+canary-bird? He'll know the letter's whereabouts. He has cause to fear
+you more than ever now. Are you sure he'll not be making use of it to
+lay you by the heels?”
+
+Mr. Wilding smiled upon the fury provoked by Trenchard's concern and
+love for him. “She has promised,” he said with an insistent faith that
+was fuel to Trenchard's anger, “and I can depend her word.”
+
+“So cannot I,” snapped his friend.
+
+“The thing that plagues me most,” said Wilding, ignoring the remark, “is
+that we are kept in ignorance of the letter's contents at a time when we
+most long for news. Not a doubt but it would have enabled us to set our
+minds at ease on the score of these foolish rumours.”
+
+“Aye--or else confirmed them,” said pessimistic Trenchard. He wagged his
+head. “They say the Duke has put to sea already.”
+
+“Folly!” Wilding protested.
+
+“Whitehall thinks otherwise. What of the troops at Taunton?”
+
+“More folly.”
+
+“Well-I would you had that letter.”
+
+“At least,” said Wilding, “I have the superscription, and we know from
+Shenke that no name was mentioned in the letter itself.”
+
+“There's evidence enough without it,” Trenchard reminded him, and fell
+soon after into abstraction, turning over in his mind a notion with
+which he had suddenly been inspired. That notion kept Trenchard secretly
+occupied for a couple of days; but in the end he succeeded in perfecting
+it.
+
+Now it befell that towards dusk one evening early in the week Richard
+Westmacott went abroad alone, as was commonly his habit, his goal being
+the Saracen's Head, where he and Sir Rowland spent many a night over
+wine and cards--to Sir Rowland's moderate profit, for he had not played
+the pigeon in town so long without having acquired sufficient knowledge
+to enable him to play the rook in the country. As Westmacott was passing
+up the High Street, a black shadow fell athwart the light that streamed
+from the door of the Bell Inn, and out through the doorway lurched Mr.
+Trenchard a thought unsteadily to hurtle so violently against Richard
+that he broke the long stem of the white clay pipe he was carrying. Now
+Richard was not to know that Mr. Trenchard--having informed himself of
+Mr. Westmacott's evening habits--had been waiting for the past half-hour
+in that doorway hoping that Mr. Westmacott would not depart this evening
+from his usual custom. Another thing that Mr. Westmacott was not to
+know--considering his youth--was the singular histrionic ability which
+this old rake had displayed in those younger days of his when he had
+been a player, and the further circumstance that he had excelled in
+those parts in which ebriety was to be counterfeited. Indeed, we have it
+on the word of no less an authority on theatrical matters than Mr. Pepys
+that Mr. Nicholas Trenchard's appearance as Pistol in “Henry IV” in the
+year of the blessed Restoration was the talk alike of town and court.
+
+Mr. Trenchard steadied himself from the impact, and, swearing a round
+and awful Elizabethan oath, accused the other of being drunk, then
+struck an attitude to demand with truculence, “Would ye take the wall o'
+me, sir?”
+
+Richard hastened to make himself known to this turbulent roysterer, who
+straightway forgot his grievance to take Westmacott affectionately by
+the hand and overwhelm him with apologies. And that done, Trenchard--who
+affected the condition known as maudlin drunk--must needs protest almost
+in tears how profound was his love for Richard, and insist that the boy
+return with him to the Bell Inn, that they might pledge each other.
+
+Richard, himself sober, was contemptuous of Trenchard so obviously
+obfuscated. At first it was his impulse to excuse himself, as possibly
+Blake might be already waiting for him; but on second thoughts,
+remembering that Trenchard was Mr. Wilding's most intimate famulus, it
+occurred to him that by a little crafty questioning he might succeed in
+smoking Mr. Wilding's intentions in the matter of that letter--for from
+his sister he had failed to get satisfaction. So he permitted himself to
+be led indoors to a table by the window which stood vacant. There were
+at the time a dozen guests or so in the common-room. Trenchard bawled
+for wine and brandy, and for all that he babbled in an irresponsible,
+foolish manner of all things that were of no matter, yet not the most
+adroit of pumping could elicit from him any such information as Richard
+sought. Perforce young Westmacott must remain, plying him with more and
+more drink--and being plied in his turn--to the end that he might not
+waste the occasion.
+
+An hour later found Richard much the worse for wear, and Trenchard
+certainly no better. Richard forgot his purpose, forgot that Blake
+waited for him at the Saracen's Head. And now Trenchard seemed to be
+pulling himself together.
+
+“I want to talk to you, Richard,” said he, and although thick, there was
+in his voice a certain impressive quality that had been absent hitherto.
+“'S a rumour current.” He lowered his voice to a whisper almost, and,
+leaning across, took his companion by the arm. He hiccoughed noisily,
+then began again. “'S a rumour current, sweetheart, that you're
+disaffected.”
+
+Richard started, and his mind flapped and struggled like a trapped bird
+to escape the meshes of the wine, to the end that he might convincingly
+defend himself from such an imputation--so dangerously true.
+
+“'S a lie!” he gasped.
+
+Trenchard shut one eye and owlishly surveyed his companion with the
+other. “They say,” he added, “that you're for forsaking 'Duke's party.”
+
+“Villainous!” Richard protested. “I'll sli' throat of any man 't says
+so.” And draining the pewter at his elbow, he smashed it down on the
+table to emphasize his seriousness.
+
+Trenchard replenished it with the utmost promptness, then sat back in
+his tall chair and pulled a moment at the fresh pipe with which he had
+equipped himself.
+
+“I think I espy,”' he quoted presently, “'virtue and valour crouched
+in thine eye.' And yet... and yet... if I had cause to think it
+true, I'd... I'd run you through the vitals--jus' so,” and he prodded
+Richard's waistcoat with the point of his pipe-stem. His swarthy face
+darkened, his eyes glittered fiercely. “Are ye sure ye're norrer foul
+traitor?” he demanded suddenly. “Are y' sure, for if ye're not...”
+
+He left the terrible menace unuttered, but it was none the less
+understood. It penetrated the vinous fog that beset the brain of
+Richard, and startled him.
+
+“'Swear I'm not!” he cried. “'Swear mos' solemnly I'm not.”
+
+“Swear?” echoed Trenchard, and his scowl grew darker still. “Swear? A
+man may swear and yet lie--'a man may smile and smile and be a villain.'
+I'll have proof of your loyalty to us. I'll have proof, or as there's a
+heaven above and a hell below, I'll rip you up.”
+
+His mien was terrific, and his voice the more threatening in that it was
+not raised above a whisper.
+
+Richard sat back appalled, afraid.
+
+“Wha'... what proof'll satisfy you?” he asked.
+
+Trenchard considered it, pulling at his pipe again. “Pledge me the
+Duke,” said he at length. “Ther's truth 'n wine. Pledge me the Duke and
+confusion to His Majesty the goldfinch.” Richard reached for his pewter,
+glad that the test was to be so light. “Up on your feet, man,” grumbled
+Trenchard. “On your feet, and see that your words have a ring of truth
+in them.”
+
+Richard did as he was bidden, the little reason left him being
+concentrated wholly on the convincing of his fellow tippler. He rose to
+his feet, so unsteadily that his chair fell over with a bang. He never
+heeded it, but others in the room turned at the sound, and a hush fell
+in the chamber. Dominating this came Richard's voice, strident with
+intensity, if thick of utterance.
+
+“Down with Popery, and God save the Protestant Duke!” he cried. “Down
+with Popery!” And he looked at Trenchard for applause, and assurance
+that Trenchard no longer thought there was cause to quarrel with him.
+
+Behind him there was a stir in the room that went unheeded by the boy.
+Men nudged their neighbours; some looked frightened and some grinned at
+the treasonable words.
+
+A swift change came over Trenchard. His drunkenness fell from him like
+a discarded mantle. He sat like a man amazed. Then he heaved himself to
+his feet in a fury, and smashed down his pipestem on the wooden table,
+sending its fragments flying.
+
+“Damn me!” he roared. “Have I sat at table with a traitor?” And he
+thrust at Richard with his open palm, lightly yet with sufficient force
+to throw Richard off his precarious balance and send him sprawling on
+the sanded floor. Men rose from the tables about and approached them,
+some few amused, but the majority very grave. Dodsley, the landlord,
+came hurrying to assist Richard to his feet.
+
+“Mr. Westmacott,” he whispered in the rash fool's ear, “you were best
+away.”
+
+Richard stood up, leaning his full weight upon the arm the landlord had
+about his waist. He passed a hand over his brow, as if to brush aside
+the veil that obscured his wits. What had happened? What had he said?
+What had Trenchard done? Why did these fellows stand and gape at him? He
+heard his companion's voice, raised to address the company.
+
+“Gentlemen,” he heard him say, “I trust there is none present will
+impute to me any share in such treasonable sentiments as Mr. Westmacott
+has expressed. But if there is any who questions my loyalty, I have
+a convincing argument for him--in my scabbard.” And he struck his
+sword-hilt with his fist.
+
+Then he clapped on his hat, aslant over the locks of his golden wig,
+and, taking up his whip, he moved with leisurely dignity towards the
+door. He looked back with a sardonic smile at the ado he was leaving
+behind him, listened a moment to the voices that already were being
+raised in excitement, then closed the door and made his way briskly
+to the stable-yard, where he called for his horse. He rode out of
+Bridgwater ten minutes later, and took the road to Taunton as the moon
+was rising big and yellow over the hills on his left. He reached Taunton
+towards ten o'clock that night, having ridden hell-to-leather. His
+first visit was to the Hare and Hounds, where Blake and Westmacott had
+overtaken the courier. His next to the house where Sir Edward Phelips
+and Colonel Luttrell--the gentlemen lately ordered to Taunton by His
+Majesty--had their lodging.
+
+The fruits of Mr. Trenchard's extraordinary behaviour that night were
+to be seen at an early hour on the following day, when a constable and
+three tything-men came with a Lord-Lieutenant's warrant to arrest Mr.
+Richard Westmacott on a charge of high treason. They found the young man
+still abed, and most guilty was his panic when they bade him rise and
+dress himself--though little did he dream of the full extent to which
+Mr. Trenchard had enmeshed him, or indeed that Mr. Trenchard had any
+hand at all in this affair. What time he was getting into his clothes
+with a tything-man outside his door and another on guard under his
+window, the constable and his third myrmidon made an exhaustive search
+of the house. All they found of interest was a letter signed “Monmouth,”
+ which they took from the secret drawer of a secretary in the library;
+but that, it seemed, was all they sought, for having found it, they
+proceeded no further with their reckless and destructive ransacking.
+
+With that letter and the person of Richard Westmacott, the constable and
+his men took their departure, and rode back to Taunton, leaving alarm
+and sore distress at Lupton House. In her despair poor Ruth was all for
+following her brother, in the hope that at least by giving evidence
+of how that letter came into his possession she might do something to
+assist him. But knowing, as she did, that he had had his share in the
+treason that was hatching, she had cause to fear that his guilt would
+not lack for other proofs. It was Diana who urged her to repair instead
+to the only man upon whose resource she might depend, provided he were
+willing to exert it. That man was Anthony Wilding, and whether Diana
+urged it from motives of her own or out of concern for Richard, it would
+be difficult to say with certainty.
+
+The very thought of going to him for aid, after all that had passed, was
+repugnant to Ruth. And yet what choice had she? Convinced by her cousin
+and urged by her affection and duty to Richard, she repressed her
+aversion, and, calling for a horse, rode out to Zoyland Chase, attended
+by a groom. Wilding by good fortune was at home, hard at work upon a
+mass of documents in that same library where she had talked with him on
+the occasion of her first visit to his home--to the home of which she
+remembered that she was now, herself, the mistress. He was preparing
+for circulation in the West a mass of libels and incendiary pamphlets
+calculated to forward the cause of the Protestant Duke.
+
+Dissembling his surprise, he bade old Walters--who left her waiting in
+the hall whilst he went to announce her--to admit her instantly, and he
+advanced to the door to receive and welcome her.
+
+“Ruth,” said he, and his face was oddly alight, “you have come at last.”
+
+She smiled a wan smile of self-pity. “I have been constrained,” said
+she, and told him what had happened; that her brother had been arrested
+for high treason, and that the constable in searching the house had come
+upon the Monmouth letter she had locked away in her desk.
+
+“And not a doubt,” she ended, “but it will be believed that it was to
+Richard the letter was indited by the Duke. You will remember that
+its only address was 'to my good friend, W.,' and that will stand for
+Westmacott as well as Wilding.”
+
+Mr. Wilding was fain to laugh at the irony of this surprising turn of
+things of which she brought him news; for he had neither knowledge nor
+suspicion of the machinations of his friend Trenchard, to which these
+events were due. But noting and respecting her anxiety for her brother,
+he curbed his natural amusement.
+
+“It is a judgment upon you,” said he, nevertheless.
+
+“Do you exult?” she asked indignantly.
+
+“No; but I cannot repress my admiration for the ways of Divine Justice.
+If you are come to me for advice, I can but suggest that you should
+follow your brother's captors to Taunton, and inform the lieutenants of
+how the letter came into your power.”
+
+She looked at him in anger almost at what seemed a callousness. “Would
+he believe me, think you?”
+
+“Belike he would not,” said Mr. Wilding. “You can but try.”
+
+“If I told them it was addressed to you,” she said, eyeing him sternly,
+“does it not occur to you that they would send for you to question you,
+and that if they did so, as you are a gentleman you could not lie away
+my brother's life.”
+
+“Why, yes,” said he quite calmly, “it does occur to me. But does it not
+occur to you that by the time they came here they would find me gone?”
+ He laughed at her dismay. “I thank you, madam, for this warning,” he
+added. “I think I'll bid them saddle for me without delay. Too long
+already have I tarried.”
+
+“And must Richard hang?” she asked him fiercely.
+
+Mr. Wilding produced a snuffbox of tortoise shell and gold. He opened it
+deliberately. “If he does, you'll admit that he will hang on the gallows
+that he has built himself--although intended for another. I'faith! He's
+not the first booby to be caught in his own springe. There is in this a
+measure of poetic justice. Poetry and justice! Do you know, Ruth,
+they are two things I have ever loved?” And he took a pinch of choice
+Bergamot.
+
+“Will you be serious?” she demanded.
+
+“Trenchard would tell you that it were to make an exception from the
+rule of my life,” he assured her, smiling. “Yet even that might I do at
+your bidding.”
+
+“But this is a serious matter,” she told him angrily.
+
+“For Richard,” he acknowledged, closing his snuffbox with a snap. “Tell
+me, what would you have me do?”
+
+Since he asked her thus, she answered him in two words. “Save him.”
+
+“At the cost of my own neck?” quoth he. “The price is high,” he reminded
+her. “Do you think that Richard is quite worth it?”
+
+“And are you to save yourself at the cost of his?” she
+counter-questioned. “Are you capable of such a baseness?”
+
+He looked at her thoughtfully a moment. “You have not reflected,” said
+he slowly, “that in this affair is involved more than mine or Richard's
+life. There is a great cause weighing in the balance against all
+personal considerations. If I accounted Richard of more value to
+Monmouth than I am myself, I should not hesitate in riding to set
+him free by taking his place. As it is, however, I think I am of the
+greatest conceivable importance to His Grace, whilst if twenty Richards
+perished--frankly--their loss would be something of a gain, for Richard
+has played a traitor's part already. That is with me the first of all
+considerations.”
+
+“Am I of no consideration to you?” she asked him. And in an agony of
+terror for her brother she now approached him, and, obeying a sudden
+impulse, cast herself upon her knees before him. “Listen!” she cried.
+
+“Not thus,” said he, a frown between his eyes. He took her by the elbows
+and gently but very firmly brought her to her feet again. “It is not
+fitting you should kneel save at your prayers.”
+
+She was standing now, and very close to him, his hands still held her
+elbows, though their touch was so light that she scarce felt it.
+To release them was easy, and the next second her hands were on his
+shoulders, her brave eyes raised to him.
+
+“Mr. Wilding,” she implored him, “you'll not let Richard be destroyed?”
+
+He looked down at her with kindling glance, his arms slipped round her
+lissom waist. “It is hard to deny you, Ruth,” said he. “Yet not my love
+of my own life compels me; but my duty, my loyalty to the cause to which
+I am pledged. I were a traitor were I now to place myself in peril.”
+
+She pressed against him, her face so close to his that her breath fanned
+his cheek, whither a faint colour crept in quick response. Despite
+herself almost, instinctively, unconsciously, she exerted the weapons of
+her sex to bend him to her will.
+
+“You say you love me,” she whispered. “Prove it me now, and I will
+believe you.
+
+“Ah!” he sighed. “And believing me? What then?”
+
+He had himself grimly in hand, yet feared he should not prove strong
+enough to hold himself for long.
+
+“You... you shall find me your... dutiful wife,” she faltered,
+crimsoning.
+
+His arms tightened about her; he crushed her to him, he bent his head to
+hers and his lips burnt the lips she yielded to him as though they had
+been living fire.
+
+Anon, she was to weep in shame--in shame and in astonishment--at that
+instant of surrender, but for the moment she had no thought save for her
+brother. Exultation filled her. She accounted that she had conquered,
+and she gloried in the power her beauty gave her, a power that had
+sufficed to melt to water the hard-frozen purposes of this self-willed
+man. The next instant, however, she was cold again with dismay and
+newborn terror. He unclasped her arms, he drew back, shaking off the
+hands she had rested upon his shoulders. His white face--the flush had
+faded from it again--smiled a thought disdainfully.
+
+“You bargain with me,” he said. “But I have some knowledge of your ways
+of trading. They are overshrewd for an honest gentleman.”
+
+“You mean,” she gasped, her hand pressed to her heart, her face a
+deathly white, “you mean that you'll not save him?”
+
+“I mean,” said he, “that I will have no further bargains with you.”
+
+There was such hard finality in his tone that she recoiled, beaten and
+without power, to return to the assault. She had played and lost. She
+had yielded her lips to his kisses, and--husband though he might be in
+name--shame was her only guerdon.
+
+One look she gave him from out of that face so white and pitiful, then
+with a shudder turned from him and fled his presence. He sprang after
+her as the door closed, then checked and stood in thought, very grim for
+one who professed to bestow no seriousness on the affairs of life. Then
+he returned slowly to his writing-table, and rummaged there among the
+papers with which it was encumbered, seeking something of which he now
+had need. Through the open window he heard the retreating beat of her
+horse's hoofs. He sighed and sat down heavily, to take his long square
+chin in his hand and stare before him at the sunlight on the lawn
+outside.
+
+And whilst he sat thus, Ruth made all haste back to Lupton House to tell
+of the failure that had attended her. There was nothing left her now
+but to embark upon the forlorn hope of following Richard to Taunton, to
+offer her evidence of how the incriminating letter had come to be locked
+in the drawer in which the constable had discovered it. Diana met her
+with a face as white as her own and infinitely more startled. She had
+just learnt that Sir Rowland Blake had been arrested also and that
+he had been carried to Taunton together with Richard, and, as a
+consequence, she was as eager now that Ruth should repair to Albemarle
+as she had erstwhile been earnest in urging her to seek out Mr. Wilding;
+indeed, Diana went so far as to offer to accompany her, an offer that
+Ruth gladly, gratefully accepted.
+
+Within an hour Ruth and Diana--in spite of all that poor, docile Lady
+Horton had said to stay them--were riding to Taunton, attended by the
+same groom who had so lately accompanied his mistress to Zoyland Chase.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. THEIR OWN PETARD
+
+In a lofty, spacious room of the town hall at Taunton sat Sir Edward
+Phelips and Colonel Luttrell to dispense justice, and with them, flanked
+by one of them on either side of him, sat Christopher Monk, Duke of
+Albemarle, Lord-Lieutenant of Devonshire, who had been summoned in
+all haste from Exeter that he might be present at an examination which
+promised to be of so vast importance. The three sat at a long table at
+the room's end, attended by two secretaries.
+
+Before them, guarded by constable and tything-men, weaponless, their
+hands pinioned behind them--Blake's arm was healed by now--stood Mr.
+Westmacott and his friend Sir Rowland to answer this grave charge.
+
+Richard, not knowing who might have betrayed him and to what extent, was
+very fearful--having through his connection with the Cause every reason
+so to be. Blake, on the other hand, conscious of his innocence of any
+plotting, was impatient of his position, and a thought contemptuous.
+It was he who, upon being ushered by the constable and his men into the
+august presence of the Lord-Lieutenant, clamoured to know precisely of
+what he was accused that he might straightway clear himself.
+
+Albemarle reared his great massive head, smothered in a mighty black
+peruke, and scowled upon the florid London beau. A black-visaged
+gentleman was Christopher Monk. His pendulous cheeks, it is true, were
+of a sallow pallor, but what with his black wig, black eyebrows, dark
+eyes, and the blue-black tint of shaven beard on his great jaw and upper
+lip, he presented an appearance sombrely sinister. His netherlip was
+thick and very prominent; deep creases ran from the corners of his mouth
+adown his heavy chin; his eyes were dull and lack-lustre, with great
+pouches under them. In the main, the air of this son of the great
+Parliamentarian general was stupid, dull, unprepossessing.
+
+The creases of his mouth deepened as Blake protested against what he
+termed this outrage that had been done him; he sneered ponderously,
+thrusting further forward his heavily undershot jowl.
+
+“We are informed, sir, of your antecedents,” he staggered Blake by
+answering. “We have learnt the reason why you left London and your
+creditors, and in all my life, sir, I have never known a man more ready
+to turn his hand to treason than a broken gamester. Your kind turns by
+instinct to such work as this, as a last resource for the mending of
+battered fortunes.”
+
+Blake crimsoned from chin to brow. “I'm forejudged, it, seems,” he made
+answer haughtily, tossing his fair locks, his blue eyes glaring upon his
+judges. “May I, at least, know the name of my accuser?”
+
+“You shall receive impartial justice at our hands,” put in Phelips,
+whose manner was of a dangerous mildness. “Depend on that. Not only
+shall you know the name of your accuser, but you shall be confronted by
+him. Meanwhile, sirs”--and his glance strayed from Blake's flushed and
+angry countenance to Richard's, pale and timid--“meanwhile, are we to
+understand that you deny the charge?”
+
+“I have heard none as yet,” said Sir Rowland insolently.
+
+Albemarle turned to one of the secretaries. “Read them the indictment,”
+ said he, and sank back in his chair, his dull glance upon the prisoners,
+whilst the clerk in a droning voice read from a document which he took
+up. It impeached Sir Rowland Blake and Mr. Richard Westmacott of holding
+treasonable communication with James Scott, Duke of Monmouth, and of
+plotting against His Majesty's life and throne and the peace of His
+Majesty's realms.
+
+Blake listened with unconcealed impatience to the farrago of legal
+phrases, and snorted contemptuously when the reading came to an end.
+
+Albemarle looked at him darkly. “I do thank God,” said he, “that through
+Mr. Westmacott's folly has this hideous plot, this black and damnable
+treason, been brought to light in time to enable us to stamp out this
+fire ere it is well kindled. Have you aught to say, sir?”
+
+“I have to say that the whole charge a foul and unfounded lie,” said Sir
+Rowland bluntly: “I never plotted in my life against anything but my own
+prosperity, nor against any man but myself.”
+
+Albemarle smiled coldly at his colleagues, then turned to Westmacott.
+“And you, sir?” he said. “Are you as stubborn as your friend?”
+
+“I incontinently deny the charge,” said Richard, and he contrived that
+his voice should ring bold and resolute.
+
+“A charge built on air,” sneered Blake, “which the first breath of truth
+should utterly dispel. We have heard the impeachment. Will Your Grace
+with the same consideration permit us to see the proofs that we may lay
+bare their falseness? It should not be difficult.”
+
+“Do you say there is no such plot as is here alleged?” quoth the Duke,
+and smote a paper sharply.
+
+Blake shrugged his shoulders. “How should I know?” he asked. “I say I
+have no share in any, that I am acquainted with none.”
+
+“Call Mr. Trenchard,” said the Duke quietly, and an usher who had stood
+tamely by the door at the far end of the room departed on the errand.
+
+Richard started at the mention of that name. He had a singular dread of
+Mr. Trenchard.
+
+Colonel Luttrell--lean and wiry--now addressed the prisoners, Blake more
+particularly. “Still,” said he, “you will admit that such a plot may,
+indeed, exist?”
+
+“It may, indeed, for aught I know--or care,” he added incautiously.
+
+Albemarle smote the table with a heavy hand. “By God!” he cried in that
+deep booming voice of his, “there spoke a traitor! You do not care, you
+say, what plots may be hatched against His Majesty's life and crown! Yet
+you ask me to believe you a true and loyal subject.”
+
+Blake was angered; he was at best a short-tempered man. Deliberately he
+floundered further into the mire.
+
+“I have not asked Your Grace to believe me anything,” he answered hotly.
+“It is all one to me what Your Grace believes me. I take it I have not
+been fetched hither to be confronted with what Your Grace believes. You
+have preferred a lying charge against me; I ask for proofs, not Your
+Grace's beliefs and opinions.”
+
+“By God, sir, you are a daring rogue!” cried Albemarle.
+
+Sir Rowland's eyes blazed. “Anon, Your Grace, when, having failed of
+your proofs, you shall be constrained to restore me to liberty, I shall
+ask Your Grace to unsay that word.”
+
+Albemarle stared, confounded, and in that moment the door opened, and
+Trenchard sauntered in, cane in hand, his hat under his arm, a wicked
+smile on his wizened face.
+
+Leaving Blake's veiled threat unanswered, the Duke turned to the old
+rake. “These rogues,” said he, pointing to the prisoners, “demand proofs
+ere they will admit the truth of the impeachment.”
+
+“Those proofs,” said Trenchard, “are already in Your Grace's hands.”
+
+“Aye, but they have asked to be confronted with their accuser.”
+
+Trenchard bowed. “Is it your wish, then, that I recite for them the
+counts on which I have based the accusation I laid before Your Grace?”
+
+“If you will condescend so far,” said Albemarle.
+
+“Blister me...!” roared Blake, when the Duke interrupted him.
+
+“By God, sir!” he cried, “I'll have no such disrespectful language here.
+You'll observe the decency of speech and forbear from profanities, you
+damned rogue, or by God! I'll commit you forthwith.”
+
+“I will endeavour,” said Blake, with a sarcasm lost on Albemarle, “to
+follow Your Grace's lofty example.”
+
+“You will do well, sir,” said the Duke, and was shocked that Trenchard
+should laugh at such a moment.
+
+“I was about to protest, sir,” said Blake, “that it is monstrous
+I should be accused by Mr. Trenchard. He has but the slightest
+acquaintance with me.”
+
+Trenchard bowed to him across the chamber. “Admitted, sir,” said
+he. “What should I be doing in bad company?” An answer this that set
+Albemarle bawling with laughter. Trenchard turned to the Duke. “I will
+begin, an it please Your Grace, with the expressions used last night in
+my presence at the Bell Inn at Bridgwater by Mr. Richard Westmacott, and
+I will confine myself strictly to those matters on which my testimony
+can be corroborated by that of other witnesses.”
+
+Colonel Luttrell interrupted him to turn to Richard. “Do you recall
+those expressions, sir?” he asked him.
+
+Richard winced under the question. Nevertheless, he braced himself to
+make the best defence he could. “I have not yet heard,” said he, “what
+those expressions were; nor when I hear them must it follow that I
+recognize them as my own. I must admit to having taken more wine,
+perhaps, than... than...” Whilst he sought the expression that he needed
+Trenchard cut in with a laugh. “In vino veritas, gentlemen,” and
+His Grace and Sir Edward nodded sagely; Luttrell preserved a stolid
+exterior. He seemed less prone than his colleagues to forejudging.
+
+“Will you repeat the expressions used by Mr. Westmacott?” Sir Edward
+begged.
+
+“I will repeat the one that, to my mind, matters most.” Mr. Westmacott,
+getting to his feet and in a loud voice, exclaimed, “God save the
+Protestant Duke!”
+
+“Do you admit it, sir?” thundered Albemarle, his eyes glowering upon
+Richard hesitated a moment, pale and trembling.
+
+“You will waste breath in denying it,” said Trenchard suavely, “for I
+have a drawer from the Bell Inn, and two gentlemen who overheard you
+waiting outside.”
+
+“I'faith, sir,” cried Blake, “what treason was therein that? If he...”
+
+“Silence!” thundered Albemarle. “Let Mr. Westmacott speak for himself.”
+
+Richard, inspired by the defence Blake had begun, took the same line of
+argument. “I admit that in the heat of wine I may have used such words,”
+ said he. “But I deny their intent to be treasonable. There are many men
+who drink to the prosperity of the late Kings's son...”
+
+“Natural son, sir; natural son,” Albemarle amended. “It is treason to
+speak of him otherwise.”
+
+“It will be a treason presently to draw breath,” sneered Blake.
+
+“If it be,” said Trenchard, “it is a treason you'll not be long
+committing.”
+
+“Faith, you are right, Mr. Trenchard,” said the Duke with a laugh.
+Indeed, he found Mr. Trenchard a most pleasant and facetious gentleman.
+
+“Still,” insisted Richard, endeavouring in spite of these irrelevancies
+to make good his point, “there be many men who drink daily to the
+prosperity of the late King's natural son.”
+
+“Aye, sir,” answered Albemarle; “but not his prosperity in horrid plots
+against the life of our beloved sovereign.”
+
+“True, Your Grace; very true,” purred Sir Edward. “It was not so I meant
+to toast him,” cried Richard. Albemarle made an impatient gesture,
+and took up a sheet of paper. “How, then,” he asked, “comes this
+letter--this letter which makes plain the treason upon which the Duke
+of Monmouth is embarked, just as it makes plain your participation in
+it--how comes this letter to be found in your possession?” And he waved
+the letter in the air.
+
+Richard went the colour of ashes. He faltered a moment, then took refuge
+in the truth, for all that he knew beforehand that the truth was bound
+to ring more false than any lie he could invent.
+
+“That letter was not addressed to me,” he stammered.
+
+Albemarle read the subscription, “To my good friend W., at Bridgwater.”
+ He looked up, a heavy sneer thrusting his heavy lip still further out.
+“What do you say to that? Does not 'W' stand for Westmacott?”
+
+“It does not.”
+
+“Of course not,” said Albemarle with heavy sarcasm. “It stands for
+Wilkins, or Williams, or... or... What-not.”
+
+“Indeed, I can bear witness that it does not,” exclaimed Sir Rowland.
+
+“Be silent, sir, I tell you!” bawled the Duke at him again. “You shall
+bear witness soon enough, I promise you. To whom, then,” he resumed,
+turning again to Richard, “do you say that this letter was addressed?”
+
+“To Mr. Wilding--Mr. Anthony Wilding,” Richard answered.
+
+“I would have Your Grace to observe,” put in Trench ard quietly, “that
+Mr. Wilding, properly speaking, does not reside in Bridgwater.”
+
+“Tush!” cried Albemarle; “the rogue but mentions the first name with a
+'W' that occurs to him. He's not even an ingenious liar. And how, sir,”
+ he asked Richard, “does it come to be in your possession, having been
+addressed, as you say, to Mr. Wilding?”
+
+“Aye, sir,” said Sir Edward, blinking his weak eyes. “Tell us that.”
+
+Richard hesitated again, and looked at Blake. Blake, who by now had
+come to realize that his friend's affairs were not mended by his
+interruptions, moodily shrugged his shoulders, scowling.
+
+“Come, sir,” said Colonel Luttrell, engagingly, “answer the question.”
+
+“Aye,” roared Albemarle; “let your invention have free rein.”
+
+Again poor Richard sought refuge in the truth. “We--Sir Rowland here and
+I--had reason to suspect that he was awaiting such a letter.”
+
+“Tell us your reasons, sir, if we are to credit you,” said the Duke, and
+it was plain he mocked the prisoner. It was, moreover, a request that
+staggered Richard. Still, he sought to find a reason that should sound
+plausible.
+
+“We inferred it from certain remarks that Mr. Wilding let fall in our
+presence.”
+
+“Tell us the remarks, sir,” the Duke insisted.
+
+“Indeed, I do not call his precise words to mind, Your Grace. But they
+were such that we suspicioned him.”
+
+“And you would have me believe that hearing words which awoke in you
+such grave suspicions, you kept your suspicions and straightway forgot
+the words. You're but an indifferent liar.”
+
+Trenchard, who was standing by the long table, leaned forward now.
+
+“It might be well, an it please Your Grace,” said he, “to waive the
+point, and let us come to those matters which are of greater moment. Let
+him tell Your Grace how he came by the letter.”
+
+“Aye,” said Albemarle. “We do but waste time. Tell us, then, how came
+the letter into your hands?”
+
+“With Sir Rowland, here, I robbed the courier as he was riding from
+Taunton to Bridgwater.”
+
+Albemarle laughed, and Sir Edward smiled. “You robbed him, eh?” said His
+Grace. “Very well. But how did it happen that you knew he had the letter
+upon him, or was it that you were playing the hightobymen, and that in
+robbing him you hoped to find other matters?”
+
+“Not so, sir,” answered Richard. “I sought but the letter.”
+
+“And how knew you that he carried it? Did you learn that, too, from Mr.
+Wilding's indiscretion?”
+
+“Your Grace has said it.”
+
+“'Slife! What an impudent rogue have we here!” cried the angry Duke,
+who conceived that Richard was purposely dealing in effrontery. “Mr.
+Trenchard, I do think we are wasting time. Be so good as to confound
+them both with the truth of this matter.”
+
+“That letter,” said Trenchard, “was delivered to them at the Hare and
+Hounds, here at Taunton, by a gentleman who put up at the inn, and was
+there joined by Mr. Westmacott and Sir Rowland Blake. They opened
+the conversation with certain cant phrases very clearly intended as
+passwords. Thus: the prisoners said to the messenger, as they seated
+themselves at the table he occupied, 'You have the air, sir, of being
+from overseas,' to which the courier answered, 'Indeed, yes. I am from
+Holland. 'From the land of Orange,' says one of the prisoners. 'Aye, and
+other things,' replies the messenger. 'There is a fair wind blowing,' he
+adds; to which one of the prisoners, I believe it was Sir Rowland, makes
+answer, 'Mayit prosper the Protestant Duke and blow Popery to hell.'
+Thereupon the landlord caught some mention of a letter, but these
+plotters, perceiving that they were perhaps being overheard, sent him
+away to fetch them wine. A half-hour later the messenger took his leave,
+and the prisoners followed a very few minutes afterwards.”
+
+Albemarle turned to the prisoners. “You have heard Mr. Trenchard's
+story. How do you say--is it true or untrue?”
+
+“You will waste breath in denying it,” Trenchard took it again upon
+himself to admonish them. “For I have with me the landlord of the Hare
+and Hounds, who will corroborate, upon oath, what I have said.”
+
+“We do not deny it,” put in Blake. “But we submit that the matter is
+susceptible to explanation.”
+
+“You can keep your explanations till your trial, then,” snapped
+Albemarle. “I have heard more than enough to commit the pair of you to
+gaol.”
+
+“But, Your Grace,” cried Sir Rowland, so fiercely that one of the
+tything-men set a restraining hand upon his shoulder, “I am ready to
+swear that what I did, and what my friend Mr. Westmacott did, was done
+in the interests of His Majesty. We were working to discover this plot.”
+
+“Which, no doubt,” put in Trenchard slyly, “is the reason why, having
+got the letter, your friend Mr. Westmacott locked it in a desk, and you
+kept silence on the matter.”
+
+“You see,” exclaimed Albemarle, “how your lies do but serve further to
+bind you in the toils. It is ever thus with traitors.”
+
+“I do think you are a damned traitor, Trenchard,” began Blake; “a
+foul...”
+
+But what more he would have said was checked by Albemarle, who thundered
+forth an order for their removal, and then, scarce were the words
+uttered than the door at the far end of the hall was opened, and through
+it came a sound of women's voices. Richard started, for one was the
+voice of Ruth.
+
+An usher advanced. “May it please Your Grace, there are two ladies here
+beg that you will hear their evidence in the matter of Mr. Westmacott
+and Sir Rowland Blake.”
+
+Albemarle considered a moment. Trenchard stood very thoughtful.
+
+“Indeed,” said the Duke, at last, “I have heard as much as I need hear,”
+ and Sir Phelips nodded in token of concurrence.
+
+Not so, however, Colonel Luttrell. “Still,” said he, “in the interests
+of His Majesty, perhaps, we should be doing well to receive them.”
+
+Albemarle blew out his cheeks like a man wearied, and stared an instant
+at Luttrell. Then he shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“Admit them, then,” he commanded almost peevishly, and Ruth and Diana
+were ushered into the hall. Both were pale, but whilst Diana was
+fluttered with excitement, Ruth was calm and cool, and it was she who
+spoke in answer to the Duke's invitation. The burden of her speech was
+a clear, succinct recitation--in which she spared neither Wilding
+nor herself--of how the letter came to have remained in her hands and
+silence to have been preserved regarding it. Albemarle heard her very
+patiently.
+
+“If what you say is true, mistress,” said he, “and God forbid that
+I should be so ungallant as to throw doubt upon a lady's word, it
+certainly explains--although most strangely--how the letter was not
+brought to us at once by your brother and his friend Sir Rowland. You
+are prepared to swear that this letter was intended for Mr. Wilding?”
+
+“I am prepared to swear it,” she replied.
+
+“This is very serious,” said the Duke.
+
+“Very serious,” assented Sir Edward Phelips.
+
+Albemarle, a little flustered, turned to his colleagues. “What do you
+say to this? Were it perhaps well to order Mr. Wilding's apprehension,
+and to have him brought hither?”
+
+“It were to give yourselves useless trouble, gentlemen,” said Trenchard,
+with so much assurance that it was plain Albemarle hesitated.
+
+“Beware of Mr. Trenchard, Your Grace,” cried Ruth. “He is Mr. Wilding's
+friend, and if there is a plot he is sure to be in it.”
+
+Albemarle, startled, looked at Trenchard. Had the accusation come from
+either of the men the Duke would have silenced him and abused him;
+but coming from a woman, and so comely a woman, it seemed to His Grace
+worthy at least of consideration. But nimble Mr. Trenchard was easily
+master of the situation.
+
+“Which, of course,” he answered, with fine sarcasm, “is the reason why
+I have been at work for the past four-and-twenty hours to lay proofs of
+this plot before Your Grace.”
+
+Albemarle was ashamed of his momentary hesitation.
+
+“For the rest,” said Trenchard, “it is perfectly true that I am Mr.
+Wilding's friend. But the lady is even more intimately connected with
+him. It happens that she is his wife.”
+
+“His... his wife!” gasped the Duke, whilst Phelips chuckled, and Colonel
+Luttrell's face grew dark.
+
+Trenchard's wicked smile flickered upon his mobile features. “There are
+rumours current of court paid her by Sir Rowland, there. Who knows?” he
+questioned most suggestively, arching his brows and tightening his lips.
+“Wives are strange kittle-kattle, and husbands have been known before to
+grow inconvenient. Upon reflection, Your Grace will no doubt discern the
+precise degree of faith to attach to what this lady may tell you against
+Mr. Wilding.”
+
+“Oh!” exclaimed Ruth, her cheeks flaming crimson. “But this is
+monstrous!”
+
+“Tis how I should myself describe it,” answered Trenchard without shame.
+
+Spurred to it thus, Ruth poured out the entire story of her marriage,
+and so clear and lucid was her statement that it threw upon the affair a
+flood of light, whilst so frank and truthful was her tone, her narrative
+hung so well together, that the Bench began to recover from the shock to
+its faith, and was again in danger of believing her. Trenchard saw this
+and trembled. To save Wilding for the Cause he had resorted to this
+desperate expedient of betraying that Cause. It must be observed,
+however, that he had not done so save under the conviction that betrayed
+it was bound to be, and that since that was inevitable the thing had
+better come from him--for Wilding's sake--than from Richard Westmacott.
+He had taken the bull by the horns in a most desperate fashion when he
+had determined to hoist Richard and Blake with their own petard, hoping
+that, after all, the harm would reach no further than the destruction of
+these two--a purely defensive measure. But now this girl threatened
+to wreck his scheme just as it was being safely steered to harbour.
+Suddenly he swung round, interrupting her.
+
+“Lies, lies, lies!” he clamoured, and his interruption coming at such a
+time served to impress the Duke most unfavourably--as well it might.
+
+“It is our wish to hear this lady out, Mr. Trenchard,” the Duke reproved
+him.
+
+But Mr. Trenchard was undismayed. Indeed, he had just discovered a
+hitherto neglected card, which should put an end to this dangerous game.
+
+“I do abhor to hear Your Grace's patience thus abused,” he exclaimed
+with some show of heat. “This lady makes a mock of you. If you'll allow
+me to ask two questions--or perhaps three--I'll promise finally to prick
+this bubble for you. Have I Your Grace's leave?”
+
+“Well, well,” said Albemarle. “Let us hear your questions.” And his
+colleagues nodded.
+
+Trenchard turned airily to Ruth. Behind her Diana sat--an attendant had
+fetched a chair for her--in fear and wonder at what she saw and heard,
+her eyes ever and anon straying to Sir Rowland's back, which was towards
+her.
+
+“This letter, madam,” said he, “for the possession of which you have
+accounted in so... so... picturesque a manner, was intended for and
+addressed to Mr. Wilding, you say. And you are prepared to swear to it?”
+
+Ruth turned indignantly to the Bench. “Must I answer this man's
+questions?” she demanded.
+
+“I think, perhaps, it were best you did,” said the Duke, still showing
+her all deference.
+
+She turned to Trenchard, her head high, her eyes full upon his wrinkled,
+cynical face. “I swear, then...” she began, but he--consummate actor
+that he was and versed in tricks that impress an audience--interrupted
+her, raising one of his gnarled, yellow hands.
+
+“Nay, nay,” said he. “I would not have perjury proved against you. I do
+not ask you to swear. It will be sufficient if you pronounce yourself
+prepared to swear.”
+
+She pouted her lip a trifle, her whole expression manifesting her
+contempt of him. “I am in no fear of perjuring myself,” she answered
+fearlessly. “And I swear that the letter in question was addressed to
+Mr. Wilding.”
+
+“As you will,” said Trenchard, and was careful not to ask her how she
+came by her knowledge. “The letter, no doubt, was in an outer wrapper,
+on which there would be a superscription--the name of the person to whom
+the letter was addressed?” he half questioned, and Luttrell, who saw the
+drift of the question, nodded gravely.
+
+“No doubt,” said Ruth.
+
+“Now you will acknowledge, I am sure, madam, that such a wrapper would
+be a document of the greatest importance, as important, indeed, as the
+letter itself, since we could depend upon it finally to clear up this
+point on which we differ. You will admit so much, I think?”
+
+“Why, yes,” she answered, but her voice faltered a little, and her
+glance was not quite so fearless. She, too, saw at last the pit he had
+dug for her. He leaned forward, smiling quietly, his voice impressively
+subdued, and launched the bolt that was to annihilate the credibility of
+the story she had told.
+
+“Can you, then, explain how it comes that that wrapper has been
+suppressed? Can you tell us how--the matter being as you state it--in
+very self-defence against the dangers of keeping such a letter, your
+brother did not also keep that wrapper?”
+
+Her eyes fell away from his face, they turned to Albemarle, who sat
+scowling again, and from him they flickered unsteadily to Phelips and
+Luttrell, and lastly, to Richard, who, very white and with set teeth,
+stood listening to the working of his ruin.
+
+“I... I do not know,” she faltered at last.
+
+“Ah!” said Trenchard, drawing a deep breath. He turned to the Bench.
+“Need I suggest what was the need--the urgent need--for suppressing that
+wrapper?” quoth he. “Need I say what name was inscribed upon it? I think
+not. Your Grace's keen insight, and yours, gentlemen, will determine
+what was probable.”
+
+Sir Rowland now stood forward, addressing Albemarle. “Will Your Grace
+permit me to offer my explanation of this?”
+
+Albemarle banged the table. His patience was at an end, since he came
+now to believe--as Trenchard had earlier suggested--that he had been
+played upon by Ruth.
+
+“Too many explanations have I heard already, sir,” he answered. He
+turned to one of his secretaries. In his sudden excess of choler he
+forgot his colleagues altogether. “The prisoners are committed for
+trial,” said he harshly, and Trenchard breathed freely at last. But the
+next instant he caught his breath again, for a ringing voice was heard
+without demanding to see His Grace of Albemarle at once, and the voice
+was the voice of Anthony Wilding.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. THE MARPLOT
+
+Mr. Wilding's appearance produced as many different emotions as there
+were individuals present. He made the company a sweeping bow on his
+admission by Albemarle's orders, a bow which was returned by a stare
+from one and all. Diana eyed him in amazement, Ruth in hope; Richard
+averted his glance from that of his brother-in-law, whilst Sir Rowland
+met it with a scowl of enmity--they had not come face to face since the
+occasion of that encounter in which Sir Rowland's self-love had been so
+rudely handled. Albemarle's face expressed a sort of satisfaction,
+which was reflected on the countenances of Phelips and Luttrell; whilst
+Trenchard never thought of attempting to dissemble his profound dismay.
+And this dismay was shared, though not in so deep a measure, by Wilding
+himself. Trenchard's presence gave him pause; for he had been far,
+indeed, from dreaming that his friend had a hand in this affair. At
+sight of him all was made clear to Mr. Wilding. At once he saw the role
+which Trenchard had assumed on this occasion, saw to the bottom of the
+motives that had inspired him to take the bull by the horns and level
+against Richard and Blake this accusation before they had leisure to
+level it against himself.
+
+His quick wits having fathomed Trenchard's motive, Mr. Wilding was
+deeply touched by this proof of friendship, and for a second, as deeply
+nonplussed, at loss now how to discharge the task on which he came.
+
+“You are very choicely come, Mr. Wilding,” said Albemarle. “You will be
+able to resolve me certain doubts which have been set on foot by these
+traitors.”
+
+“That,” said Mr. Wilding, “is the purpose for which I am here. News
+reached me of the arrest that had been made. May I beg that Your Grace
+will place me in possession of the facts that have so far transpired.”
+
+It was one of his secretaries who, at Albemarle's bidding, gave Wilding
+the information that he craved. He listened gravely; then, before
+Albemarle had time to question him on the score of the name that might
+have been upon the enfolding wrapper of the letter, he begged that he
+might confer apart a moment with Mr. Trenchard.
+
+“But Mr. Wilding,” said Colonel Luttrell, surprised not to hear the
+immediate denial of the imputation they had expected, “we should first
+like to hear...”
+
+“By your leave, sirs,” Wilding interrupted, “I should prefer that
+you ask me nothing until I have consulted with Mr. Trenchard.” He saw
+Luttrell's frown, observed Sir Edward shift his wig to scratch his head
+in sheer perplexity, and caught the fore-shadowing of denial on the
+Duke's face. So, without giving any of them time to say him nay, he
+added quickly and very seriously, “I am begging this in the interests of
+justice. Your Grace has told me that some lingering doubt still haunts
+your mind upon the subject of this letter--the other charges can matter
+little, apart from that treasonable document. It lies within my power to
+resolve such doubts most clearly and finally. But I warn you, sirs, that
+not one word will I utter in this connection until I have had speech
+with Mr. Trenchard.”
+
+There was about his mien and voice a firmness that forewarned Albemarle
+that to insist would be worse than idle. A slight pause followed his
+words, and Luttrell leaned across to whisper in His Grace's ear; from
+the Duke's other side Sir Edward bent his head forward till it almost
+touched those of his companions. Blake watched, and was most foolishly
+impatient.
+
+“Your Grace will never allow this!” he cried.
+
+“Eh?” said Albemarle, scowling at him.
+
+“If you allow those two villains to consort together we are all undone,”
+ the baronet protested, and ruined what chance there was of Albemarle's
+not consenting.
+
+It was the one thing needed to determine Albemarle. Like the stubborn
+man he was, there was naught he detested so much as to have his course
+dictated to him. More than that, in Sir Rowland's anxiety that Wilding
+and Trenchard should not be allowed to confer apart, he smoked a fear
+on Sir Rowland's part, based upon the baronet's consciousness of his own
+guilt. He turned from him with a sneering smile, and without so much
+as consulting his associates he glanced at Wilding and waved his hand
+towards the door.
+
+“Pray do as you suggest, Mr. Wilding,” said he. “But I depend upon you
+not to tax our patience.”
+
+“I shall not keep Mr. Trenchard a moment longer than is necessary,” said
+Wilding, giving no hint of the second meaning in his words.
+
+He stepped to the door, opened it himself, and signed to Trenchard to
+pass out. The old player obeyed him readily, if in silence. An usher
+closed the door after them, and in silence they walked together to the
+end of the passage.
+
+“Where is your horse, Nick?” quoth Wilding abruptly.
+
+“What a plague do you mean, where is my horse?” flashed Trenchard. “What
+midsummer frenzy is this? Damn you for a marplot, Anthony! What a pox
+are you thinking of to thrust yourself in here at such a time?”
+
+“I had no knowledge you were in the affair,” said Wilding. “You should
+have told me.” His manner was brisk to the point of dryness. “However,
+there is still time to get you out of it. Where is your horse?”
+
+“Damn my horse!” answered Trenchard in a passion. “You have spoiled
+everything!”
+
+“On the contrary,” said Mr. Wilding tartly, “it seems you had done that
+very thoroughly before I arrived. Whilst I am touched by the regard for
+me which has misled you into turning the tables on Blake and Westmacott,
+yet I do blame you for this betrayal of the Cause.”
+
+“There was no help for it.”
+
+“Why, no; and that is why you should have left matters where they
+stood.”
+
+Trenchard stamped his foot; indeed, he almost danced in the excess of
+his vexation. “Left them where they stood!” he echoed. “Body o' me!
+Where are your wits? Left them where they stood! And at any moment you
+might have been taken unawares as a consequence of this accusation being
+lodged against you by Richard or by Blake. Then the Cause would have
+been betrayed, indeed.”
+
+“Not more so than it is now.”
+
+“Not less, at least,” snapped the player. “You give me credit for no
+more wit than yourself. Do you think that I am the man to do things by
+halves? I have betrayed the plot to Albemarle; but do you imagine I have
+made no provision for what must follow?”
+
+“Provision?” echoed Wilding, staring.
+
+“Aye, provision. God lack! What do you suppose Albemarle will do?”
+
+“Dispatch a messenger to Whitehall with the letter within an hour.”
+
+“You perceive it, do you? And where the plague do you think Nick
+Trenchard'll be what time that messenger rides?”
+
+Mr. Wilding understood. “Aye, you may stare,” sneered Trenchard. “A
+letter that has once been stolen may be stolen again. The courier must
+go by way of Walford. I had in my mind arranged the spot, close by the
+ford, where I should fall upon him, rob him of his dispatches, and take
+him--bound hand and foot if necessary--to Vallancey's, who lives close
+by; and there I'd leave him until word came that the Duke had landed.”
+
+“That the Duke had landed?” cried Wilding. “You talk as though the thing
+were imminent.”
+
+“And imminent it is. For aught we know he may be in England already.”
+
+Mr. Wilding laughed impatiently. “You must forever be building on these
+crack-brained rumours, Nick,” said he.
+
+“Rumours!” roared the other. “Rumours? Ha!” He checked his wild scorn,
+and proceeded in a different key. “I was forgetting. You do not know the
+Contents of that stolen letter.”
+
+Wilding started. Underlying his disbelief in the talk of the
+countryside, and even in the military measures which by the King's
+orders were being taken in the West, was an uneasy dread lest they
+should prove to be well founded, lest Argyle's operations in Scotland
+should be but the forerunner of a rash and premature invasion by
+Monmouth. He knew the Duke was surrounded by such reckless, foolhardy
+counsellors as Grey and Ferguson--and yet he could not think the Duke
+would ruin all by coming before he had definite word that his friends
+were ready. He looked at Trenchard now with anxious eyes.
+
+“Have you seen the letter, Nick?” he asked, and almost dreaded the
+reply.
+
+“Albemarle showed it me an hour ago,” said Trenchard.
+
+“And it contains?”
+
+“The news we fear. It is in the Duke's own hand, and intimates that he
+will follow it in a few days--in a few days, man in person.”
+
+Mr. Wilding clenched teeth and hands. “God help us all, then!” he
+muttered grimly.
+
+“Meanwhile,” quoth Trenchard, bringing him back to the point, “there is
+this precious business here. I had as choice a plan as could have been
+devised, and it must have succeeded, had you not come blundering into it
+to mar it all at the last moment. That fat fool Albemarle had swallowed
+my impeachment like a draught of muscadine. Do you hear me?” he ended
+sharply, for Mr. Wilding stood bemused, his thoughts plainly wandering.
+
+He let his hand fall upon Trenchard's shoulder. “No,” said he, “I wasn't
+listening. No matter; for even had I known the full extent of your
+scheme I still must have interfered.”
+
+“For the sake of Mistress Westmacott's blue eyes, no doubt,” sneered
+Trenchard. “Pah! Wherever there's a woman there's the loss of a man.”
+
+“For the sake of Mistress Wilding's blue eyes,” his friend corrected
+him. “I'll allow no brother of hers to hang in my place.”
+
+“It will be interesting to see how you will rescue him.”
+
+“By telling the truth to Albemarle.”
+
+“He'll not believe it.”
+
+“I shall prove it,” said Wilding quietly. Trenchard swung round upon him
+in mingled anger and alarm for him. “You shall not do it!” he snarled.
+“It is nothing short of treason to the Duke to get yourself laid by the
+heels at such a time as this.”
+
+“I hope to avoid it,” answered Wilding confidently.
+
+“Avoid it? How?”
+
+“Not by staying longer here in talk. That will ruin all. Away with you,
+Trenchard!”
+
+“By my soul, no!” answered Trenchard. “I'll not leave you. If I have got
+you into this, I'll help to get you out again, or stay in it with you.”
+
+“Bethink you of Monmouth?” Wilding admonished him.
+
+“Damn Monmouth!” was the vicious answer. “I am here, and here I stay.”
+
+“Get to horse, you fool, and ride to Walford as you proposed, there to
+ambush the messenger. The letter will go to Whitehall none the less in
+spite of what I shall tell Albemarle. If things go well with me, I shall
+join you at Vallancey's before long.”
+
+“Why, if that is your intention,” said Trenchard, “I had better stay,
+and we can ride together. It will make it less uncertain for you.”
+
+“But less certain for you.”
+
+“The more reason why I should remain.”
+
+The door of the hall was suddenly flung open at the far end of the
+corridor, and Albemarle's booming voice, impatiently raised, reached
+them where they stood.
+
+“In any case,” added Trenchard, “it seems there is no help for it now.”
+
+Mr. Wilding shrugged his shoulders, but otherwise dissembled his
+vexation. Up the passage floated the constable's voice calling them.
+
+Side by side they moved down, and side by side they stepped once more
+into the presence of Christopher Monk and his associates.
+
+“Sirs, you have not been in haste,” was the Duke's ill-humoured
+greeting.
+
+“We have tarried a little that we might make an end the sooner,”
+ answered Trenchard dryly, and this was the first indication he gave Mr.
+Wilding of how naturally--like the inimitable actor that he was--he had
+slipped into his new role.
+
+Albemarle waved the frivolous rejoinder aside. “Come, Mr. Wilding,” said
+he, “let us hear what you may have to say. You are not, I take it, about
+to urge any reasons why these rogues should not be committed?”
+
+“Indeed, Your Grace,” said Wilding, “that is what I am about to urge.”
+
+Blake and Richard looked at him suddenly, and from him to Trenchard; but
+it was only Ruth whose eyes were shrewd enough to observe the altered
+demeanour of the latter. Her hopes rose, founded upon this oddly
+assorted pair. Already in anticipation she was stirred by gratitude
+towards Wilding, and it was in impatient and almost wondering awe that
+she waited for him to proceed.
+
+“I take it, sir,” he said, without waiting for Albemarle to express
+any of the fresh astonishment his countenance manifested, “that the
+accusation against these gentlemen rests entirely upon the letter which
+you have been led to believe was addressed to Mr. Westmacott.”
+
+The Duke scowled a moment before replying. “Why,” said he, “if it could
+be shown--irrefutably shown--that the letter was not addressed to either
+of them, that would no doubt establish the truth of what they say--that
+they possessed themselves of the letter in the interests of His
+Majesty.” He turned to Luttrell and Phelips, and they nodded their
+concurrence with his view of the matter. “But,” he continued, “if
+you are proposing to prove any such thing, I think you will find it
+difficult.”
+
+Mr. Wilding drew a crumpled paper from his pocket. “When the courier
+whom they robbed, as they have correctly informed you,” said he quietly,
+“suspected their design upon the contents of his wallet, he bethought
+him of removing the wrapper from the letter, so that in case the
+letter were seized by them it should prove nothing against any man
+in particular. He stuffed the wrapper into the lining of his hat,
+preserving it as a proof of his good faith against the time when he
+should bring the letter to its destination, or come to confess that it
+had been taken from him. That wrapper the courier brought to me, and I
+have it here. The evidence it will give should be more than sufficient
+to warrant your restoring these unjustly accused gentlemen their
+liberty.”
+
+“The courier took it to you?” echoed Albemarle, stupefaction in his
+glance. “But why to you?”
+
+“Because,” said Wilding, and with his left hand he placed the wrapper
+before Albemarle, whilst his right dropped again to his pocket, “the
+letter, as you may see, was addressed to me.”
+
+The quiet manner in which he made the announcement conveyed almost as
+great a shock as the announcement itself.
+
+Albemarle took up the wrapper; Luttrell and Phelips craned forward to
+join him in his scrutiny of it. They compared the two, paper with paper,
+writing with writing. Then Monk flung one and the other down in front of
+him.
+
+“What lies have I been hearing, then?” he demanded furiously of
+Trenchard. “'Slife I'll make an example of you. Arrest me that
+rogue--arrest them both,” and he half rose from his seat, his trembling
+hand pointing to Wilding and Trenchard.
+
+Two of the tything-men stirred to do his bidding, but in the same
+instant Albemarle found himself looking into the round nozzle of a
+pistol.
+
+“If,” said Mr. Wilding, “a finger is laid upon Mr. Trenchard or me I
+shall have the extreme mortification of being compelled to shoot Your
+Grace.”
+
+His pleasantly modulated voice was as deliberate and calm as if he were
+offering the Bench a pinch of snuff. Albemarle's dark visage crimsoned;
+his eyes became at once wicked and afraid. Sir Edward's cheeks turned
+pale, his glance grew startled. Luttrell alone, vigilant and dangerous,
+preserved his calm. But the situation baffled even him.
+
+Behind the two friends the tything-men had come to a terror-stricken
+halt. Diana had risen from her chair in the excitement of the moment and
+had drawn close to Ruth, who looked on with parted lips and bosom
+that rose and fell. Even Blake could not stifle his admiration of
+Mr. Wilding's coolness and address. Richard, on the other hand, was
+concerned only with thoughts for himself, wondering how it would fare
+with him if Wilding and Trenchard succeeded in getting away.
+
+“Nick,” said Mr. Wilding, “will you desire those catchpolls behind us
+to stand aside? If Your Grace raises your voice to call for help, if,
+indeed, any measures are taken calculated to lead to our capture, I
+can promise Your Grace--notwithstanding my profound reluctance to use
+violence--that they will be the last measures you will take in life. Be
+good enough to open the door, Nick, and to see that the key is on the
+outside.”
+
+Trenchard, who was by way of enjoying himself now, stepped briskly
+down the hall to do as his friend bade him, with a wary eye on the
+tything-men. But never so much as a finger did they dare to lift. Mr.
+Wilding's calm was too deadly; they had seen a man in earnest before
+this, and they knew his appearance now. From the doorway Trenchard
+called Mr. Wilding.
+
+“I must be going, Your Grace,” said the latter very courteously, “but
+I shall not be so wanting in deference to His Majesty's august
+representatives as to turn my back upon you.” Saying which, he walked
+backwards, holding his pistol level, until he had reached Trenchard and
+the door. There he paused and made them a deep bow, his manner the more
+mocking in that there was no tinge of mockery perceptible. “Your very
+obedient servant,” said he, and stepped outside. Trenchard turned the
+key, withdrew it from the lock, and, standing on tiptoe, thrust it upon
+the ledge of the lintel.
+
+Instantly a clamour arose within the chamber. But the two friends never
+stayed to listen. Down the passage they sped at the double, and out
+into the courtyard. Here Ruth's groom, mounted himself, was walking his
+mistress's and Diana's horses up and down whilst he waited; yonder one
+of Sir Edward's stable-boys was holding Mr. Wilding's roan. Two or three
+men of the Somerset militia, in their red and yellow liveries, lounged
+by the gates, and turned uninterested eyes upon these newcomers.
+
+Wilding approached his wife's groom. “Get down,” he said, “I need your
+horse--on the King's business. Get down, I say,” he added impatiently,
+upon noting the fellow's stare, and, seizing his leg, he helped him to
+dismount by almost dragging him from the saddle. “Up with you, Nick,”
+ said he, and Nick very promptly mounted. “Your mistress will be here
+presently,” Wilding told the groom, and, turning on his heel, strode
+to his own mare. A moment later Trenchard and he vanished through the
+gateway with a tremendous clatter, just as the Lord-Lieutenant, Colonel
+Luttrell, Sir Edward Phelips, the constable, the tything-men, Sir
+Rowland, Richard, and the ladies made their appearance.
+
+Ruth pushed her way quickly to the front. She feared lest her horse
+and her cousin's being at hand might be used for the pursuit; so urging
+Diana to do the same, she snatched her reins from the hands of the
+dumbfounded groom and leapt nimbly to the saddle.
+
+“After them!” roared Albemarle, and the constable with two of his
+men made a dash for the gateway to raise the hue and cry, whilst
+the militiamen watched them in stupid, inactive wonder. “Damnation,
+mistress!” thundered the Duke in ever-increasing passion, “hold your
+nag! Hold your nag, woman!” For Ruth's horse had become unmanageable,
+and was caracoling about the yard between the men and the gateway in
+such a manner that they dared not attempt to win past her.
+
+“You have scared him with your bellowing,” she panted, tugging at the
+bridle, and all but backed into the constable who had been endeavouring
+to get round behind her. The beast continued its wild prancing, and the
+Duke abated nothing in his furious profanity, until suddenly the groom,
+having relinquished to Diana the reins of the other horse, sprang to
+Ruth's assistance and caught her bridle in a firm grasp which brought
+the animal to a standstill.
+
+“You fool!” she hissed at him, and half raised her whip to strike, but
+checked on the impulse, bethinking her in time that, after all, what the
+poor lad had done he had done thinking her distressed.
+
+The constable and a couple of his fellows won through; others were
+rousing the stable and getting to horse, and in the courtyard all was
+bustle and commotion. Meanwhile, however, Mr. Wilding and Trenchard had
+made the most of their start, and were thundering through the town.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. AT THE FORD
+
+As Mr. Wilding and Nick Trenchard rode hell-to-leather through Taunton
+streets they never noticed a horseman at the door of the Red Lion Inn.
+But the horseman noticed them. He looked up at the sound of their wild
+approach, started upon recognizing them, and turned in his saddle as
+they swept past him to call upon them excitedly to stop.
+
+“Hi!” he shouted. “Nick Trenchard! Hi! Wilding!” Then, seeing that they
+either did not hear or did not heed him, he loosed a volley of oaths,
+wheeled his horse about, drove home the spurs, and started in pursuit.
+Out of the town he followed them and along the road towards Walford,
+shouting and clamouring at first, afterwards in a grim and angry
+silence.
+
+Now, despite their natural anxiety for their own safety, Wilding and
+Trenchard had by no means abandoned their project of taking cover by the
+ford to await the messenger whom Albemarle and the others would no
+doubt be sending to Whitehall; and this mad fellow thundering after them
+seemed in a fair way to mar their plan. As they reluctantly passed the
+spot they had marked out for their ambush, splashed through the ford and
+breasted the rising ground beyond, they took counsel. They determined
+to stand and meet this rash pursuer. Trenchard calmly opined that if
+necessary they must shoot him; he was, I fear, a bloody-minded fellow
+at bottom, although, it is true he justified himself now by pointing out
+that this was no time to hesitate at trifles. Partly because they
+talked and partly because the gradient was steep and their horses
+needed breathing, they slackened rein, and the horseman behind them
+came tearing through the water of the ford and lessened the distance
+considerably in the next few minutes.
+
+He bethought him of using his lungs once more. “Hi, Wilding! Hold, damn
+you!”
+
+“He curses you in a most intimate manner,” quoth Trenchard.
+
+Wilding reined in and turned in the saddle. “His voice has a familiar
+sound,” said he. He shaded his eyes with his hand, and looked down the
+slope at the pursuer, who came on crouching low upon the withers of his
+goaded beast.
+
+“Wait!” the fellow shouted. “I have news--news for you!”
+
+“It's Vallancey!” cried Wilding suddenly. Trenchard too had drawn
+rein and was looking behind him. Instead of expressing relief at the
+discovery that this was not an enemy, he swore at the trouble to
+which they had so needlessly put themselves, and he was still at his
+vituperations when Vallancey came up with them, red in the face and very
+angry, cursing them roundly for the folly of their mad career, and for
+not having stopped when he bade them.
+
+“It was no doubt discourteous,” said Mr. Wilding “but we took you for
+some friend of the Lord-Lieutenant's.”
+
+“Are they after you?” quoth Vallancey, his face of a sudden very
+startled.
+
+“Like enough,” said Trenchard, “if they have found their horses yet.”
+
+“Forward, then,” Vallancey urged them in excitement, and he picked up
+his reins again. “You shall hear my news as we ride.”
+
+“Not so,” said Trenchard. “We have business here down yonder at the
+ford.”
+
+“Business? What business?”
+
+They told him, and scarce had they got the words out than he cut in
+impatiently. “That's no matter now.
+
+“Not yet, perhaps,” said Mr. Wilding; “but it will be if that letter
+gets to Whitehall.”
+
+“Odso!” was the impatient retort, “there's other news travelling to
+Whitehall that will make small-beer of this--and belike it's well on its
+way there already.”
+
+“What news is that?” asked Trenchard. Vallancey told them. “The Duke has
+landed--he came ashore this morning at Lyme.”
+
+“The Duke?” quoth Mr. Wilding, whilst Trenchard merely stared. “What
+Duke?”
+
+“What Duke! Lord, you weary me! What dukes be there? The Duke of
+Monmouth, man.”
+
+“Monmouth!” They uttered the name in a breath. “But is this really
+true?” asked Wilding. “Or is it but another rumour?”
+
+“Remember the letter your friends intercepted,” Trenchard bade him.
+
+“I am not forgetting it,” said Wilding.
+
+“It's no rumour,” Vallancey assured them. “I was at White Lackington
+three hours ago when the news came to George Speke, and I was riding to
+carry it to you, going by way of Taunton that I might drop word of it
+for our friends at the Red Lion.”
+
+Trenchard needed no further convincing; he looked accordingly dismayed.
+But Wilding found it still almost impossible--in spite of what already
+he had learnt--to credit this amazing news. It was hard to believe the
+Duke of Monmouth mad enough to spoil all by this sudden and unheralded
+precipitation.
+
+“You heard the news at White Lackington?” said he slowly. “Who carried
+it thither?”
+
+“There were two messengers,” answered Vallancey, with restrained
+impatience, “and they were Heywood Dare--who has been appointed
+paymaster to the Duke's forces--and Mr. Chamberlain.”
+
+Mr. Wilding was observed for once to change colour. He gripped Vallancey
+by the wrist. “You saw them?” he demanded, and his voice had a husky,
+unusual sound. “You saw them?”
+
+“With these two eyes,” answered Vallancey, “and I spoke with them.”
+
+It was true, then! There was no room for further doubt.
+
+Wilding looked at Trenchard, who shrugged his shoulders and made a wry
+face. “I never thought but that we were working in the service of a
+hairbrain,” said he contemptuously.
+
+Vallancey proceeded to details. “Dare and Chamberlain,” he informed
+them, “came off the Duke's own frigate at daybreak to-day. They were put
+ashore at Seatown, and they rode straight to Mr. Speke's with the news,
+returning afterwards to Lyme.”
+
+“What men has the Duke with him, did you learn?” asked Wilding.
+
+“Not more than a hundred or so, from what Dare told us.”
+
+“A hundred! God help us all! And is England to be conquered with a
+hundred men? Oh, this is midsummer frenzy.”
+
+“He counts on all true Protestants to flock to his banner,” put in
+Trenchard, and it was not plain whether he expressed a fact or sneered
+at one.
+
+“Does he bring money and arms, at least?” asked Wilding.
+
+“I did not ask,” answered Vallancey. “But Dare told us that three
+vessels had come over, so that it is to be supposed he brings some
+manner of provision with him.”
+
+“It is to be hoped so, Vallancey; but hardly to be supposed,” quoth
+Trenchard, and then he touched Wilding on the arm and pointed with his
+whip across the fields towards Taunton. A cloud of dust was rising from
+between tall hedges where ran the road. “I think it were wise to be
+moving. At least, this sudden landing of James Scott relieves my mind in
+the matter of that letter.”
+
+Wilding, having taken a look at the floating dust that announced the
+oncoming of their pursuers, was now lost in thought. Vallancey, who,
+beyond excitement at the news of which he was the bearer, seemed to have
+no opinion of his own as to the wisdom or folly of the Duke's sudden
+arrival, looked from one to the other of these two men whom he had known
+as the prime secret agents in the West, and waited. Trenchard moved his
+horse a few paces nearer the hedge, “Whither now, Anthony?” he asked
+suddenly.
+
+“You may ask, indeed!” exclaimed Wilding, and his voice was as bitter
+as ever Trenchard had heard it. “'S heart! We are in it now! We had
+best make for Lyme--if only that we may attempt to persuade this
+crack-brained boy to ship back to Holland again, and ship ourselves with
+him.”
+
+“There's sense in you at last,” grumbled Trenchard. “But I misdoubt me
+he'll turn back after having come so far. Have you any money?” he asked.
+He could be very practical at times.
+
+“A guinea or two. But I can get money at Ilminster.”
+
+“And how do you propose to reach Ilminster with these gentlemen by way
+of cutting us off?”
+
+“We'll double back as far as the cross-roads,” said Wilding promptly,
+“and strike south over Swell Hill for Hatch. If we ride hard we can do
+it easily, and have little fear of being followed. They'll naturally
+take it we have made for Bridgwater.”
+
+They acted on the suggestion there and then, Vallancey going with them;
+for his task was now accomplished, and he was all eager to get to Lyme
+to kiss the hand of the Protestant Duke. They rode hard, as Wilding had
+said they must, and they reached the junction of the roads before their
+pursuers hove in sight. Here Wilding suddenly detained them again. The
+road ahead of them ran straight for almost a mile, so that if they took
+it now they were almost sure to be seen presently by the messengers.
+On their right a thickly grown coppice stretched from the road to the
+stream that babbled in the hollow. He gave it as his advice that they
+should lie hidden there until those who hunted them should have gone by.
+Obviously that was the only plan, and his companions instantly adopted
+it. They found a way through a gate into an adjacent field, and from
+this they gained the shelter of the trees. Trenchard, neglectful of
+his finery and oblivious of the ubiquitous brambles, left his horse in
+Vallancey's care and crept to the edge of the thicket that he might take
+a peep at the pursuers.
+
+They came up very soon, six militiamen in lobster coats with yellow
+facings, and a sergeant, which was what Mr. Trenchard might have
+expected. There was, however, something else that Mr. Trenchard did not
+expect; something that afforded him considerable surprise. At the head
+of the party rode Sir Rowland Blake--obviously leading it--and with him
+was Richard Westmacott. Amongst them went a man in grey clothes,
+whom Mr. Trenchard rightly conjectured to be the messenger riding for
+Whitehall. He thought with a smile of what a handful he and
+Wilding would have had had they waited to rob that messenger of the
+incriminating letter that he bore. Then he checked his smile to consider
+again how Sir Rowland Blake came to head that party. He abandoned the
+problem, as the little troop swept unhesitatingly round to the left and
+went pounding along the road that led northwards to Bridgwater, clearly
+never doubting which way their quarry had sped.
+
+As for Sir Rowland Blake's connection with this pursuit, the town
+gallant had by his earnestness not only convinced Colonel Luttrell of
+his loyalty and devotion to King James, but had actually gone so far as
+to beg that he might be allowed to prove that same loyalty by leading
+the soldiers to the capture of those self-confessed traitors, Mr.
+Wilding and Mr. Trenchard. From his knowledge of their haunts he was
+confident, he assured Colonel Luttrell, that he could be of service
+to the King in this matter. The fierce sincerity of his purpose shone
+through his words; Luttrell caught the accent of hate in Sir Rowland's
+tense voice, and, being a shrewd man, he saw that if Mr. Wilding was to
+be taken, an enemy would surely be the best pursuer to accomplish it. So
+he prevailed, and gave him the trust he sought, in spite of Albemarle's
+expressed reluctance. And never did bloodhound set out more relentlessly
+purposeful upon a scent than did Sir Rowland follow now in what he
+believed to be the track of this man who stood between him and Ruth
+Westmacott. Until Ruth was widowed, Sir Rowland's hopes of her must lie
+fallow; and so it was with a zest that he flung himself into the task of
+widowing her.
+
+As the party passed out of view round the angle of the white road,
+Trenchard made his way back to Wilding to tell him what he had seen and
+to lay before him, for his enucleation, the problem of Blake's being the
+leader of it. But Wilding thought little of Blake, and cared little of
+what he might be the leader.
+
+“We'll stay here,” said he, “until they have passed the crest of the
+hill.”
+
+This, Trenchard told him, was his own purpose; for to leave their
+concealment earlier would be to reveal themselves to any of the troopers
+who might happen to glance over his shoulder.
+
+And so they waited some ten minutes or so, and then walked their horses
+slowly and carefully forward through the trees towards the road. Wilding
+was alongside and slightly ahead of Trenchard; Vallancey followed close
+upon their tails. Suddenly, as Wilding was about to put his mare at the
+low stone wall, Trenchard leaned forward and caught his bridle.
+
+“Ss!” he hissed. “Horses!”
+
+And now that they halted they heard the hoofbeats clear and close at
+hand; the crackling of undergrowth and the rustle of the leaves through
+which they had thrust their passage had deafened their ears to other
+sounds until this moment. They checked and waited where they stood,
+barely screened by the few boughs that still might intervene between
+them and the open, not daring to advance, and not daring to retreat
+lest their movements should draw attention to themselves. They remained
+absolutely still, scarcely breathing, their only hope being that if
+these who came should chance to be enemies they might ride on without
+looking to right or left. It was so slender a hope that Wilding looked
+to the priming of his pistols, whilst Trenchard, who had none, loosened
+his sword in its scabbard. Nearer came the riders.
+
+“There are not more than three,” whispered Trenchard, who had been
+listening intently, and Mr. Wilding nodded, but said nothing.
+
+Another moment and the little party was abreast of those watchers; a
+dark brown riding-habit flashed into their line of vision, and a
+blue one laced with gold. At sight of the first Mr. Wilding's eyelids
+flickered; he had recognized it for Ruth's, with whom rode Diana,
+whilst some twenty paces or so behind came Jerry, the groom. They were
+returning to Bridgwater.
+
+They came along, looking neither to right nor to left, as the three men
+had hoped they would, and they were all but past, when suddenly Wilding
+gave his roan a touch of the spur and bounded forward. Diana's horse
+swerved so that it nearly threw her. Ruth, slightly ahead, reined in at
+once; so, too, did the groom in the rear, and so violently in his sudden
+fear of highwaymen that he brought his horse on to its hind legs and had
+it prancing and rearing madly about the road, so that he was hard put to
+it to keep his seat.
+
+Ruth looked round as Mr. Wilding's voice greeted her.
+
+“Mistress Wilding,” he called to her. “A moment, if I may detain you.”
+
+“You have eluded them!” she cried, entirely off her guard in her
+surprise at seeing him, and there echoed through her words a note of
+genuine gladness that almost disconcerted her husband for a moment. The
+next instant a crimson flush overspread her pale face, and her eyes were
+veiled from him, vexation in her heart at having betrayed the lively
+satisfaction it afforded her to see him safe when she feared him
+captured already or at least upon the point of capture.
+
+She had admired him almost unconsciously for his daring at the town hall
+that day, when his strong calm had stood out in such sharp contrast to
+the fluster and excitement of the men about him; of them all, indeed, it
+had seemed to her in those stressful moments that he was the only man,
+and she was--although she did not realize it--in danger of being proud
+of him. Then again the thing he had done. He had come deliberately to
+thrust his head into the lion's maw that he might save her brother. It
+was possible that he had done it in answer to the entreaties which she
+had earlier feared she had poured into deaf ears; or it was possible
+that he had done it spurred by his sense of right and justice, which
+would not permit him to allow another to suffer in his stead--however
+much that other might be caught in the very toils that he had prepared
+for Mr. Wilding himself. Her admiration, then, was swelled by gratitude,
+and it was a compound of these that had urged her to hinder the
+tything-men from winning past her until he and Trenchard should have got
+well away.
+
+Afterwards, when with Diana and her groom--on a horse which Sir Edward
+Phelips insisted upon lending them--she rode homeward from Taunton,
+there was Diana to keep alive the spark of kindness that glowed at last
+for Wilding in Ruth's breast. Miss Horton extolled his bravery, his
+chivalry, his nobility, and ended by expressing her envy of Ruth that
+she should have won such a man amongst men for her husband, and wondered
+what it might be that kept Ruth from claiming him for her own as was
+her right. Ruth had answered little, but she had ridden very thoughtful;
+there was that in the past she found it hard to forgive Wilding. And yet
+she would now have welcomed an opportunity of thanking him for what he
+had done, of expressing to him something of the respect he had won
+in her eyes by his act of self-denunciation to save her brother. This
+chance, it seemed, was given her, for there he stood, with head bared
+before her; and already she thought no longer of seizing the chance,
+vexed as she was at having been surprised into a betrayal of feelings
+whose warmth she had until that moment scarce estimated.
+
+In answer to her cry of “You have eluded them!” he waved a hand towards
+the rising ground and the road to Bridgwater.
+
+“They passed that way but a few moments since,” said he, “and by the
+rate at which they were travelling they should be nearing Newton by now.
+In their great haste to catch me they could not pause to look for me so
+close at hand,” he added with a smile, “and for that I am thankful.”
+
+She sat her horse and answered nothing, which threw her cousin out of
+all patience with her. “Come, Jerry,” Diana called to the groom. “We
+will walk our horses up the hill.”
+
+“You are very good, madam,” said Mr. Wilding, and he bowed to the
+withers of his roan.
+
+Ruth said nothing; expressed neither approval nor disapproval of Diana's
+withdrawal, and the latter, with a word of greeting to Wilding, went
+ahead followed by Jerry, who had regained control by now of the beast
+he bestrode. Wilding watched them until they turned the corner, then he
+walked his mare slowly forward until he was alongside Ruth.
+
+“Before I go,” said he, “there is something I should like to say.” His
+dark eyes were sombre, his manner betrayed some hesitation.
+
+The diffidence of his tone proved startling to her by virtue of its
+unusualness. What might it portend, she wondered, and sought with grave
+eyes to read his baffling countenance; and then a wild alarm swept into
+her and shook her spirit in its grip; there was something of which until
+this moment she had not thought--something connected with the fateful
+matter of that letter. It had stood as a barrier between them, her
+buckler, her sole defence against him. It had been to her what its
+sting is to the bee--a thing which if once used in self-defence is
+self-destructive. Not, indeed, that she had used it as her sting; it had
+been forced from her by the machinations of Trenchard; but used it had
+been, and was done with; she had it no longer that with it she might
+hold him in defiance, and it did not occur to her that he was no longer
+in case to invoke the law.
+
+Her face grew stony, a dry glitter came to her blue eyes; she cast a
+glance over her shoulder at Diana and her servant. Wilding observed
+it and read what was passing in her mind; indeed, it was not to be
+mistaken, no more than what is passing in the mind of the recruit who
+looks behind him in the act of charging. His lips half smiled.
+
+“Of what are you afraid?” he asked her.
+
+“I am not afraid,” she answered in husky accents that belied her.
+
+Perhaps to reassure her, perhaps because he thought of his companions
+lurking in the thicket and cared not to have them for his audience, he
+suggested they should go a little way in the direction her cousin had
+taken. She wheeled her horse, and, side by side, they ambled up the
+dusty road.
+
+“The thing I have to tell you,” said he presently, “concerns myself.”
+
+“Does it concern me?” she asked him coldly, and her coolness was urged
+partly by her newborn fears, partly to counterbalance such impression
+as her illjudged show of gladness at his safety might have made upon his
+mind. He flashed her a sidelong glance, the long white fingers of his
+right hand toying thoughtfully with a ringlet of the dark brown hair
+that fell upon the shoulders of his scarlet coat.
+
+“Surely, madam,” he answered dryly, “what concerns a man may well
+concern his wife.”
+
+She bowed her head, her eyes upon the road before her. “True,” said she,
+her voice expressionless. “I had forgot.”
+
+He reined in and turned to look at her; her horse moved on a pace or
+two, then came to a halt, apparently of its own accord.
+
+“I do protest,” said he, “you treat me less kindly than I deserve.” He
+urged his mare forward until he had come up with her again, and
+then drew rein once more. “I think that I may lay some claim to--at
+least--your gratitude for what I did to-day.”
+
+“It is my inclination to be grateful,” said she. She was very wary of
+him. “Forgive me, if I am still mistrustful.”
+
+“But of what?” he cried, a thought impatiently.
+
+“Of you. What ends did you seek to serve? Was it to save Richard that
+you came?”
+
+“Unless you think that it was to save Blake,” he said ironically. “What
+other ends do you conceive I could have served?” She made him no answer,
+and so he resumed after a pause. “I rode to Taunton to serve you for two
+reasons; because you asked me, and because I would have no innocent men
+suffer in my stead--not even though, as these men, they were but caught
+in their own toils, hoist with the petard they had charged for me.
+Beyond these two motives, I had no other thought in ruining myself.”
+
+“Ruining yourself?” she cried. Yes, it was true; but she had not thought
+of it until this moment; there had been so much to think of.
+
+“Is it not ruin to be outlawed, to have a price set upon your head, as
+will no doubt a price be set on mine when Albemarle's messenger shall
+have reached Whitehall? Is it not ruin to have my lands and all I
+own made forfeit to the State, to find myself a beggar, hunted and
+proscribed? Forgive me that I harass you with this catalogue of my
+misfortunes. You'll say, no doubt, that I have brought them upon myself
+by compelling you against your will to marry me.
+
+“I'll not deny that it is in my mind,” said she, and of set purpose
+stifled pity.
+
+He sighed and looked at her again, but she would not meet his eye, else
+its whimsical expression might have intrigued her. “Can you deny my
+magnanimity, I wonder?” said he, and spoke almost as one amused. “All I
+had I sacrificed to do your will, to save your brother from the snare
+of his own contriving against me. I wonder do you yet realize how much
+I sacrificed to-day at Taunton! I wonder!” And he paused, looking at her
+and waiting for some word from her; but she had none for him.
+
+“Clearly you do not, else I think you would show me if only a pretence
+of kindness.” She was looking at him at last, her eyes less hard. They
+seemed to ask him to explain. “When you came this morning with the
+tale of how the tables had been turned upon your brother, of how he
+was caught in his own springe, and the letter found in his keeping was
+before the King's folk at Taunton with every appearance of having been
+addressed to him, and not a tittle of evidence to show that it had been
+meant for me, do you know what news it was you brought me?” He paused
+a second, looking at her from narrowing eyes. Then he answered his own
+question. “You brought me the news that you were mine to take whensoe'er
+I pleased. Whilst that letter was in your hands it gave you the power to
+make me your obedient slave. You might blow upon me as you listed whilst
+you held it, and I was a vane that must turn to your blowing for my
+honour's sake and for the sake of the cause in which I worked. Through
+no rashness of mine must that letter come into the hands of the King's
+friends, else was I dishonoured. It was an effective barrier between us.
+So long as you possessed that letter you might pipe as you pleased, and
+I must dance to the tune you set. And then this morning what you came to
+tell me was that things were changed; that it was mine to call the tune.
+Had I had the strength to be a villain, you had been mine now, and
+your brother and Sir Rowland might have hanged on the rope of their own
+weaving.”
+
+She looked at him in a startled, almost shamefaced manner. This was an
+aspect of the case she had not considered.
+
+“You realize it, I see,” he said, and smiled wistfully. “Then perhaps
+you realize why you found me so unwilling to do the thing you craved.
+Having treated me ungenerously, you came to cast yourself upon my
+generosity, asking me--though I scarcely think you understood--to beggar
+myself of life itself with all it held for me. God knows I make no
+pretence to virtue, and yet I think I had been something more than human
+had I not refused you and the bargain you offered--a bargain that you
+would never be called upon to fulfil if I did the thing you asked.”
+
+At last she interrupted him; she could bear it no longer.
+
+“I had not thought of it!” she cried. It was a piteous wail that broke
+from her. “I swear I had not thought of that. I was all distraught for
+poor Richard's sake. Oh, Mr. Wilding,” she turned to him, holding out a
+hand; her eyes shone, filmed with moisture, “I shall have a kindness
+for you... all my days for your... generosity to-day.” It was lamentably
+weak, far from the hot expressions which she forced it to replace.
+
+“Yes, I was generous,” he admitted. “We will move on as far as the
+cross-roads.” Again they ambled gently forward. Up the slope from the
+ford Diana and Jerry were slowly climbing; not another human being was
+in sight ahead or behind them. “After you left me,” he continued, “your
+memory and your entreaties lingered with me. I gave the matter of our
+position thought, and it seemed to me that all was monstrously ill-done.
+I loved you, Ruth, I needed you, and you disdained me. My love was
+master of me. But 'neath your disdain it was transmuted oddly.” He
+checked the passion that was vibrating in his voice and resumed after
+a pause, in the calm, slow tones, soft and musical, that were his own.
+“There is scarce the need for so much recapitulation. When the power
+was mine I bent you unfairly to my will; you did as much by me when
+the power suddenly became yours. It was a strange war between us, and I
+accepted its conditions. To-day, when the power was mine again, mine
+to bring you at last to subjection, behold, I have capitulated at
+your bidding, and all that I held--including your own self--have I
+relinquished. It is perhaps fitting. Haply I am punished for having wed
+you before I had wooed you.” Again his tone changed, it grew more cold,
+more matter-of-fact. “I rode this way a little while ago a hunted man,
+my only hope to reach home and collect what moneys and valuables I could
+carry, and make for the coast to find a vessel bound for Holland. I
+have been engaged, as you know, in stirring up rebellion to check the
+iniquities and persecutions that are toward in a land I love. I'll not
+weary you with details. Time was needed for this as for all things, and
+by next spring, perhaps, had matters gone well, this vineyard that so
+carefully and secretly I have been tending, would have been, maybe, in
+condition to bear fruit. Even now, in the hour of my flight, I learn
+that others have come to force this delicate growth into sudden
+maturity. There! Soon ripe, soon rotten. The Duke of Monmouth has landed
+at Lyme this morning. I am riding to him.”
+
+“To what end?” she cried, and he saw in her face a dismay that amounted
+almost to fear, and he wondered was it for him.
+
+“To place my sword at his service. Were I not encompassed by this
+ruin, I should not have stirred a foot in that direction--so rash, so
+foredoomed to failure is this invasion. As it is,”--he shrugged and
+laughed--“it is the only hope--all forlorn though it may be--for me.”
+
+The trammels she had imposed upon her soul fell away at that like bonds
+of cobweb. She laid her hand upon his wrists, tears stood in her eyes;
+her lips quivered.
+
+“Anthony, forgive me,” she besought him. He trembled under her touch,
+under the caress of her voice, and at the sound of his name for the
+first time upon her lips.
+
+“What have I to forgive?” he asked.
+
+“The thing that I did in the matter of that letter.”
+
+“You poor child,” said he, smiling gently upon her, “you did it in
+self-defence.”
+
+“Yet say that you forgive me--say it before you go!” she begged him.
+
+He considered her gravely a moment. “To what end,” he asked, “do you
+imagine that I have talked so much? To the end that I might show you
+that however I may have wronged you I have at the last made some amends;
+and that for the sake of this, the truest proof of penitence, I may have
+your forgiveness ere I go.”
+
+She was weeping softly. “It was an ill day on which we met,” she sighed.
+
+“For you--aye.”
+
+“Nay--for you.
+
+“We'll say for both of us, then,” he compromised. “See, Ruth, your
+cousin grows weary, and I have a couple of comrades who are no doubt
+impatient to be gone. It may not be good for us to tarry in these parts.
+Some amends I have made; but there is one crowning wrong which I have
+done you for which there is but one amend to make.” He paused. He
+steadied himself before continuing. In his attempt to render his voice
+cold and commonplace he went near to achieving harshness. “It may be
+that this crackbrained rebellion of which the torch is already alight
+will, if it does no other good in England, at least make a widow of you.
+When that has come to pass, when I have thus repaired the wrong I
+did you, I hope you'll bear me as kindly as may be in your thought.
+Good-bye, my Ruth! I would you might have loved me. I sought to force
+it.” He smiled ever so wanly. “Perhaps that was my mistake. It is an
+ill thing to eat one's hay while it is grass.” He raised to his lips the
+little gloved hand that still rested on his wrist. “God keep you, Ruth!”
+ he murmured.
+
+She sought to answer him, but something choked her; a sob was all she
+achieved. Had he caught her to him in that moment there is little doubt
+but that she had yielded. Perhaps he knew it; and knowing it kept the
+tighter rein upon desire. She was as metal molten in the crucible, to be
+moulded by his craftsman's hands into any pattern that he chose. But the
+crucible was the crucible of pity, not of love; that, too, he knew, and,
+knowing it, forbore.
+
+He dropped her hand, doffed his hat, and, wheeling his horse about,
+touched it with the spur and rode back towards the thicket where his
+friends awaited him. As he left her, she too wheeled about, as if to
+follow him. She strove to command her voice that she might recall him;
+but at that same moment Trenchard, hearing his returning hoofs, thrust
+out into the road with Vallancey following at his heels. The old
+player's harsh voice reached her where she stood, and it was querulous
+with impatience.
+
+“What a plague do you mean, dallying here at such a time, Anthony?” he
+cried, to which Vallancey added: “In God's name, let us push on.”
+
+At that she checked her impulse--it may even be that she mistrusted it.
+She paused, lingering undecided for an instant; then, turning her horse
+once more, she ambled up the slope to rejoin Diana.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. “PRO RELIGIONE ET LIBERTATE”
+
+The evening was far advanced when Mr. Wilding and his two companions
+descended to Uplyme Common from the heights whence as they rode they had
+commanded a clear view of the fair valley of the Axe, lying now under a
+thin opalescent veil of evening mist.
+
+They had paused at Ilminster for fresh horses, and there Wilding had
+paid a visit to one of his agents from whom he had procured a hundred
+guineas. Thence they had come south at a sharp pace, and with little
+said. Wilding was moody and thoughtful, filled with chagrin at this
+unconscionable rashness of the man upon whom all his hopes were centred.
+As they cantered briskly across Uplyme Common in the twilight they
+passed several bodies of countrymen, all heading for the town, and one
+group sent up a shout of “God save the Protestant Duke!” as they rode
+past him.
+
+“Amen to that,” muttered Mr. Wilding grimly, “for I am afraid that no
+man can.”
+
+In the narrow lane by Hay Farm a horseman, going in the opposite
+direction, passed them at the gallop; but they had met several such
+since leaving Ilminster, for indeed the news was spreading fast, and the
+whole countryside was alive with messengers, some on foot and some on
+horseback, but all hurrying as if their lives depended on their haste.
+
+They made their way to the Market-Place where Monmouth's
+declaration--that remarkable manifesto from the pen of Ferguson--had
+been read some hours before. Thence, having ascertained where His Grace
+was lodged, they made their way to the George Inn.
+
+In Coombe Street they found the crowd so dense that they could but with
+difficulty open out a way for their horses through the human press.
+Not a window but was open, and thronged with sight-seers--mostly women,
+indeed, for the men were in the press below. On every hand resounded the
+cries of “A Monmouth! A Monmouth! The Protestant Religion! Religion and
+Liberty,” which latter were the words inscribed on the standard Monmouth
+had set up that evening on the Church Cliffs.
+
+In truth, Wilding was amazed at what he saw, and said as much to
+Trenchard. So pessimistic had been his outlook that he had almost
+expected to find the rebellion snuffed out by the time they reached
+Lyme-of-the-King. What had the authorities been about that they had
+permitted Monmouth to come ashore, or had Vallancey's information been
+wrong in the matter of the numbers that accompanied the Protestant
+Champion? Wilding's red coat attracted some attention. In the dusk its
+colour was almost all that could be discerned of it.
+
+“Here's a militia captain for the Duke!” cried one, and others took up
+the cry, and if it did nothing else it opened a way for them through
+that solid human mass and permitted them to win through to the yard of
+the George Inn. They found the spacious quadrangle thronged with men,
+armed and unarmed, and on the steps stood a tall, well-knit, soldierly
+man, his hat rakishly cocked, about whom a crowd of townsmen and
+country fellows were pressing with insistence. At a glance Mr. Wilding
+recognized Captain Venner--raised to the rank of colonel by Monmouth on
+the way from Holland.
+
+Trenchard dismounted, and taking a distracted stable-boy by the arm,
+bade him see to their horses. The fellow endeavoured to swing himself
+free of the other's tenacious grasp.
+
+“Let me go,” he cried. “I am for the Duke!”
+
+“And so are we, my fine rebel,” answered Trenchard, holding fast.
+
+“Let me go,” the lout insisted. “I am going to enlist.”
+
+“And so you shall when you have stabled our nags. See to him, Vallancey;
+he is brainsick with the fumes of war.”
+
+The fellow protested, but Trenchard's way was brisk and short; and so,
+protesting still, he led away their cattle in the end, Vallancey going
+with him to see that he performed this last duty as a stable-boy ere he
+too became a champion militant of the Protestant Cause. Trenchard sped
+after Wilding, who was elbowing his way through the yokels about the
+steps. The glare of a newly lighted lamp from the doorway fell full upon
+his long white face as he advanced, and Venner espied and recognized
+him.
+
+“Mr. Wilding!” he cried, and there was a glad ring in his voice,
+for though cobblers, tailors, deserters from the militia, pot-boys,
+stable-boys, and shuffling yokels had been coming in in numbers during
+the past few hours since the Declaration had been read, this was the
+first gentleman that arrived to welcome Monmouth. The soldier stretched
+out a hand to grasp the newcomer's. “His Grace will see you this
+instant, not a doubt of it.” He turned and called down the passage.
+“Cragg!” A young man in a buff coat came forward, and to him Venner
+delivered Wilding and Trenchard that he might announce them to His
+Grace.
+
+In the room that had been set apart for him abovestairs, Monmouth still
+sat at table. He had just supped, with but an indifferent appetite,
+so fevered was he by the events of his landing. He was excited with
+hope--inspired by the readiness with which the men of Lyme and its
+neighbourhood had flocked to his banner--and fretted by anxiety that
+none of the gentry of the vicinity should yet have followed the example
+of the meaner folk, in answer to the messages dispatched at dawn from
+Seaton. The board at which he sat was still cumbered with some glasses
+and platters and vestiges of his repast. Below him on his right sat
+Ferguson--that prince of plotters--very busy with pen and ink, his keen
+face almost hidden by his great periwig; opposite were Lord Grey, of
+Werke, and Andrew Fletcher, of Saltoun, whilst, standing at the foot of
+the table barely within the circle of candlelight from the branch on the
+polished oak, was Nathaniel Wade, the lawyer, who had fled to Holland
+on account of his alleged complicity in the Rye House plot and was now
+returned a major in the Duke's service. Erect and soldierly of figure,
+girt with a great sword and with the butt of a pistol protruding from
+his belt, he had little the air of a man whose methods of contention
+were forensic.
+
+“You understand, then, Major Wade,” His Grace was saying, his voice
+pleasant and musical. “It is decided that the guns had best be got
+ashore forthwith and mounted.”
+
+Wade bowed. “I shall set about it at once, Your Grace. I shall not want
+for help. Have I Your Grace's leave to go?”
+
+Monmouth nodded, and as Wade passed out, Ensign Cragg entered to
+announce Mr. Wilding and Mr. Trenchard. The Duke rose to his feet, his
+glance suddenly brightening. Fletcher and Grey rose with him; Ferguson
+paid no heed, absorbed in his task, which he industriously continued.
+
+“At last!” exclaimed the Duke. “Admit them, sir.”
+
+When they entered, Wilding coming first, his hat under his arm, the Duke
+sprang to meet him, a tall young figure, lithe and slender as a blade of
+steel, and of a steely strength for all his slimness. He was dressed in
+a suit of purple that became him marvellously well, and on his breast a
+star of diamonds flashed and smouldered like a thing of fire. He was
+of an exceeding beauty of face, wherein he mainly favoured that “bold,
+handsome woman” that was his mother, without, however, any of his
+mother's insipidity; fine eyes, a good nose, straight and slender, and
+a mouth which, if sensual and indicating a lack of strength, was
+beautifully shaped. His chin was slightly cleft, the shape of his face
+a delicate oval, framed now in the waving masses of his brown wig. Some
+likeness to his late Majesty was also discernible, in spite of the wart,
+out of which his uncle James made so much capital.
+
+There was a slight flush on his cheeks, an added lustre in his eye, as
+he took Wilding's hand and shook it heartily before Wilding had time to
+kiss His Grace's.
+
+“You are late,” he said, but there was no reproach in his voice. “We had
+looked to find you here when we came ashore. You had my letter?”
+
+“I had not, Your Grace,” answered Wilding, very grave. “It was stolen.”
+
+“Stolen?” cried the Duke, and behind him Grey pressed forward, whilst
+even Ferguson paused in his writing to raise his piercing eyes and
+listen.
+
+“It is no matter,” Wilding reassured him. “Although stolen, it has but
+gone to Whitehall to-day, when it can add little to the news that is
+already on its way there.”
+
+The Duke laughed softly, with a flash of white teeth, and looked past
+Wilding at Trenchard. Some of the light faded out of his eyes. “They
+told me Mr. Trenchard...” he began, when Wilding, half turning to his
+friend, explained.
+
+“This is Mr. Nicholas Trenchard--John Trenchard's cousin.
+
+“I bid you welcome, sir,” said the Duke, very agreeably, “and I trust
+your cousin follows you.”
+
+“Alas,” said Trenchard, “my cousin is in France,” and in a few brief
+words he related the matter of John Trenchard's home-coming on his
+acquittal and the trouble there had been connected with it.
+
+The Duke received the news in silence. He had expected good support from
+old Speke's son-in-law. Indeed, there was a promise that when he came,
+John Trenchard would bring fifteen hundred men from Taunton. He took a
+turn in the room deep in thought, and there was a pause until Ferguson,
+rubbing his great Roman nose, asked suddenly had Mr. Wilding seen the
+Declaration. Mr. Wilding had not, and thereupon the plotting parson, who
+was proud of his composition, would have read it to him there and then,
+but that Grey sourly told him the matter would keep, and that they had
+other things to discuss with Mr. Wilding.
+
+This the Duke himself confirmed, stating that there were matters on
+which he would be glad to have their opinion.
+
+He invited the newcomers to draw chairs to the table; glasses were
+called for, and a couple of fresh bottles of Canary went round the
+board. The talk was desultory for a few moments, whilst Wilding and
+Trenchard washed the dust from their throats; then Monmouth broke the
+ice by asking them bluntly what they thought of his coming thus, earlier
+than was at first agreed.
+
+Wilding never hesitated in his reply. “Frankly, Your Grace,” said he, “I
+like it not at all.”
+
+Fletcher looked up sharply, his clear intelligent eyes full upon
+Wilding's calm face, his countenance expressing as little as did
+Wilding's. Ferguson seemed slightly taken aback. Grey's thick lips were
+twisted in a sneering smile.
+
+“Faith,” said the latter with elaborate sarcasm, “in that case it only
+remains for us to ship again, heave anchor, and back to Holland.”
+
+“It is what I should advise,” said Wilding slowly and quietly, “if I
+thought there was a chance of my advice being taken.” He had a calm,
+almost apathetic way of uttering startling things which rendered them
+doubly startling. The sneer seemed to freeze on Lord Grey's lips;
+Fletcher continued to stare, but his eyes had grown more round; Ferguson
+scowled darkly. The Duke's boyish face--it was still very youthful
+despite his six-and-thirty years--expressed a wondering consternation.
+He looked at Wilding, and from Wilding to the others, and his glance
+seemed to entreat them to suggest an answer to him. It was Grey at last
+who took the matter up.
+
+“You shall explain your meaning, sir, or we must hold you a traitor,” he
+exclaimed.
+
+“King James does that already,” answered Wilding with a quiet smile.
+
+“D'ye mean the Duke of York?” rumbled Ferguson's Scottish accent with
+startling suddenness, and Monmouth nodded approval of the correction.
+“If ye mean that bloody papist and fratricide, it were well so to speak
+of him. Had ye read the Declaration...”
+
+But Fletcher cropped his speech in mid-growth. He was ever a
+short-tempered man, intolerant of irrelevancies.
+
+“It were well, perhaps,” said he, his accent abundantly proclaiming him
+a fellow countryman of Ferguson's, “to keep to the matter before us. Mr.
+Wilding, no doubt, will state the reasons that exist, or that he fancies
+may exist, for giving advice which is hardly worthy of the cause to
+which he stands committed.”
+
+“Aye, Fletcher,” said Monmouth, “there is sense in you. Tell us what is
+in your mind, Mr. Wilding.”
+
+“It is in my mind, Your Grace, that this invasion is rash, premature,
+and ill-advised.”
+
+“Odds life!” cried Grey, and he swung angrily round fully to face the
+Duke, the nostrils of his heavy nose dilating. “Are we to listen to this
+milksop prattle?”
+
+Nick Trenchard, who had hitherto been silent, cleared his throat so
+noisily that he drew all eyes to himself.
+
+“Your Grace,” Mr. Wilding pursued, his air calm and dignified, and
+gathering more dignity from the circumstance that he proceeded as if
+there had been no interruption, “when I had the honour of conferring
+with you at The Hague two months ago, it was agreed that you should
+spend the summer in Sweden--away from politics and scheming, leaving
+the work of preparation to your accredited agents here. That work I have
+been slowly but surely pushing forward. It was not to be hurried; men of
+position are not to be won over in a day; men with anything to lose need
+some guarantee that they are not wantonly casting their possessions to
+the winds. By next spring, as was agreed, all would have been ready.
+Delay could not have hurt you. Indeed, with every day by which you
+delayed your coming you did good service to your cause, you strengthened
+its prospects of success; for every day the people's burden of
+oppression and persecution grows more heavy, and the people's temper
+more short; every day, by the methods that he is pursuing, King James
+brings himself into deeper hatred. This hatred is spreading. It was
+the business of myself and those others to help it on, until from the
+cottage of the ploughman the infection of anger should have spread
+to the mansion of the squire. Had Your Grace but given me time, as
+I entreated you, and as you promised me, you might have marched to
+Whitehall with scarce the shedding of a drop of blood; had Your Grace
+but waited until we were ready, England would have so trembled at your
+landing that your uncle's throne would have toppled over 'neath the
+shock. As it is...” He shrugged his shoulders, sighed and spread his
+hands, leaving his sentence uncompleted.
+
+Monmouth sat sobered by these sober words; the intoxication that had
+come to him from the little measure of success that had attended the
+opening of the listing on Church Cliffs, deserted him now; he saw the
+thing stark and in its true proportions, and not even the shouting of
+the folk in the streets below, crying his name and acclaiming him their
+champion, served to lighten the gloom that Wilding's words cast like
+a cloud over his volatile heart. Alas, poor Monmouth! He was ever a
+weathercock, and even as Wilding's words seemed to strike the courage
+out of him, so did Grey's short contemptuous answer restore it.
+
+“As it is, we'll thrust that throne over with our hands,” said he after
+a moment's pause.
+
+“Aye,” cried Monmouth. “We'll do it, God helping us!”
+
+“Our dependence and trust is in the Lord of Hosts, in Whose Name we
+go forth,” boomed the voice of Ferguson, quoting from his precious
+Declaration. “The Lord will do that which seemeth good unto Him.”
+
+“An unanswerable argument,” said Wilding, smiling. “But the Lord, I am
+told by the gentlemen of your cloth, works in His own good time, and my
+fears are all lest, finding us unprepared of ourselves, the Lord's good
+time be not yet.”
+
+“Out on ye, sir,” cried Ferguson. “Ye want for reverence!”
+
+“Common sense will serve us better at the moment,” answered Wilding
+with a touch of sharpness. He turned to the frowning and perplexed
+Duke--whose mind was being tossed this way and that, like a shuttlecock
+upon the battledore of these men's words. “Your Grace,” he said,
+“forgive me that I speak it if hear it you will, or forbid me to say it
+if your resolve is unalterable in this matter.”
+
+“It is unalterable,” answered Grey for the Duke.
+
+But Monmouth gently overruled him for once.
+
+“Nevertheless, speak by all means, Mr. Wilding. Whatever you may say,
+you need have no fear that any of us can doubt your good intentions to
+ourselves.”
+
+“I thank Your Grace. What I have to say is but a repetition of the
+first words I uttered at this table. I would urge Your Grace even now to
+retreat.”
+
+“What? Are you mad?” It was Lord Grey who asked the impatient question.
+
+“I doubt it's over-late for that,” said Fletcher slowly.
+
+“I am not so sure,” answered Wilding. “But I am sure that to attempt it
+were the safer course--the surer in the end. I myself may not linger
+to push forward the task of stirring up the people, for I am already
+something more than under suspicion. But there are others who will
+remain to carry on the work after I have departed with Your Grace, if
+Your Grace thinks well. From the Continent by correspondence we can
+mature our plans. In a twelvemonth things will be very different, and we
+can return with confidence.”
+
+Grey shrugged and turned his shoulder upon Wilding, but said no word.
+There was silence of some few moments. Andrew Fletcher leaned his elbow
+on the table and took his brow in his great bony hand. Wilding's words
+seemed an echo of those he himself had spoken a week or two ago, only to
+be overruled by Grey, who swayed the Duke more than did any other--and
+that he did not do so of fell purpose, and seeking deliberately to work
+Monmouth's ruin, no man will ever be able to say with certainty.
+
+Ferguson rose, a tall, spare, stooping figure, and smote the board with
+his fist. “It is a good cause,” he cried, “and God will not leave us
+unless we leave Him.”
+
+“Henry the Seventh landed with fewer men than did Your Grace,” said
+Grey, “and he succeeded.”
+
+“True,” put in Fletcher. “But Henry the Seventh was sure of the support
+of not a few of the nobility, which does not seem to be our case.”
+
+Ferguson and Grey stared at him in horror; Monmouth sat biting his lip,
+more bewildered than thoughtful.
+
+“O man of little faith!” roared Ferguson in a passion. “Are ye to be
+swayed like a straw in the wind?”
+
+“I am no' swayed. Ye ken this was ever my own view. I feel, in my heart,
+that what Mr. Wilding says is right. It is but what I said myself, and
+Captain Matthews with me, before we embarked upon this expedition. We
+were in danger of ruining all by a needless precipitancy. Nay, man,
+never stare so,” he said to Grey, “I am in it now and I am no' the man
+to draw back, nor do I go so far as Mr. Wilding in counselling such a
+course. We've set our hands to the plough; let us go forward in God's
+name. Yet I would remind you that what Mr. Wilding says is true. Had
+we waited until next year, we had found the usurper's throne tottering
+under him, and, on our landing, it would have toppled o'er of itself.”
+
+“I have said already that we'll overset it with our hands,” Grey
+answered.
+
+“How many hands have you?” asked a new voice, a crisp, discordant voice,
+much steeped in mockery. It was Nick Trenchard's.
+
+“Have we another here of Mr. Wilding's mind?” cried Grey, staring at
+him.
+
+“I am seldom of any other,” answered Trenchard.
+
+“We shall no' want for hands,” Ferguson assured him. “Had ye arrived
+earlier ye might have seen how readily men enlisted.” He had risen and
+approached the window as he spoke; he pulled it open, to let in the full
+volume of sound that rose from the street below.
+
+“A Monmouth! A Monmouth!” voices shouted.
+
+Ferguson struck a theatrical posture, one long, lean arm stretched
+outward from the shoulder.
+
+“Ye hear them, sirs,” he cried, and there was a gleam of triumph in his
+eye. “That is answer enough to those who want for faith, to the feckless
+ones that think the Lord will abandon those that have set out to serve
+Him,” and his glance comprehended Fletcher, Trenchard, and Wilding.
+
+The Duke stirred in his chair, stretched a hand for the bottle and
+filled a glass. His mercurial spirits were rising again. He smiled at
+Wilding.
+
+“I think you are answered, sir,” said he; “and I hope that like Fletcher
+there, who shared your doubts, you will come to agree that since we have
+set our hands to the plough we must go forward.”
+
+“I have said that which I had it on my conscience to say. Your Grace may
+have found me over-ready with my counsel; at least you shall find me no
+less ready with my sword.”
+
+“Odso! That is better.” Grey applauded, and his manner was almost
+pleasant.
+
+“I never doubted it, Mr. Wilding,” His Grace replied; “but I should like
+to hear you say that you are convinced--at least in part,” and he
+waved his hand towards the window. It was almost as if he pleaded for
+encouragement. In common with most men who came in contact with Wilding,
+he had felt the latent force of this man's nature, the strength that was
+hidden under that calm surface, and the acuteness of the judgment that
+must be wedded to it. He longed to have the word of such a man that his
+enterprise was not as desperate as Wilding had seemed at first to paint
+it. But Wilding made no concession to hopes or desires when he dealt
+with facts.
+
+“Men will flock to you, no doubt; persecution has wearied many of the
+country-folk, and they are ready for revolt. But they are all untrained
+in arms; they are rustics, not soldiers. If any of the men of position
+were to rally round your standard they would bring the militia, and
+others in their train; they would bring arms, horses, and money, all of
+which Your Grace must be sorely needing.”
+
+“They will come,” answered the Duke.
+
+“Some, no doubt,” Wilding agreed; “but had it been next year, I would
+have answered for it that it would have been no handful had ridden in
+to welcome you. Scarce a gentleman of Devon or Somerset, of Dorset or
+Hampshire, of Wiltshire or Cheshire but would have hastened to your
+side.”
+
+“They will come as it is,” the Duke repeated with an almost womanish
+insistence, persisting in believing what he hoped, all evidence apart.
+
+The door opened and Ensign Cragg made his appearance. “May it please
+Your Grace,” he announced, “Mr. Battiscomb has just arrived, and asks
+will Your Grace receive him to-night?”
+
+“Battiscomb!” cried the Duke. Again his cheek flushed and his eye
+sparkled. “Aye, in Heaven's name, show him up.”
+
+“And may the Lord refresh us with good tidings!” prayed Ferguson
+devoutly.
+
+Monmouth turned to Wilding. “It is the agent I sent ahead of me from
+Holland to stir up the gentry from here to the Mersey.”
+
+“I know,” said Wilding; “we conferred together some weeks since.”
+
+“Now you shall see how idle are your fears,” the Duke promised him.
+
+And Wilding, who was better informed on that score, kept silence.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. HIS GRACE' IN COUNSEL
+
+Mr. Christopher Battiscomb, that mild-mannered Dorchester gentleman,
+who, like Wade, was by vocation a lawyer, was ushered into the Duke's
+presence. He was dressed in black, and, like Ferguson, was almost
+smothered in a great periwig, which he may have adopted for purposes of
+disguise rather than adornment. Certainly he had none of that air of
+the soldier of fortune which distinguished his brother of the robe. He
+advanced, hat in hand, towards the table, greeting the company about it,
+and Wilding observed that he wore silk stockings and shoes, upon which
+there rested not a speck of dust. Mr. Battiscomb was plainly a man who
+loved his ease, since on such a day he had travelled to Lyme in a coach.
+The lawyer bent low to kiss the Duke's hand, and scarce was that formal
+homage paid than questions poured upon him from Grey, from Fletcher, and
+from Ferguson.
+
+“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” the Duke entreated them, smiling; and
+remembering their manners they fell silent.
+
+As Wilding afterwards told Trenchard, they reminded him of a parcel of
+saucy lacqueys who take liberties with an upstart master for whom they
+are wanting in respect.
+
+“I am glad to see you, Battiscomb,” said Monmouth, when quiet was
+restored, “and I trust I behold in you a bearer of good tidings.”
+
+The lawyer's full face was usually pale; to-night it was, in addition,
+solemn, and the smile that haunted his lips was a courtesy smile that
+expressed neither mirth nor satisfaction. He cleared his throat, as if
+nervous. He avoided the Duke's question as to the quality of the news
+he brought by answering that he had made all haste to come to Lyme upon
+hearing of His Grace's landing. He was surprised, he said; as well he
+might be, for the arrangement was that having done his work he was to
+return to Holland and report to Monmouth upon the feeling of the gentry.
+
+“But your news, Battiscomb,” the Duke insisted. “Aye,” put in Grey; “in
+Heaven's name, let us hear that.”
+
+Again there was the little nervous cough from Battiscomb. “I have scarce
+had time to complete my round of visits,” he temporized. “Your Grace
+has taken us so by surprise. I... I was with Sir Walter Young at Colyton
+when the news of your landing came some few hours ago.” His voice
+faltered and seemed to die away.
+
+“Well?” cried the Duke. His brows were drawn together. Already he
+realized that Battiscomb's tidings were not good, else would he be
+hesitating less in uttering them. “Is Sir Walter with you, at least?”
+
+“I grieve to say that he is not.”
+
+“Not?” It was Grey who spoke, and he followed the ejaculation by an
+oath. “Why not?”
+
+“He is following, no doubt?” suggested Fletcher.
+
+“We may hope, sirs,” answered Battiscomb, “that in a few days--when he
+shall have seen the zeal of the countryside--he will be cured of his
+present luke-warmness.” Thus, discreetly, did the man of law break the
+bad news he bore.
+
+Monmouth sank back into his chair like one who has lost some of
+his strength. “Lukewarmness?” he repeated dully. “Sir Walter Young
+lukewarm!”
+
+“Even so, Your Grace--alas!” and Battiscomb sighed audibly.
+
+Ferguson's voice boomed forth again to startle them. “The ox knoweth his
+owner,” he cried, “the ass his master's crib; but Israel doth not know,
+my people doth not consider.”
+
+Grey pushed the bottle contemptuously across the table to the parson.
+“Drink, man, and get sense, said he, and turned aside to question
+Battiscomb touching others of the neighbourhood upon whom they had
+depended.
+
+“What of Sir Francis Rolles?” he inquired.
+
+Battiscomb answered the question, addressing himself to the Duke.
+
+“Alas! Sir Francis, no doubt, would have been faithful to Your Grace,
+but, unfortunately, Sir Francis is in prison already.”
+
+Deeper grew Monmouth's frown; his fingers drummed the table absently.
+Fletcher poured himself wine, his face inscrutable. Grey threw one leg
+over the other and in a voice that was carefully careless he inquired,
+“And what of Sidney Clifford?”
+
+“He is considering,” said Battiscomb. “I was to have seen him again at
+the end of the month; meanwhile, he would take no resolve.”
+
+“Lord Gervase Scoresby?” questioned Grey, less carelessly.
+
+Battiscomb half turned to him, then faced the Duke again as he made
+answer, “Mr. Wilding there, can tell you more concerning Lord Gervase.”
+
+All eyes swept round to Wilding who sat in silence, listening;
+Monmouth's were laden with inquiry and some anxiety. Wilding shook his
+head slowly, sadly. “You must not depend upon him,” he answered; “Lord
+Gervase was not yet ripe. A little longer and I think I must have won
+him for Your Grace.”
+
+“Heaven help us!” exclaimed the Duke in petulant vexation. “Is no one
+coming in?”
+
+Ferguson swung a hand towards the still open window, drawing attention
+to the sounds without.
+
+“Does Your Grace not hear, that ye can ask?” he cried, almost
+reproachfully; but they scarce heeded him, for Grey was inquiring if
+Mr. Strode might be depended upon to join, and that was a matter that
+claimed the greater attention.
+
+“I think,” said Battiscomb, “that he might have been depended upon.”
+
+“Might have been?” questioned Fletcher, speaking now for the first time
+since Battiscomb's arrival.
+
+“Like Sir Francis Rolles, he is in prison,” the lawyer explained.
+
+Monmouth leaned forward, and his young face looked careworn now; he
+thrust a slender hand under the brown curls upon his brow. “Will you
+tell us, Mr. Battiscomb, upon what friends you think that we may count?”
+ he said.
+
+Battiscomb pursed his lips a second, pondering. “I think,” said he,
+“that you may count upon Mr. Legge and Mr. Hooper, and possibly upon
+Colonel Churchill, though I cannot say what following they will bring,
+if any. Mr. Trenchard, upon whom we counted for fifteen hundred men of
+Taunton, has been obliged to fly the country to escape arrest.”
+
+“We have heard that from Mr. Trenchard's cousin,” answered the Duke.
+“What of Prideaux, of Ford? Is he lukewarm?”
+
+“I was unable to elicit a definite promise from him. But he was
+favourably disposed to Your Grace.”
+
+His Grace made a gesture that seemed to dismiss Prideaux from their
+calculations. “And Mr. Hucker, of Taunton?”
+
+Battiscomb's manner grew yet more ill at ease. “Mr. Hucker himself, I
+am sure, would place his sword at your disposal. But his brother is a
+red-hot Tory.”
+
+“Well, well,” sighed the Duke, “I take it we must not make certain of
+Mr. Hucker. Are there any others besides Legge and Hooper upon whom you
+think that we may reckon?”
+
+“Lord Wiltshire, perhaps,” said Battiscomb, but with a lack of
+assurance.
+
+“A plague on perhaps!” exclaimed Monmouth, growing irritable; “I want
+you to name the men of whom you are certain.”
+
+Battiscomb stood silent for a moment, pondering. He looked almost
+foolish, like a schoolboy who hesitates to confess his ignorance of the
+answer to a question set him.
+
+Fletcher swung round, his grey eyes flashing angrily, his accent more
+Scottish than ever.
+
+“Is it that ye're certain o' none, Mr. Battiscomb?” he exclaimed.
+
+“Indeed,” said Battiscomb, “I think we may be fairly certain of Mr.
+Legge and Mr. Hooper.”
+
+“And of none besides?” questioned Fletcher again. “Be these the only
+representatives of the flower of England's nobility that is to flock to
+the banner of the cause of England's freedom and religion?” Scorn was
+stamped on every word of his question.
+
+Battiscomb spread his hands, raised his brows, and said nothing.
+
+“The Lord knows I do not say it exulting,” said Fletcher; “but I told
+Your Grace yours was hardly the case of Henry the Seventh, as my Lord
+Grey would have you believe.”
+
+“We shall see,” snapped Grey, scowling at the Scot. “The people are
+coming in hundreds--aye, in thousands--the gentry will follow; they
+must.”
+
+“Make not too sure, Your Grace--oh, make not too sure,” Wilding besought
+the Duke. “As I have said, these hinds have nothing to lose but their
+lives.”
+
+“Faith, can a man lose more?” asked Grey contemptuously. He disliked
+Wilding by instinct, which was but a reciprocation of the feeling with
+which Wilding was inspired by him.
+
+“I think he can,” said Mr. Wilding quietly. “A man may lose honour, he
+may plunge his family into ruin. These are things of more weight with a
+gentleman than life.”
+
+“Odds death!” blazed Grey, giving a free rein to his dislike of this
+calm gentleman. “Do you suggest that a man's honour is imperilled in His
+Grace's service?”
+
+“I suggest nothing,” answered Wilding, unmoved. “What I think, I state.
+If I thought a man's honour imperilled in this service, you would not
+see me at this table now. I can make you no more convincing answer.”
+
+Grey laughed unpleasantly, and Wilding, a faint tinge on his
+cheek-bones, measured him with a stern, intrepid look before which his
+lordship's shifty glance was observed to fall. Wilding's eye, having
+achieved that much, passed from him to the Duke, and its expression
+softened.
+
+“Your Grace sees,” said he, “how well founded were the fears I expressed
+that your coming has been premature.”
+
+“In God's name, what would you have me do?” cried the Duke, and
+petulance made his voice unsteady.
+
+Mr. Wilding rose, moved out of his habitual calm by the earnestness
+that pervaded him. “It is not for me to say again what I would have Your
+Grace do. Your Grace has heard my views, and those of these gentlemen.
+It is for Your Grace to decide.”
+
+“You mean whether I will go forward with this thing? What alternative
+have I?”
+
+“No alternative,” put in Grey with finality. “Nor is alternative needed.
+We'll carry this through in spite of timorous folk and birds of ill-omen
+that croak to affright us.”
+
+“Our service is the service of the Lord,” cried Ferguson, returning from
+the window in the embrasure of which he had been standing; “the Lord
+cannot but destine it to prevail.”
+
+“Ye said so before,” quoth Fletcher testily. “We need here men, money,
+and weapons--not divinity.”
+
+“You are plainly infected with Mr. Wilding's disease,” sneered Grey.
+
+“Ford,” cried the Duke, who saw Wilding's eyes flash fire; “you go too
+fast. Mr. Wilding, you will not heed his lordship.”
+
+“I should not be likely to do so, Your Grace,” answered Wilding, who had
+resumed his seat.
+
+“What shall that mean?” quoth Grey, leaping to his feet.
+
+“Make it quite clear to him, Tony,” whispered Trenchard coaxingly; but
+Mr. Wilding was not as lost as were these immediate followers of the
+Duke's to all sense of the respect due to His Grace.
+
+“I think,” said Wilding quietly, “that you have forgotten something.”
+
+“Forgotten what?” bawled Grey.
+
+“His Grace's presence.”
+
+His lordship turned crimson, his anger swelled to think that the very
+terms of the rebuke precluded his allowing his feelings a free rein.
+
+Monmouth leaned forward. “Sit down,” he said to Grey, and Grey, so
+lately called to the respect he owed His Grace, obeyed him. “You will
+both promise me that this affair shall go no further. I know you will
+do it if I ask you, particularly when you remember how few are the
+followers upon whom I may depend. I am not in case to lose either of you
+through foolish words uttered in a heat which, in both your hearts, is
+born, I know, of your loyalty to me.”
+
+Grey's coarse, elderly face took on a sulky look, his heavy lips were
+pouted, his glance sullen. Mr. Wilding, on the contrary, smiled across
+the table.
+
+“For my part I very gladly give Your Grace the undertaking,” said he,
+and took care not to observe the sneer that altered the line of Lord
+Grey's lips. His lordship, too, was forced to give the same pledge, and
+he followed it up by inveighing sturdily against the suggestion that
+they should retreat.
+
+“I do protest,” he exclaimed, “that those who advise Your Grace to do
+anything but go forward boldly now, are evil counsellors. If you put
+back to Holland, you may leave every hope behind. There will be no
+second coming for you. Your influence will have been dissipated. Men
+will not trust you another time. I do not think that even Mr. Wilding
+can deny the truth of this.”
+
+“I am by no means sure,” said Wilding, and Fletcher looked at him with
+eyes that were full of understanding. This sturdy Scot, the only soldier
+worthy of the name in the Duke's following, who, ever since the project
+had first been mooted, had held out against it, counselling delay, was
+in sympathy with Mr. Wilding.
+
+Monmouth rose, his face anxious, his voice fretful. “There can be no
+retreat for me, gentlemen. Though many that we depended upon are not
+here to join us, yet let us remember that Heaven is on our side, and
+that we are come to fight in the sacred cause of religion and a nation's
+emancipation from the thraldom of popery, oppression, and superstition.
+Let this dispel such doubts as yet may linger in our minds.”
+
+His words had a brave sound, but, when analysed, they but formed a
+paraphrase of what Grey and Ferguson had said. It was his destiny to be
+a mere echo of the minds of other men, just as he was now the tool
+of these two, one of whom plotted, seemingly, because plotting was a
+disease that had got into his blood; the other for reasons that may have
+been of ambition or of revenge--no man will ever know for certain.
+
+In the chamber they shared, Trenchard and Mr. Wilding reviewed that
+night the scene so lately enacted, in which one had taken an active
+part, the other been little more than a spectator. Trenchard had come
+from the Duke's presence entirely out of conceit with Monmouth and
+his cause, contemptuous of Ferguson, angry with Grey, and indifferent
+towards Fletcher.
+
+“I am committed, and I'll not draw back,” said he; “but I tell you,
+Anthony, my heart is not confederate with my hand in this. Bah!” he
+railed. “We serve a man of straw, a Perkin, a very pope of a fellow.”
+
+Mr. Wilding sighed. “He's scarce the man for such an undertaking,” said
+he. “I fear we have been misled.”
+
+Trenchard was drawing off his boots. He paused in the act. “Aye,” said
+he, “misled by our blindness. What else, after all, should we have
+expected of him?” he cried contemptuously. “The Cause is good; but its
+leader---Pshaw! Would you have such a puppet as that on the throne of
+England?”
+
+“He does not aim so high.”
+
+“Be not so sure. We shall hear more of the black box anon, and of the
+marriage certificate it contains. 'Twould not surprise me if they were
+to produce forgeries of the one and the other to prove his father's
+marriage to Lucy Walters. Anthony, Anthony! To what a business are we
+wedded?”
+
+Mr. Wilding, already abed, turned impatiently. “Things cried aloud to be
+redressed; a leader was necessary, and none other offered. That is the
+whole story. But our chance is slender, and it might have been great.”
+
+“That rake-hell, Ford, Lord Grey has made it so,” grumbled Trenchard,
+busy with his stockings. “This sudden coming is his work. You heard what
+Fletcher said--how he opposed it when first it was urged.” He paused,
+and looked up suddenly. “Blister me!” he cried, “is it his lordship's
+purpose, think you, to work the ruin of Monmouth?”
+
+“What are you saying, Nick?”
+
+“There are certain rumours current touching His Grace and Lady Grey. A
+man like Grey might well resort to some such scheme of vengeance.”
+
+“Get to sleep, Nick,” said Wilding, yawning; “you are dreaming already.
+Such a plan would be over elaborate for his lordship's mind. It would
+ask a villainy parallel with your own.”
+
+Trenchard climbed into bed, and settled himself under the coverlet.
+
+“Maybe,” said he, “and maybe not; but I think that were it not for that
+cursed business of the letter Richard Westmacott stole from us, I should
+be going my ways to-morrow and leaving His Grace of Monmouth to go his.”
+
+“Aye, and I'd go with you,” answered Wilding. “I've little taste for
+suicide; but we are in it now.”
+
+“'Twas a sad pity you meddled this morning in that affair at Taunton,”
+ mused Trenchard wistfully. “A sadder pity you were bitten with a taste
+for matrimony,” he added thoughtfully, and blew out the rushlight.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. LYME OF THE KING
+
+On the next day, which was Friday, the country folk continued to come
+in, and by evening Monmouth's forces amounted to a thousand foot and
+a hundred and fifty horse. The men were armed as fast as they were
+enrolled, and scarce a field or quiet avenue in the district but
+resounded to the tramp of feet, the rattle of weapons, and the sharp
+orders of the officers who, by drilling, were converting this raw
+material into soldiers. On the Saturday the rally of the Duke's standard
+was such that Monmouth threw off at last the gloomy forebodings that had
+burdened his soul since that meeting on Thursday night. Wade, Holmes,
+Foulkes, and Fox were able to set about forming the first four
+regiments--the Duke's, and the Green, the White, and the Yellow.
+Monmouth's spirits continued to rise, for he had been joined by now
+by Legge and Hooper--the two upon whom Battiscomb had counted--and by
+Colonel Joshua Churchill, of whom Battiscomb had been less certain.
+Captain Matthews brought news that Lord Wiltshire and the gentlemen
+of Hampshire might be expected if they could force their way through
+Albemarle's militia, which was already closing round Lyme.
+
+Long before evening willing fellows were being turned away in hundreds
+for lack of weapons. In spite of Monmouth's big talk on landing, and of
+the rumour that had gone out, that he could arm thirty thousand men, his
+stock of arms was exhausted by a mere fifteen hundred. Trenchard,
+who now held a Major's rank in the horse attached to the Duke's own
+regiment, was loud in his scorn of this state of things; Mr. Wilding was
+sad, and his depression again spread to the Duke after a few words had
+passed between them towards evening. Fletcher was for heroic measures.
+He looked only ahead now, like the good soldier that he was; and,
+already, he began to suggest a bold dash for Exeter, for weapons,
+horses, and possibly the militia as well, for they had ample evidence
+that the men composing it might easily be induced to desert to the
+Duke's side.
+
+The suggestion was one that instantly received Mr. Wilding's heartiest
+approval. It seemed to fill him suddenly with hope, and he spoke of
+it, indeed, as an inspiration which, if acted upon, might yet save the
+situation. The Duke was undecided as ever; he was too much troubled
+weighing the chances for and against, and he would decide upon nothing
+until he had consulted Grey and the others. He would summon a council
+that night, he promised, and the matter should be considered.
+
+But that council was never to be called, for Andrew Fletcher's
+association with the rebellion was drawing rapidly to its close, and
+there was that to happen in the next few hours which should counteract
+all the encouragement with which the Duke had been fortified that day.
+Towards evening little Heywood Dare, the Taunton goldsmith, who had
+landed at Seatown and gone out with the news of the Duke's arrival, rode
+into Lyme with forty horse, mounted, himself, upon a beautiful charger
+which was destined to be the undoing of him.
+
+News came, too, that the Dorset militia were at Bridport, eight miles
+away, whereupon Wilding and Fletcher postponed all further suggestion of
+the dash for Exeter, proposing that in the mean time a night attack upon
+Bridport might result well. For once Lord Grey was in agreement with
+them, and so the matter was decided. Fletcher went down to arm and
+mount, and all the world knows the story of the foolish, ill-fated
+quarrel which robbed Monmouth of two of his most valued adherents.
+By ill-luck the Scot's eyes lighted upon the fine horse that Dare had
+brought from Ford Abbey. It occurred to him that nothing could be more
+fitting than that the best man should sit upon the best horse, and he
+forthwith led the beast from the stables and was about to mount when
+Dare came forth to catch him in the very act. The goldsmith was a rude,
+peppery fellow, who did not mince his words.
+
+“What a plague are you doing with that horse?” he cried.
+
+Fletcher paused, one foot in the stirrup, and looked the fellow up and
+down. “I am mounting it,” said he, and proceeded to do as he said.
+
+But Dare caught him by the tails of his coat and brought him back to
+earth.
+
+“You are making a mistake, Mr. Fletcher,” he cried angrily. “That horse
+is mine.”
+
+Fletcher, whose temper was by no means of the most peaceful, kept
+himself with difficulty in hand at the indignity Dare offered him.
+
+“Yours?” quoth he.
+
+“Aye, mine. I brought it from Ford Abbey myself.”
+
+“For the Duke's service,” Fletcher reminded him.
+
+“For my own, sir; for my own I would have you know.” And brushing
+the Scot aside, he caught the bridle, and sought to wrench it from
+Fletcher's hand.
+
+But Fletcher maintained his hold. “Softly, Mr. Dare,” said he. “Ye're
+a trifle o'er true to your name, as you once told his late Majesty
+yourself.”
+
+“Take your hands from my horse,” Dare shouted, very angry.
+
+Several loiterers in the yard gathered round to watch the scene, culling
+diversion from it and speculating upon the conclusion it might have. One
+rash young fellow offered audibly to lay ten to one that Paymaster Dare
+would have the best of the argument.
+
+Dare overheard, and was spurred on.
+
+“I will, by God!” he answered. “Come, Mr. Fletcher!” And he shook the
+bridle again.
+
+There was a dull flush showing through the tan of Fletcher's skin.
+“Mr. Dare,” said he, “this horse is no more yours than mine. It is the
+Duke's, and I, as one o' the leaders, claim it in the Duke's service.”
+
+“Aye, sir,” cried an onlooker, encouraging Fletcher, and did the
+mischief. It so goaded Dare to have his antagonist in this trifling
+matter supported that he utterly lost his head.
+
+“I have said the horse is mine, and I repeat it. Let go the bridle--let
+it go!” Still, Fletcher, striving hard to keep his calm, clung to the
+reins. “Let it go, you damned, thieving Scot!” screamed Dare in a fury,
+and struck Fletcher with his whip.
+
+It was unfortunate for them both that he should have had that switch in
+his hand at such a time, but more unfortunate still was it that Fletcher
+should have had a pistol in his belt. The Scot dropped the bridle at
+last; dropped it to pluck forth the weapon.
+
+“Hi! I did not...” began Dare, who had stood appalled by what he had
+done in the second or two that had passed since he had delivered the
+blow. The rest of his sentence was drowned in the report of Fletcher's
+pistol, and Dare dropped dead on the rough cobbles of the yard.
+
+Ferguson has left it on record--and, presumably, he had Fletcher's
+word for it--that it was no part of the Scot's intent to do Mr. Dare
+a mischief. He had but drawn the pistol to intimidate him into better
+manners, but in his haste he accidentally pulled the trigger.
+
+However that may be, there was Dare as dead as the stones on which he
+lay, and Fletcher with a smoking pistol in his hand.
+
+After that all was confusion. Fletcher was seized by those who had
+witnessed the deed; there was none thought it an accident; indeed,
+they were all ready enough to say that Fletcher had received excessive
+provocation. He was haled to the presence of the Duke with whom
+were Grey and Wilding at the time; and old Dare's son--an ensign in
+Goodenough's company--came clamouring for vengeance backed by such
+goodly numbers that the distraught Duke was forced to show at least the
+outward seeming of it.
+
+Wilding, who knew the value of this Scottish soldier of fortune who had
+seen so much service, strenuously urged his enlargement. It was not a
+time to let the fortunes of a cause suffer through such an act as this,
+deplorable though it might be. The evidence showed that Fletcher had
+been provoked; he had been struck, a thing that might well justify the
+anger in the heat of which he had done this thing. Grey was stolid and
+silent, saying nothing either for or against the man who had divided
+with him under the Duke the honours of the supreme command.
+
+Monmouth, white and horror-stricken, sat and listened first to
+Wilding, then to Dare, and lastly to Fletcher himself. But it was young
+Dare--Dare and his followers, who prevailed. They were too numerous and
+turbulent, and they must at all costs be conciliated, or there was no
+telling to what extremes they might not go. And so there was an end to
+the share of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun in this undertaking--the end of
+the only man who was of any capacity to pilot it through the troubled
+waters that lay before it. Monmouth placed him under arrest and sent him
+aboard the frigate again, ordering her captain to sail at once. That was
+the utmost Monmouth could do to save him.
+
+Wilding continued to plead with the Duke after Fletcher's removal, and
+to such good purpose that at last Monmouth determined that Fletcher
+should rejoin them later, when the affair should have blown over, and
+he sent word accordingly to the Scot. Even in this there were
+manifestations of antagonism between Mr. Wilding and Lord Grey, and it
+almost seemed enough that Wilding should suggest a course for Lord Grey
+instantly to oppose it.
+
+The effects of Fletcher's removal were not long in following. On the
+morrow came the Bridport affair, and Grey's shameful conduct when, had
+he stood his ground, victory must have been assured the Duke's forces
+instead of just that honourable retreat by which Colonel Wade so
+gallantly saved the situation. Mr. Wilding did not mince his words in
+putting it that Grey had run away.
+
+In his room at the George Inn, Monmouth, deeply distressed, asked
+Wilding and Colonel Matthews what action he should take in the
+matter--how deal with Grey.
+
+“There is no other general in Europe would ask that, Your Grace,”
+ answered Matthews gravely, and Mr. Wilding added without an instant's
+hesitation that His Grace's course was plain.
+
+“It would be an unwise thing to expose the troops to the chance of more
+such happenings.”
+
+Monmouth dismissed them and sent for Grey, and he seemed resolved to
+deal with him as he deserved. Yet an hour later, when Wilding, Matthews,
+Wade, and the others were ordered to attend the Duke in council, there
+was his lordship seemingly on as good terms as ever with His Grace.
+
+They were assembled to discuss the next step which it might be advisable
+to take, for the militia was closing in around them, and to remain
+longer in Lyme would be to be caught there as in a trap. It was Grey
+who advanced the first suggestion, his assurance no whit abated by
+the shameful thing that had befallen, by the cowardice which he had
+betrayed.
+
+“That we must quit Lyme we are all agreed,” said he. “I would propose
+that Your Grace march north to Gloucester, where our Cheshire friends
+will assemble to meet us.”
+
+Colonel Matthews reminded the Duke of Andrew Fletcher's proposal that
+they should make a raid upon Exeter with a view to seizing arms, of
+which they stood so sorely in need.
+
+This Mr. Wilding was quick to support. “Not only that, Your Grace,” he
+said, “but I am confident that with very little inducement the greater
+portion of the militia will desert to us as soon as we appear.
+
+“What assurance can you give of that?” asked Grey, his heavy lip
+protruded.
+
+“I take it,” said Mr. Wilding, “that in such matters no man can give
+an assurance of anything. I speak with knowledge of the country and the
+folk from which the militia is enlisted. I offer it as my opinion that
+the militia is favourably disposed to Your Grace. I can do no more.
+
+“If Mr. Wilding says so, Your Grace,” put in Matthews, “I have no doubt
+he has sound reasons upon which to base his opinion.
+
+“No doubt,” said Monmouth. “Indeed, I had already thought of the step
+that you suggest, Colonel Matthews, and what Mr. Wilding says causes me
+to look upon it still more favourably.”
+
+Grey frowned. “Consider, Your Grace,” he said earnestly, “that you are
+in no case to fight at present.”
+
+“What fighting do you suggest there would be?” asked the Duke.
+
+“There is Albemarle between us and Exeter.”
+
+“But with the militia,” Wilding reminded him; “and if the militia
+deserts him for Your Grace, in what case will Albemarle find himself?”
+
+“And if the militia does not desert? If you should be proven wrong, sir?
+What then? What then?” asked Grey.
+
+“Aye--true--what then, Mr. Wilding?” quoth the Duke, already wavering.
+
+Wilding considered a moment, all eyes upon him. “Even then,” said he
+presently, “I do maintain that in this dash for Exeter lies Your Grace's
+greatest chance of success. We can deliver battle if need be. Already we
+are three thousand strong...”
+
+Grey interrupted him rudely. “Nay,” he insisted. “You must not presume
+upon that. We are not yet fit to fight. It is His Grace's business at
+present to drill and discipline his troops and induce more friends to
+join him.”
+
+“Already we are turning men away because we have no weapons to put into
+their hands,” Wilding reminded them, and a murmur of approval ran round,
+which but served to anger Grey the more, to render more obstinate his
+opposition.
+
+“But all that come in are not unprovided,” was his lordship's retort.
+“There are the Hampshire gentry and their friends. They will come armed,
+and so will others if we have patience.
+
+“Aye,” said Wilding, “and if you have patience enough there will be
+troops the Parliament will send against us. They, too, will be armed, I
+can assure your lordship.”
+
+“In God's name let us keep from wrangling,” the Duke besought them. “It
+is difficult enough to determine for the best. If the dash to Exeter
+were successful...”
+
+“It cannot be,” Grey interrupted again.
+
+The liberties he took with Monmouth and which Monmouth permitted him
+might well be a source of wonder to all who heard them. Monmouth paused
+now in his interrupted speech and looked about him a trifle wearily.
+
+“It seems idle to insist,” said Mr. Wilding; “such is the temper of Your
+Grace's counsellors, that we get no further than contradictions.” Grey's
+bold eyes were upon Wilding as he spoke. “I would remind Your Grace,
+and I am sure that many present will agree with me, that in a desperate
+enterprise a sudden unexpected movement will often strike terror.”
+
+“That is true,” said Monmouth, but apparently without enthusiasm, and
+having approved what was urged on one side, he looked at Grey, as if
+waiting to hear what might be said on the other. His indecision was
+pitiful--tragical, indeed, in the leader of so bold an enterprise.
+
+“We should do better, I think,” said Grey, “to deal with the facts as we
+know them.”
+
+“It is what I am endeavouring to do, Your Grace,” protested Wilding,
+a note of despair in his voice. “Perhaps some other gentleman will put
+forward better counsel than mine.”
+
+“Aye! In Heaven's name let us hope so,” snorted Grey; and Monmouth,
+catching the sudden flash of Mr. Wilding's eye, set a hand upon his
+lordship's arm as if to urge him to be gentler. But he continued, “When
+men talk of striking terror by sudden movements they build on air.”
+
+“I had hardly thought to hear that from your lordship,” said Mr.
+Wilding, and he permitted himself that tight-lipped smile that gave his
+face so wicked a look.
+
+“And why not?” asked Grey, stupidly unsuspicious.
+
+“Because I had thought you might have concluded otherwise from your own
+experience at Bridport this morning.”
+
+Grey got angrily to his feet, rage and shame flushing his face, and it
+needed Ferguson and the Duke to restore him to some semblance of calm.
+Indeed, it may well be that it was to complete this that His Grace
+decided there and then that they should follow Grey's advice and go by
+way of Taunton, Bridgwater, and Bristol to Gloucester. He was, like all
+weak men, of conspicuous mental short-sightedness. The matter of the
+moment was ever of greater importance to him than any result that might
+attend it in the future.
+
+He insisted that Wilding and Grey should shake hands before the breaking
+up of that most astounding council, and as he had done last night, he
+now again imposed upon them his commands that they must not allow this
+matter to go further.
+
+Mr. Wilding paved the way for peace by making an apology within
+limitations.
+
+“If, in my zeal to serve Your Grace to the best of my ability, I have
+said that which Lord Grey thinks fit to resent, I would bid him consider
+my motive rather than my actual words.”
+
+But when all had gone save Ferguson, the chaplain approached the
+preoccupied and distressed Duke with counsel that Mr. Wilding should be
+sent away from the army.
+
+“Else there'll be trouble 'twixt him and Grey,” the plotting parson
+foretold. “We'll be having a repetition of the unfortunate Fletcher and
+Dare affair, and I think that has cost Your Grace enough already.”
+
+“Do you suggest that I dismiss Wilding?” cried the Duke. “You know his
+influence, and the bad impression his removal would leave.”
+
+Ferguson stroked his long lean jaw. “No, no,” said he; “all I suggest is
+that you find Mr. Wilding work to do elsewhere.”
+
+“Elsewhere?” the Duke questioned. “Where else?”
+
+“I have thought of that, too. Send him to London to see Danvers and to
+stir up your friends there. And,” he added, lowering his voice, “give
+him discretion to see Sunderland if he thinks well.”
+
+The proposition pleased Monmouth, and it seemed to please Mr. Wilding
+no less when, having sent for him, the Duke communicated it to him in
+Ferguson's presence.
+
+Upon this mission Mr. Wilding set out that very night, leaving Nick
+Trenchard in despair at being separated from him at a time when there
+seemed to be every chance that such a separation might be eternal.
+
+Monmouth and Ferguson may have conceived they did a wise thing in
+removing a man who was instinctively spoiling for a little sword-play
+with my Lord Grey. It is odds that had he remained, the brewing storm
+between the pair would have come to a head. Had it done so, it is more
+than likely, from what we know of Mr. Wilding's accomplishments, that
+he had given Lord Grey his quietus. And had that happened, it is to
+be inferred from history that it is possible the Duke of Monmouth's
+rebellion might have had a less disastrous issue.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. PLOTS AND PLOTTERS
+
+Mr. Wilding left Monmouth's army at Lyme on Sunday, the 14th of
+June, and rejoined it at Bridgwater exactly three weeks later. In the
+meanwhile a good deal had happened, yet the happenings on every hand had
+fallen far short of the expectations aroused in Mr. Wilding's mind,
+now by one circumstance, now by another. In reaching London he had
+experienced no difficulty. Men travelling in that direction were not
+subjected to the scrutiny that fell to the share of those travelling
+from it towards the West, or, rather, to the scrutiny ordained by the
+Government; for Wilding had more than one opportunity of observing
+how very lax and indifferent were the constables and
+tything-men--particularly in Somerset and Wiltshire--in the performance
+of this duty. Wayfarers were questioned as a matter of form, but in no
+case did Wilding hear of any one being detained upon suspicion. This
+was calculated to raise his drooping hopes, pointing as it did to the
+general favouring of Monmouth that was toward. He grew less despondent
+on the score of the Duke's possible ultimate success, and he came to
+hope that the efforts he went to exert would not be fruitless.
+
+But rude were the disappointments that awaited him in town. London, like
+the rest of the country, was not ready. There were not wanting men who
+favoured Monmouth; but no rising had been organized, and the Duke's
+partisans were not disposed to rashness.
+
+Wilding lodged at Covent Garden, in a house recommended to him by
+Colonel Danvers, and there--an outlaw himself--he threw himself with a
+will into his task. He heard of the burning of Monmouth's Declaration by
+the common hangman at the Royal Exchange, and of the bill passed by
+the Commons to make it treason for any to assert that Lucy Walters was
+married to the late King. He attended meetings at the “Bull's Head,”
+ in Bishopsgate, where he met Disney and Danvers, Payton and Lock; but
+though they talked and argued at prodigious length, they did naught
+besides. Danvers, who was their hope in town, definitely refused to have
+a hand in anything that was not properly organized, and in common with
+the others urged that they should wait until Cheshire had risen, as was
+reported that it must.
+
+Meanwhile, troops had gone west under Kirke and Churchill, and the
+Parliament had voted nearly half a million for the putting down of the
+rebellion. London was flung into a fever of excitement by the news
+that was reaching it. The position was not quite as Monmouth's
+advisers--before coming over from Holland--had represented that it would
+be. They had thought that out of fear of tumults about his own person,
+King James would have been compelled to keep near him what troops he
+had, sparing none to be sent against Monmouth. This, King James had not
+done; he had all but emptied London of soldiery, and, considering the
+general disaffection, no moment could have been more favourable than
+this for a rising in London itself. The confusion that must have
+resulted from the recalling of troops would have given Monmouth not
+only a mighty grip of the West, but would have heartened those who--like
+Sunderland himself--were sitting on the wall, to declare themselves for
+the Protestant Champion. This Wilding saw, and almost frenziedly did he
+urge it upon Danvers that all London needed at the moment was a resolute
+leader. But the Colonel still held back; indeed, he had neither truth
+nor valour; he was timid, and used deceit to mask his timidity; he urged
+frivolous reasons for inaction, and when Wilding waxed impatient with
+him, he suggested that Wilding himself should head the rising if he were
+so confident of its success. And Wilding would have done it but that,
+being unknown in London, he had no reason to suppose that men would
+flock to him if he raised the Duke's banner.
+
+Later, when the excitement grew and rumours ran through town that
+Monmouth had now a following of twenty thousand men and that the King's
+forces were falling back before him, and discontent was rife at the
+commissioning of Catholic lords to levy troops, Wilding again pressed
+the matter upon Danvers. Surely no moment could be more propitious.
+But again he received the same answer, that Danvers had lacked time to
+organize matters sufficiently; that the Duke's coming had taken him by
+surprise.
+
+Lastly came the news that Monmouth had been crowned at Taunton amid the
+wildest enthusiasm, and that there were now in England two men each
+of whom called himself King James the Second. This was the excuse
+that Danvers needed to be rid of a business he had not the courage to
+transact to a finish. He swore that he washed his hands of Monmouth's
+affairs; that the latter had broken faith with him and the promise
+he had made him in having himself proclaimed King. He protested that
+Monmouth had done ill, and prophesied that his act would alienate from
+him the numerous republicans who, like Danvers, had hitherto looked to
+him for the country's salvation. Wilding himself was appalled at the
+news for Monmouth was indeed going further than men had been given to
+understand. Nevertheless, for his own sake, in very self-defence now,
+if out of no motives of loyalty to the Duke, he must urge forward the
+fortunes of this man. He had high words with Danvers, and the two might
+have quarrelled before long but for the sudden arrest of Disney, which
+threw Danvers into such a panic that he fled incontinently, abandoning
+in body, as he already appeared to have abandoned in spirit, the
+Monmouth Cause.
+
+The arrest of Disney struck a chill into Wilding. From his lodging at
+Covent Garden he had communicated cautiously with Sunderland a few days
+after his arrival, building upon certain information he had received
+from the Duke at parting as to Sunderland's attachment to the Cause. He
+had carefully chosen his moment for making this communication, having
+a certain innate mistrust of a man who so obviously as Sunderland was
+running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. He had sent a letter
+to the Secretary of State when London was agog with the Axminster
+affair, and the tale--of which Sir Edward Phelips wrote to Colonel
+Berkeley as “the shamefullest story that you ever heard”--of how
+Albemarle's forces and the Somerset militia had run before Monmouth in
+spite of their own overwhelming numbers. This promised ill for James,
+particularly when it was perceived as perceived it was--that this
+running away was not all cowardice, not all “the shamefullest story”
+ that Phelips accounted it. It was an expression of good-will towards
+Monmouth on the part of the militia of the West, and it was confidently
+expected that the next news would be that these men who had decamped
+before him would presently be found to have ranged themselves under his
+banner.
+
+Sunderland had given no sign that he had received Wilding's
+communication. And Wilding drew his own contemptuous conclusions of the
+Secretary of State's cautious policy. It was a fortnight later--when
+London was settling down again from the diversion of excitement created
+by the news of Argyle's defeat in Scotland--before Mr. Wilding attempted
+to approach Sunderland again. He awaited a favourable opportunity, and
+this he had when London was thrown into consternation by the alarming
+news of the Duke of Somerset's urgent demand for reinforcements. Unless
+he had them, he declared, the whole country was lost, as he could not
+get the militia to stand, whilst Lord Stawell's regiment were all fled
+and mostly gone over to the rebels at Bridgwater.
+
+This was grave news, but it was followed in a few days by graver. The
+affair at Philips Norton was exaggerated by report into a wholesale
+defeat of the loyal army, and it was reported--on, apparently, such good
+authority that it received credence in quarters that might have waited
+for official news--that the Duke of Albemarle had been slain by the
+militia which had mutinied and deserted to Monmouth.
+
+It was while this news was going round that Sunderland--in a moment of
+panic--at last vouchsafed an answer to Mr. Wilding's letters, and he
+vouchsafed it in person, just as Wilding--particularly since Disney's
+arrest--was beginning to lose all hope. He came one evening to Mr.
+Wilding's lodgings in Covent Garden, unattended and closely muffled, and
+he remained closeted with the Duke's ambassador for nigh upon an hour,
+at the end of which he entrusted Mr. Wilding with a letter for the Duke,
+very brief but entirely to the point, which expressed him Monmouth's
+most devoted servant.
+
+“You may well judge, sir,” he had said at parting, “that this is not
+such a letter as I should entrust to any man.”
+
+Mr. Wilding had bowed gravely, and gravely he had expressed himself
+sensible of the exceptional honour his lordship did him by such a trust.
+
+“And I depend upon you, sir, as you are a man of honour, to take such
+measures as will ensure against its falling into any but the hands for
+which it is intended.”
+
+“As I am a man of honour, you may depend upon me,” Mr. Wilding solemnly
+promised. “Will your lordship give me three lines above your signature
+that will save me from molestation; thus you will facilitate the
+preservation of this letter.”
+
+“I had already thought of that,” was Sunderland's answer, and he placed
+before Mr. Wilding three lines of writing signed and sealed which
+enjoined all, straitly, in the King's name to suffer the bearer to pass
+and repass and to offer him no hindrance.
+
+On that they shook hands and parted, Sunderland to return to Whitehall
+and his obedience to the King James whom he was ready to betray as
+soon as he saw profit for himself in the act, Mr. Wilding to return to
+Somerset to the King James in whom his faith was scant, indeed, but with
+whom his fortunes were irrevocably bound up.
+
+Meanwhile, Monmouth was back in Bridgwater, his second occupation
+of which town was not being looked upon with unmixed favour. The
+inhabitants had suffered enough already from his first visit; his return
+there, after the Philips Norton affair of which such grossly exaggerated
+reports had reached London, and which, in point of fact, had been little
+better than a drawn battle--had been looked upon with dread by some,
+with disfavour by others, and with dismay by not a few who viewed in
+this an augury of failure.
+
+Now Sir Rowland Blake, who since his pursuit of Mr. Wilding and
+Trenchard on the occasion of their flight from Taunton had--in spite
+of his failure on that occasion--been more or less in the service of
+Albemarle and the loyal army, saw in this indisposition towards Monmouth
+of so many of Bridgwater's inhabitants great possibilities of profit to
+himself.
+
+He was at Lupton House, the guest of his friend Richard Westmacott, and
+the open suitor of Ruth, entirely ignoring the circumstance that she was
+nominally the wife of Mr. Wilding--this to the infinite chagrin of Miss
+Horton, who saw all her scheming likely to go for nothing.
+
+In his heart of hearts it was a matter of not the slightest consequence
+to Sir Rowland whether James Stuart or James Scott occupied the throne
+of England. His own affairs gave him more than enough to think of, and
+these disturbances in the West were very welcome to him, since they
+rendered difficult any attempt to trace him on the part of his London
+creditors. It happens, however, very commonly that enmity to an
+individual will lead to enmity to the cause which that individual
+espouses. Thus may it have been with Sir Rowland. His hatred of Wilding
+and his keen desire to see Wilding destroyed had made him a zealous
+partisan of the loyal cause. Richard Westmacott, easily swayed and
+overborne by the town rake, whose vices made him seem to Richard the
+embodiment of all that is splendid and enviable in man, had become
+practically the baronet's tool, now that he had abandoned Monmouth's
+Cause. Sir Rowland had not considered it beneath the dignity of his name
+and station to discharge in Bridgwater certain functions that made him
+more or less a spy. And so reliable had been the information he had sent
+Feversham and Albemarle during Monmouth's first occupation of the town,
+that he had won by now their complete confidence.
+
+The second occupation and its unpopularity with many of those who
+earlier--if lukewarm--had been partisans of the Duke, swelled the number
+of loyally inclined people in Bridgwater, and suddenly inspired
+Sir Rowland with a scheme by which at a blow he might snuff out the
+rebellion.
+
+This scheme involved the capture of the Duke, and the reward of success
+should mean far more to Blake than the five thousand pounds at which the
+value of the Duke's head had already been fixed by Parliament. He needed
+a tool for this, and he even thought of Westmacott and Lupton House, but
+afterwards preferred a Mr. Newlington, who was in better case to assist
+him. This Newlington, an exceedingly prosperous merchant and one of the
+richest men perhaps in the whole West of England, looked with extreme
+disfavour upon Monmouth, whose advent had paralyzed his industries to an
+extent that was costing him a fine round sum of money weekly.
+
+He was now in alarm lest the town of Bridgwater should be made to
+pay dearly for having harboured the Protestant Duke--he had no faith
+whatever in the Protestant Duke's ultimate prevailing--and that he,
+as one of the town's most prominent and prosperous citizens, might
+be amongst the heaviest sufferers in spite of his neutrality. This
+neutrality he observed because it was hardly safe in that disaffected
+town for a man to proclaim himself a loyalist.
+
+To him Sir Rowland expounded his audacious plan... He sought out the
+merchant in his handsome mansion on the night of that Friday which had
+witnessed Monmouth's return, and the merchant, honoured by the visit of
+this gallant--ignorant as he was of the gentleman's fame in town--placed
+himself entirely and instantly at his disposal, though the hour was
+late. Sounding him carefully, and finding the fellow most amenable
+to any scheme that should achieve the salvation of his purse and
+industries, Blake boldly laid his plan before him. Startled at first,
+Mr. Newlington upon considering it became so enthusiastic that he hailed
+Sir Rowland as his deliverer, and heartily promised his cooperation.
+Indeed, it was Mr. Newlington who was, himself, to take the first step.
+
+Well pleased with his evening's work, Sir Rowland went home to Lupton
+House and to bed. In the morning he broached the matter to Richard. He
+had all the vanity of the inferior not only to lessen the appearance of
+his inferiority, but to clothe himself in a mantle of importance; and it
+was this vanity urged him to acquaint Richard with his plans in the very
+presence of Ruth.
+
+They had broken their fast, and they still lingered in the dining-room,
+the largest and most important room in Lupton House. It was cool and
+pleasant here in contrast to the heat of the July sun, which, following
+upon the late wet weather, beat fiercely on the lawn, the window-doors
+to which stood open. The cloth had been raised, and Diana and her mother
+had lately left the room. Ruth, in the window-seat, at a small oval
+table, was arranging a cluster of roses in an old bronze bowl. Sir
+Rowland, his stiff short figure carefully dressed in a suit of brown
+camlet, his fair wig very carefully curled, occupied a tall-backed
+armchair near the empty fireplace. Richard, perched on the table's edge,
+swung his shapely legs idly backwards and forwards and cogitated upon a
+pretext to call for a morning draught of last October's ale.
+
+Ruth completed her task with the roses and turned her eyes upon her
+brother.
+
+“You are not looking well, Richard,” she said, which was true enough,
+for much hard drinking was beginning to set its stamp on Richard, and
+young as he was, his insipidly fair face began to display a bloatedness
+that was exceedingly unhealthy.
+
+“Oh, I am well enough,” he answered almost peevishly, for these
+allusions to his looks were becoming more frequent than he savoured.
+
+“Gad!” cried Sir Rowland's deep voice, “you'll need to be well. I have
+work for you to-morrow, Dick.”
+
+Dick did not appear to share his enthusiasm. “I am sick of the work you
+discover for us, Rowland,” he answered ungraciously.
+
+But Blake showed no resentment. “Maybe you'll find the present task more
+to your taste. If it's deeds of derring-do you pine for, I am the man
+to satisfy you.” He smiled grimly, his bold grey eyes glancing across at
+Ruth, who was observing him, listening.
+
+Richard sneered, but offered him no encouragement to proceed.
+
+“I see,” said Blake, “that I shall have to tell you the whole story
+before you'll credit me. Shalt have it, then. But...” and he checked on
+the word, his face growing serious, his eye wandering to the door, “I
+would not have it overheard--not for a king's ransom,” which was more
+literally true than he may have intended it to be.
+
+Richard looked over his shoulder carelessly at the door.
+
+“We have no eavesdroppers,” he said, and his voice bespoke his contempt
+of the gravity of this news of which Sir Rowland made so much in
+anticipation. He was acquainted with Sir Rowland's ways, and the
+importance of them. “What are you considering?” he inquired.
+
+“To end the rebellion,” answered Blake, his voice cautiously lowered.
+
+Richard laughed outright. “There are several others considering
+that--notably His Majesty King James, the Duke of Albemarle, and the
+Earl of Feversham. Yet they don't appear to achieve it.”
+
+“It is in that particular,” said Blake complacently, “that I shall
+differ from them.” He turned to Ruth, eager to engage her in the
+conversation, to flatter her by including her in the secret. Knowing the
+loyalist principles she entertained, he had no reason to fear that his
+plans could other than meet her approval. “What do you say, Mistress
+Ruth?” Presuming upon his friendship with her brother, he had taken to
+calling her by that name in preference to the other which he could not
+bring himself to give her. “Is it not an object worthy of a gentleman's
+endeavour?”
+
+“If you can save so many poor people from encompassing their ruin by
+following that rash young man the Duke of Monmouth, you will indeed be
+doing a worthy deed.”
+
+Blake rose, and made her a leg. “Madam,” said he, “had aught been
+wanting to cement my resolve, your words would supply it to me. My plan
+is simplicity itself. I propose to capture Monmouth and his principal
+agents, and deliver them over to the King. And that is all.”
+
+“A mere nothing,” croaked Richard.
+
+“Could more be needed?” quoth Blake. “Once the rebel army is deprived of
+its leaders it will melt and dissolve of itself. Once the Duke is in the
+hands of his enemies there will be nothing left to fight for. Is it not
+shrewd?”
+
+“You are telling us the object rather than the plan,” Ruth reminded him.
+“If the plan is as good as the object...”
+
+“As good?” he echoed, chuckling. “You shall judge.” And briefly he
+sketched for her the springe he was setting with the help of Mr.
+Newlington. “Newlington is rich; the Duke is in straits for money.
+Newlington goes to-day to offer him twenty thousand pounds; and the Duke
+is to do him the honour of supping at his house to-morrow night to fetch
+the money. It is a reasonable request for Mr. Newlington to make under
+the circumstances, and the Duke cannot--dare not refuse it.”
+
+“But how will that advance your project?” Ruth inquired, for Blake had
+paused again, thinking that the rest must be obvious.
+
+“In Mr. Newlington's orchard I propose to post a score or so of men,
+well armed. Oh! I shall run no risks of betrayal by engaging Bridgwater
+folk. I'll get the fellows I need from General Feversham. We take
+Monmouth at supper, as quietly as may be, with what gentlemen happen to
+have accompanied him. We bind and gag the Duke, and we convey him with
+all speed and quiet out of Bridgwater. Feversham shall send a troop to
+await me a mile or so from the town on the road to Weston Zoyland. We
+shall join them with our captive, and thus convey him to the Royalist
+General. Could aught be simpler or more infallible?”
+
+Richard had slipped from the table. He had changed his mind on the
+subject of the importance of the business Blake had in view. Excited by
+it, he clapped his friend on the back approvingly.
+
+“A great plan!” he cried. “Is it not, Ruth?”
+
+“It should be the means of saving hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives,”
+ said she, “and so it deserves to prosper. But what of the officers who
+may be with the Duke?” she inquired.
+
+“There are not likely to be many--half a dozen, say. We shall have to
+make short work of them, lest they should raise an alarm.” He saw her
+glance clouding. “That is the ugly part of the affair,” he was quick
+to add, himself assuming a look of sadness. He sighed. “What help is
+there?” he asked. “Better that those few should suffer than that, as you
+yourself have said, there should be some thousands of lives lost before
+this rebellion is put down. Besides,” he continued, “Monmouth's officers
+are far-seeing, ambitious men, who have entered into this affair to
+promote their own personal fortunes. They are gamesters who have set
+their lives upon the board against a great prize, and they know it. But
+these other poor misguided people who have gone out to fight for liberty
+and religion--it is these whom I am striving to rescue.”
+
+His words sounded fervent, his sentiments almost heroic. Ruth looked at
+him, and wondered had she misjudged him in the past. She sighed. Then
+she thought of Wilding. He was on the other side, but where was he?
+Rumour ran that he was dead; that he and Grey had quarrelled at Lyme,
+and that Wilding had been killed as a result. Had it not been for Diana,
+who strenuously bade her attach no credit to these reports, she would
+readily have believed them. As it was she waited, wondering, thinking of
+him always as she had seen him on that day at Walford when he had taken
+his leave of her, and more than once, when she pondered the words he had
+said, the look that had invested his drooping eyes, she found herself
+with tears in her own. They welled up now, and she rose hastily to her
+feet.
+
+She looked a moment at Blake who was watching her keenly, speculating
+upon this emotion of which she betrayed some sign, and wondering might
+not his heroism have touched her, for, as we have seen, he had arrayed
+a deed of excessive meanness, a deed worthy, almost, of the Iscariot, in
+the panoply of heroic achievement.
+
+“I think,” she said, “that you are setting your hand to a very worthy
+and glorious enterprise, and I hope, nay, I am sure, that success must
+attend your efforts.” He was still bowing his thanks when she passed out
+through the open window-doors into the sunshine of the garden.
+
+Sir Rowland swung round upon Richard. “A great enterprise, Dick,” he
+cried; “I may count upon you for one?”
+
+“Aye,” said Dick, who had found at last the pretext that he needed,
+“you may count on me. Pull the bell, we'll drink to the success of the
+venture.”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. MR. WILDING'S RETURN
+
+The preparations to be made for the momentous coup Sir Rowland meditated
+were considerable. Mr. Newlington was yet to be concerted with and
+advised, and, that done, Sir Rowland had to face the difficulty of
+eluding the Bridgwater guards and make his way to Feversham's camp at
+Somerton to enlist the general's cooperation to the extent that we
+have seen he looked for. That done, he was to return and ripen his
+preparations for the business he had undertaken. Nevertheless, in spite
+of all that lay before him, he did not find it possible to leave Lupton
+House without stepping out into the garden in quest of Ruth. Through
+the window, whilst he and Richard were at their ale, he had watched her
+between whiles, and had lingered, waiting; for Diana was with her, and
+it was not his wish to seek her whilst Diana was at hand. Speak with
+her, ere he went, he must. He was an opportunist, and now, he fondly
+imagined, was his opportunity. He had made that day, at last, a
+favourable impression upon Richard's sister; he had revealed himself in
+an heroic light, and egregiously misreading the emotion she had shown
+before withdrawing, he was satisfied that did he strike now victory must
+attend him. He sighed his satisfaction and pleasurable anticipation. He
+had been wary and he had known how to wait; and now, it seemed to him,
+he was to be rewarded for his patience. Then he frowned, as another
+glance showed him that Diana still lingered with her cousin; he wished
+Diana at the devil. He had come to hate this fair-haired doll to whom
+he had once paid court. She was too continually in his way, a constant
+obstacle in his path, ever ready to remind Ruth of Anthony Wilding when
+Sir Rowland most desired Anthony Wilding to be forgotten; and in Diana's
+feelings towards himself such a change had been gradually wrought that
+she had come to reciprocate his sentiments--to hate him with all the
+bitter hatred into which love can be by scorn transmuted. At first her
+object in keeping Ruth's thoughts on Mr. Wilding, in pleading his cause,
+and seeking to present him in a favourable light to the lady whom he had
+constrained to become his wife, had been that he might stand a barrier
+between Ruth and Sir Rowland to the end that Diana might hope to see
+revived--faute de mieux, since possible in no other way--the feelings
+that once Sir Rowland had professed for herself. The situation was
+rich in humiliations for poor, vain, foolishly crafty Diana, and these
+humiliations were daily rendered more bitter by Sir Rowland's unwavering
+courtship of her cousin in spite of all that she could do.
+
+In the end the poison of them entered her soul, corroded her sentiments
+towards him, dissolved the love she had borne him, and transformed
+it into venom. She would not have him now if he did penitence for his
+disaffection by going in sackcloth and crawling after her on his knees
+for a full twelvemonth. But neither should he have Ruth if she could
+thwart his purpose. On that she was resolved.
+
+Had she but guessed that he watched them from the windows, waiting for
+her to take her departure, she had lingered all the morning, and all
+the afternoon if need be, at Ruth's side. But being ignorant of
+the circumstance--believing that he had already left the house--she
+presently quitted Ruth to go indoors, and no sooner was she gone than
+there was Blake replacing her at Ruth's elbow. Mistress Wilding met him
+with unsmiling, but not ungentle face.
+
+“Not yet gone, Sir Rowland?” she asked him, and a less sanguine man had
+been discouraged by the words.
+
+“It may be forgiven me that I tarry at such a time,” said he, “when we
+consider that I go, perhaps--to return no more.” It was an inspiration
+on his part to assume the role of the hero going forth to a possible
+death. It invested him with noble, valiant pathos which could not, he
+thought, fail of its effect upon a woman's mind. But he looked in vain
+for a change of colour, be it ever so slight, or a quickening of the
+breath. He found neither; though, indeed, her deep blue eyes seemed to
+soften as they observed him.
+
+“There is danger in this thing that you are undertaking?” said she,
+between question and assertion.
+
+“It is not my wish to overstate it; yet I leave you to imagine what the
+risk may be.”
+
+“It is a good cause,” said she, thinking of the poor, deluded, humble
+folk that followed Monmouth's banner, whom Blake's fine action was to
+rescue from impending ruin and annihilation, “and surely Heaven will be
+on your side.”
+
+“We must prevail,” cried Blake with kindling eye, and you had thought
+him a fanatic, not a miserable earner of blood-money. “We must
+prevail, though some of us may pay dearly for the victory. I have a
+foreboding...” He paused, sighed, then laughed and flung back his head,
+as if throwing off some weight that had oppressed him.
+
+It was admirably played; Nick Trenchard, had he observed it, might have
+envied the performance; and it took effect with her, this adding of a
+prospective martyr's crown to the hero's raiment he had earlier donned.
+It was a master-touch worthy of one who was deeply learned--from the
+school of foul experience--in the secret ways that lead to a woman's
+favour. In a pursuit of this kind there was no subterfuge too mean, no
+treachery too base for Sir Rowland Blake.
+
+“Will you walk, mistress?” he said, and she, feeling that it were an
+unkindness not to do his will, assented gravely. They moved down the
+sloping lawn, side by side, Sir Rowland leaning on his cane, bareheaded,
+his feathered hat tucked under his arm. Before them the river's smooth
+expanse, swollen and yellow with the recent rains, glowed like a sheet
+of copper, so that it blurred the sight to look upon it long.
+
+A few steps they took with no word uttered, then Sir Rowland spoke.
+“With this foreboding that is on me,” said he, “I could not go without
+seeing you, without saying something that I may never have another
+chance of saying; something that--who knows?--but for the emprise to
+which I am now wedded you had never heard from me.”
+
+He shot her a furtive, sidelong glance from under his heavy, beetling
+brows, and now, indeed, he observed a change ripple over the composure
+of her face like a sudden breeze across a sheet of water. The deep lace
+collar at her throat rose and fell, and her fingers toyed nervously with
+a ribbon of her grey bodice. She recovered in an instant, and threw up
+entrenchments against the attack she saw he was about to make.
+
+“You exaggerate, I trust,” said she. “Your forebodings will be proved
+groundless. You will return safe and sound from this venture, as indeed
+I hope you may.”
+
+That was his cue. “You hope it?” he cried, arresting his step, turning,
+and imprisoning her left hand in his right. “You hope it? Ah, if you
+hope for my return, return I will; but unless I know that you will have
+some welcome for me such as I desire from you, I think...” his
+voice quivered cleverly, “I think, perhaps, it were well if... if
+my forebodings were not as groundless as you say they are. Tell me,
+Ruth...”
+
+But she interrupted him. It was high time, she thought. Her face he saw
+was flushed, her eyes had hardened somewhat. Calmly she disengaged her
+hand.
+
+“What is't you mean?” she asked. “Speak, Sir Rowland, speak plainly,
+that I may give you a plain answer.”
+
+It was a challenge in which another man had seen how hopeless was his
+case, and, accepting defeat, had made as orderly a retreat as still was
+possible. But Sir Rowland, stricken in his vanity, went headlong on to
+utter rout.
+
+“Since you ask me in such terms I will be plain, indeed,” he answered
+her. “I mean...” He almost quailed before the look that met him from her
+intrepid eyes. “Do you not see my meaning, Ruth?”
+
+“That which I see,” said she, “I do not believe, and as I would not
+wrong you by any foolish imaginings, I would have you plain with me.”
+
+Yet the egregious fool went on. “And why should you not believe your
+senses?” he asked her, between anger and entreaty. “Is it wonderful that
+I should love you? Is it...?”
+
+“Stop!” She drew back a pace from him. There was a moment's silence,
+during which it seemed she gathered her forces to destroy him, and,
+in the spirit, he bowed his head before the coming storm. Then, with a
+sudden relaxing of the stiffness her lissom figure had assumed, “I think
+you had better leave me, Sir Rowland,” she advised him. She half turned
+and moved a step away; he followed with lowering glance, his upper lip
+lifting and laying bare his powerful teeth. In a stride he was beside
+her.
+
+“Do you hate me, Ruth?” he asked her hoarsely.
+
+“Why should I hate you?” she counter-questioned, sadly. “I do not even
+dislike you,” she continued in a more friendly tone, adding, as if by
+way of explaining this phenomenon, “You are my brother's friend. But I
+am disappointed in you, Sir Rowland. You had, I know, no intention of
+offering me disrespect; and yet it is what you have done.”
+
+“As how?” he asked.
+
+“Knowing me another's wife...”
+
+He broke in tempestuously. “A mock marriage! If it is but that scruple
+stands between us...”
+
+“I think there is more,” she answered him. “You compel me to hurt you; I
+do so as the surgeon does--that I may heal you.”
+
+“Why, thanks for nothing,” he made answer, unable to repress a sneer.
+Then, checking himself, and resuming the hero-martyr posture, “I go,
+mistress,” he told her sadly, “and if I lose my life to-night, or
+to-morrow, in this affair...”
+
+“I shall pray for you,” said she; for she had found him out at
+last, perceived the nature of the bow he sought to draw across her
+heart-strings, and, having perceived it, contempt awoke in her. He had
+attempted to move her by unfair, insidious means.
+
+He fell back, crimson from chin to brow. He stifled the wrath that
+welled up, threatening to choke him. He was a short-necked man, of the
+sort--as Trenchard had once reminded him--that falls a prey to apoplexy,
+and surely he was never nearer it than at that moment. He made her a
+profound bow, bending himself almost in two before her in a very irony
+of deference; then, drawing himself up again, he turned and left her.
+
+The plot which with some pride he had hatched and the reward he looked
+to cull from it, were now to his soul as ashes to his lips. What could
+it profit him to destroy Monmouth so that Anthony Wilding lived? For
+whether she loved Wilding or not, she was Wilding's wife. Wilding,
+nominally, at least, was master of that which Sir Rowland coveted;
+not her heart, indeed, but her ample fortune. Wilding had been a
+stumbling-block to him since he had come to Bridgwater; but for Wilding
+he might have run a smooth course; he was still fool enough to hug
+that dear illusion to his soul. Somewhere in England--if not dead
+already--this Wilding lurked, an outlaw, whom any might shoot down at
+sight. Sir Rowland swore he would not rest until he knew that Anthony
+Wilding cumbered the earth no more--leastways, not the surface of it.
+
+He went forth to seek Newlington. The merchant had sent his message
+to the rebel King, and had word in answer that His Majesty would be
+graciously pleased to sup at Mr. Newlington's at nine o'clock on
+the following evening, attended by a few gentlemen of his immediate
+following. Sir Rowland received the news with satisfaction, and sighed
+to think that Mr. Wilding--still absent, Heaven knew where--would not be
+of the party. It was reported that on the Monday Monmouth was to march
+to Gloucester, hoping there to be joined by his Cheshire friends, so
+that it seemed Sir Rowland had not matured his plan a day too soon.
+He got to horse, and contriving to win out of Bridgwater, rode off to
+Somerton to concert with Lord Feversham concerning the men he would need
+for his undertaking.
+
+That night Richard made free talk of the undertaking to Diana and to
+Ruth, loving, as does the pusillanimous, to show himself engaged in
+daring enterprises. Emulating his friend Sir Rowland, he held forth
+with prolixity upon the great service he was to do the State, and Ruth,
+listening to him, was proud of his zeal, the sincerity of which it never
+entered her mind to doubt.
+
+Diana listened, too, but without illusions concerning Master Richard,
+and she kept her conclusions to herself.
+
+During the afternoon of the morrow, which was Sunday, Sir Rowland
+returned to Bridgwater, his mission to Feversham entirely successful,
+and all preparations made. He completed his arrangements, and towards
+eight o'clock that night the twenty men sent by Feversham--they had
+slipped singly into the town--began to muster in the orchard at the back
+of Mr. Newlington's house.
+
+It was just about that same hour that Mr. Wilding, saddle-worn and
+dust-clogged in every pore, rode into Bridgwater, and made his way to
+the sign of The Ship in the High Street, overlooking the Cross where
+Trenchard was lodged. His friend was absent--possibly gone with his men
+to the sermon Ferguson was preaching to the army in the Castle Fields.
+Having put up his horse, Mr. Wilding, all dusty as he was, repaired
+straight to the Castle to report himself to Monmouth.
+
+He was informed that His Majesty was in council. Nevertheless, urging
+that his news was of importance, he begged to be instantly announced.
+After a pause, he was ushered into a lofty, roomy chamber where, in
+the fading daylight, King Monmouth sat in council with Grey and Wade,
+Matthews, Speke, Ferguson, and others. At the foot of the table stood a
+sturdy country-fellow, unknown to Wilding. It was Godfrey, the spy, who
+was to act as their guide across Sedgemoor that night; for the matter
+that was engaging them just then was the completion of their plans
+for the attack that was to be made that very night upon Feversham's
+unprepared camp--a matter which had been resolved during the last few
+hours as an alternative preferable to the retreat towards Gloucester
+that had at first been intended.
+
+Wilding was shocked at the change that had been wrought in Monmouth's
+appearance during the few weeks since last he had seen him. His face
+was thin, pale, and haggard, his eyes were more sombre, and beneath them
+there were heavy, dark stains of sleeplessness and care, his very voice,
+when presently he spoke, seemed to have lost the musical timbre that had
+earlier distinguished it; it was grown harsh and rasping. Disappointment
+after disappointment, set down to ill-luck, but in reality the fruit of
+incompetence, had served to sour him. The climax had been reached in
+the serious desertions after the Philips Norton fight, and the flight
+of Paymaster Goodenough with the funds for the campaign. The company sat
+about the long oak table on which a map was spread, and Colonel Wade was
+speaking when Wilding entered.
+
+On his appearance Wade ceased, and every eye was turned upon the
+messenger from London. Ferguson, fresh from his sermon, sat with elbows
+resting on the table, his long chin supported by his hands, his eyes
+gleaming sharply under the shadow of his wig which was pulled down in
+front to the level of his eyebrows.
+
+It was the Duke who addressed Mr. Wilding, and the latter's keen ears
+were quick to catch the bitterness that underlay his words.
+
+“We are glad to see you, sir; we had not looked to do so again.”
+
+“Not looked to do so, Your Gr... Majesty!” he echoed, plainly not
+understanding, and it was observed that he stumbled over the Duke's new
+title.
+
+“We had imagined that the pleasures of the town were claiming your
+entire attention.”
+
+Wilding looked from one to the other of the men before him, and on the
+face of all he saw a gravity that amounted to disapproval of him.
+
+“The pleasures of the town?” said he, frowning, and again--“the
+pleasures of the town? There is something in this that I fear I do not
+understand.”
+
+“Do you bring us news that London has risen?” asked Grey suddenly.
+
+“I would I could,” said Wilding, smiling wistfully.
+
+“Is it a laughing matter?” quoth Grey angrily.
+
+“A smiling matter, my lord,” answered Wilding, nettled. “Your lordship
+will observe that I did but smile.”
+
+“Mr. Wilding,” said Monmouth darkly, “we are not pleased with you.”
+
+“In that case,” returned Wilding, more and more irritated, “Your Majesty
+expected of me more than was possible to any man.”
+
+“You have wasted your time in London, sir,” the Duke explained. “We sent
+you thither counting upon your loyalty and devotion to ourselves. What
+have you done?”
+
+“As much as a man could...” Wilding began, when Grey again interrupted
+him.
+
+“As little as a man could,” he answered. “Were His Grace not the most
+foolishly clement prince in Christendom, a halter would be your reward
+for the fine things you have done in London.”
+
+Mr. Wilding stiffened visibly, his long white face grew set, and his
+slanting eyes looked wicked. He was not a man readily moved to anger,
+but to be greeted in such words as these by one who constituted himself
+the mouthpiece of him for whom Wilding had incurred ruin was more than
+he could bear with equanimity; that the risks to which he had exposed
+himself in London--where, indeed, he had been in almost hourly
+expectation of arrest and such short shrift as poor Disney had--should
+be acknowledged in such terms as these, was something that turned him
+almost sick with disgust. To what manner of men had he leagued himself?
+He looked Grey steadily between the eyes.
+
+“I mind me of an occasion on which such a charge of foolish clemency
+might, indeed--and with greater justice--have been levelled against His
+Majesty,” said he and his calm was almost terrible.
+
+His lordship grew pale at the obvious allusion to Monmouth's mild
+treatment of him for his cowardice at Bridport, and his eyes were as
+baleful as Wilding's own at that moment. But before he could speak,
+Monmouth had already answered Mr. Wilding.
+
+“You are wanting in respect to us, sir,” he admonished him.
+
+Mr. Wilding bowed to the rebuke in a submission that seemed ironical.
+The blood mounted slowly to Monmouth's cheeks.
+
+“Perhaps,” put in Wade, who was anxious for peace, “Mr. Wilding has some
+explanation to offer us of his failure.”
+
+His failure! They took too much for granted. Stitched in the lining of
+his boot was the letter from the Secretary of State. To have achieved
+that was surely to have achieved something.
+
+“I thank you, sir, for supposing it,” answered Wilding, his voice hard
+with self-restraint; “I have indeed an explanation.”
+
+“We will hear it,” said Monmouth condescendingly, and Grey sneered,
+thrusting out his bloated lips.
+
+“I have to offer the explanation that Your Majesty is served in London
+by cowards; self-sufficient and self-important cowards who have hindered
+me in my task instead of helping me. I refer particularly to Colonel
+Danvers.”
+
+Grey interrupted him. “You have a rare effrontery, sir--aye, by God! Do
+you dare call Danvers a coward?”
+
+“It is not I who so call him; but the facts. Colonel Danvers has run
+away.
+
+“Danvers gone?” cried Ferguson, voicing the consternation of all.
+
+Wilding shrugged and smiled; Grey's eye was offensively upon him. He
+elected to answer the challenge of that glance. “He has followed
+the illustrious example set him by other of Your Majesty's devoted
+followers,” said Wilding.
+
+Grey rose suddenly. This was too much. “I'll not endure it from this
+knave!” he cried, appealing to Monmouth.
+
+Monmouth wearily waved him to a seat; but Grey disregarded the command.
+
+“What have I said that should touch your lordship?” asked Wilding, and,
+smiling sardonically, he looked into Grey's eyes.
+
+“It is not what you have said. It is what you have inferred.”
+
+“And to call me knave!” said Wilding in a mocking horror.
+
+The repression of his anger lent him a rare bitterness, and an almost
+devilishly subtle manner of expressing wordlessly what was passing in
+his mind. There was not one present but gathered from his utterance of
+those five words that he did not hold Grey worthy the honour of
+being called to account for that offensive epithet. He made just an
+exclamatory protest, such as he might have made had a woman applied the
+term to him.
+
+Grey turned from him slowly to Monmouth. “It might be well,” said he,
+in his turn controlling himself at last, “to place Mr. Wilding under
+arrest.”
+
+Mr. Wilding's manner quickened on the instant from passive to active
+anger.
+
+“Upon what charge, sir?” he demanded sharply. In truth it was the
+only thing wanting that, after all that he had undergone, he should be
+arrested. His eyes were upon the Duke's melancholy face, and his anger
+was such that in that moment he vowed that if Monmouth acted upon this
+suggestion of Grey's he should not have so much as the consolation of
+Sunderland's letter.
+
+“You have been wanting in respect to us, sir,” the Duke answered him.
+He seemed able to do little more than repeat himself. “You return from
+London empty-handed, your task unaccomplished, and instead of a becoming
+contrition, you hector it here before us in this manner.” He shook his
+head. “We are not pleased with you, Mr. Wilding.”
+
+“But, Your Grace,” exclaimed Wilding, “is it my fault that your London
+agents had failed to organize the rising? That rising should have taken
+place, and it would have taken place had Your Majesty been more ably
+represented there.”
+
+“You were there, Mr. Wilding,” said Grey with heavy sarcasm.
+
+“Would it no' be better to leave Mr. Wilding's affair until afterwards?”
+ suggested Ferguson at that moment. “It is already past eight, Your
+Majesty, and there be still some details of this attack to settle that
+your officers may prepare for it, whilst Mr. Newlington awaits Your
+Majesty to supper at nine.”
+
+“True,” said Monmouth, ever ready to take a solution offered by another.
+“We will confer with you again later, Mr. Wilding.”
+
+Wilding bowed, accepting his dismissal. “Before I go, Your Majesty,
+there are certain things I would report...” he began.
+
+“You have heard, sir,” Grey broke in. “Not now. This is not the time.”
+
+“Indeed, no. This is not the time, Mr. Wilding,” echoed the Duke.
+
+Wilding set his teeth in the intensity of his vexation.
+
+“What I have to tell Your Majesty is of importance,” he exclaimed, and
+Monmouth seemed to waver, whilst Grey looked disdainful unbelief of the
+importance of any communication Wilding might have to make.
+
+“We have little time, Your Majesty,” Ferguson reminded Monmouth.
+
+“Perhaps,” put in friendly Wade, “Your Majesty might see Mr. Wilding at
+Mr. Newlington's.”
+
+“Is it really necessary?” quoth Grey.
+
+This treatment of him inspired Mr. Wilding with malice. The mere mention
+of Sunderland's letter would have changed their tone. But he elected
+by no such word to urge the importance of his business. It should be
+entirely as Monmouth should elect or be constrained by these gentlemen
+about his council-table.
+
+“It would serve two purposes,” said Wade, whilst Monmouth still
+considered. “Your Majesty will be none too well attended, your officers
+having this other matter to prepare for. Mr. Wilding would form another
+to swell your escort of gentlemen.”
+
+“I think you are right, Colonel Wade,” said Monmouth. “We sup at Mr.
+Newlington's at nine o'clock, Mr. Wilding. We shall expect you to attend
+us there. Lieutenant Cragg,” said His Grace to the young officer who had
+admitted Wilding, and who had remained at attention by the door, “you
+may reconduct Mr. Wilding.”
+
+Wilding bowed, his lips tight to keep in the anger that craved
+expression. Then, without another word spoken, he turned and departed.
+
+“An insolent, overbearing knave!” was Grey's comment upon him after he
+had left the room.
+
+“Let us attend to this, your lordship,” said Speke, tapping the
+map. “Time presses,” and he invited Wade to continue the matter that
+Wilding's advent had interrupted.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. BETRAYAL
+
+Still smarting under the cavalier treatment he had received, Mr. Wilding
+came forth from the Castle to find Trenchard awaiting him among the
+crowd of officers and men that thronged the yard.
+
+Nick linked his arm through his friend's and led him away. They quitted
+the place in silence, and in silence took their way south towards the
+High Street, Nick waiting for Mr. Wilding to speak, Mr. Wilding's mind
+still in turmoil at the things he had endured. At last Nick halted
+suddenly and looked keenly at his friend in the failing light.
+
+“What a plague ails you, Tony?” said he sharply. “You are as silent as I
+am impatient for your news.”
+
+Wilding told him in brief, disdainful terms of the reception they
+had given him at the Castle, and of how they had blamed him for the
+circumstance that London had failed to proclaim itself for Monmouth.
+
+Trenchard snarled viciously. “'Tis that mongrel Grey,” said he. “Oh,
+Anthony, to what an affair have we set our hands? Naught can prosper
+with that fellow in it.” He laid his hand on Wilding's arm and lowered
+his voice. “As I have hinted before, 'twould not surprise me if time
+proved him a traitor. Failure attends him everywhere, and so unfailingly
+that one wonders is not failure invited by him. And that fool Monmouth!
+Pshaw! See what it is to serve a weakling. With another in his place
+and the country disaffected as it is, we had been masters of England by
+now.”
+
+Two ladies passed them at that moment, cloaked and hooded, walking
+briskly. One of them turned to look at Trenchard, who, waving his arms
+in wild gesticulation, was a conspicuous object. She checked in her
+walk, arresting her companion.
+
+“Mr. Wilding!” she exclaimed. It was Lady Horton.
+
+“Mr. Wilding!” cried Diana, her companion.
+
+Wilding doffed his hat and bowed, Trenchard following his example.
+
+“We had scarce looked to see you in Bridgwater again,” said the mother,
+her mild, pleasant countenance reflecting the satisfaction it gave her
+to behold him safe and sound.
+
+“There have been moments,” answered Wilding, “when myself I scarce
+expected to return. Your ladyship's greeting shows me what I had lost
+had I not done so.”
+
+“You are but newly arrived?” quoth Diana, scanning him in the gloaming.
+
+“From London, an hour since.”
+
+“An hour?” she echoed, and observed that he was still booted and
+dust-stained. “You will have been to Lupton House?”
+
+A shadow crossed his face, his glance seemed to grow clouded, all of
+which watchful Diana did not fail to observe. “Not yet,” said he.
+
+“You are a laggard,” she laughed at him, and he felt the blood driven
+back upon his heart. What did she mean? Was it possible she suggested
+that he should be welcome, that his wife's feelings towards him had
+undergone a change? His last parting from her on the road near Walford
+had been ever in his mind.
+
+“I have had weighty business to transact, he replied, and Trenchard
+snorted, his mind flying back to the council-room at the Castle, and
+what his friend had told him.
+
+“But now that you have disposed of that you will sup with us,” said Lady
+Horton, who was convinced that since Ruth had gone to the altar with
+him he was Ruth's lover in spite of the odd things she had heard.
+Appearances with Lady Horton counted for everything, and all that
+glittered was gold to her.
+
+“I would,” he answered, “but that I am to sup at Mr. Newlington's with
+His Majesty. My visit must wait until to-morrow.”
+
+“Let us hope,” said Trenchard, “that it waits no longer.” He was already
+instructed touching the night attack on Feversham's camp on Sedgemoor,
+and thought it likely Wilding would accompany them.
+
+“You are going to Mr. Newlington's?” said Diana, and Trenchard thought
+she had turned singularly pale. Her hand was over her heart, her eyes
+wide. She seemed about to add something, but checked herself. She took
+her mother's arm. “We are detaining Mr. Wilding, mother,” said she,
+and her voice quivered as if her whole being were shaken by some gusty
+agitation. They spoke their farewells briefly, and moved on. A second
+later Diana was back at their side again.
+
+“Where are you lodged, Mr. Wilding?” she inquired.
+
+“With my friend Trenchard--at the sign of The Ship, by the Cross.”
+
+She briefly acknowledged the information, rejoined her mother, and
+hurried away with her.
+
+Trenchard stood staring after them a moment. “Odd!” said he; “did you
+mark that girl's discomposure?”
+
+But Wilding's thoughts were elsewhere. “Come, Nick! If I am to render
+myself fit to sit at table with Monmouth, we'll need to hasten.”
+
+They went their way, but not so fast as went Diana, urging with her her
+protesting and short-winded mother.
+
+“Where is your mistress?” the girl asked excitedly of the first servant
+she met at Lupton House.
+
+“In her room, madam,” the man replied, and to Ruth's room went Diana
+breathlessly, leaving Lady Horton gaping after her and understanding
+nothing.
+
+Ruth, who was seated pensive by her window, rose on Diana's impetuous
+entrance, and in the deepening twilight she looked almost ghostly in her
+gown of shimmering white satin, sewn with pearls about the neck of the
+low-cut bodice.
+
+“Diana!” she cried. “You startled me.”
+
+“Not so much as I am yet to do,” answered Diana, breathing excitement.
+She threw back the wimple from her head, and pulling away her cloak,
+tossed it on to the bed. “Mr. Wilding is in Bridgwater,” she announced.
+
+There was a faint rustle from the stiff satin of Ruth's gown. “Then...”
+ her voice shook slightly. “Then... he is not dead,” she said, more
+because she felt that she must say something than because her words
+fitted the occasion.
+
+“Not yet,” said Diana grimly.
+
+“Not yet?”
+
+“He sups to-night at Mr. Newlington's,” Miss Horton exclaimed in a voice
+pregnant with meaning.
+
+“Ah!” It was a cry from Ruth, sharp as if she had been stabbed. She sank
+back to her seat by the window, smitten down by this sudden news.
+
+There was a pause, which fretted Diana, who now craved knowledge of what
+might be passing in her cousin's mind. She advanced towards Ruth and
+laid a trembling hand on her shoulder, where the white gown met the
+ivory neck. “He must be warned,” she said.
+
+“But... but how?” stammered Ruth. “To warn him were to betray Sir
+Rowland.”
+
+“Sir Rowland?” cried Diana in high scorn.
+
+“And... and Richard,” Ruth continued.
+
+“Yes, and Mr. Newlington, and all the other knaves that are engaged in
+this murderous business. Well?” she demanded. “Will you do it, or must
+I?”
+
+“Do it?” Ruth's eyes sought her cousin's white, excited face in the
+quasi-darkness. “But have you thought of what it will mean? Have you
+thought of the poor people that will perish unless the Duke is taken and
+this rebellion brought to an end?”
+
+“Thought of it?” repeated Diana witheringly. “Not I. I have thought that
+Mr. Wilding is here and like to have his throat cut before an hour is
+past.”
+
+“Tell me, are you sure of this?” asked Ruth.
+
+“I have it from your husband's own lips,” Diana answered, and told her
+in a few words of her meeting with Mr. Wilding.
+
+Ruth sat with hands folded in her lap, her eyes on the dim violet
+after-glow in the west, and her mind wrestling with this problem that
+Diana had brought her.
+
+“Diana,” she cried at last, “what am I to do?”
+
+“Do?” echoed Diana. “Is it not plain? Warn Mr. Wilding.”
+
+“But Richard?”
+
+“Mr. Wilding saved Richard's life...”
+
+“I know. I know. My duty is to warn him.”
+
+“Then why hesitate?”
+
+“My duty is also to keep faith with Richard, to think of those poor
+misguided folk who are to be saved by this,” cried Ruth in an agony. “If
+Mr. Wilding is warned, they will all be ruined.”
+
+Diana stamped her foot impatiently. “Had I thought to find you in this
+mind, I had warned him myself,” said she.
+
+“Ah! Why did you not?”
+
+“That the chance of doing so might be yours. That you might thus repay
+him the debt in which you stand.”
+
+“Diana, I can't!” The words broke from her in a sob.
+
+But whatever her interest in Mr. Wilding for her own sake, Diana's prime
+intent was the thwarting of Sir Rowland Blake. If Wilding were warned
+of what manner of feast was spread at Newlington's, Sir Rowland would be
+indeed undone.
+
+“You think of Richard,” she exclaimed, “and you know that Richard is to
+have no active part in the affair--that he will run no risk. They have
+assigned him but a sentry duty that he may warn Blake and his followers
+if any danger threatens them.”
+
+“It is not of Richard's life I am thinking, but of his honour, of his
+trust in me. To warn Mr. Wilding were... to commit an act of betrayal.”
+
+“And is Mr. Wilding to be slaughtered with his friends?” Diana asked
+her. “Resolve me that. Time presses. In half an hour it will be too
+late.”
+
+That allusion to the shortness of the time brought Ruth an inspiration.
+Suddenly she saw a way. Wilding should be saved, and yet she would not
+break faith with Richard nor ruin those others. She would detain him,
+and whilst warning him at the last moment, in time for him to save
+himself; not do so until it must be too late for him to warn the others.
+Thus she would do her duty by him, and yet keep faith with Richard and
+Sir Rowland. She had resolved, she thought, the awful difficulty that
+had confronted her. She rose suddenly, heartened by the thought.
+
+“Give me your cloak and wimple,” she bade Diana, and Diana flew to do
+her bidding. “Where is Mr. Wilding lodged?” she asked.
+
+“At the sign of The Ship--overlooking the Cross, with Mr. Trenchard.
+Shall I come with you?”
+
+“No,” answered Ruth without hesitation. “I will go alone.” She drew the
+wimple well over her head, so that in its shadows her face might lie
+concealed, and hid her shimmering white dress under Diana's cloak.
+
+She hastened through the ill-lighted streets, never heeding the rough
+cobbles that hurt her feet, shod in light indoor wear, never heeding the
+crowds that thronged her way. All Bridgwater was astir with Monmouth's
+presence; moreover, there had been great incursions from Taunton and the
+surrounding country, the women-folk of the Duke-King's followers having
+come that day to Bridgwater to say farewell to father and son, husband
+and brother, before the army marched--as was still believed--to
+Gloucester.
+
+The half-hour was striking from Saint Mary's--the church in which she
+had been married--as Ruth reached the door of the sign of The Ship. She
+was about to knock, when suddenly it opened, and Mr. Wilding himself,
+with Trenchard immediately behind him, stood confronting her. At sight
+of him a momentary weakness took her. He had changed from his hard-used
+riding-garments into a suit of roughly corded black silk, which threw
+into relief the steely litheness of his spare figure. His dark brown
+hair was carefully dressed, diamonds gleamed in the cravat of snowy lace
+at his throat. He was uncovered, his hat under his arm, and he stood
+aside to make way for her, imagining that she was some woman of the
+house.
+
+“Mr. Wilding,” said she, her heart fluttering in her throat. “May I...
+may I speak with you?”
+
+He leaned forward, seeking to pierce the shadows of her wimple; he had
+thought he recognized the voice, as his sudden start had shown; and
+yet he disbelieved his ears. She moved her head at that moment, and the
+light streaming out from a lamp in the passage beat upon her white face.
+
+“Ruth!” he cried, and came quickly forward. Trenchard, behind
+him, looked on and scowled with sudden impatience. Mr. Wilding's
+philanderings with this lady had never had the old rake's approval. Too
+much trouble already had resulted from them.
+
+“I must speak with you at once. At once!” she urged him, her tone
+fearful.
+
+“Are you in need of me?” he asked concernedly.
+
+“In very urgent need,” said she.
+
+“I thank God,” he answered without flippancy. “You shall find me at your
+service. Tell me.”
+
+“Not here; not here,” she answered him.
+
+“Where else?” said he. “Shall we walk?”
+
+“No, no.” Her repetitions marked the deep excitement that possessed her.
+“I will go in with you.” And she signed with her head towards the door
+from which he was barely emerged.
+
+“'Twere scarce fitting,” said he, for being confused and full of
+speculation on the score of her need, he had for the moment almost
+overlooked the relations in which they stood. In spite of the ceremony
+through which they had gone together, Mr. Wilding still mostly thought
+of her as of a mistress very difficult to woo.
+
+“Fitting?” she echoed, and then after a pause, “Am I not your wife?” she
+asked him in a low voice, her cheeks crimsoning.
+
+“Ha! 'Pon honour, I had almost forgot,” said he, and though the burden
+of his words seemed mocking, their tone was sad.
+
+Of the passers-by that jostled them a couple had now paused to watch a
+scene that had an element of the unusual in it. She pulled her wimple
+closer to her face, took him by the arm, and drew him with her into the
+house.
+
+“Close the door,” she bade him, and Trenchard, who had stood aside that
+they might pass in, forestalled him in obeying her. “Now lead me to your
+room, said she, and Wilding in amaze turned to Trenchard as if asking
+his consent, for the lodging, after all, was Trenchard's.
+
+“I'll wait here,” said Nick, and waved his hand towards an oak bench
+that stood in the passage. “You had best make haste,” he urged his
+friend; “you are late already. That is, unless you are of a mind to set
+the lady's affairs before King Monmouth's. And were I in your place,
+Anthony, faith I'd not scruple to do it. For after all,” he added under
+his breath, “there's little choice in rotten apples.”
+
+Ruth waited for some answer from Wilding that might suggest he was
+indifferent whether he went to Newlington's or not; but he spoke no word
+as he turned to lead the way above-stairs to the indifferent
+parlour which with the adjoining bedroom constituted Mr. Trenchard's
+lodging--and his own, for the time being.
+
+Having assured herself that the curtains were closely drawn, she put by
+her cloak and hood, and stood revealed to him in the light of the
+three candles, burning in a branch upon the bare oak table, dazzlingly
+beautiful in her gown of ivory-white.
+
+He stood apart, cogitating her with glowing eyes, the faintest smile
+between question and pleasure hovering about his thin mouth. He had
+closed the door, and stood in silence waiting for her to make known to
+him her pleasure.
+
+“Mr. Wilding...” she began, and straightway he interrupted her.
+
+“But a moment since you did remind me that I have the honour to be your
+husband,” he said with grave humour. “Why seek now to overcloud that
+fact? I mind me that the last time we met you called me by another name.
+But it may be,” he added as an afterthought, “you are of opinion that I
+have broken faith with you.”
+
+“Broken faith? As how?”
+
+“So!” he said, and sighed. “My words were of so little account that they
+have been, I see, forgotten. Yet, so that I remember them, that is what
+chiefly matters. I promised then--or seemed to promise--that I would
+make a widow of you, who had made a wife of you against your will. It
+has not happened yet. Do not despair. This Monmouth quarrel is not yet
+fought out. Hope on, my Ruth.”
+
+She looked at him with eyes wide open--lustrous eyes of sapphire in
+a face of ivory. A faint smile parted her lips, the reflection of the
+thought in her mind that had she, indeed, been eager for his death she
+would not be with him at this moment; had she desired it, how easy would
+her course have been.
+
+“You do me wrong to bid me hope for that,” she answered him, her tones
+level. “I do not wish the death of any man, unless...” She paused; her
+truthfulness urged her too far.
+
+“Unless?” said he, brows raised, polite interest on his face.
+
+“Unless it be His Grace of Monmouth.”
+
+He considered her with suddenly narrowed eyes. “You have not by chance
+sought me to talk politics?” said he. “Or...” and he suddenly caught his
+breath, his nostrils dilating with rage at the bare thought that leapt
+into his mind. Had Monmouth, the notorious libertine, been to Lupton
+House and persecuted her with his addresses? “Is it that you are
+acquainted with His Grace?” he asked.
+
+“I have never spoken to him!” she answered, with no suspicion of what
+was in his thoughts.
+
+In his relief he laughed, remembering now that Monmouth's affairs were
+too absorbing just at present to leave him room for dalliance.
+
+“But you are standing,” said he, and he advanced a chair. “I deplore
+that I have no better hospitality to offer you. I doubt if I ever shall
+again. I am told that Albemarle did me the honour to stable his knackers
+in my hall at Zoyland.”
+
+She took the chair he offered her, sinking to it like one physically
+weary, a thing he was quick to notice. He watched her, his body eager,
+his soul trammelling it with a steely restraint. “Tell me, now,” said
+he, “in what you need me.”
+
+She was silent a moment, pondering, hesitation and confusion seeming to
+envelop her. A pink flush rose to colour the beautiful pillar of neck
+and overspread the delicate half-averted face. He watched it, wondering.
+
+“How long,” she asked him, her whole intent at present being to delay
+him and gain time. “How long have you been in Bridgwater?”
+
+“Two hours at most,” said he.
+
+“Two hours! And yet you never came to... to me. I heard of your
+presence, and I feared you might intend to abstain from seeking me.”
+
+He almost held his breath while she spoke, caught in amazement. He was
+standing close beside her chair, his right hand rested upon its tall
+back.
+
+“Did you so intend?” she asked him.
+
+“I told you even now,” he answered with hard-won calm, “that I had made
+you a sort of promise.”
+
+“I... I would not have you keep it,” she murmured. She heard his sharply
+indrawn breath, felt him leaning over her, and was filled with an
+unaccountable fear.
+
+“Was it to tell me this you came?” he asked her, his voice reduced to a
+whisper.
+
+“No... yes,” she answered, an agony in her mind, which groped for some
+means to keep him by her side until his danger should be overpast. That
+much she owed him in honour if in nothing else.
+
+“No--yes?” he echoed, and he had drawn himself erect again. “What is't
+you mean, Ruth?”
+
+“I mean that it was that, yet not quite only that.”
+
+“Ah!” Disappointment vibrated faintly in his clamation. “What else?”
+
+“I would have you abandon Monmouth's following,” she told him.
+
+He stared a moment, moved away and round where he could confront her.
+The flush had now faded from her face. This he observed and the heave
+of her bosom in its low bodice. He knit his brows, perplexed. Here was
+surely more than at first might seem.
+
+“Why so?” he asked.
+
+“For your own safety's sake,” she answered him.
+
+“You are oddly concerned for that, Ruth.”
+
+“Concerned--not oddly.” She paused an instant, swallowed hard, and then
+continued. “I am concerned too for your honour, and there is no honour
+in following his banner. He has crowned himself King, and so proved
+himself a self-seeker who came dissembled as the champion of a cause
+that he might delude poor ignorant folk into flocking to his standard
+and helping him to his ambitious ends.”
+
+“You are wondrously well schooled,” said he. “Whose teachings do you
+recite me? Sir Rowland Blake's?”
+
+At another time the sneer might have cut her. At the moment she was too
+intent upon gaining time. The means to it mattered little. The more she
+talked to no purpose, the more at random was their discourse, the better
+would her ends be served.
+
+“Sir Rowland Blake?” she cried. “What is he to me?”
+
+“Ah, what? Let me set you the question rather.”
+
+“Less than nothing,” she assured him, and for some moments afterwards it
+was this Sir Rowland who served them as a topic for their odd interview.
+On the overmantel the pulse of time beat on from a little wooden clock.
+His eyes strayed to it; it marked the three-quarters. He bethought
+him suddenly of his engagement. Trenchard, below-stairs, supremely
+indifferent whether Wilding went to Newlington's or not, smoked on,
+entirely unconcerned by the flight of time.
+
+“Mistress,” said Wilding suddenly, “you have not yet told me in what you
+seek my service. Indeed, we seem to have talked to little purpose. My
+time is very short.”
+
+“Where are you going?” she asked him, and fearfully she shot a sidelong
+glance at the timepiece. It was still too soon, by at least five
+minutes.
+
+He smiled, but his smile was singular. He began to suspect at last that
+her only purpose--to what end he could not guess--was to detain him.
+
+“'Tis a singularly sudden interest in my doings, this,” said he quietly.
+“What is't you seek of me?” He reached for the hat he had cast upon the
+table when they had entered. “Tell me briefly. I may stay no longer.”
+
+She rose, her agitation suddenly increasing, afraid that after all he
+would escape her. “Where are you going?” she asked. “Answer me that, and
+I will tell you why I came.”
+
+“I am to sup at Mr. Newlington's in His Majesty's company.
+
+“His Majesty's?”
+
+“King Monmouth's,” he explained impatiently. “Come, Ruth. Already I am
+late.”
+
+“If I were to ask you not to go,” she said slowly, and she held out her
+hands to him, her glance most piteous--and that was not acting--as she
+raised it to meet his own, “would you not stay to pleasure me?”
+
+He considered her from under frowning eyes. “Ruth,” he said, and he took
+her hands, “there is here something that I do not understand. What is't
+you mean?”
+
+“Promise me that you will not go to Newlington's, and I will tell you.”
+
+“But what has Newlington to do with...? Nay, I am pledged already to
+go.”
+
+She drew closer to him, her hands upon his shoulders. “Yet if I ask
+you--I, your wife?” she pleaded, and almost won him to her will.
+
+But suddenly he remembered another occasion on which, for purposes of
+her own, she had so pleaded. He laughed softly, mockingly.
+
+“Do you woo me, Ruth, who, when I wooed you, would have none of me?”
+
+She drew back from him, crimsoning. “I think I had better go,” said she.
+“You have nothing but mockery for me. It was ever so. Who knows?” she
+sighed as she took up her mantle. “Had you but observed more gentle
+ways, you... you...” She paused, needing to say no more. “Good-night!”
+ she ended, and made shift to leave. He watched her, deeply mystified.
+She had gained the door when suddenly he moved.
+
+“Wait!” he cried. She paused, and turned to look over her shoulder, her
+hand apparently upon the latch. “You shall not go until you have told
+me why you besought me to keep away from Newlington's. What is it?” he
+asked, and paused suddenly, a flood of light breaking in upon his mind.
+“Is there some treachery afoot?” he asked her, and his eye went wildly
+to the clock. A harsh, grating sound rang through the room. “What are
+you doing?” he cried. “Why have you locked the door?” She was tugging
+and fumbling desperately to extract the key, her hands all clumsy in her
+nervous haste. He leapt at her, but in that moment the key came away in
+her hand. She wheeled round to face him, erect, defiant almost.
+
+“Here is some devilry!” he cried. “Give me that key.”
+
+He had no need for further questions. Here was a proof more eloquent
+than words to his ready wit. Sir Rowland or Richard, or both, were in
+some plot for the Duke's ruin--perhaps assassination. Had not her very
+words shown that she herself was out of all sympathy with Monmouth? He
+was out of sympathy himself. But not to the extent of standing by to see
+his throat cut. She would have the plot succeed--whatever it might be
+and yet that he himself be spared. There his thoughts paused; but only
+for a moment. He saw suddenly in this, not a proof of concern born of
+love but of duty towards him who had imperilled himself once--and for
+all time, indeed--that he might save her brother and Sir Rowland.
+
+He told her what had been so suddenly revealed to him, taxing her with
+it. She acknowledged it, her wits battling to find some way by which
+she might yet gain a few moments more. She would cling to the key, and
+though he should offer her violence, she would not let it go without a
+struggle, and that struggle must consume the little time yet wanting to
+make it too late for him to save the Duke, and--what imported more--thus
+save herself from betraying her brother's trust. Another fear leapt at
+her suddenly. If through deed of hers Monmouth was spared that night,
+Blake, in his despair and rage, might slake his vengeance upon Richard.
+
+“Give me that key,” he demanded, his voice cold and quiet, his face set.
+
+“No, no,” she cried, setting her hand behind her. “You shall not go,
+Anthony. You shall not go.”
+
+“I must,” he insisted, still cold, but oh! so determined. “My honour's
+in it now that I know.”
+
+“You'll go to your death,” she reminded him.
+
+He sneered. “What signifies a day or so? Give me the key.”
+
+“I love you, Anthony!” she cried, livid to the lips.
+
+“Lies!” he answered her contemptuously. “The key!”
+
+“No,” she answered, and her firmness matched his own. “I will not have
+you slain.”
+
+“'Tis not my purpose--not just yet. But I must save the others. God
+forgive me if I offer violence to a woman,” he added, “and lay rude
+hands upon her. Do not compel me to it.” He advanced upon her, but she,
+lithe and quick, evaded him, and sprang for the middle of the room. He
+wheeled about, his self-control all slipping from him now. Suddenly she
+darted to the window, and with the hand that clenched the key she
+smote a pane with all her might. There was a smash of shivering glass,
+followed an instant later by a faint tinkle on the stones below, and the
+hand that she still held out covered itself all with blood.
+
+“O God!” he cried, the key and all else forgotten. “You are hurt.”
+
+“But you are saved,” she cried, overwrought, and staggered, laughing and
+sobbing, to a chair, sinking her bleeding hand to her lap, and smearing
+recklessly her spotless, shimmering gown.
+
+He caught up a chair by its legs, and at a single blow smashed down the
+door--a frail barrier after all. “Nick!” he roared. “Nick!” He tossed
+the chair from him and vanished into the adjoining room to reappear a
+moment later carrying basin and ewer, and a shirt of Trenchard's--the
+first piece of linen he could find.
+
+She was half fainting, and she let him have his swift, masterful way.
+He bathed her hand, and was relieved to find that the injury was none so
+great as the flow of blood had made him fear. He tore Trenchard's
+fine cambric shirt to shreds--a matter on which Trenchard afterwards
+commented in quotations from at least three famous Elizabethan
+dramatists. He bound up her hand, just as Nick made his appearance at
+the splintered door, his mouth open, his pipe, gone out, between his
+fingers. He was followed by a startled serving-wench, the only other
+person in the house, for every one was out of doors that night.
+
+Into the woman's care Wilding delivered his wife, and without a word to
+her he left the room, dragging Trenchard with him. It was striking nine
+as they went down the stairs, and the sound brought as much satisfaction
+to Ruth above as dismay to Wilding below.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. THE BANQUET
+
+It was striking nine. Therefore, Ruth thought that she had achieved her
+object, Wilding imagined that all was lost. It needed the more tranquil
+mind of Nicholas Trenchard to show him the fly in madam's ointment,
+after Wilding, in half a dozen words, had made him acquainted with the
+situation.
+
+“What are you going to do?” asked Trenchard.
+
+“Run to Newlington's and warn the Duke--if still in time.”
+
+“And thereby precipitate the catastrophe? Oh, give it thought. It is all
+it needs. You are taking it for granted that nine o'clock is the hour
+appointed for King Monmouth's butchery.”
+
+“What else?” asked Wilding, impatient to be off.
+
+They were standing in the street under the sign of The Ship, by which
+Jonathan Edney--Mr. Trenchard's landlord--distinguished his premises and
+the chandler's trade he drove there. Trenchard set a detaining hand on
+Mr. Wilding's arm.
+
+“Nine o'clock is the hour appointed for supper. It is odds the Duke will
+be a little late, and it is more than odds that when he does arrive, the
+assassins will wait until the company is safely at table and lulled by
+good eating and drinking. You had overlooked that, I see. It asks an old
+head for wisdom, after all. Look you, Anthony. Speed to Colonel Wade as
+fast as your legs can carry you, and get a score of men. Then find
+some fellow to lead you to Newlington's orchard, and if only you do not
+arrive too late you may take Sir Rowland and his cut-throats in the rear
+and destroy them to a man before they realize themselves attacked. I'll
+reconnoitre while you go, and keep an eye on the front of the house.
+Away with you!”
+
+Ordinarily Wilding was a man of a certain dignity, but you had not
+thought it had you seen him running in silk stockings and silver-buckled
+shoes at a headlong pace through the narrow streets of Bridgwater,
+in the direction of the Castle. He overset more than one, and oaths
+followed him from these and from others whom he rudely jostled out of
+his path. Wade was gone with Monmouth, but he came upon Captain Slape,
+who had a company of scythes and musketeers incorporated in the Duke's
+own regiment, and to him Wilding gasped out the news and his request for
+a score of men with what breath was left him.
+
+Time was lost--and never was time more precious--in convincing Slape
+that this was no old wife's tale. At last, however, he won his way and
+twenty musketeers; but the quarter-past the hour had chimed ere they
+left the Castle. He led them forth at a sharp run, with never a thought
+for the circumstance that they would need their breath anon, perhaps for
+fighting, and he bade the man who guided them take them by back streets
+that they might attract as little attention as possible.
+
+Within a stone's-throw of the house he halted them, and sent one
+forward to reconnoitre, following himself with the others as quietly and
+noiselessly as possible. Mr. Newlington's house was all alight, but from
+the absence of uproar--sounds there were in plenty from the main street,
+where a dense throng had collected to see His Majesty go in--Mr. Wilding
+inferred with supreme relief that they were still in time. But
+the danger was not yet past. Already, perhaps, the assassins were
+penetrating--or had penetrated--to the house; and at any moment such
+sounds might greet them as would announce the execution of their
+murderous design.
+
+Meanwhile Mr. Trenchard, having relighted his pipe, and set his hat
+rakishly atop his golden wig, strolled up the High Street, swinging
+his long cane very much like a gentleman taking the air in quest of an
+appetite for supper. He strolled past the Cross and on until he came
+to the handsome mansion--one of the few handsome houses in
+Bridgwater--where opulent Mr. Newlington had his residence. A small
+crowd had congregated about the doors, for word had gone forth that His
+Majesty was to sup there. Trenchard moved slowly through the people,
+seemingly uninterested, but, in fact, scanning closely every face he
+encountered. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he espied in the
+indifferent light Mr. Richard Westmacott.
+
+Trenchard passed him, jostling him as he went, and strolled on some few
+paces, then turned, and came slowly back, and observed that Richard had
+also turned and was now watching him as he approached. He was all but
+upon the boy when suddenly his wrinkled face lighted with recognition.
+
+“Mr. Westmacott!” he cried, and there was surprise in his voice.
+
+Richard, conscious that Trenchard must no doubt regard him as a
+turn-tippet, flushed, and stood aside to give passage to the other.
+But Mr. Trenchard was by no means minded to pass. He clapped a hand
+on Richard's shoulder. “Nay,” he cried, between laughter and feigned
+resentment. “Do you bear me ill-will, lad?”
+
+Richard was somewhat taken aback. “For what should I bear you ill-will,
+Mr. Trenchard?” quoth he.
+
+Trenchard laughed frankly, and so uproariously that his hat
+over-jauntily cocked was all but shaken from his head. “I mind me the
+last time we met, I played you an unfair trick,” said he. His tone
+bespoke the very highest good-humour. He slipped his arm through
+Richard's. “Never bear an old man malice, lad,” said he.
+
+“I assure you that I bear you none,” said Richard, relieved to find that
+Trenchard apparently knew nothing of his defection, yet wishing that
+Trenchard would go his ways, for Richard's task was to stand sentry
+there.
+
+“I'll not believe you till you afford me proof,” Trenchard replied. “You
+shall come and wash your resentment down in the best bottle of Canary
+the White Cow can furnish us.”
+
+“Not now, I thank you,” answered Richard.
+
+“You are thinking of the last occasion on which I drank with you,” said
+Trenchard reproachfully.
+
+“Not so. But... but I am not thirsty.”
+
+“Not thirsty?” echoed Trenchard. “And is that a reason? Why, lad, it is
+the beast that drinks only when he thirsts. And in that lies one of the
+main differences between beast and man. Come on”--and his arm effected a
+gentle pressure upon Richard's, to move him thence. But at that moment,
+down the street with a great rumble of wheels, cracking of whips
+and clatter of hoofs, came a coach, bearing to Mr. Newlington's King
+Monmouth escorted by his forty life-guards. Cheering broke from the
+crowd as the carriage drew up, and the Duke-King as he alighted
+turned his handsome face, on which shone the ruddy glow of torches, to
+acknowledge these loyal acclamations. He passed up the steps, at the top
+of which Mr. Newlington--fat and pale and monstrously overdressed--stood
+bowing to welcome his royal visitor. Host and guest vanished, followed
+by some six officers of Monmouth's, among whom were Grey and Wade.
+The sight-seers flattened themselves against the walls as the great
+lumbering coach put about and went off again the way it had come, the
+life-guards following after.
+
+Trenchard fancied that he caught a sigh of relief from Richard, but the
+street was noisy at the time and he may well have been mistaken.
+
+“Come,” said he, renewing his invitation, “we shall both be the better
+for a little milk of the White Cow.”
+
+Richard wavered almost by instinct. The White Cow, he knew, was famous
+for its sack; on the other hand, he was pledged to Sir Rowland to
+stand guard in the narrow lane at the back where ran the wall of Mr.
+Newlington's garden. Under the gentle suasion of Trenchard's arm, he
+moved a few steps up the street; then halted, his duty battling with his
+inclination.
+
+“No, no,” he muttered. “If you will excuse me...”
+
+“Not I,” said Trenchard, drawing from his hesitation a shrewd inference
+as to Richard's business. “To drink alone is an abomination I'll not be
+guilty of.”
+
+“But...” began the irresolute Richard.
+
+“Shalt urge me no excuses, or we'll quarrel. Come,” and he moved on,
+dragging Richard with him.
+
+A few steps Richard took unwillingly under the other's soft compulsion;
+then, having given the matter thought--he was always one to take the
+line of least resistance--he assured himself that his sentryship was
+entirely superfluous; the matter of Blake's affair was an entire secret,
+shared only by those who had a hand in it. Blake was quite safe from all
+surprises; Trenchard was insistent and it was difficult to deny him;
+and the sack at the White Cow was no doubt the best in Somerset. He gave
+himself up to the inevitable and fell into step alongside his companion
+who babbled aimlessly of trivial matters. Trenchard felt the change from
+unwilling to willing companionship, and approved it.
+
+They mounted the three steps and entered the common room of the inn.
+It was well thronged at the time, but they found places at the end of a
+long table, and there they sat and discussed the landlady's Canary for
+the best part of a half-hour, until a sudden spatter of musketry, near
+at hand, came to startle the whole room.
+
+There was a momentary stillness in the tavern, succeeded by an excited
+clamouring, a dash for the windows and a storm of questions, to
+which none could return any answer. Richard had risen with a sudden
+exclamation, very pale and scared of aspect. Trenchard tugged at his
+sleeve.
+
+“Sit down,” said he. “Sit down. It will be nothing.”
+
+“Nothing?” echoed Richard, and his eyes were suddenly bent on Trenchard
+in a look in which suspicion was now blent with terror.
+
+A second volley of musketry crackled forth at that moment, and the next
+the whole street was in an uproar. Men were running and shots resounded
+on every side, above all of which predominated the cry that His Majesty
+was murdered.
+
+In an instant the common room of the White Cow was emptied of every
+occupant save two--Trenchard and Westmacott. Neither of them felt the
+need to go forth in quest of news. They knew how idle was the cry in
+the streets. They knew what had taken place, and knowing it, Trenchard
+smoked on placidly, satisfied that Wilding had been in time, whilst
+Richard stood stricken and petrified by dismay at realizing, with even
+greater certainty, that something had supervened to thwart, perhaps
+to destroy, Sir Rowland. For he knew that Blake's party had gone forth
+armed with pistols only, and intent not to use even these save in
+the last extremity; to avoid noise they were to keep to steel. This
+knowledge gave Richard positive assurance that the volleys they had
+heard must have been fired by some party that had fallen upon Blake's
+men and taken them by surprise.
+
+And it was his fault! He was the traitor to whom perhaps a score of men
+owed their deaths at that moment! He had failed to keep watch as he had
+undertaken. His fault it was--No! not his, but this villain's who sat
+there smugly taking his ease and pulling at his pipe.
+
+At a blow Richard dashed the thing from his companion's mouth and
+fingers.
+
+Trenchard looked up startled.
+
+“What the devil...?” he began.
+
+“It is your fault, your fault!” cried Richard, his eyes blazing, his
+lips livid. “It was you who lured me hither.”
+
+Trenchard stared at him in bland surprise. “Now, what a plague is't
+you're saying?” he asked, and brought Richard to his senses by awaking
+in him the instinct of self-preservation.
+
+How could he explain his meaning without betraying himself?--and surely
+that were a folly, now that the others were no doubt disposed of. Let
+him, rather, bethink him of his own safety. Trenchard looked at him
+keenly, with well-assumed intent to read what might be passing in his
+mind, then rose, paid for the wine, and expressed his intention of
+going forth to inquire into these strange matters that were happening in
+Bridgwater.
+
+Meanwhile, those volleys fired in Mr. Newlington's orchard had
+caused--as well may be conceived--an agitated interruption of the superb
+feast Mr. Newlington had spread for his noble and distinguished guests.
+The Duke had for some days been going in fear of his life, for already
+he had been fired at more than once by men anxious to earn the price
+at which his head was valued; instantly he surmised that whatever that
+firing might mean, it indicated some attempt to surprise him with the
+few gentlemen who attended him.
+
+The whole company came instantly to its feet, and Colonel Wade stepped
+to a window that stood open--for the night was very warm. The Duke
+turned for explanation to his host; the trader, however, professed
+himself entirely unable to offer any. He was very pale and his limbs
+were visibly trembling, but then his agitation was most natural. His
+wife and daughter supervened at that moment, in their alarm entering the
+room unceremoniously, in spite of the august presence, to inquire into
+the meaning of this firing, and to reassure themselves that their father
+and his illustrious guests were safe.
+
+From the windows they could observe a stir in the gardens below. Black
+shadows of men flitted to and fro, and a loud, rich voice was heard
+calling to them to take cover, that they were betrayed. Then a sheet of
+livid flame blazed along the summit of the low wall, and a second volley
+of musketry rang out, succeeded by cries and screams from the assailed
+and the shouts of the assailers who were now pouring into the garden
+through the battered doorway and over the wall. For some moments
+steel rang on steel, and pistol-shots cracked here and there to the
+accompaniment of voices, raised some in anger, some in pain. But it was
+soon over, and a comparative stillness succeeded.
+
+A voice called up from the darkness under the windows to know if His
+Majesty was safe. There had been a plot to take him; but the ambuscaders
+had been ambuscaded in their turn, and not a man of them remained--which
+was hardly exact, for under a laurel bush, scarce daring to breathe, lay
+Sir Rowland Blake, livid with fear and fury, and bleeding from a rapier
+scratch in the cheek, but otherwise unhurt.
+
+In the room above, Monmouth had sunk wearily into his chair upon hearing
+of the design there had been against his life. A deep, bitter melancholy
+enwrapped his spirit. Lord Grey's first thoughts flew to the man he
+most disliked--the one man missing from those who had been bidden to
+accompany His Majesty, whose absence had already formed the subject
+of comment. Grey remembered this bearing before the council that same
+evening, and his undisguised resentment of the reproaches levelled
+against him.
+
+“Where is Mr. Wilding?” he asked suddenly, his voice dominating the
+din of talk that filled the room. “Do we hold the explanation of his
+absence?”
+
+Monmouth looked up quickly, his beautiful eyes ineffably sad, his weak
+mouth drooping at the corners. Wade turned to confront Grey.
+
+“Your lordship does not suggest that Mr. Wilding can have a hand in
+this?”
+
+“Appearances would seem to point in that direction,” answered Grey, and
+in his wicked heart he almost hoped it might be so.
+
+“Then appearances speak truth for once,” came a bitter, ringing voice.
+They turned, and there on the threshold stood Mr. Wilding. Unheard he
+had come upon them. He was bareheaded and carried his drawn sword. There
+was blood upon it, and there was blood on the lace that half concealed
+the hand that held it; otherwise--and saving that his shoes and
+stockings were sodden with the dew from the long grass in the
+orchard--he was as spotless as when he had left Ruth in Trenchard's
+lodging; his face, too, was calm, save for the mocking smile with which
+he eyed Lord Grey.
+
+Monmouth rose on his appearance, and put his hand to his sword in alarm.
+Grey whipped his own from the scabbard, and placed himself slightly in
+front of his master as if to preserve him.
+
+“You mistake, sirs,” said Wilding quietly. “The hand I have had in this
+affair has been to save Your Majesty from your enemies. At the moment I
+should have joined you, word was brought me of the plot that was laid,
+of the trap that was set for you. I hastened to the Castle and obtained
+a score of musketeers of Slape's company. With those I surprised the
+murderers lurking in the garden there, and made an end of them. I
+greatly feared I should not come in time; but it is plain that Heaven
+preserves Your Majesty for better days.”
+
+In the revulsion of feeling, Monmouth's eyes shone moist. Grey sheathed
+his sword with an awkward laugh, and a still more awkward word of
+apology to Wilding. The Duke, moved by a sudden impulse to make amends
+for his unworthy suspicions, for his perhaps unworthy reception of
+Wilding earlier that evening in the council-room, drew the sword on
+which his hand still rested. He advanced a step.
+
+“Kneel, Mr. Wilding,” he said in a voice stirred by emotion. But
+Wilding's stern spirit scorned this all too sudden friendliness of
+Monmouth's as much as he scorned the accolade at Monmouth's hands.
+
+“There are more pressing matters to demand Your Majesty's attention,”
+ said Mr. Wilding coldly, advancing to the table as he spoke, and taking
+up a napkin to wipe his blade, “than the reward of an unworthy servant.”
+
+Monmouth felt his sudden enthusiasm chilled by that tone and manner.
+
+“Mr. Newlington,” said Mr. Wilding, after the briefest of pauses, and
+the fat, sinful merchant started forward in alarm. It was like a summons
+of doom. “His Majesty came hither, I am informed, to receive at your
+hands a sum of money--twenty thousand pounds--towards the expenses
+of the campaign. Have you the money at hand?” And his eye, glittering
+between cruelty and mockery, fixed itself upon the merchant's ashen
+face.
+
+“It... it shall be forthcoming by morning,” stammered Newlington.
+
+“By morning?” cried Grey, who, with the others, watched Mr. Newlington
+what time they all wondered at Mr. Wilding's question and the manner of
+it.
+
+“You knew that I march to-night,” Monmouth reproached the merchant.
+
+“And it was to receive the money that you invited His Majesty to do you
+the honours of supping with you here,” put in Wade, frowning darkly.
+
+The merchant's wife and daughter stood beside him watching him, and
+plainly uneasy. Before he could make any reply, Mr. Wilding spoke again.
+
+“The circumstance that he has not the money by him is a little odd--or
+would be were it not for what has happened. I would submit, Your
+Majesty, that you receive from Mr. Newlington not twenty thousand pounds
+as he had promised you, but thirty thousand, and that you receive it not
+as a loan as was proposed, but as a fine imposed upon him in consequence
+of... his lack of care in the matter of his orchard.”
+
+Monmouth looked at the merchant very sternly. “You have heard Mr.
+Wilding's suggestion,” said he. “You may thank the god of traitors it
+was made, else we might have thought of a harsher course. You shall pay
+the money by ten o'clock to-morrow to Mr. Wilding, whom I shall leave
+behind for the sole purpose of collecting it.” He turned from Newlington
+in plain disgust. “I think, sirs, that here is no more to be done. Are
+the streets safe, Mr. Wilding?”
+
+“Not only safe, Your Majesty, but the twenty men of Slape's and your own
+life-guards are waiting to escort you.”
+
+“Then in God's name let us be going,” said Monmouth, sheathing his sword
+and moving towards the door. Not a second time did he offer to confer
+the honour of knighthood upon his saviour.
+
+Mr. Wilding turned and went out to marshal his men. The Duke and his
+officers followed more leisurely. As they reached the door, a woman's
+cry broke the silence behind them. Monmouth turned. Mr. Newlington,
+purple of face and his eyes protruding horridly, was beating the air
+with his hands. Suddenly he collapsed, and crashed forward with arms
+flung out amid the glass and silver of the table all spread with the
+traitor's banquet to which he had bidden his unsuspecting victim.
+
+His wife and daughter ran to him and called him by name, Monmouth
+pausing a moment to watch them from the doorway with eyes unmoved. But
+Mr. Newlington answered not their call, for he was dead.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. THE RECKONING
+
+Ruth had sped home through the streets unattended, as she had come,
+heedless of the rude jostlings and ruder greetings she met with from
+those she passed; heedless, too, of the smarting of her injured hand,
+for the agony of her soul was such that it whelmed all minor sufferings
+of the flesh.
+
+In the dining-room at Lupton House she came upon Diana and Lady Horton
+at supper, and her appearance--her white and distraught face and
+blood-smeared gown--brought both women to their feet in alarmed inquiry,
+no less than it brought Jasper, the butler, to her side with ready
+solicitude. Ruth answered him that there was no cause for fear, that she
+was quite well--had scratched her hand, no more; and with that dismissed
+him. When she was alone with her aunt and cousin, she sank into a chair
+and told them what had passed 'twixt her husband and herself and most of
+what she said was Greek to Lady Horton.
+
+“Mr. Wilding has gone to warn the Duke,” she ended, and the despair of
+her tone was tragical. “I sought to detain him until it should be too
+late--I thought I had done so, but... but... Oh, I am afraid, Diana!”
+
+“Afraid of what?” asked Diana. “Afraid of what?”
+
+And she came to Ruth and set an arm in comfort about her shoulders.
+
+“Afraid that Mr. Wilding might reach the Duke in time to be destroyed
+with him,” her cousin answered. “Such a warning could but hasten on the
+blow.”
+
+Lady Horton begged to be enlightened, and was filled with horror
+when--from Diana--enlightenment was hers. Her sympathies were all with
+the handsome Monmouth, for he was beautiful and should therefore be
+triumphant; poor Lady Horton never got beyond externals. That her
+nephew and Sir Rowland, whom she had esteemed, should be leagued in this
+dastardly undertaking against that lovely person horrified her beyond
+words. She withdrew soon afterwards, having warmly praised Ruth's action
+in warning Mr. Wilding--unable to understand that it should be no part
+of Ruth's design to save the Duke--and went to her room to pray for the
+preservation of the late King's handsome son.
+
+Left alone with her cousin, Ruth gave expression to the fears for
+Richard by which she was being tortured. Diana poured wine for her
+and urged her to drink; she sought to comfort and reassure her. But
+as moments passed and grew to hours and still Richard did not appear,
+Ruth's fears that he had come to harm were changed to certainty. There
+was a moment when, but for Diana's remonstrances, she had gone forth in
+quest of news. Bad news were better than this horror of suspense. What
+if Wilding's warning should have procured help, and Richard were slain
+in consequence? Oh, it was unthinkable! Diana, white of face, listened
+to and shared her fears. Even her shallow nature was stirred by the
+tragedy of Ruth's position, by dread lest Richard should indeed have met
+his end that night. In these moments of distress, she forgot her hopes
+of triumphing over Blake, of punishing him for his indifference to
+herself.
+
+At last, at something after midnight, there came a fevered rapping at
+the outer door. Both women started up, and with arms about each other,
+in their sudden panic, stood there waiting for the news that must be
+here at last.
+
+The door of the dining-room was flung open; the women recoiled in
+their dread of what might come; then Richard entered, Jasper's startled
+countenance showing behind him.
+
+He closed the door, shutting out the wondering servant, and they saw
+that, though his face was ashen and his limbs all a-tremble, he showed
+no sign of any hurt or effort. His dress was as meticulous as when last
+they had seen him. Ruth flew to him, flung her arms about his neck, and
+pressed him to her.
+
+“Oh, Richard, Richard!” she sobbed in the immensity of her relief.
+“Thank God! Thank God!”
+
+He wriggled peevishly in her embrace, disengaged her arms, and put her
+from him almost roughly. “Have done!” he growled, and, lurching past
+her, he reached the table, took up a bottle, and brimmed himself a
+measure. He gulped the wine avidly, set down the cup, and shivered.
+“Where is Blake?” he asked.
+
+“Blake?” echoed Ruth, her lips white. Diana sank into a chair,
+watchful, fearful and silent, taking now no glory in the thing she had
+encompassed.
+
+Richard beat his hands together in a passion of dismay. “Is he not
+here?” he asked, and groaned, “O God!” He flung himself all limp into a
+chair. “You have heard the news, I see,” he said.
+
+“Not all of it,” said Diana hoarsely, leaning forward. “Tell us what
+passed.”
+
+He moistened his lips with his tongue. “We were betrayed,” he said in a
+quivering voice. “Betrayed! Did I but know by whom...” He broke off with
+a bitter laugh and shrugged, rubbing his hands together and shivering
+till his shoulders shook. “Blake's party was set upon by half a company
+of musketeers. Their corpses are strewn about old Newlington's orchard.
+Not one of them escaped. They say that Newlington himself is dead.” He
+poured himself more wine.
+
+Ruth listened, her eyes burning, the rest of her as cold as ice.
+“But...but... oh, thank God that you at least are safe, Dick!”
+
+“How did you escape?” quoth Diana.
+
+“How?” He started as if he had been stung. He laughed in a high, cracked
+voice, his eyes wild and bloodshot. “How? Perhaps it is just as well
+that Blake has gone to his account. Perhaps...” He checked on the word,
+and started to his feet; Diana screamed in sheer affright. Behind her
+the windows had been thrust open so violently that one of the panes was
+shivered. Blake stood under the lintel, scarce recognizable, so smeared
+was his face with the blood escaping from the wound his cheek had taken.
+His clothes were muddied, soiled, torn, and disordered.
+
+Framed there against the black background of the night, he stood and
+surveyed them for a moment, his aspect terrific. Then he leapt forward,
+baring his sword as he came. An incoherent roar burst from his lips as
+he bore straight down upon Richard.
+
+“You damned, infernal traitor!” he cried. “Draw, draw! Or die like the
+muckworm that you are.”
+
+Intrepid, her terror all vanished now that there was the need for
+courage, Ruth confronted him, barring his passage, a buckler to her
+palsied brother.
+
+“Out of my way, mistress, or I'll be doing you a mischief.”
+
+“You are mad, Sir Rowland,” she told him in a voice that did something
+towards restoring him to his senses.
+
+His fierce eyes considered her a moment, and he controlled himself to
+offer an explanation. “The twenty that were with me lie stark under
+the stars in Newlington's garden,” he told her, as Richard had told her
+already. “I escaped by a miracle, no less, but for what? Feversham will
+demand of me a stern account of those lives, whilst if I am found in
+Bridgwater there will be a short shrift for me at the rebel hands--for
+my share in this affair is known, my name on every lip in the town. And
+why?” he asked with a sudden increase of fierceness. “Why? Because that
+craven villain there betrayed me.”
+
+“He did not,” she answered in so assured a voice that not only did it
+give him pause, but caused Richard, cowering behind her, to raise his
+head in wonder.
+
+Sir Rowland smiled his disbelief, and that smile, twisting his
+blood-smeared countenance, was grotesque and horrible. “I left him to
+guard our backs and give me warning if any approached,” he informed her.
+“I knew him for too great a coward to be trusted in the fight; so I gave
+him a safe task, and yet in that he failed me-failed me because he had
+betrayed and sold me.”
+
+“He had not. I tell you he had not,” she insisted. “I swear it.”
+
+He stared at her. “There was no one else for it,” he made answer, and
+bade her harshly stand aside.
+
+Diana, huddled together, watched and waited in horror for the end of
+these consequences of her work.
+
+Blake made a sudden movement to win past Ruth. Richard staggered to his
+feet intent on defending himself; but he was swordless; retreat to the
+door suggested itself, and he had half turned to attempt to gain it,
+when Ruth's next words arrested him, petrified him.
+
+“There was some one else for it, Sir Rowland,” she cried. “It was not
+Richard who betrayed you. It... it was I.”
+
+“You?” The fierceness seemed all to drop away from him, whelmed in the
+immensity of his astonishment. “You?” Then he laughed loud in scornful
+disbelief. “You think to save him,” he said.
+
+“Should I lie?” she asked him, calm and brave.
+
+He stared at her stupidly; he passed a hand across his brow, and looked
+at Diana. “Oh, it is impossible!” he said at last.
+
+“You shall hear,” she answered, and told him how at the last moment she
+had learnt not only that her husband was in Bridgwater, but that he was
+to sup at Newlington's with the Duke's party.
+
+“I had no thought of betraying you or of saving the Duke,” she said.
+“I knew how justifiable was what you intended. But I could not let Mr.
+Wilding go to his death. I sought to detain him, warning him only when
+I thought it would be too late for him to warn others. But you delayed
+overlong, and...”
+
+A hoarse inarticulate cry from him came to interrupt her at that point.
+One glimpse of his face she had and of the hand half raised with sword
+pointing towards her, and she closed her eyes, thinking that her sands
+were run. And, indeed, Blake's intention was just then to kill her. That
+he should owe his betrayal to her was in itself cause enough to
+enrage him, but that her motive should have been her desire to save
+Wilding--Wilding of all men!--that was the last straw.
+
+Had he been forewarned that Wilding was to be one of Monmouth's party at
+Mr. Newlington's, his pulses would have throbbed with joy, and he would
+have flung himself into his murderous task with twice the zest he had
+carried to it. And now he learnt that not only had she thwarted his
+schemes against Monmouth, but had deprived him of the ardently sought
+felicity of widowing her. He drew back his arm for the thrust;
+Diana huddled into her chair too horror-stricken to speak or move:
+Richard--immediately behind his sister--saw nothing of what was passing,
+and thought of nothing but his own safety.
+
+Then Blake paused, stepped back, returned his sword to its scabbard, and
+bending himself--but whether to bow or not was not quite plain--he took
+some paces backwards, then turned and went out by the window as he had
+come. But there was a sudden purposefulness in the way he did it that
+might have warned them this withdrawal was not quite the retreat it
+seemed.
+
+They watched him with many emotions, predominant among which was relief,
+and when he was gone Diana rose and came to Ruth.
+
+“Come,” she said, and sought to lead her from the room.
+
+But there was Richard now to be reckoned with, Richard from whom the
+palsy was of a sudden fallen, now that the cause of it had withdrawn.
+He had his back to the door, and his weak mouth was pursed up into a
+semblance of resolution, his pale eyes looked stern, his white eyebrows
+bent together in a frown.
+
+“Wait,” he said. They looked at him, and the shadow of a smile almost
+flitted across Diana's face. He stepped to the door, and, opening it,
+held it wide. “Go, Diana,” he said. “Ruth and I must understand each
+other.”
+
+Diana hesitated. “You had better go, Diana,” said her cousin, whereupon
+Mistress Horton went.
+
+Hot and fierce came the recriminations from Richard's lips when he and
+his sister were alone, and Ruth weathered the storm bravely until it
+was stemmed again by fresh fear in Richard. For Blake had suddenly
+reappeared. He came forward from his window; his manner composed and
+full of resolution. Young Westmacott recoiled, the heat all frozen out
+of him. But Blake scarce looked at him, his smouldering glance was all
+for Ruth, who watched him with incipient fear, despite herself.
+
+“Madam,” he said, “'tis not to be supposed a mind holding so much
+thought for a husband's safety could find room for any concern as to
+another's. I will ask you, natheless, to consider what tale I am to bear
+Lord Feversham.”
+
+“What tale?” said she.
+
+“Aye--that will account for what has chanced; for my failure to
+discharge the task entrusted me, and for the slaughter of an officer of
+his and twenty men.
+
+“Why ask me this?” she demanded half angrily; then suddenly bethinking
+her of how she had ruined his enterprise, and of the position in which
+she had placed him, she softened. Her clear mind held justice very dear.
+She approached. “Oh, I am sorry--sorry, Sir Rowland,” she cried.
+
+He sneered. He had wiped some of the blood from his face, but still
+looked terrible enough.
+
+“Sorry!” said he, and laughed unpleasantly. “You'll come with me to
+Feversham and tell him what you did,” said he.
+
+“I?” She recoiled in fear.
+
+“At once” he informed her.
+
+“Wha... what's that?” faltered Richard, calling up his manhood, and
+coming forward. “What are you saying, Blake?”
+
+Sir Rowland disdained to heed him. “Come, mistress,” he said, and
+putting forward his hand he caught her wrist and pulled her roughly
+towards him. She struggled to free herself, but he leered evilly upon
+her, no whit discomposed by her endeavours. Though short of stature,
+he was a man of considerable bodily strength, and she, though tall, was
+slight of frame. He released her wrist, and before she realized what he
+was about he had stooped, passed an arm behind her knees, another round
+her waist, and, swinging her from her feet, took her up bodily in his
+arms. He turned about, and a scream broke from her.
+
+“Hold!” cried Richard. “Hold, you madman!”
+
+“Keep off, or I'll make an end of you before I go,” roared Blake over
+his shoulder, for already he had turned about and was making for the
+window, apparently no more hindered by his burden than had she been a
+doll.
+
+Richard sprang to the door. “Jasper!” he bawled. “Jasper!” He had no
+weapons, as we have seen, else it may be that he had made an attempt to
+use them.
+
+Ruth got a hand free and caught at the windowframe as Blake was leaping
+through. It checked their progress, but did not sensibly delay it. It
+was unfortunately her wounded hand with which she had sought to cling,
+and with an angry, brutal wrench Sir Rowland compelled her to unclose
+her grasp. He sped down the lawn towards the orchard, where his horse
+was tethered. And now she knew in a subconscious sort of way why he had
+earlier withdrawn. He had gone to saddle for this purpose.
+
+She struggled now, thinking that he would be too hampered to compel her
+to his will. He became angry, and set her down beside his horse, one arm
+still holding her.
+
+“Look you, mistress,” he told her fiercely, “living or dead, you come
+with me to Feversham. Choose now.”
+
+His tone was such that she never doubted he would carry out his threat.
+And so in dull despair she submitted, hoping that Feversham might be
+a gentleman and would recognize and respect a lady. Half fainting, she
+allowed him to swing her to the withers of his horse. Thus they threaded
+their way in the dim starlit night through the trees towards the gate.
+
+It stood open, and they passed out into the lane. There Sir Rowland put
+his horse to the trot, which he increased to a gallop when he was over
+the bridge and clear of the town.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI. THE SENTENCE
+
+Mr. Wilding, as we know, was to remain at Bridgwater for the purpose of
+collecting from Mr. Newlington the fine which had been imposed upon him.
+It is by no means clear whether Monmouth realized the fullness of
+the tragedy at the merchant's house, and whether he understood that,
+stricken with apoplexy at the thought of parting with so considerable a
+portion of his fortune, Mr. Newlington had not merely fainted, but had
+expired under His Grace's eyes. If he did realize it he was cynically
+indifferent, and lest we should be doing him an injustice by assuming
+this we had better give him the benefit of the doubt, and take it that
+in the subsequent bustle of departure, his mind filled with the prospect
+of the night attack to be delivered upon his uncle's army at-Sedgemoor,
+he thought no more either of Mr. Newlington or of Mr. Wilding. The
+latter, as we know, had no place in the rebel army; although a man of
+his hands, he was not a trained soldier, and notwithstanding that he may
+fully have intended to draw his sword for Monmouth when the time came,
+yet circumstances had led to his continuing after Monmouth's landing the
+more diplomatic work of movement-man, in which he had been engaged for
+the months that had preceded it.
+
+So it befell that when Monmouth's army marched out of Bridgwater at
+eleven o'clock on that Sunday night, not to make for Gloucester and
+Cheshire, as was generally believed, but to fall upon the encamped
+Feversham at Sedgemoor and slaughter the royal army in their beds, Mr.
+Wilding was left behind. Trenchard was gone, in command of his troop of
+horse, and Mr. Wilding had for only company his thoughts touching the
+singular happenings of that busy night.
+
+He went back to the sign of The Ship overlooking the Cross, and, kicking
+off his sodden shoes, he supped quietly in the room of which shattered
+door and broken window reminded him of his odd interview with Ruth, and
+of the comedy of love she had enacted to detain him there. The
+thought of it embittered him; the part she had played seemed to his
+retrospective mind almost a wanton's part--for all that in name she was
+his wife. And yet, underlying a certain irrepressible nausea, came the
+reflection that, after all, her purpose had been to save his life. It
+would have been a sweet thought, sweet enough to have overlaid that
+other bitterness, had he not insisted upon setting it down entirely to
+her gratitude and her sense of justice. She intended to repay the debt
+in which she had stood to him since, at the risk of his own life
+and fortune, he had rescued her brother from the clutches of the
+Lord-Lieutenant at Taunton.
+
+He sighed heavily as he thought of the results that had attended his
+compulsory wedding of her. In the intensity of his passion, in
+the blindness of his vanity, which made him confident--gloriously
+confident--that did he make himself her husband, she herself would make
+of him her lover before long, he had committed an unworthiness of which
+it seemed he might never cleanse himself in life. There was but one
+amend, as he had told her. Let him make it, and perhaps she would--out
+of gratitude, if out of no other feeling--come to think more kindly
+of him; and that night it seemed to him as he sat alone in that mean
+chamber that it were a better and a sweeter thing to earn some measure
+of her esteem by death than to continue in a life that inspired her
+hatred and resentment. From which it will be seen how utterly he
+disbelieved the protestations she had uttered in seeking to detain him.
+They were--he was assured--a part of a scheme, a trick, to lull him
+while Monmouth and his officers were being butchered. And she had gone
+the length of saying she loved him! He regretted that, being as he was
+convinced of its untruth. What cause had she to love him? She hated him,
+and because she hated him she did not scruple to lie to him--once with
+suggestions and this time with actual expression of affection--that she
+might gain her ends: ends that concerned her brother and Sir Rowland
+Blake. Sir Rowland Blake! The name was a very goad to his passion and
+despair.
+
+He rose from the table and took a turn in the room, moving noiselessly
+in his stockinged feet. He felt the need of air and action; the
+weariness of his flesh incurred in his long ride from London was cast
+off or forgotten. He must go forth. He picked up his fine shoes of
+Spanish leather, but as luck would have it--little though he guessed the
+extent just then--he found them hardening, though still damp from the
+dews of Mr. Newlington's garden. He cast them aside, and, taking a key
+from his pocket, unlocked an oak cupboard and withdrew the heavy muddy
+boots in which he had ridden from town. He drew them on and, taking
+up his hat and sword, went down the creaking stairs and out into the
+street.
+
+Bridgwater had fallen quiet by now; the army was gone and townsfolk were
+in their beds. Moodily, unconsciously, yet as if guided by a sort of
+instinct, he went down the High Street, and then turned off into the
+narrower lane that led in the direction of Lupton House. By the gates
+of this he paused, recalled out of his abstraction and rendered aware
+of whither his steps had led him by the sight of the hall door standing
+open, a black figure silhouetted against the light behind it. What was
+happening here? Why were they not abed like all decent folk?
+
+The figure called to him in a quavering voice. “Mr. Wilding! Mr.
+Wilding!” for the light beating upon his face and figure from the
+open door had revealed him. The form came swiftly forward, its steps
+pattering down the walk, another slenderer figure surged in its place
+upon the threshold, hovered there an instant, then plunged down into the
+darkness to come after it. But the first was by now upon Mr. Wilding.
+
+“What is it, Jasper?” he asked, recognizing the old servant.
+
+“Mistress Ruth!” wailed the fellow, wringing his hands. “She... she has
+been... carried off.” He got it out in gasps, winded by his short run
+and by the excitement that possessed him.
+
+No word said Wilding. He just stood and stared, scarcely understanding,
+and in that moment they were joined by Richard. He seized Wilding by the
+arm. “Blake has carried her off,” he cried.
+
+“Blake?” said Mr. Wilding, and wondered with a sensation of nausea was
+it an ordinary running away. But Richard's next words made it plain to
+him that it was no amorous elopement, nor even amorous abduction.
+
+“He has carried her to Feversham... for her betrayal of his to-night's
+plan to seize the Duke.”
+
+That stirred Mr. Wilding. He wasted no time in idle questions or idler
+complainings. “How long since?” he asked, and it was he who clutched
+Richard now, by the shoulder and with a hand that hurt.
+
+“Not ten minutes ago,” was the quavering answer.
+
+“And you were at hand when it befell?” cried Wilding, the scorn in his
+voice rising superior to his agitation and fears for Ruth. “You were at
+hand, and could neither prevent nor follow him?”
+
+“I'll go with you now, if you'll give chase,” whimpered Richard, feeling
+himself for once the craven that he was.
+
+“If?” echoed Wilding scornfully, and dragged him past the gate and up
+towards the house even as he spoke. “Is there room for a doubt of it?
+Have you horses, at least?”
+
+“To spare,” said Richard as they hurried on. They skirted the house and
+found the stable door open as Blake had left it. Old Jasper followed
+with a lamp which burned steadily, so calm was the air of that July
+night. In three minutes they had saddled a couple of nags; in five they
+were riding for the bridge and the road to Weston Zoyland.
+
+“It is a miracle you remained in Bridgwater,” said Richard as they rode.
+“How came you to be left behind?”
+
+“I had a task assigned me in the town against the Duke's return
+to-morrow,” Wilding explained, and he spoke almost mechanically, his
+mind full of--anguished by--thoughts of Ruth.
+
+“Against the Duke's return?” cried Richard, first surprised and then
+thinking that Wilding spoke at random. “Against the Duke's return?” he
+repeated.
+
+“That is what I said?”
+
+“But the Duke is marching to Gloucester.”
+
+“The Duke is marching by circuitous ways to Sedgemoor,” answered
+Wilding, never dreaming that at this time of day there could be the
+slightest imprudence in saying so much, indeed, taking little heed of
+what he said, his mind obsessed by the other, to him, far weightier
+matter.
+
+“To Sedgemoor?” gasped Westmacott.
+
+“Aye--to take Feversham by surprise--to destroy King James's soldiers in
+their beds. He should be near upon the attack by now. But there! Spur on
+and save your breath if we are to overtake Sir Rowland.”
+
+They pounded on through the night at a breakneck pace which they never
+slackened until, when within a quarter of a mile or so of Penzoy Pound,
+where the army was encamped and slumbering by now, they caught sight of
+the musketeers' matches glowing in the dark ahead of them. An outpost
+barred their progress; but Richard had the watchword, and he spurred
+ahead shouting “Albemarle,” and the soldiers fell back and gave them
+passage. On they galloped, skirting Penzoy Pound and the army sleeping
+in utter unconsciousness of the fate that was creeping stealthily upon
+it out of the darkness and mists across the moors; they clattered on
+past Langmoor Stone and dashed straight into the village, Richard never
+drawing rein until he reached the door of the cottage where Feversham
+was lodged.
+
+They had come not only at a headlong pace, but in a headlong manner,
+without quite considering what awaited them at the end of their ride in
+addition to their object of finding Ruth. It was only now, as he drew
+rein before the lighted house and caught the sound of Blake's raised
+voice pouring through an open window on the ground floor, that Richard
+fully realized what manner of rashness he was committing. He was too
+late to rescue Ruth from Blake. What more could he look to achieve?
+His hope had been that with Wilding's help he might snatch her from Sir
+Rowland before the latter reached his destination. But now--to enter
+Feversham's presence and in association with so notorious a rebel as Mr.
+Wilding were a piece of folly of the heroic kind that Richard did not
+savour. Indeed, had it not been for Wilding's masterful presence, it is
+more than odds he had turned tail, and ridden home again to bed.
+
+But Wilding, who had leapt nimbly to the ground, stood waiting for
+Richard to dismount, impatient now that from the sound of Sir Rowland's
+voice he had assurance that Richard had proved an able guide. The young
+man got down, but might yet have hesitated had not Wilding caught him
+by the arm and whirled him up the steps, through the open door, past
+the two soldiers who kept it, and who were too surprised to stay him,
+straight into the long, low-ceilinged chamber where Feversham, attended
+by a captain of horse, was listening to Blake's angry narrative of that
+night's failure.
+
+Mr. Wilding's entrance was decidedly sensational. He stepped quickly
+forward, and, taking Blake who was still talking, all unconscious of
+those behind him, by the collar of his coat, he interrupted him in the
+middle of an impassioned period, wrenched him backwards off his feet,
+and dashed him with a force almost incredible into a heap in a corner of
+the room. There for some moments the baronet lay half dazed by the shock
+of his fall.
+
+A long table, which seemed to divide the chamber in two, stood between
+Lord Feversham and his officer and Mr. Wilding and Ruth--by whose side
+he had now come to stand in Blake's room.
+
+There was an exclamation, half anger, half amazement, at Mr. Wilding's
+outrage upon Sir Rowland, and the captain of horse sprang forward.
+But Wilding raised his hand, his face so composed and calm that it was
+impossible to think him conceiving any violence, as indeed he protested
+at that moment.
+
+“Be assured, gentlemen,” he said, “that I have no further rudeness to
+offer any so that this lady is suffered to withdraw with me.” And he
+took in his own a hand that Ruth, amazed and unresisting, yielded up to
+him. That touch of his seemed to drive out her fears and to restore her
+confidence; the mortal terror in which she had been until his coming
+dropped from her now. She was no longer alone and abandoned to the
+vindictiveness of rude and violent men. She had beside her one in whom
+experience had taught her to have faith.
+
+Louis Duras, Marquis de Blanquefort, and Earl of Feversham, coughed with
+mock discreetness under cover of his hand. “Ahem!”
+
+He was a comely man with a long nose, good low-lidded eyes, a humorous
+mouth, and a weak chin; at a glance he looked what he was, a weak,
+good-natured sensualist. He was resplendent at the moment in a blue
+satin dressing-gown stiff with gold lace, for he had been interrupted
+by Blake's arrival in the very act of putting himself to bed, and his
+head--divested of his wig--was bound up in a scarf of many colours.
+
+At his side, the red-coated captain, arrested by the general's sardonic
+cough, stood, a red-faced, freckled boy, looking to his superior for
+orders.
+
+“I t'ink you 'ave 'urt Sare Rowland,” said Feversham composedly in his
+bad English. “Who are you, sare?”
+
+“This lady's husband,” answered Wilding, whereupon the captain stared
+and Feversham's brows went up in surprised amusement.
+
+“So-ho! T'at true?” quoth the latter in a tone suggesting that it
+explained everything to him. “T'is gif a differen' colour to your
+story, Sare Rowlan'.” Then he added in a chuckle, “Ho, ho--l'amour!” and
+laughed outright.
+
+Blake, gathering together his wits and his limbs at the same time, made
+shift to rise.
+
+“What a plague does their relationship matter?” he began. He would have
+added more, but the Frenchman thought this question one that needed
+answering.
+
+“Parbleu!” he swore, his amusement rising. “It seem to matter
+somet'ing.”
+
+“Damn me!” swore Blake, red in the face from pale that he had been. “Do
+you conceive that if I had run away with his wife for her own sake I
+had fetched her to you?” He lurched forward as he spoke, but kept his
+distance from Wilding, who stood between Ruth and him.
+
+Feversham bowed sardonically. “You are a such flatterer, Sare Rowlan',”
+ said he, laughter bubbling in his words.
+
+Blake looked his scorn of this trivial Frenchman, who, upon scenting
+what appeared to be the comedy of an outraged husband overtaking the
+man who had carried off his wife, forgot the serious business, a part
+of which Sir Rowland had already imparted to him. Captain Wentworth--a
+time-serving gentleman--smiled with this French general of a British
+army that he might win the great man's favour.
+
+“I have told your lordship,” said Blake, froth on his lips, “that
+the twenty men I had from you, as well as Ensign Norris, are dead in
+Bridgwater, and that my plan to carry off King Monmouth has come to
+ruin, all because we were betrayed by this woman. It is now my further
+privilege to point out to your lordship the man to whom she sold us.”
+
+Feversham misliked Sir Rowland's arrogant tone, misliked his angry,
+scornful glance. His eyes narrowed, the laughter faded slowly from his
+face.
+
+“Yes, yes, I remember,” said he; “t'is lady, you have tole us, betray
+you. Ver' well. But you have not tole us who betray you to t'is lady.”
+ And he looked inquiringly at Blake.
+
+The baronet's jaw dropped; his face lost some of its high colour. He
+was stunned by the question as the bird is stunned that flies headlong
+against a pane of glass. He had crashed into an obstruction so
+transparent that he had not seen it.
+
+“So!” said Feversham, and he stroked the cleft of his chin. “Captain
+Wentwort', be so kind as to call t'e guard.”
+
+Wentworth moved to obey, but before he had gone round the table, Blake
+had looked behind him and espied Richard shrinking by the door.
+
+“By heaven!” he cried, “I can more than answer your lordship's
+question.”
+
+Wentworth stopped, looking at Feversham.
+
+“Voyons,” said the General.
+
+“I can place you in possession of the man who has wrought our ruin. He
+is there,” and he pointed theatrically to Richard.
+
+Feversham looked at the limp figure in some bewilderment. Indeed, he was
+having a most bewildering evening--or morning, rather, for it was even
+then on the stroke of one o'clock. “An' who are you, sare?” he asked.
+
+Richard came forward, nerving himself for what was to follow. It had
+just occurred to him that he held a card which should trump any trick of
+Sir Rowland's vindictiveness, and the prospect heartened and comforted
+him.
+
+“I am this lady's brother, my lord,” he answered, and his voice was
+fairly steady.
+
+“Tiens!” said Feversham, and, smiling, he turned to Wentworth.
+
+“Quite a family party, sir,” said the captain, smiling back.
+
+“Oh! mais tout--fait,” said the General, laughing outright, and then
+Wilding created a diversion by leading Ruth to a chair that stood at the
+far end of the table, and drawing it forward for her. “Ah, yes,” said
+Feversham airily, “let Madame sit.”
+
+“You are very good, sir,” said Ruth, her voice brave and calm.
+
+“But somewhat lacking in spontaneity,” Wilding criticized, which set
+Wentworth staring and the Frenchman scowling.
+
+“Shall I call the guard, my lord?” asked Wentworth crisply.
+
+“I t'ink yes,” said Feversham, and the captain gained the door, and
+spoke a word to one of the soldiers without.
+
+“But, my lord,” exclaimed Blake in a tone of protest, “I vow you are too
+ready to take this fellow's word.”
+
+“He 'as spoke so few,” said Feversham.
+
+“Do you know who he is?”
+
+“You 'af 'eard 'im say--t'e lady's 'usband.”
+
+“Aye--but his name,” cried Blake, quivering with anger. “Do you know
+that it is Wilding?”
+
+The name certainly made an impression that might have flattered the man
+to whom it belonged. Feversham's whole manner changed; the trivial air
+of persiflage that he had adopted hitherto was gone on the instant, and
+his brow grew dark.
+
+“T'at true?” he asked sharply. “Are you Mistaire Wildin'--Mistaire
+Antoine Wildin'?”
+
+“Your lordship's most devoted servant,” said Wilding suavely, and made a
+leg.
+
+Wentworth in the background paused in the act of reclosing the door to
+stare at this gentleman whose name Albemarle had rendered so excellently
+well known.
+
+“And you to dare come 'ere?” thundered Feversham, thoroughly roused
+by the other's airy indifference. “You to dare come 'ere--into my ver'
+presence?”
+
+Mr. Wilding smiled conciliatingly. “I came for my wife, my lord,” he
+reminded him. “It grieves me to intrude upon your lordship at so late an
+hour, and indeed it was far from my intent. I had hoped to overtake Sir
+Rowland before he reached you.”
+
+“Nom de Dieu!” swore Feversham. “Ho! A so great effrontery!” He swung
+round upon Blake again. “Sare Rowlan',” he bade him angrily, “be so kind
+to tell me what 'appen in Breechwater--everyt'ing!”
+
+Blake, his face purple, seemed to struggle for breath and words. Mr.
+Wilding answered for him.
+
+“Sir Rowland is so choleric, my lord,” he said in his pleasant, level
+voice, “that perhaps the tale would come more intelligibly from
+me. Believe me that he has served you to the best of his ability.
+Unfortunately for the success of your choice plan of murder, I had news
+of it at the eleventh hour, and with a party of musketeers I was able
+to surprise and destroy your cut-throats in Mr. Newlington's garden.
+You see, my lord, I was to have been one of the victims myself, and I
+resented the attentions that were intended me. I had no knowledge that
+Sir Rowland had contrived to escape, and, frankly, it is a thing I
+deplore more than I can say, for had that not happened much trouble
+might have been saved and your lordship's rest had not been disturbed.”
+
+“But t'e woman?” cried Feversham impatiently. “How is she come into this
+galare?”
+
+“It was she who warned him,” Blake got out, “as already I have had the
+honour to inform your lordship.”
+
+“And your lordship cannot blame her for that,” said Wilding. “The lady
+is a most loyal subject of King James; but she is also, as you observe,
+a dutiful wife. I will add that it was her intention to warn me only
+when too late for interference. Sir Rowland, as it happened, was slow
+in...”
+
+“Silence!” blazed the Frenchman. “Now t'at I know who you are, t'at make
+a so great difference. Where is t'e guard, Wentwort'?”
+
+“I hear them,” answered the captain, and from the street came the tramp
+of their marching feet.
+
+Feversham turned again to Blake. “T'e affaire 'as 'appen' so,” he
+said, between question and assertion, summing up the situation as he
+understood it. “T'is rogue,” and he pointed to Richard, “'ave betray
+your plan to 'is sister, who betray it to 'er 'usband, who save t'e Duc
+de Monmoot'. N'est-ce pas?”
+
+“That is so,” said Blake, and Ruth scarcely thought it worth while to
+add that she had heard of the plot not only from her brother, but from
+Blake as well. After all, Blake's attitude in the matter, his action in
+bringing her to Feversham for punishment, and to exculpate himself, must
+suffice to cause any such statement of hers to be lightly received by
+the General.
+
+She sat in an anguished silence, her eyes wide, her face pale, and
+waited for the end of this strange business. In her heart she did permit
+herself to think that it would be difficult to assemble a group of
+men less worthy of respect. Choleric and vindictive Blake, foolish
+Feversham, stupid Wentworth, and timid Richard--even Richard did
+not escape the unfavourable criticism they were undergoing in her
+subconscious mind. Only Wilding detached in that assembly--as he had
+detached in another that she remembered--and stood out in sharp relief a
+very man, calm, intrepid, self-possessed; and if she was afraid, she was
+more afraid for him than for herself. This was something that, perhaps,
+she scarcely realized just then; but she was to realize it soon.
+
+Feversham was speaking again, asking Blake a fresh question. “And who
+betray you to t'is rogue?”
+
+“To Westmacott?” cried Blake. “He was in the plot with me. He was left
+to guard the rear, to see that we were not taken by surprise, and he
+deserted his post. Had he not done that, there had been no disaster, in
+spite of Mr. Wilding's intervention.”
+
+Feversham's brow was dark, his eyes glittered as they rested on the
+traitor.
+
+“T'at true, sare?” he asked him.
+
+“Not quite,” put in Mr. Wilding. “Mr. Westmacott, I think, was
+constrained away. He did not intend...”
+
+“Tais-toi!” blazed Feversham. “Did I interrogate you? It is for Mistaire
+Westercott to answer.” He set a hand on the table and leaned forward
+towards Wilding, his face very malign. “You shall to answer for
+yourself, Mistaire Wildin'; I promise you you shall to answer for
+yourself.” He turned again to Richard. “Eh, bien?” he snapped. “Will you
+speak?”
+
+Richard came forward a step; he was certainly nervous, and certainly
+pale; but neither as pale nor as nervous as from our knowledge of
+Richard we might have looked to see him at that moment.
+
+“It is in a measure true,” he said. “But what Mr. Wilding has said is
+more exact. I was induced away. I did not dream any could know of the
+plan, or that my absence could cause this catastrophe.”
+
+“So you went, eh, vaurien? You t'ought t'at be to do your duty, eh? And
+it was you who tole your sistaire?”
+
+“I may have told her, but not before she had the tale already from
+Blake.”
+
+Feversham sneered and shrugged. “Natural you will not speak true. A
+traitor I 'ave observe' is always liar.”
+
+Richard drew himself up; he seemed invested almost with a new dignity.
+“Your lordship is pleased to account me a traitor?” he inquired.
+
+“A dam' traitor,” said his lordship, and at that moment the door opened,
+and a sergeant, with six men following him, stood at the salute upon the
+threshold. “A la bonne heure!” his lordship hailed them. “Sergean', you
+will arrest t'is rogue and t'is lady,”--he waved his hand from Richard
+to Ruth--“and you will take t'em to lock..up.”
+
+The sergeant advanced towards Richard, who drew a step away from him.
+Ruth rose to her feet in agitation. Mr. Wilding interposed himself
+between her and the guard, his hand upon his sword.
+
+“My lord,” he cried, “do they teach no better courtesy in France?”
+
+Feversham scowled at him, smiling darkly. “I shall talk wit' you soon,
+sare,” said he, his words a threat.
+
+“But, my lord...” began Richard. “I can make it very plain I am no
+traitor...”
+
+“In t'e mornin',” said Feversham blandly, waving his hand, and the
+sergeant took Richard by the shoulder.
+
+But Richard twisted from his grasp. “In the morning will be too late,”
+ he cried. “I have it in my power to render you such a service as you
+little dream of.”
+
+“Take 'im away,” said Feversham wearily.
+
+“I can save you from destruction,” bawled Richard, “you and your army.”
+
+Perhaps even now Feversham had not heeded him but for Wilding's sudden
+interference.
+
+“Silence, Richard!” he cried to him. “Would you betray...?” He checked
+on the word; more he dared not say; but he hoped faintly that he had
+said enough.
+
+Feversham, however, chanced to observe that this man who had shown
+himself hitherto so calm looked suddenly most singularly perturbed.
+
+“Eh?” quoth the General. “An instan', Sergean'. What is t'is, eh?”--and
+he looked from Wilding to Richard.
+
+“Your lordship shall learn at a price,” cried Richard.
+
+“Me, I not bargain wit' traitors,” said his lordship stiffly.
+
+“Very well, then,” answered Richard, and he folded his arms
+dramatically. “But no matter what your lordship's life may be hereafter,
+you will never regret anything more bitterly than you shall regret this
+by sunrise if indeed you live to see it.”
+
+Feversham shifted uneasily on his feet. “'What you say?” he asked. “What
+you mean?”
+
+“You shall know at a price,” said Richard again.
+
+Wilding, realizing the hopelessness of interfering now, stood gloomily
+apart, a great bitterness in his soul at the indiscretion he had
+committed in telling Richard of the night attack that was afoot.
+
+“Your lordship shall hear my price, but you need not pay it me until you
+have had an opportunity of verifying the information I have to give you.
+
+“Tell me,” said Feversham after a brief pause, during which he
+scrutinized the young man's face.
+
+“If your lordship will promise liberty and safe-conduct to my sister and
+myself.”
+
+“Tell me,” Feversham repeated.
+
+“When you have promised to grant me what I ask in return for my
+information.”
+
+“Yes, if I t'ink your information is wort'”
+
+“I am content,” said Richard. He inclined his head and loosed the
+quarrel of his news. “Your camp is slumbering, your officers are all
+abed with the exception of the outpost on the road to Bridgwater. What
+should you say if I told you that Monmouth and all his army are marching
+upon you at this very moment, will probably fall upon you before another
+hour is past?”
+
+Wilding uttered a groan, and his hands fell to his sides. Had Feversham
+observed this he might have been less ready with his sneering answer.
+
+“A lie!” he answered, and laughed. “My fren', I 'ave myself been
+to-night, at midnight, on t'e moore, and I 'ave 'eard t'e army of t'e
+Duc de Monmoot' marching to Bristol on t'e road--what you call t'e road,
+Wentwort'?”
+
+“The Eastern Causeway, my lord,” answered the captain.
+
+“Voil!” said Feversham, and spread his hands. “What you say now, eh?”
+
+“That that is part of Monmouth's plan to come at you across the moors,
+by way of Chedzoy, avoiding your only outpost, and falling upon you in
+your beds, all unawares. Lord! sir, do not take my word for it. Send out
+your scouts, and I dare swear they'll not need go far before they come
+upon the enemy.”
+
+Feversham looked at Wentworth. His lordship's face had undergone a
+change.
+
+“What you t'ink?” he asked.
+
+“Indeed, my lord, it sounds so likely,” answered Wentworth, “that...
+that... I marvel we did not provide against such a contingency.”
+
+“But I 'ave provide'!” cried this nephew of the great Turenne.
+“Ogelt'orpe is on t'e moor and Sare Francis Compton. If t'is is true,
+'ow can t'ey 'ave miss Monmoot'? Send word to Milor' Churchill at once,
+Wentwort'. Let t'e matter be investigate'--at once, Wentwort'--at once!”
+ The General was dancing with excitement. Wentworth saluted and turned to
+leave the room. “If you 'ave tole me true,” continued Feversham, turning
+now to Richard, “you shall 'ave t'e price you ask, and t'e t'anks of t'e
+King's army. But if not...”
+
+“Oh, it's true enough,” broke in Wilding, and his voice was like a
+groan, his face over-charged with gloom.
+
+Feversham looked at him; his sneering smile returned.
+
+“Me, I not remember,” said he, “that Mr. Westercott 'ave include you in
+t'e bargain.”
+
+Nothing had been further from Wilding's thoughts than such a suggestion.
+And he snorted his disdain. The sergeant had fallen back at Feversham's
+words, and his men lined the wall of the chamber. The General bade
+Richard be seated whilst he waited. Sir Rowland stood apart, leaning
+wearily against the wainscot, waiting also, his dull wits not quite
+clear how Richard might have come by so valuable a piece of information,
+his evil spirit almost wishing it untrue, in his vindictiveness, to the
+end that Richard might pay the price of having played him false and Ruth
+the price of having scorned him.
+
+Feversham meanwhile was seeking--with no great success--to engage
+Mr. Wilding in talk of Monmouth, against whom Feversham harboured in
+addition to his political enmity a very deadly personal hatred; for
+Feversham had been a suitor to the hand of the Lady Henrietta Wentworth,
+the woman for whom Monmouth--worthy son of his father--had practically
+abandoned his own wife; the woman with whom he had run off, to the great
+scandal of court and nation.
+
+Despairing of drawing any useful information from Wilding, his lordship
+was on the point of turning to Blake, when quick steps and the rattle of
+a scabbard sounded without; the door was thrust open without ceremony,
+and Captain Wentworth reappeared.
+
+“My lord,” he cried, his manner excited beyond aught one could have
+believed possible in so phlegmatic-seeming a person, “it is true. We are
+beset.”
+
+“Beset!” echoed Feversham. “Beset already?”
+
+“We can hear them moving on the moor. They are crossing the Langmoor
+Rhine. They will be upon us in ten minutes at the most. I have roused
+Colonel Douglas, and Dunbarton's regiment is ready for them.”
+
+Feversham exploded. “What else 'ave you done?” he asked. “Where is
+Milor' Churchill?”
+
+“Lord Churchill is mustering his men as quietly as may be that they may
+be ready to surprise those who come to surprise us. By Heaven, sir, we
+owe a great debt to Mr. Westmacott. Without his information we might
+have had all our throats cut whilst we slept.”
+
+“Be so kind to call Belmont,” said Feversham. “Tell him to bring my
+clot'es.”
+
+Wentworth turned and went out again to execute the General's orders.
+Feversham spoke to Richard. “We are oblige', Mr. Westercott,” said he.
+“We are ver' much oblige'.”
+
+Suddenly from a little distance came the roll of drums. Other sounds
+began to stir in the night outside to tell of a waking army.
+
+Feversham stood listening. “It is Dunbarton's,” he murmured. Then, with
+some show of heat, “Ah, pardieu!” he cried. “But it was a dirty t'ing
+t'is Monmoot' 'ave prepare'. It is murder; it is not t'e war.
+
+“And yet,” said Wilding critically, “it is a little more like war than
+the Bridgwater affair to which your lordship gave your sanction.”
+
+Feversham pursed his lips and considered the speaker. Wentworth
+reentered, followed by the Earl's valet carrying an armful of garments.
+His lordship threw off his dressing-gown and stood forth in shirt and
+breeches.
+
+“Mais duche-toi, donc, Belmont!” said he. “Nous nous battons! Ii faut
+que je m'habille.” Belmont, a little wizened fellow who understood
+nothing of this topsy-turveydom, hastened forward, deposited his armful
+on the table, and selected a finely embroidered waistcoat, which he
+proceeded to hold for his master. Wriggling into it, Feversham rapped
+out his orders.
+
+“Captain Wentwort', you will go to your regimen at once. But first,
+ah--wait. Take t'ose six men and Mistaire Wilding. 'Ave 'im shot at
+once; you onderstan', eh? Good. Allons, Belmont! my cravat.”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII. THE EXECUTION
+
+Captain Wentworth clicked his heels together and saluted. Blake, in the
+background, drew a deep breath--unmistakably of satisfaction, and his
+eyes glittered. A muffled cry broke from Ruth, who rose instantly from
+her chair, her hand on her bosom. Richard stood with fallen jaw, amazed,
+a trifle troubled even, whilst Mr. Wilding started more in surprise than
+actual fear, and approached the table.
+
+“You heard, sir,” said Captain Wentworth.
+
+“I heard,” answered Mr. Wilding quietly. “But surely not aright. One
+moment, sir,” and he waved his hand so compellingly that, despite the
+order he had received, the phlegmatic captain hesitated.
+
+Feversham, who had taken the cravat--a yard of priceless Dutch
+lace--from the hands of his valet, and was standing with his back to the
+company at a small and very faulty mirror that hung by the overmantel,
+looked peevishly over his shoulder.
+
+“My lord,” said Wilding, and Blake, for all his hatred of this man,
+marvelled at a composure that did not forsake him even now, “you are
+surely not proposing to deal with me in this fashion--not seriously, my
+lord?”
+
+“Ah, ca!” said the Frenchman. “T'ink it a jest if you please. What for
+you come 'ere?”
+
+“Assuredly not for the purpose of being shot,” said Wilding, and
+actually smiled. Then, in the tones of one discussing a matter that is
+grave but not of surpassing gravity, he continued: “It is not that I
+fail to recognize that I may seem to have incurred the rigour of the
+law; but these matters must be formally proved against me. I have
+affairs to set in order against such a consummation.”
+
+“Ta, ta!” snapped Feversham. “T'at not regard me Weutwort', you 'ave
+'eard my order.” And he returned to his mirror and the nice adjustment
+of his neckwear.
+
+“But, my lord,” insisted Wilding, “you have not the right--you have not
+the power so to proceed against me. A man of my quality is not to be
+shot without a trial.”
+
+“You can 'ang if you prefer,” said Feversham indifferently, drawing out
+the ends of his cravat and smoothing them down upon his breast. He faced
+about briskly. “Give me t'at coat, Belmont. His Majesty 'ave empower me
+to 'ang or shoot any gentlemens of t'e partie of t'e Duc t'e Monmoot' on
+t'e spot. I say t'at for your satisfaction. And look, I am desolate' to
+be so quick wit' you, but please to consider t'e circumstance. T'e enemy
+go to attack. Wentwort' must go to his regimen', and my ot'er
+officers are all occupi'. You comprehen' I 'ave not t'e time to spare
+you--n'est-ce-pas?”--Wentworth's hand touched Wilding on the shoulder.
+He was standing with head slightly bowed, his brows knit in thought. He
+looked round at the touch, sighed and smiled.
+
+Belmont held the coat for his master, who slipped into it, and flung
+at Wilding what was intended for a consolatory sop. “It is fortune de
+guerre, Mistaire Wilding. I am desolate'; but it is fortune of t'e war.”
+
+“May it be less fortunate for your lordship, then,” said Wilding dryly,
+and was on the point of turning, when Ruth's voice came in a loud cry to
+startle him and to quicken his pulses.
+
+“My lord!” It was a cry of utter anguish.
+
+Feversham, settling his gold-laced coat comfortably to his figure,
+looked at her. “Madame?” said he.
+
+But she had nothing to say. She stood, deathly white, slightly bent
+forward, one hand wringing the other, her eyes almost wild, her bosom
+heaving frantically.
+
+“Hum!” said Feversham, and he loosened and removed the scarf from his
+head. He shrugged slightly and looked at Wentworth. “Finissons!” said
+he.
+
+The word and the look snapped the trammels that bound Ruth's speech.
+
+“Five minutes, my lord!” she cried imploringly. “Give him five
+minutes--and me, my lord!”
+
+Wilding, deeply shaken, trembled now as he awaited Feversham's reply.
+
+The Frenchman seemed to waver. “Bien,” he began, spreading his hands.
+And in that moment a shot rang out in the night and startled the whole
+company. Feversham threw back his head; the signs of yielding left his
+face. “Ha!” he cried. “T'ey are arrive.” He snatched his wig from his
+lacquey's hands, donned it, and turned again an instant to the mirror
+to adjust the great curls. “Quick, Wentwort'! T'ere is no more time now.
+Make Mistaire Wilding be shot at once. T'en to your regimen'.” He faced
+about and took the sword his valet proffered. “Au revoir, messieurs!”
+
+“Serviteur, madame!” And, buckling his sword-belt as he went, he swept
+out, leaving the door wide open, Belmont following, Wentworth saluting
+and the guards presenting arms.
+
+“Come, sir,” said the captain in a subdued voice, his eyes avoiding
+Ruth's face.
+
+“I am ready,” answered Wilding firmly, and he turned to glance at his
+wife.
+
+She was bending towards him, her hands held out, such a look on her face
+as almost drove him mad with despair, reading it as he did. He made a
+sound deep in his throat before he found words.
+
+“Give me one minute, sir--one minute,” he begged Wentworth. “I ask no
+more than that.”
+
+Wentworth was a gentleman and not ill-natured. But he was a soldier and
+had received his orders. He hesitated between the instincts of the
+two conditions. And what time he did so there came a clatter of hoofs
+without to resolve him. It was Feversham departing.
+
+“You shall have your minute, sir,” said he. “More I dare not give you,
+as you can see.
+
+“From my heart I thank you,” answered Mr. Wilding, and from the
+gratitude of his tone you might have inferred that it was his life
+Wentworth had accorded him.
+
+The captain had already turned aside to address his men. “Two of you
+outside, guard that window,” he ordered. “The rest of you, in the
+passage. Bestir there!”
+
+“Take your precautions, by all means, sir,” said Wilding; “but I give
+you my word of honour I shall attempt no escape.”
+
+Wentworth nodded without replying. His eye lighted on Blake--who had
+been seemingly forgotten in the confusion--and on Richard. A kindliness
+for the man who met his end so unflinchingly, a respect for so worthy an
+enemy, actuated the red-faced captain.
+
+“You had better take yourself off, Sir Rowland,” said he. “And you, Mr.
+Westmacott--you can wait in the passage with my men.”
+
+They obeyed him promptly enough, but when outside Sir Rowland made
+bold to remind the captain that he was failing in his duty, and that
+he should make a point of informing the General of this anon. Wentworth
+bade him go to the devil, and so was rid of him.
+
+Alone, inside that low-ceilinged chamber, stood Ruth and Wilding face
+to face. He advanced towards her, and with a shuddering sob she flung
+herself into his arms. Still, he mistrusted the emotion to which she
+was a prey--dreading lest it should have its root in pity. He patted her
+shoulder soothingly.
+
+“Nay, nay, little child,” he whispered in her ear. “Never weep for
+me that have not a tear for myself. What better resolution of the
+difficulties my folly has created?” For only answer she clung closer,
+her hands locked about his neck, her slender body shaken by her silent
+weeping. “Don't pity me,” he besought her. “I am content it should be
+so. It is the amend I promised you. Waste no pity on me, Ruth.”
+
+She raised her face, her eyes wild and blurred with tears, looked up to
+his.
+
+“It is not pity!” she cried. “I want you, Anthony! I love you, Anthony,
+Anthony!”
+
+His face grew ashen. “It is true, then!” he asked her. “And what you
+said to-night was true! I thought you said it only to detain me.”
+
+“Oh, it is true, it is true!” she wailed.
+
+He sighed; he disengaged a hand to stroke her face. “I am happy,” he
+said, and strove to smile. “Had I lived, who knows...?”
+
+“No, no, no,” she interrupted him passionately, her arms tightening
+about his neck. He bent his head. Their lips met and clung. A knock
+fell upon the door. They started, and Wilding raised his hands gently to
+disengage her pinioning arms.
+
+“I must go, sweet,” he said.
+
+“God help me!” she moaned, and clung to him still. “It is I who am
+killing you--I and your love for me. For it was to save me you rode
+hither to-night, never pausing to weigh your own deadly danger. Oh, I
+am punished for having listened to every voice but the voice of my own
+heart where you were concerned. Had I loved you earlier--had I owned it
+earlier...”
+
+“It had still been too late,” he said, more to comfort her than because
+he knew it to be so. “Be brave for my sake, Ruth. You can be brave, I
+know--so well. Listen, sweet. Your words have made me happy. Mar not
+this happiness of mine by sending me out in grief at your grief.”
+
+Her response to his prayer was brave, indeed. Through her tears came a
+faint smile to overspread her face so white and pitiful.
+
+“We shall meet soon again,” she said.
+
+“Aye--think on that,” he bade her, and pressed her to him. “Good-bye,
+sweet! God keep you till we meet!” he added, his voice infinitely
+tender.
+
+“Mr. Wilding!” Wentworth's voice called him, and the captain thrust the
+door open a foot or so. “Mr. Wilding!”
+
+“I am coming,” he answered steadily. He kissed her again, and on that
+kiss of his she sank against him, and he felt her turn all limp. He
+raised his voice. “Richard!” he shouted wildly. “Richard!”
+
+At the note of alarm in his voice, Wentworth flung wide the door
+and entered, Richard's ashen face showing over his shoulder. In her
+brother's care Wilding delivered his mercifully unconscious wife. “See
+to her, Dick,” he said, and turned to go, mistrusting himself now.
+But he paused as he reached the door, Wentworth waxing more and more
+impatient at his elbow. He turned again.
+
+“Dick,” he said, “we might have been better friends. I would we had
+been. Let us part so at least,” and he held out his hand, smiling.
+
+Before so much gallantry Richard was conquered almost to the point of
+worship; a weak man himself, there was no virtue he could more admire
+than strength. He left Ruth in the high-backed chair in which Wilding's
+tender hands had placed her, and sprang forward, tears in his eyes. He
+wrung Wilding's hands in wordless passion.
+
+“Be good to her, Dick,” said Wilding, and went out with Wentworth.
+
+He was marched down the street in the centre of that small party of
+musketeers of Dunbarton's regiment, his thoughts all behind him rather
+than ahead, a smile on his lips. He had conquered at the last. He
+thought of that other parting of theirs, nearly a month ago, on the road
+by Walford. Now, as then, circumstance was the fire that had melted her.
+But the crucible was no longer--as then of pity; it was the crucible of
+love.
+
+And in that same crucible, too, Anthony Wilding's nature had undergone a
+transmutation; his love for Ruth had been purified of that base alloy of
+desire which had driven him into the unworthiness of making her his own
+at all costs; there was no carnal grossness in his present passion; it
+was pure as a religion--the love that takes no account of self, the love
+that makes for joyous and grateful martyrdom. And a joyous and grateful
+martyr would Anthony Wilding have been could he have thought that his
+death would bring her happiness or peace. In such a faith as that he had
+marched--or so he thought blithely to his end, and the smile on his lips
+had been less wistful than it was. Thinking of the agony in which he had
+left her, he almost came to wish--so pure was his love grown--that he
+had not conquered. The joy that at first was his was now all dashed. His
+death would cause her pain. His death! O God! It is an easy thing to be
+a martyr; but this was not martyrdom; having done what he had done he
+had not the right to die. The last vestige of the smile that he had worn
+faded from his tight-pressed lips, tight-pressed as though to endure
+some physical suffering. His face greyed, and deep lines furrowed
+his brow. Thus he marched on, mechanically, amid his marching escort,
+through the murky, fog-laden night, taking no heed of the stir about
+them, for all Weston Zoyland was aroused by now.
+
+Ahead of them, and over to the east, the firing blazed and crackled,
+volley upon volley, to tell them that already battle had been joined
+in earnest. Monmouth's surprise had aborted, and it passed through
+Wilding's mind that to a great extent he was to blame for this. But it
+gave him little care.
+
+At least his indiscretion had served the purpose of rescuing Ruth from
+Lord Feversham's unclean clutches. For the rest, knowing that Monmouth's
+army by far outnumbered Feversham's, he had no doubt that the advantage
+must still lie with the Duke, in spite of Feversham's having been warned
+in the eleventh hour.
+
+Louder grew the sounds of battle. Above the din of firing a swelling
+chorus rose upon the night, startling and weird in such a time and
+place. Monmouth's pious infantry went into action singing hymns, and
+Wentworth, impatient to be at his post, bade his men go faster.
+
+The night was by now growing faintly luminous, and the deathly grey
+light of approaching dawn hung in the mists upon the moor. Objects grew
+visible in bulk at least, if not in form and shape, by the time the
+little company had reached the end of Weston village and come upon
+the deep mud dyke which had been Wentworth's objective--a ditch that
+communicated with the great rhine that served the King's forces so well
+on that night of Sedgemoor.
+
+Within some twenty paces of this Wentworth called a halt, and would have
+had Wilding's hands pinioned behind him, and his eyes blindfolded, but
+that Wilding begged him this might not be done. Wentworth was, as we
+know, impatient; and between impatience and kindliness, perhaps, he
+acceded to Wilding's prayer.
+
+He even hesitated a moment at the last. It was in his mind to speak some
+word of comfort to the doomed man. Then a sudden volley, more terrific
+than any that had preceded it, followed by hoarse cheering away to
+eastward, quickened his impatience. He bade the sergeant lead Mr.
+Wilding forward and stand him on the edge of the ditch. His object was
+that thus the man's body would be disposed of without waste of time.
+This Wilding realized, his soul rebelling against this fate which
+had come upon him in the very hour when he most desired to live. Mad
+thoughts of escape crossed his mind--of a leap across the dyke, and a
+wild dash through the fog. But the futility of it was too appalling.
+The musketeers were already blowing their matches. He would suffer the
+ignominy of being shot in the back, like a coward, if he made any such
+attempt.
+
+And so, despairing but not resigned, he took his stand on the very edge
+of the ditch. In an irony of obligingness he set half of his heels over
+the void, so that he was nicely balanced upon the edge of the cutting,
+and must go backwards and down into the mud when hit.
+
+It was this position he had taken that gave him an inspiration in that
+last moment. The sergeant had moved away out of the line of fire, and he
+stood there alone, waiting, erect and with his head held high, his
+eyes upon the grey mass of musketeers--blurred alike by mist and
+semi-darkness--some twenty paces distant along the line of which glowed
+eight red fuses.
+
+Wentworth's voice rang out with the words of command.
+
+“Blow your matches!”
+
+Brighter gleamed the points of light, and under their steel pots the
+faces of the musketeers, suffused by a dull red glow, sprang for a
+moment out of the grey mass, to fade once more into the general greyness
+at the word, “Cock your matches!”
+
+“Guard your pans!” came a second later the captain's voice, and then:
+
+“Present!”
+
+There was a stir and rattle, and the dark, indistinct figure standing
+on the lip of the ditch was covered by the eight muskets. To the eyes of
+the firing-party he was no more than a blurred shadowy form, showing a
+little darker than the encompassing dark grey.
+
+“Give fire!”
+
+On the word Mr. Wilding lost the delicate, precarious balance he had
+been sustaining on the edge of the ditch, and went over backwards, at
+the imminent risk--as he afterwards related--of breaking his neck.
+At the same instant a jagged, eight-pointed line of flame slashed the
+darkness, and the thunder of the volley pealed forth to lose itself in
+the greater din of battle on Penzoy Pound, hard by.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII. MR. WILDING'S BOOTS
+
+In the filth of the ditch, Mr. Wilding rolled over and lay prone. He
+threw out his left arm, and rested his brow upon it to keep his face
+above the mud. He strove to hold his breath, not that he might dissemble
+death, but that he might avoid being poisoned by the foul gases that,
+disturbed by his weight, bubbled up to choke him. His body half sank
+and settled in the mud, and seen from above, as he was presently seen
+by Wentworth--who ran forward with the sergeant's lanthorn to assure
+himself that the work had been well done--he had all the air of being
+not only dead but already half buried.
+
+And now, for a second, Mr. Wilding was in his greatest danger, and this
+from the very humaneness of the sergeant. The fellow advanced to the
+captain's side, a pistol in his hand. Wentworth held the light aloft and
+peered down into that six feet of blackness at the jacent figure.
+
+“Shall I give him an ounce of lead to make sure, Captain?” quoth the
+sergeant. But Wentworth, in his great haste, had already turned about,
+and the light of his lanthorn no longer revealed the form of Mr.
+Wilding.
+
+“There is not the need. The ditch will do what may remain to be done, if
+anything does. Come on, man. We are wanted yonder.”
+
+The light passed, steps retreated, the sergeant muttering, and then
+Wentworth's voice was heard by Wilding some little distance off.
+
+“Bring up your muskets!”
+
+“Shoulder!”
+
+“By the right--turn! March!” And the tramp, tramp of feet receded
+rapidly.
+
+Wilding was already sitting up, endeavouring to get a breath of purer
+air. He rose to his feet, sinking almost to the top of his boots in
+the oozy slime. Foul gases were belched up to envelop him. He seized
+at irregularities in the bank, and got his head above the level of the
+ground. He thrust forward his chin and took great greedy breaths in a
+very gluttony of air--and never came Muscadine sweeter to a drunkard's
+lips. He laughed softly to himself. He was alone and safe. Wentworth
+and his men had disappeared. Away in the direction of Penzoy Pound the
+sounds of battle swelled ever to a greater volume. Cannons were booming
+now, and all was uproar--flame and shouting, cheering and shrieking,
+the thunder of hastening multitudes, the clash of steel, the pounding of
+horses, all blent to make up the horrid din of carnage.
+
+Mr. Wilding listened, and considered what to do. His first impulse was
+to join the fray. But, bethinking him that there could be little place
+for him in the confusion that must prevail by now, he reconsidered the
+matter, and his thoughts returning to Ruth--the wife for whom he had
+been at such pains to preserve himself on the very brink of death--he
+resolved to endanger himself no further for that night.
+
+He dropped back into the ditch, and waded, ankle deep in slime, to the
+other side. There he crawled out, and gaining the moor lay down awhile
+to breathe his lungs. But not for long. The dawn was creeping pale and
+ghostly across the solid earth, and a faint fresh breeze was stirring
+and driving the mist in wispy shrouds before it. If he lingered there he
+might yet be found by some party of Royalist soldiers, and that would be
+to undo all that he had done. He rose, and struck out across the peaty
+ground. None knew the moors better than did he, and had he been with
+Grey's horse that night, it is possible things had fared differently,
+for he had proved a surer guide than did Godfrey, the spy.
+
+At first he thought of making for Bridgwater and Lupton House. By now
+Richard would be on his way thither with Ruth, and Wilding was in haste
+that she should be reassured that he had not fallen to the muskets
+of Wentworth's firing-party. But Bridgwater was far, and he began
+to realize, now that all excitement was past, that he was utterly
+exhausted. Next he thought of Scoresby Hall and his cousin Lord Gervase.
+But he was by no means sure that he might count upon a welcome. Gervase
+had shown no sympathy for Monmouth or his partisans, and whilst he would
+hardly go so far as to refuse Mr. Wilding shelter, still Wilding felt an
+aversion to seeking what might be grudged him. At last he bethought him
+of home. Zoyland Chase was near at hand; but he had not been there since
+his wedding-day, and in the mean time he knew that it had been used as
+a barrack for the militia, and had no doubt that it had been wrecked and
+plundered. Still, it must have walls and a roof, and that, for the time,
+was all he craved, that he might rest awhile and recuperate his wasted
+forces.
+
+A half-hour later he dragged himself wearily up the avenue between the
+elms--looking white as snow in the pale July dawn--to the clearing in
+front of his house.
+
+Desertion was stamped upon the face of it. Shattered windows and hanging
+shutters everywhere. How wantonly they had wrecked it! It might have
+been a church, and the militia a regiment of Cromwell's iconoclastic
+Puritans. The door was locked, but going round he found a window--one
+of the door-windows of his library--hanging loose upon its hinges. He
+pushed it wide, and entered with a heavy heart. Instantly something
+stirred in a corner; a fierce growl was followed by a furious bark, and
+a lithe brown body leapt from the greater into the lesser shadows to
+attack the intruder. But at one word of his the hound checked suddenly,
+crouched an instant, then with a queer, throaty sound bounded forward in
+a wild delight that robbed it on the instant of its voice. It found it
+anon and leapt about him, barking furious joy in spite of all his
+vain endeavours to calm it. He grew afraid lest the dog should draw
+attention. He knew not who--if any--might be in possession of his
+house. The library, as he looked round, showed a scene of wreckage that
+excellently matched the exterior. Not a picture on the walls, not an
+arras, but had been rent to shreds. The great lustre that had hung
+from the centre of the ceiling was gone. Disorder reigned along
+the bookshelves, and yet there and elsewhere there was a certain
+orderliness, suggesting an attempt to straighten up the place after
+the ravagers had departed. It was these signs made him afraid the house
+might be tenanted by such as might prove his enemies.
+
+“Down, Jack,” he said to the dog for the twentieth time, patting its
+sleek head. “Down, down!”
+
+But still the dog bounded about him, barking wildly.
+
+“Sh!” he hissed suddenly. Steps sounded in the hall. It was as he
+feared. The door was suddenly thrown open, and the grey morning light
+gleamed upon the long barrel of a musket. After it, bearing it, entered
+a white-haired old man.
+
+He paused on the threshold, measuring the tall disordered stranger who
+stood there, his figure a black silhouette against the window by which
+he had entered.
+
+“What seek you here, sir, in this house of desolation?” asked the voice
+of Mr. Wilding's old servant.
+
+He answered but one word. “Walters!”
+
+The musket dropped with a clatter from the old man's hands. He sank back
+against the doorpost and leaned there an instant; then, whimpering and
+laughing, he came tottering forward--his old legs failing him in this
+excess of unexpected joy--and sank on his knees to kiss his master's
+hand.
+
+Wilding patted the old head, as he had patted the dog's a little while
+ago. He was oddly moved; there was a knot in his throat. No home-coming
+could well have been more desolate. And yet, what home-coming could have
+brought him such a torturing joy as was now his? Oh, it is good to be
+loved, if it be by no more than a dog and an old servant!
+
+In a moment Walters was himself again. He was on his feet, scrutinizing
+Wilding's haggard face and disordered, filthy clothes. He broke into
+exclamations between dismay and reproach, but these Wilding interrupted
+to ask the old man how it happened that he had remained.
+
+“My son John was a sergeant in the troop that quartered itself here,
+sir,” Walters explained, “and so they left me alone. But even had it not
+been for that, I scarcely think they would have harmed an old man. They
+were brave fellows for all the mischief they did here, and they seemed
+to have little heart in the service of the Popish King. It was
+the officers drove them on to all this damage, and once they'd
+started--well, there were rogues amongst them saw a chance of plunder,
+and they took it. I have sought to put the place to rights; but they did
+some woeful, wanton mischief.”
+
+Wilding sighed. “It's little matter, perhaps, as the place is no longer
+mine.
+
+“No... no longer yours, sir?”
+
+“I'm an attainted outlaw, Walters,” he explained. “They'll bestow it on
+some Popish time-server, unless King Monmouth can follow up by greater
+victories to-night's. Have you aught a man may eat or drink?”
+
+Meat and wine, fresh linen and fresh garments did old Walters find him;
+and when he had washed, eaten, and drunk, Mr. Wilding wrapped himself
+in a dressing-gown and laid himself down to sleep on a settle in the
+library, his servant and his dog on guard.
+
+Not above an hour, however, was he destined to enjoy his hard-earned
+rest. The light had grown, meanwhile, and from grey it had turned
+golden, the heralds of the sun being already in the east. In the
+distance the firing had died down to a mere occasional boom.
+
+Suddenly old Walters raised his head to listen. The beat of hoofs was
+drawing rapidly near, so near that presently he rose in alarm, for
+a horseman was pounding up the avenue, had drawn rein at the main
+entrance.
+
+Walters knit his brows in perplexity, and glanced at his master who
+slept on utterly worn out. A silent pause followed, lasting some
+minutes. Then it was the dog that rose with a growl, his coat bristling,
+and an instant later there came a sharp rapping at the hall door.
+
+“Sh! Down, Jack!” whispered Walters, afraid of rousing Mr. Wilding. He
+tiptoed softly across the room, picked up his musket, and, calling the
+dog, went out, a great fear in his heart, but not for himself.
+
+The rapping continued, growing every instant more urgent, so urgent that
+Walters was almost reassured. Here was no enemy, but surely some one
+in need. Walters opened at last, and Mr. Trenchard, grimy of face and
+hands, his hat shorn of its plumes, his clothes torn, staggered with an
+oath across the threshold.
+
+“Walters!” he cried. “Thank God! I thought you'd be here, but I wasn't
+certain. Down, Jack!”
+
+The hound was barking madly again, having recognized an old friend.
+
+“Plague on the dog!” growled Walters. “He'll wake Mr. Wilding.”
+
+“Mr. Wilding?” said Trenchard, and checked midway across the hall. “Mr.
+Wilding?”
+
+“He arrived here a couple of hours ago, sir...”
+
+“Wilding here? Oddsheart! I was more than well advised to come. Where is
+he, man?”
+
+“Sh, sir! He's asleep in the library. You'll wake him, you'll wake him!”
+
+But Trenchard never paused. He crossed the hall at a bound, and flung
+wide the library door. “Anthony!” he shouted. “Anthony!” And in the
+background Walters cursed him for a fool. Wilding leapt to his feet,
+awake and startled.
+
+“Wha... Nick!”
+
+“Oons!” roared Nick. “You're choicely found. I came to send to
+Bridgwater for you. We must away at once, man.”
+
+“How--away? I thought you were in the fight, Nick.”
+
+“And don't I look as if I had been?”
+
+“But then...
+
+“The fight is fought and lost; there's an end to the garboil. Monmouth
+is in full flight with what's left him of his horse. When I quitted the
+field, he was riding hard for Polden Hill.” He dropped into a chair, his
+accents grim and despairing, his eyes haggard.
+
+“Lost?” gasped Wilding, and his conscience pricked him for a moment,
+remembering how much it had been his fault--however indirectly--that
+Feversham had been forewarned. “But how lost?” he cried a moment later.
+
+“Ask Grey,” snapped Trenchard. “Ask his craven, numskulled lordship. He
+had as good a hand in losing it as any. Oh, it was all most infernally
+mishandled, as has been everything in this ill-starred rising. Grey sent
+back Godfrey, the guide, and attempted in the dark to find his own way
+across the rhine. He missed the ford. What else could the fool have
+hoped? And when he was discovered and Dunbarton's guns began to play on
+us--hell and fire! we ran as if Sedgemoor had been a race-course.
+
+“The rest was but the natural sequel. The foot, seeing our confusion,
+broke. They were rallied again; broke again; and again were rallied; but
+all too late. The enemy was up, and with that damned ditch between us
+there was no getting to close quarters with them. Had Grey ridden round,
+and sought to turn their flank, things might have been--O God!--they
+would have been entirely different. I did suggest it. But for my pains
+Grey threatened to pistol me if I presumed to instruct him in his duty.
+I would to Heaven I had pistolled him where he stood.”
+
+Walters, at gaze in the doorway, listened to the bitter tirade. Wilding,
+on the settle, sat silent a moment, his elbows on his knees, his chin
+in his hands, his eyes set and grim as Trenchard's own. Then he mastered
+himself, and waved a hand towards the table where stood food and wine.
+
+“Eat and drink, Nick,” he said, “and we'll discuss what's to be done.”
+
+“It'll need little discussing,” was Nick's savage answer as he rose and
+went to pour himself a cup of wine. “There's but one course open to us
+--instant flight. I am for Minehead to join Hewling's horse, which went
+there yesterday for guns. We might seize a ship somewhere on the coast,
+and thus get out of this infernal country of mine.”
+
+They discussed the matter in spite of Trenchard's having said that there
+was nothing to discuss, and in the end Wilding agreed to go with him.
+What choice had he? But first he must go to Bridgwater to reassure his
+wife.
+
+“To Bridgwater?” blazed Trenchard, in a passion at the folly of the
+suggestion. “You're clearly mad! All the King's forces will be there in
+an hour or two.”
+
+“No matter,” said Wilding, “I must go. I am dead already, as it
+happens.” And he related his singular adventure in Feversham's camp last
+night.
+
+Trenchard heard him in amazement. If any suspicion crossed his mind that
+his friend's love affairs had had anything to do with rousing Feversham
+prematurely, he showed no sign of it. But he shook his head at Wilding's
+insistence that he must first go to Lupton House.
+
+“Shalt send a message, Anthony. Walters will find some one to bear it.
+But you must not go yourself.”
+
+In the end Mr. Trenchard prevailed upon him to adopt this course,
+however reluctant he might be. Thereafter they proceeded to make their
+preparations. There were still a couple of nags in the stables, in spite
+of the visitation of the militia, and Walters was able to find fresh
+clothes for Mr. Trenchard above-stairs.
+
+A half-hour later they were ready to set out on this forlorn hope of
+escape; the horses were at the door, and Mr. Wilding was in the act
+of drawing on the fresh pair of boots which Walters had fetched him.
+Suddenly he paused, his foot in the leg of his right boot, and sat
+bemused a moment.
+
+Trenchard, watching him, waxed impatient. “What ails you now?” he
+croaked.
+
+Without answering him, Wilding turned to Walters. “Where are the boots
+I wore last night?” he asked, and his voice was sharp--oddly sharp,
+considering how trivial the matter of his speech.
+
+“In the kitchen,” answered Walters.
+
+“Fetch me them.” And he kicked off again the boot he had half drawn on.
+
+“But they are all befouled with mud, sir.”
+
+“Clean them, Walters; clean them and let me have them.”
+
+Still Walters hesitated, pointing out that the boots he had brought his
+master were newer and sounder. Wilding interrupted him impatiently. “Do
+as I bid you, Walters.” And the old man, understanding nothing, went off
+on the errand.
+
+“A pox on your boots!” swore Trenchard. “What does this mean?”
+
+Wilding seemed suddenly to have undergone a transformation. His gloom
+had fallen from him. He looked up at his old friend and, smiling,
+answered him. “It means, Nick, that whilst these excellent boots that
+Walters would have me wear might be well enough for a ride to the coast
+such as you propose, they are not at all suited to the journey I intend
+to make.”
+
+“Maybe,” said Nick with a sniff, “you're intending to journey to Tower
+Hill?”
+
+“In that direction,” answered Mr. Wilding suavely.
+
+“I am for London, Nick. And you shall come with me.”
+
+“God save us! Do you keep a fool's egg under that nest of hair?”
+
+Wilding explained, and by the time Walters returned with the boots
+Trenchard was walking up and down the room in an odd agitation. “Odds my
+life, Tony!” he cried at last. “I believe it is the best thing.”
+
+“The only thing, Nick.”
+
+“And since all is lost, why...” Trenchard blew out his cheeks and
+smacked fist into palm. “I am with you,” said he.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV. JUSTICE
+
+It has fallen to my lot in the course of this veridical chronicle of Mr.
+Anthony Wilding's connection with the Rebellion in the West, and of his
+wedding and post-nuptial winning of Ruth Westmacott, to relate certain
+matters of incident and personality that may be accounted strange. But
+the strangest yet remains to be related. For in spite of all that had
+passed between Sir Rowland Blake and the Westmacotts on that memorable
+night of Sunday to Monday, on which the battle of Sedgemoor was lost
+and won, towards the end of that same month of July we find him not only
+back at Lupton House, but once again the avowed suitor of Mr. Wilding's
+widow. For effrontery this is a matter of which it is to be doubted
+whether history furnishes a parallel. Indeed, until the circumstances
+are sifted it seems wild and incredible. So let us consider these.
+
+On the morrow of Sedgemoor, the town of Bridgwater became
+invested--infested were no whit too strong a word--by the King's forces
+under Feversham and the odious Kirke, and there began a reign of terror
+for the town. The prisons were choked with attainted and suspected
+rebels. From Bridgwater to Weston Zoyland the road was become an avenue
+of gallows, each bearing its repulsive grimace-laden burden; for the
+King's commands were unequivocal, and hanging was the order of the day.
+
+It is not my desire at this stage to surfeit you with the horrors that
+were perpetrated during that hideous week of July, when no man's life
+was safe from the royal butchers. The awful campaign of Jeffries and
+his four associates was yet to follow, but it is doubtful if it could
+compare in ruthlessness with that of Feversham and Kirke. At least, when
+Jeffries came, men were given a trial--or what looked like it--and there
+remained them a chance, however slender, of acquittal, as many lived to
+prove thereafter. With Feversham there was no such chance. And it was
+of this circumstance that Sir Rowland Blake took the fullest and the
+cowardliest advantage.
+
+There can be no doubt that Sir Rowland was a villain. It might be
+urged for him that he was a creature of circumstance, and that had
+circumstances been other it is possible he had been a credit to his
+name. But he was weak in character, and out of that weakness he had
+developed a Herculean strength in villainy. Failure had dogged him in
+everything he undertook. Broken at the gaming-tables, hounded out of
+town by creditors, he was in desperate straits to repair his fortunes
+and, as we have seen, he was not nice in his endeavours to achieve that
+end.
+
+Ruth Westmacott's fair inheritance had seemed an easy thing to conquer,
+and to its conquest he had applied himself to suffer defeat as he had
+suffered it in all things else. But Sir Rowland did not yet acknowledge
+himself beaten, and the Bridgwater reign of terror dealt him a fresh
+hand--a hand of trumps. With this he came boldly to renew the game.
+
+He was as smooth as oil at first, a very penitent, confessing himself
+mad in what he had done on that Sunday night--mad with despair and rage
+at having been defeated in the noble task to which he had turned his
+hands. His penitence might have had little effect upon the Westmacotts
+had he not known how to insinuate that it might be best for them to lend
+an ear to it--and a forgiving one.
+
+“You will tell Mr. Westmacott, Jasper,” he had said, when Jasper told
+him that they could not receive him, “that he would be unwise not to see
+me, and the same to Mistress Wilding.”
+
+And old Jasper had carried his message, and had told Richard of the
+wicked smile that had been on Sir Rowland's lips when he had uttered it.
+
+Now Richard was in many ways a changed man since that night at Weston
+Zoyland. A transformation seemed to have been wrought in him as odd as
+it was sudden, and it dated from the moment when with tears in his
+eyes he had wrung Wilding's hand in farewell. Where precept had failed,
+Richard found himself converted by example. He contrasted himself in
+that stressful hour with great-souled Anthony Wilding, and saw himself
+as he was, a weakling, strong only in vicious ways. Repentance claimed
+him; repentance and a fine ambition to be worthier, to resemble as
+nearly as his nature would allow him this Anthony Wilding whom he took
+for pattern. He changed his ways, abandoned drink and gaming, and gained
+thereby a healthier countenance. Then in his zeal he overshot his mark.
+He developed a taste for Scripture-reading, bethought him of prayers,
+and even took to saying grace to his meat. Indeed--for conversion,
+when it comes, is a furious thing--the swing of his soul's pendulum
+threatened now to carry him to extremes of virtue and piety. “O Lord!”
+ he would cry a score of times a day, “Thou hast brought up my soul from
+the grave; Thou hast kept me alive that I should not go down to the
+pit!”
+
+But underlying all this remained unfortunately the inherent weakness of
+his nature--indeed, it was that very weakness and malleability made this
+sudden and wholesale conversion possible.
+
+Upon hearing Sir Rowland's message his heart fainted, despite his good
+intentions, and he urged that perhaps they had better hear what the
+baronet might have to say.
+
+It was three days after Sedgemoor Fight, and poor Ruth was worn and
+exhausted with her grief--believing Wilding dead, for he had sent no
+message to inform her of his almost miraculous preservation. The thing
+he went to do in London was fraught with such peril that he foresaw
+but the slenderest chance of escaping with his life. Therefore, he had
+argued, why console her now with news that he lived, when in a few days
+the headsman might prove that his end had been but postponed? To do so
+might be to give her cause to mourn him twice. Again he was haunted by
+the thought that, in spite of all, it may have been pity that had so
+grievously moved her at their last meeting. Better, then, to wait;
+better for both their sakes. If he came safely through his ordeal it
+would be time enough to bear her news of his preservation.
+
+In deepest mourning, very white, with dark stains beneath her eyes
+to tell the tale of anguished vigils, she received Sir Rowland in the
+withdrawing-room, her brother at her side. To his expressions of
+deep penitence he found them cold; so he passed on to show them what
+disastrous results might ensue upon a stubborn maintaining of this
+attitude of theirs towards him.
+
+“I have come,” he said, his eyes downcast, his face long-drawn, for he
+could play the sorrowful with any hypocrite in England, “to do something
+more than speak of my grief and regret. I have come to offer proof of it
+by service.
+
+“We ask no service of you, sir,” said Ruth, her voice a sword of
+sharpness.
+
+He sighed, and turned to Richard. “This were folly,” he assured his
+whilom friend. “You know the influence I wield.”
+
+“Do I?” quoth Richard, his tone implying doubt.
+
+“You think that the bungled matter at Newlington's may have shaken it?”
+ quoth Blake. “With Feversham, perhaps. But Albemarle, remember, trusts
+me very fully. There are ugly happenings in the town here. Men are being
+hung like linen on a washing-day. Be not too sure that yourself are
+free from all danger.” Richard paled under the baronet's baleful,
+half-sneering glance. “Be not in too great haste to cast me aside, for
+you may find me useful.”
+
+“Do you threaten, sir?” cried Ruth.
+
+“Threaten?” quoth he. He turned up his eyes and showed the whites of
+them. “Is it to threaten to promise you my protection; to show you how I
+can serve you?--than which I ask no sweeter boon of heaven. A word from
+me, and Richard need fear nothing.”
+
+“He need fear nothing without that word,” said Ruth disdainfully. “Such
+service as he did Lord Feversham the other night...”
+
+“Is soon forgotten,” Blake cut in adroitly. “Indeed, 'twill be most
+convenient to his lordship to forget it. Think you he would care to have
+it known that 'twas to such a chance he owes the preservation of his
+army?” He laughed, and added in a voice of much sly meaning, “The times
+are full of peril. There's Kirke and his lambs. And there's no saying
+how Kirke might act did he chance to learn what Richard failed to do
+that night when he was left to guard the rear at Newlington's!”
+
+“Would you inform him of it?” cried Richard, between anger and alarm.
+
+Blake thrust out his hands in a gesture of horrified repudiation.
+“Richard!” he cried in deep reproof and again, “Richard!”
+
+“What other tongue has he to fear?” asked Ruth.
+
+“Am I the only one who knows of it?” cried Blake. “Oh, madam, why will
+you ever do me such injustice? Richard has been my friend--my dearest
+friend. I wish him so to continue, and I swear that he shall find me
+his, as you shall find me yours.”
+
+“It is a boon I could dispense with,” she assured him, and rose. “This
+talk can profit little, Sir Rowland,” said she. “You seek to bargain.”
+
+“You shall see how unjust you are,” he cried with deep sorrow. “It is
+but fitting, perhaps, after what has passed. It is my punishment. But
+you shall come to acknowledge that you have done me wrong. You shall see
+how I shall befriend and protect him.”
+
+That said, he took his leave and went, but he left behind him a shrewd
+seed of fear in Richard's mind, and of the growth that sprang from it
+Richard almost unconsciously transplanted something in the days that
+followed into the heart of Ruth. As a result, to make sure that no harm
+should come to her brother, the last of his name and race, she resolved
+to receive Sir Rowland, resolved in spite of Diana's outspoken scorn, in
+spite of Richard's protests--for though afraid, yet he would not have it
+so--in spite even of her own deep repugnance of the man.
+
+Days passed and grew to weeks. Bridgwater was settling down to peace
+again--to peace and mourning; the Royalist scourge had spread to
+Taunton, and Blake lingered on at Lupton House, an unwelcome but an
+undeniable guest.
+
+His presence was as detestable to Richard now as it was to Ruth, for
+Richard had to submit to the mockery with which the town rake lashed his
+godly bearing and altered ways. More than once in gusts of sudden valour
+the boy urged his sister to permit him to drive the baronet from the
+house and let him do his worst. But Ruth, afraid for Richard, bade him
+wait until the times were more settled. When the royal vengeance had
+slaked its lust for blood it might matter little, perhaps, what tales
+Sir Rowland might elect to carry.
+
+And so Sir Rowland remained and waited. He assured himself that he knew
+how to be patient, and congratulated himself upon that circumstance.
+Wilding dead, a little time must now suffice to blunt the sharp edge of
+his widow's grief; let him but await that time, and the rest should be
+easy, the battle his. With Richard he did not so much as trouble himself
+to reckon.
+
+Thus he determined, and thus no doubt he would have acted but for an
+unforeseen contingency. A miserable, paltry creditor had smoked him out
+in his Somerset retreat, and got a letter to him full of dark hints of
+a debtor's gaol. The fellow's name was Swiney, and Sir Rowland knew him
+for fierce and pertinacious where a defaulting creditor was concerned.
+One only course remained him: to force matters with Wilding's widow. For
+days he refrained, fearing that precipitancy might lose him all; it was
+his wish to do the thing without too much coercion; some, he was not
+coxcomb enough to think--coxcomb though he was--might be dispensed with.
+
+At last one Sunday evening he decided to be done with dallying, and to
+bring Ruth between the hammer and the anvil of his will. It was the
+last Sunday in July, exactly three weeks after Sedgemoor, and the
+odd coincidence of his having chosen such a day and hour you shall
+appreciate anon.
+
+They were on the lawn taking the cool of the evening after an
+oppressively hot day. By the stone seat, now occupied by Lady Horton
+and Diana, Richard lay on the sward at their feet in talk with them,
+and their talk was of Sir Rowland. Diana--gall in her soul to see the
+baronet by way of gaining yet his ends--chid Richard in strong terms for
+his weakness in submitting to Blake's constant presence at Lupton House.
+And Richard meekly took her chiding and promised that, if Ruth would but
+sanction it, things should be changed upon the morrow.
+
+Sir Rowland, all unconscious--reckless, indeed--of this, sauntered with
+Ruth some little distance from them, having contrived adroitly to draw
+her aside. He broke a spell of silence with a dolorous sigh.
+
+“Ruth,” said he pensively, “I mind me of the last evening on which you
+and I walked here alone.”
+
+She flashed him a glance of fear and aversion, and stood still. Under
+his brow he watched the quick heave of her bosom, the sudden flow and
+abiding ebb of blood in her face--grown now so thin and wistful--and he
+realized that before him lay no easy task. He set his teeth for battle.
+
+“Will you never have a kindness for me, Ruth?” he sighed.
+
+She turned about, her intent to join the others, a dull anger in her
+soul. He sat a hand upon her arm. “Wait!” said he, and the tone in
+which he uttered that one word kept her beside him. His manner changed a
+little. “I am tired of this,” said he.
+
+“Why, so am I,” she answered bitterly.
+
+“Since we are agreed so far, let us agree to end it.”
+
+“It is all I ask.”
+
+“Yes, but--alas!--in a different way. Listen now.”
+
+“I will not listen. Let me go.”
+
+“I were your enemy did I do so, for you would know hereafter a sorrow
+and repentance for which nothing short of death could offer you escape.
+Richard is under suspicion.”
+
+“Do you hark back to that?” The scorn of her voice was deadly. Had it
+been herself he desired, surely that tone had quenched all passion in
+him, or else transformed it into hatred. But Blake was playing for a
+fortune, for shelter from a debtor's prison.
+
+“It has become known,” he continued, “that Richard was one of the early
+plotters who paved the way for Monmouth's coming. I think that that, in
+conjunction with his betrayal of his trust that night at Newlington's,
+thereby causing the death of some twenty gallant fellows of King
+James's, will be enough to hang him.”
+
+Her hand clutched at her heart. “What is't you seek?” she cried. It was
+almost a moan. “What is't you want of me?”
+
+“Yourself,” said he. “I love you, Ruth,” he added, and stepped close up
+to her.
+
+“O God!” she cried aloud. “Had I a man at hand to kill you for that
+insult!”
+
+And then--miracle of miracles!--a voice from the shrubs by which they
+stood bore to her ears the startling words that told her her prayer was
+answered there and then.
+
+“Madam, that man is here.”
+
+She stood frozen. Not more of a statue was Lot's wife in the moment of
+looking behind her than she who dared not look behind. That voice! A
+voice from the dead, a voice she had heard for the last time in the
+cottage that was Feversham's lodging at Weston Zoyland. Her wild eyes
+fell upon Sir Rowland's face. It showed livid; the nether-lip sucked
+in and caught in the strong teeth, as if to prevent an outcry; the eyes
+wild with fright. What did it mean? By an effort she wrenched herself
+round at last, and a scream broke from her to rouse her aunt, her
+cousin, and her brother, and bring them hastening towards her across the
+sweep of lawn.
+
+Before her, on the edge of the shrubbery, a grey figure stood erect and
+graceful, and the face, with its thin lips faintly smiling, its dark
+eyes gleaming, was the face of Anthony Wilding. And as she stared he
+moved forward, and she heard the fall of his foot upon the turf, the
+clink of his spurs, the swish of his scabbard against the shrubs, and
+reason told her that this was no ghost.
+
+She held out her arms to him. “Anthony! Anthony!” She staggered forward,
+and he was no more than in time to catch her as she swayed.
+
+He held her fast against him and kissed her brow. “Sweet,” he said,
+“forgive me that I frightened you. I came by the orchard gate, and my
+coming was so timely that I could not hold in my answer to your cry.”
+
+Her eyelids fluttered, she drew a long sighing breath, and nestled
+closer to him. “Anthony!” she murmured again, and reached up a hand to
+stroke his face, to feel that it was truly living flesh.
+
+And Sir Rowland, realizing, too, by now that here was no ghost,
+recovered his lost courage. He put a hand to his sword, then withdrew
+it, leaving the weapon sheathed. Here was a hangman's job, not a
+swordsman's, he opined--and wisely, for he had had earlier experience of
+Mr. Wilding's play of steel.
+
+He advanced a step. “O fool!” he snarled. “The hangman waits for you.”
+
+“And a creditor for you, Sir Rowland,” came the voice of Mr. Trenchard,
+who now pushed forward through those same shrubs that had masked his
+friend's approach. “A Mr. Swiney. 'Twas I sent him from town. He's
+lodged at the Bull, and bellows like one when he speaks of what you owe
+him. There are three messengers with him, and they tell of a debtor's
+gaol for you, sweetheart.”
+
+A spasm of fury crossed the face of Blake. “They may have me, and
+welcome, when I've told my tale,” said he. “Let me but tell of Anthony
+Wilding's lurking here, and not only Anthony Wilding, but all the rest
+of you are doomed for harbouring him. You know the law, I think,” he
+mocked them, for Lady Horton, Diana, and Richard, who had come up,
+stood now a pace or so away in deepest wonder. “You shall know it better
+before the night is out, and better still before next Sunday's come.”
+
+“Tush!” said Trenchard, and quoted, “'There's none but Anthony may
+conquer Anthony.'”
+
+“'Tis clear,” said Wilding, “you take me for a rebel. An odd mistake!
+For it chances, Sir Rowland, that you behold in me an accredited servant
+of the Secretary of State.”
+
+Blake stared, then fell a prey to ironic laughter. He would have spoken,
+but Mr. Wilding plucked a paper from his pocket, and handed it to
+Trenchard.
+
+“Show it him,” said he, and Blake's face grew white again as he read the
+lines above Sunderland's signature and observed the seals of office. He
+looked from the paper to the hated smiling face of Mr. Wilding.
+
+“You were a spy?” he said, his tone making a question of the odious
+statement. “A dirty spy?”
+
+“Your incredulity is flattering, at least,” said Wilding pleasantly as
+he repocketed the parchment, “and it leads you in the right direction. I
+neither was nor am a spy.”
+
+“That paper proves it!” cried Blake contemptuously. Having been a spy
+himself, he was a good judge of the vileness of the office.
+
+“See to my wife, Nick,” said Wilding sharply, and made as if to transfer
+her to the care of his friend.
+
+“Nay,” said Trenchard, “'tis your own duty that. Let me discharge the
+other for you.” And he stepped up to Blake and tapped him briskly on the
+shoulder. “Sir Rowland,” said he, “you're a knave.” Sir Rowland stared
+at him. “You're a foul thing--a muckworm--Sir Rowland,” added Trenchard
+amiably, “and you've been discourteous to a lady, for which may Heaven
+forgive you--I can't.”
+
+“Stand aside,” Blake bade him, hoarse with passion, blind to all risks.
+“My affair is with Mr. Wilding.”
+
+“Aye,” said Trenchard, “but mine is with you. If you survive it, you can
+settle what other affairs you please--including, belike, your business
+with Mr. Swiney.”
+
+“Not so, Nick,” said Wilding suddenly, and turned to Richard. “Here,
+Richard! Take her,” he bade his brother-in-law.
+
+“Anthony, you damned shirk-duty, see to your wife. Leave me to my own
+diversions. Sir Rowland,” he reminded the baronet, “I have called you a
+knave and a foul thing, and faith! if you want it proven, you need but
+step down the orchard with me.”
+
+He saw hesitation lingering in Sir Rowland's face, and he uncurled the
+last of the whip he carried. “I'd grieve to do a violent thing before
+the ladies,” he murmured deprecatingly. “I'd never respect myself again
+if I had to drive a gentleman of your quality to the ground of honour
+with a horsewhip. But, as God's my life, if you don't go willingly this
+instant, 'tis what will happen.”
+
+Richard's newborn righteousness prompted him to interfere, to seek to
+avert this threatened bloodshed; his humanity urged him to let matters
+be, and his humanity prevailed. Diana watched this foreshadowing of
+tragedy with tight lips, pale cheeks. Justice was to be done at last,
+it seemed, and as her frightened eye fell upon Sir Rowland she knew not
+whether to exult or weep. Her mother--understanding nothing--plied her
+meanwhile with whispered questions.
+
+As for Sir Rowland, he looked into the old rake's eyes agleam with
+wicked mirth, and rage welled up to choke him. He must kill this man.
+
+“Come,” said he. “I'll see to your fine friend Wilding afterwards.”
+
+“Excellent,” said Trenchard, and led the way through the shrubbery to
+the orchard.
+
+Ruth, reviving, looked up. Her glance met Mr. Wilding's; it quickened
+into understanding, and she stirred. “Is it true? Is it really true?”
+ she cried. “I am being tortured by this dream again!”
+
+“Nay, sweet, it is true; it is true. I am here. Say, shall I stay?”
+
+She clung to him for answer. “And you are in no danger?”
+
+“In none, sweet. I am Mr. Wilding of Zoyland Chase, free to come and go
+as best shall seem to me.” He begged the others to leave them a little
+while, and he led her to the stone seat by the river. He set her at his
+side there and told her the story of his escape from the firing-party,
+and of the inspiration that had come to him on the morrow to make use
+of the letter in his boot which Sunderland had given him for Monmouth
+in the hour of panic. Monmouth's cavalier treatment of him when he had
+arrived in Bridgwater had precluded his delivering that letter at the
+council. There was never another opportunity, nor did he again think of
+the package in the stressful hours that followed. It was not until the
+following morning that he suddenly remembered it lay undelivered, and
+bethought him that it might prove a weapon to win him delivery from the
+dangers that encompassed him.
+
+“It was a slender chance,” he told her, “but I employed it. I waited in
+London, in hiding, close upon a fortnight ere I had an opportunity of
+seeing Sunderland. He laughed me to scorn at first, and threatened me
+with the Tower. But I told him the letter was in safe hands and would
+remain there in earnest of his good behaviour, and that did he have me
+arrested it would instantly be laid before the King and bring his own
+head to the block more surely even than my own. It frightened him; but
+it had scarcely done so, sweet, had he known that that precious letter
+was still in my boot, for my boot was on my leg, and my leg was in the
+room with the rest of me.
+
+“He surrendered at last, and gave me papers proving that Trenchard
+and I--for I stipulated for old Nick's safety too--were His Majesty's
+accredited agents in the West. I loathed the title. But...”--he spread
+his hands and smiled--“it was that or widowing you.”
+
+She took his face in her hands and stroked it fondly, and they sat thus
+until a dry cough behind them roused them from their joyous silence. Mr.
+Trenchard was sauntering towards them, his left eye tucked farther under
+his hat than usual, his hands behind him.
+
+“'Tis a thirsty evening,” he informed them.
+
+“Go, tell Richard so,” said Wilding, who knew naught of Richard's
+altered ways.
+
+“I've thought of it; but haply he's sensitive on the score of drinking
+with me again. He has done it twice to his undoing.”
+
+“He'll do it a third time, no doubt,” said Mr. Wilding curtly, and
+Trenchard, taking the hint, turned with a shrug, and went up the lawn
+towards the house. He found Richard in the porch, where he had
+lingered fearfully, waiting for news. At sight of Mr. Trenchard's grim,
+weather-beaten countenance he came forward suddenly.
+
+“How has it sped?” he asked, his lips twitching on the words.
+
+“Yonder they sit,” said Trenchard, pointing down the lawn.
+
+“No, no. I mean... Sir Rowland.”
+
+“Oh, Sir Rowland?” cried the old sinner, as though Sir Rowland were
+some matter long forgotten. He sighed. “Alas, poor Swiney! I fear I've
+cheated him.”
+
+“You mean?”
+
+“Art slow at inference, Dick. Sir Rowland has passed away in the odour
+of villainy.”
+
+Richard clasped nervous hands together and raised his colourless eyes to
+heaven.
+
+“May the Lord have mercy on his soul!” said he.
+
+“May He, indeed!” said Trenchard, when he had recovered from his
+surprise. “But,” he added pessimistically, “I doubt the rogue's in
+hell.”
+
+Richard's eyes kindled suddenly, and he quoted from the thirtieth Psalm,
+“'I will extol thee, O Lord; for Thou hast lifted me up, and hast not
+made my foes to rejoice over me.'”
+
+Dumbfounded, wondering, indeed, was Westmacott's mind unhinged,
+Trenchard scanned him narrowly. Richard caught the glance and
+misinterpreted it for one of reproof. He bethought him that his joy was
+unrighteous. He stifled it, and forced his lips to sigh “Poor Blake!”
+
+“Poor, indeed!” quoth Trenchard, and adapted a remembered line of his
+play-acting days to suit the case. “The tears live in an onion that
+shall water his grave. Though, perhaps, I am forgetting Swiney.” Then,
+in a brisker tone, “Come, Richard. What like is the muscadine you keep
+at Lupton House?”
+
+“I have abjured all wine,” said Richard.
+
+“A plague you have!” quoth Trenchard, understanding less and less. “Have
+you turned Mussulman, perchance?”
+
+“No,” answered Richard sternly; “Christian.”
+
+Trenchard hesitated, rubbing his nose thoughtfully. “Hum,” said he at
+length. “Peace be with you, then. I'll leave you here to bay the moon
+to your heart's content. Perhaps Jasper will know where to find me a
+brain-wash.” And with a final suspicious, wondering look at the whilom
+bibber, he passed into the house, much exercised on the score of the
+sanity of this family into which his friend Anthony had married.
+
+Outside, the twilight shadows were deepening.
+
+“Shall we home, sweet?” whispered Mr. Wilding. The shadows befriended
+her, a veil for her sudden confusion. She breathed something that seemed
+no more than a sigh, though more it seemed to Anthony Wilding.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mistress Wilding, by Rafael
+Sabatini
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1457 ***
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+  <head>
+    <title>
+      Mistress Wilding, by Rafael Sabatini
+    </title>
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+
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+  <body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1457 ***</div>
+    <div style="height: 8em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      MISTRESS WILDING
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      By Rafael Sabatini
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I &mdash; POT-VALIANCE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II &mdash; SIR ROWLAND TO THE RESCUE
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III &mdash; DIANA SCHEMES </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV &mdash; TERMS OF SURRENDER </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V &mdash; THE ENCOUNTER </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI &mdash; THE CHAMPION </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII &mdash; THE NUPTIALS OF RUTH
+        WESTMACOTT </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII &mdash; BRIDE AND GROOM </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX &mdash; MR. TRENCHARD'S
+        COUNTERSTROKE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X &mdash; THEIR OWN PETARD </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI &mdash; THE MARPLOT </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII &mdash; AT THE FORD </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII &mdash; &ldquo;PRO RELIGIONE ET
+        LIBERTATE&rdquo; </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV &mdash; HIS GRACE' IN COUNSEL </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV &mdash; LYME OF THE KING </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI &mdash; PLOTS AND PLOTTERS </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII &mdash; MR. WILDING'S RETURN </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII &mdash; BETRAYAL </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX &mdash; THE BANQUET </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX &mdash; THE RECKONING </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI &mdash; THE SENTENCE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII &mdash; THE EXECUTION </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII &mdash; MR. WILDING'S BOOTS </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV &mdash; JUSTICE </a>
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I. POT-VALIANCE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Then drink it thus, cried the rash young fool, and splashed the contents
+      of his cup full into the face of Mr. Wilding even as that gentleman, on
+      his feet, was proposing to drink to the eyes of the young fool's sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The moments that followed were full of interest. A stillness, a brooding,
+      expectant stillness, fell upon the company&mdash;and it numbered a round
+      dozen&mdash;about Lord Gervase's richly appointed board. In the soft
+      candlelight the oval table shone like a deep brown pool, in which were
+      reflected the gleaming silver and sparkling crystal that seemed to float
+      upon it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake sucked in his nether-lip, his florid face a thought less florid than
+      its wont, his prominent blue eyes a thought more prominent. Under its
+      golden periwig old Nick Trenchard's wizened countenance was darkened by a
+      scowl, and his fingers, long, swarthy, and gnarled, drummed fretfully upon
+      the table. Portly Lord Gervase Scoresby&mdash;their host, a benign and
+      placid man of peace, detesting turbulence&mdash;turned crimson now in
+      wordless rage. The others gaped and stared&mdash;some at young Westmacott,
+      some at the man he had so grossly affronted&mdash;whilst in the shadows of
+      the hall a couple of lacqueys looked on amazed, all teeth and eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding stood, very still and outwardly impassive, the wine trickling
+      from his long face, which, if pale, was no paler than its habit, a vestige
+      of the smile with which he had proposed the toast still lingering on his
+      thin lips, though departed from his eyes. An elegant gentleman was Mr.
+      Wilding, tall, and seeming even taller by virtue of his exceeding
+      slenderness. He had the courage to wear his own hair, which was of a dark
+      brown and very luxuriant; dark brown too were his sombre eyes, low-lidded
+      and set at a downward slant. From those odd eyes of his, his countenance
+      gathered an air of superciliousness tempered by a gentle melancholy. For
+      the rest, it was scored by lines that stamped it with the appearance of an
+      age in excess of his thirty years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thirty guineas' worth of Mechlin at his throat was drenched, empurpled and
+      ruined beyond redemption, and on the breast of his blue satin coat a dark
+      patch was spreading like a stain of blood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard Westmacott, short, sturdy, and fair-complexioned to the point of
+      insipidity, watched him sullenly out of pale eyes, and waited. It was Lord
+      Gervase who broke at last the silence&mdash;broke it with an oath, a thing
+      unusual in one whose nature was almost woman-mild.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As God's my life!&rdquo; he spluttered wrathfully, glowering at Richard. &ldquo;To
+      have this happen in my house! The young fool shall make apology!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With his dying breath,&rdquo; sneered Trenchard, and the old rake's words, his
+      tone, and the malevolent look he bent upon the boy increased the company's
+      malaise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding, with a most singular and excessive sweetness,
+      &ldquo;that what Mr. Westmacott has done he has done because he apprehended me
+      amiss.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No doubt he'll say so,&rdquo; opined Trenchard with a shrug, and had caution
+      dug into his ribs by Blake's elbow, whilst Richard made haste to prove him
+      wrong by saying the contrary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I apprehended you exactly, sir,&rdquo; he answered, defiance in his voice and
+      wine-flushed face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha!&rdquo; clucked Trenchard, irrepressible. &ldquo;He's bent on self-destruction.
+      Let him have his way, in God's name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Wilding seemed intent upon showing how long-suffering he could be. He
+      gently shook his head. &ldquo;Nay, now,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;You thought, Mr. Westmacott,
+      that in mentioning your sister, I did so lightly. Is it not so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mentioned her, and that is all that matters,&rdquo; cried Westmacott. &ldquo;I'll
+      not have her name on your lips at any time or in any place&mdash;no, nor
+      in any manner.&rdquo; His speech was thick from too much wine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are drunk,&rdquo; cried indignant Lord Gervase with finality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pot-valiant,&rdquo; Trenchard elaborated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding set down at last the glass which he had continued to hold
+      until that moment. He rested his hands upon the table, knuckles downward,
+      and leaning forward he spoke impressively, his face very grave; and those
+      present&mdash;knowing him as they did&mdash;were one and all lost in
+      wonder at his unusual patience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Westmacott,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I do think you are wrong to persist in
+      affronting me. You have done a thing that is beyond forgiveness, and yet,
+      when I offer you this opportunity of honourably retrieving...&rdquo; He shrugged
+      his shoulders, leaving the sentence incomplete.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The company might have spared its deep surprise at so much mildness. There
+      was but the semblance of it. Wilding proceeded thus of purpose set, and
+      under the calm mask of his long white face his mind worked wickedly and
+      deliberately. The temerity of Westmacott, whose nature was notoriously
+      timid, had surprised him for a moment. But anon, reading the boy's mind as
+      readily as though it had been a scroll unfolded for his instruction, he
+      saw that Westmacott, on the strength of his position as his sister's
+      brother, conceived himself immune. Mr. Wilding's avowed courtship of the
+      lady, the hopes he still entertained of winning her, despite the aversion
+      she was at pains to show him, gave Westmacott assurance that Mr. Wilding
+      would never elect to shatter his all too slender chances by embroiling
+      himself in a quarrel with her brother. And&mdash;reading him, thus, aright&mdash;Mr.
+      Wilding put on that mask of patience, luring the boy into greater
+      conviction of the security of his position. And Richard, conceiving
+      himself safe in his entrenchment behind the bulwarks of his brothership to
+      Ruth Westmacott, and heartened further by the excess of wine he had
+      consumed, persisted in insults he would never otherwise have dared to
+      offer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who seeks to retrieve?&rdquo; he crowed offensively, boldly looking up into the
+      other's face. &ldquo;It seems you are yourself reluctant.&rdquo; And he laughed a
+      trifle stridently, and looked about him for applause, but found none.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are overrash,&rdquo; Lord Gervase disapproved him harshly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not the first coward I've seen grow valiant at a table,&rdquo; put in Trenchard
+      by way of explanation, and might have come to words with Blake on that
+      same score, but that in that moment Wilding spoke again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Reluctant to do what?&rdquo; he questioned amiably, looking Westmacott so
+      straightly between the eyes that the boy shifted uneasily on his
+      high-backed chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, still full of confidence in the unassailability of his
+      position, the mad youth answered, &ldquo;To cleanse yourself of what I threw at
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fan me, ye winds!&rdquo; gasped Nick Trenchard, and looked with expectancy at
+      his friend Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now there was one factor with which, in basing with such craven shrewdness
+      his calculations upon Mr. Wilding's feelings for his sister, young Richard
+      had not reckoned. He was not to know that Wilding, bruised and wounded by
+      Miss Westmacott's scorn of him, had reached that borderland where love and
+      hate are so merged that they are scarce to be distinguished. Embittered by
+      the slights she had put upon him&mdash;slights which his sensitive,
+      lover's fancy had magnified a hundredfold&mdash;Anthony Wilding's frame of
+      mind was grown peculiar. Of his love she would have none; his kindness she
+      seemingly despised. So be it; she should taste his cruelty. If she scorned
+      his wooing and forbade him to pursue it, at least it was not hers to deny
+      him the power to hurt; and in hurting her that would not be loved by him
+      some measure of fierce and bitter consolation seemed to await him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He realized, perhaps, not quite all this&mdash;and to the unworthiness of
+      it all he gave no thought. But he realized enough as he toyed, as cat with
+      mouse, with Richard Westmacott, to know that in striking at her through
+      the worthless person of this brother whom she cherished&mdash;and who
+      persisted in affording him this opportunity&mdash;a wicked vengeance would
+      be his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peace-loving Lord Gervase had heaved himself suddenly to his feet at
+      Westmacott's last words, still intent upon saving the situation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In Heaven's name...&rdquo; he began, when Mr. Wilding, ever calm and smiling,
+      though now a trifle sinister, waved him gently into silence. But that
+      persisting calm of Mr. Wilding's was too much for old Nick Trenchard. He
+      rose abruptly, drawing all eyes upon himself. It was time, he thought, he
+      took a hand in this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In addition to his affection for Wilding and his contempt for Westmacott,
+      he was filled with a fear that the latter might become dangerous if not
+      crushed at once. Gifted with a shrewd knowledge of men, acquired during a
+      chequered life of much sour experience, old Nick instinctively mistrusted
+      Richard. He had known him for a fool, a weakling, a babbler, and a bibber
+      of wine. Out of such elements a villain is soon compounded, and Trenchard
+      had cause to fear the form of villainy that lay ready to Richard's hand.
+      For it chanced that Mr. Trenchard was second cousin to that famous John
+      Trenchard, so lately tried for treason and acquitted to the great joy of
+      the sectaries of the West, and still more lately&mdash;but yesterday, in
+      fact&mdash;fled the country to escape the rearrest ordered in consequence
+      of that excessive joy. Like his more famous cousin, Nick Trenchard was one
+      of the Duke of Monmouth's most active agents; and Westmacott, like
+      Wilding, Vallancey, and one or two others at that board, stood, too,
+      committed to the cause of the Protestant Champion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Out of his knowledge of the boy Trenchard was led to fear that if he were
+      leniently dealt with now, tomorrow, when, sober, he came to realize the
+      grossness of the thing he had done and the unlikelihood of its being
+      forgiven him, there was no saying but that to protect himself he might
+      betray Wilding's share in the plot that was being hatched. That in itself
+      would be bad enough; but there might be worse, for he could scarcely
+      betray Wilding without betraying others and&mdash;what mattered most&mdash;the
+      Cause itself. He must be dealt with out of hand, Trenchard opined, and
+      dealt with ruthlessly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think, Anthony,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that we have had words enough. Shall you be
+      disposing of Mr. Westmacott to-morrow, or must I be doing it for you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With a gasp of dismay young Richard twisted in his chair to confront this
+      fresh and unsuspected antagonist. What danger was this that he had
+      overlooked? Then, even as he turned, Wilding's voice fell on his ear, and
+      each word of the few he spoke was like a drop of icy water on Westmacott's
+      overheated brain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I protest you are vastly kind, Nick. But I intend, myself, to have the
+      pleasure of killing Mr. Westmacott.&rdquo; And his smile fell now in mockery
+      upon the disillusioned lad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Crushed by that bolt from the blue, Richard sat as if stunned, the flush
+      receding from his face until his very lips were livid. The shock had
+      sobered him, and, sobered, he realized in terror what he had done. And yet
+      even sober he was amazed to find that the staff upon which with such
+      security he had leaned should have proved rotten. True he had put much
+      strain upon it; but then he had counted that it would stand much strain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He would have spoken, but he lacked words, so stricken was he. And even
+      had he done so it is odds none would have heard him, for the late calm was
+      of a sudden turned to garboil. Every man of that company&mdash;with the
+      sole exception of Richard himself&mdash;was on his feet, and all were
+      speaking at once, in clamouring, excited chorus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding alone&mdash;the butt of their expostulations&mdash;stood quietly
+      smiling, and wiped his face at last with a kerchief of finest lawn.
+      Dominating the others in the Babel rose the voice of Sir Rowland Blake&mdash;impecunious
+      Blake; Blake lately of the Guards, who had sold his commission as the only
+      thing remaining him upon which he could raise money; Blake, that other
+      suitor for Miss Westmacott's hand, the suitor favoured by her brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall not do it, Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; he shouted, his face crimson. &ldquo;No, by
+      God! You were shamed forever. He is but a lad, and drunk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard eyed the short, powerfully built man beside him, and laughed
+      unpleasantly. &ldquo;You should get yourself bled one of these days, Sir
+      Rowland,&rdquo; he advised. &ldquo;There may be no great danger yet; but a man can't
+      be too careful when he wears a narrow neckcloth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake&mdash;a short, powerfully built man&mdash;took no heed of him, but
+      looked straight at Mr. Wilding, who, smiling ever, calmly returned the
+      gaze of those prominent blue eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will suffer me, Sir Rowland,&rdquo; said he sweetly, &ldquo;to be the judge of
+      whom I will and whom I will not meet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Rowland flushed under that mocking glance and caustic tone. &ldquo;But he is
+      drunk,&rdquo; he repeated feebly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; said Trenchard, &ldquo;that he is hearing something that will make
+      him sober.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Gervase took the lad by the shoulder, and shook him impatiently.
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; quoth he. &ldquo;Have you nothing to say? You did a deal of prating just
+      now. I make no doubt but that even at this late hour if you were to make
+      apology...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would be idle,&rdquo; came Wilding's icy voice to quench the gleam of hope
+      kindling anew in Richard's breast. The lad saw that he was lost, and he is
+      a poor thing, indeed, who cannot face the worst once that worst is shown
+      to be irrevocable. He rose with some semblance of dignity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is as I would wish,&rdquo; said he, but his livid face and staring eyes
+      belied the valour of his words. He cleared his huskiness from his throat.
+      &ldquo;Sir Rowland,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;will you act for me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not I!&rdquo; cried Blake with an oath. &ldquo;I'll be no party to the butchery of a
+      boy unfledged.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Unfledged?&rdquo; echoed Trenchard. &ldquo;Body o' me! 'Tis a matter Wilding will
+      amend to-morrow. He'll fledge him, never fear. He'll wing him on his
+      flight to heaven.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Of set purpose did Trenchard add this fuel to the blazing fire. It was no
+      part of his views that this encounter should be avoided. If Richard
+      Westmacott were allowed to live after what had passed, there were too many
+      tall fellows might go in peril of their lives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard, meanwhile, had turned to the man on his left&mdash;young
+      Vallancey, a notorious partisan of the Duke of Monmouth's, a hair-brained
+      gentleman who was his own worst enemy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May I count on you, Ned?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye&mdash;to the death,&rdquo; said Vallancey magniloquently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Vallancey,&rdquo; said Trenchard with a wry twist of his sharp features,
+      &ldquo;you grow prophetic.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II. SIR ROWLAND TO THE RESCUE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      From Scoresby Hall, near Weston Zoyland, young Westmacott rode home that
+      Saturday night to his sister's house in Bridgwater, a sobered man and an
+      anguished. He had committed a folly which was like to cost him his life
+      to-morrow. Other follies had he committed in his twenty-five years&mdash;for
+      he was not quite the babe that Blake had represented him, although he
+      certainly looked nothing like his age. But to-night he had contrived to
+      set the crown to all. He had good cause to blame himself and to curse the
+      miscalculation that had emboldened him to launch himself upon a course of
+      insult against this Wilding, whom he hated with all the currish and
+      resentful hatred of the worthless for the man of parts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But there was more than hate in the affront that he had offered; there was
+      calculation&mdash;to an even greater extent than we have seen. It happened
+      that through his own fault young Richard was all but penniless. The pious,
+      nonconformist soul of Sir Geoffrey Lupton&mdash;the wealthy uncle from
+      whom he had had great expectations&mdash;had been so stirred to anger by
+      Richard's vicious and besotted ways that he had left every guinea that was
+      his, every perch of land, and every brick of edifice to Richard's
+      half-sister Ruth. At present things were not so bad for the worthless boy.
+      Ruth worshipped him. He was a sacred charge to her from their dead father,
+      who, knowing the stoutness of her soul and the feebleness of Richard's,
+      had in dying imposed on her the care and guidance of her graceless
+      brother. But Ruth, in all things strong, was weak with Richard out of her
+      very fondness for him. To what she had he might help himself, and thus it
+      was that things were not so bad with him at present. But when Richard's
+      calculating mind came to give thought to the future he found that this
+      occasioned him some care. Rich ladies, even when they do not happen to be
+      equipped in addition with Ruth's winsome beauty and endearing nature, are
+      not wont to go unmarried. It would have pleased Richard best to have had
+      her remain a spinster. But he well knew that this was a matter in which
+      she might have a voice of her own, and it behoved him betimes to take wise
+      measures where possible husbands were concerned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+The first that came in a suitor's obvious panoply was Anthony Wilding,
+of Zoyland Chase, and Richard watched his advent with foreboding.
+Wilding's was a personality to dazzle any woman, despite&mdash;perhaps even
+because of&mdash;the reputation for wildness that clung to him. That he was
+known as Wild Wilding to the countryside is true; but it were unfair&mdash;as
+Richard knew&mdash;to attach to this too much importance; for the adoption
+of so obvious an alliteration the rude country minds needed but a slight
+encouragement.
+
+From the first it looked as if Ruth might favour him, and Richard's
+fears assumed more definite shape. If Wilding married her&mdash;and he was
+a bold, masterful fellow who usually accomplished what he aimed at&mdash;her
+fortune and estate must cease to be a pleasant pasture land for bovine
+Richard. The boy thought at first of making terms with Wilding; the idea
+was old; it had come to him when first he had counted the chances of his
+sister's marrying. But he found himself hesitating to lay his proposal
+before Mr. Wilding. And whilst he hesitated Mr. Wilding made obvious
+headway. Still Richard dared not do it. There was a something in
+Wilding's eye that cried him danger. Thus, in the end, since he
+could not attempt a compromise with this fine fellow, the only course
+remaining was that of direct antagonism&mdash;that is to say, direct as
+Richard understood directness. Slander was the weapon he used in that
+secret duel; the countryside was well stocked with stories of Mr.
+Wilding's many indiscretions. I do not wish to suggest that these were
+unfounded. Still, the countryside, cajoled by its primitive sense of
+humour into that alliteration I have mentioned, found that having given
+this dog its bad name, it was under the obligation of keeping up his
+reputation. So it exaggerated. Richard, exaggerating those exaggerations
+in his turn, had some details, as interesting and unsavoury as they were
+in the main untrue, to lay before his sister.
+</p>
+    <p>
+      Now established love, it is well known, thrives wondrously on slander. The
+      robust growth of a maid's feelings for her accepted suitor is but further
+      strengthened by malign representations of his character. She seizes with
+      joy the chance of affording proof of her great loyalty, and defies the
+      world and its evil to convince her that the man to whom she has given her
+      trust is not most worthy of it. Not so, however, with the first timid bud
+      of incipient interest. Slander nips it like a frost; in deadliness it is
+      second only to ridicule.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth Westmacott lent an ear to her brother's stories, incredulous only
+      until she remembered vague hints she had caught from this person and from
+      that, whose meaning was now made clear by what Richard told her, which,
+      incidentally, they served to corroborate. Corroboration, too, did the tale
+      of infamy receive from the friendship that prevailed between Mr. Wilding
+      and Nick Trenchard, the old ne'er-dowell, who in his time&mdash;as
+      everybody knew&mdash;had come so low, despite his gentle birth, as to have
+      been one of a company of strolling players. Had Mr. Wilding been other
+      than she now learnt he was, he would surely not cherish an attachment for
+      a person so utterly unworthy. Clearly, they were birds of a plumage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so, her maiden purity outraged at the thought that she had been in
+      danger of lending a willing ear to the wooing of such a man, she had
+      crushed this love which she blushed to think was on the point of throwing
+      out roots to fasten on her soul, and was sedulous thereafter in
+      manifesting the aversion which she accounted it her duty to foster for Mr.
+      Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard had watched and smiled in secret, taking pride in the cunning way
+      he had wrought this change&mdash;that cunning which so often is given to
+      the stupid by way of compensation for the intelligence that has been
+      withheld them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now what time discountenanced, Wilding fumed and fretted all in vain,
+      Sir Rowland Blake, fresh from London and in full flight from his
+      creditors, flashed like a comet into the Bridgwater heavens. He dazzled
+      the eyes and might have had for the asking the heart and hand of Diana
+      Horton&mdash;Ruth's cousin. Her heart, indeed, he had without the asking,
+      for Diana fell straightway in love with him and showed it, just as he
+      showed that he was not without response to her affection. There were some
+      tender passages between them; but Blake, for all his fine exterior, was a
+      beggar, and Diana far from rich, and so he rode his feelings with a hard
+      grip upon the reins. And then, in an evil hour for poor Diana, young
+      Westmacott had taken him to Lupton House, and Sir Rowland had his first
+      glimpse of Ruth, his first knowledge of her fortune. He went down before
+      Ruth's eyes like a man of heart; he went down more lowly still before her
+      possessions like a man of greed; and poor Diana might console herself with
+      whom she could.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her brother watched him, appraised him, and thought that in this broken
+      gamester he had a man after his own heart; a man who would be ready enough
+      for such a bargain as Richard had in mind; ready enough to sell what rags
+      might be left him of his honour so that he came by the wherewithal to mend
+      his broken fortunes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The twain made terms. They haggled like any pair of traders out of Jewry,
+      but in the end it was settled&mdash;by a bond duly engrossed and sealed&mdash;that
+      on the day that Sir Rowland married Ruth he should make over to her
+      brother certain values that amounted to perhaps a quarter of her
+      possessions. There was no cause to think that Ruth would be greatly
+      opposed to this&mdash;not that that consideration would have weighed with
+      Richard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But now that all essentials were so satisfactorily determined a vexation
+      was offered Westmacott by the circumstance that his sister seemed nowise
+      taken with Sir Rowland. She suffered him because he was her brother's
+      friend; on that account she even honoured him with some measure of her own
+      friendship; but to no greater intimacy did her manner promise to admit
+      him. And meanwhile, Mr. Wilding persisted in the face of all rebuffs.
+      Under his smiling mask he hid the smart of the wounds she dealt him, until
+      it almost seemed to him that from loving her he had come to hate her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It had been well for Richard had he left things as they were and waited.
+      Whether Blake prospered or not, leastways it was clear that Wilding would
+      not prosper, and that, for the season, was all that need have mattered to
+      young Richard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But in his cups that night he had thought in some dim way to precipitate
+      matters by affronting Mr. Wilding, secure, as I have shown, in his belief
+      that Wilding would perish sooner than raise a finger against Ruth's
+      brother. And his drunken astuteness, it seemed, had been to his mind as a
+      piece of bottle glass to the sight, distorting the image viewed through
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With some such bitter reflection rode he home to his sleepless couch. Some
+      part of those dark hours he spent in bitter reviling of Wilding, of
+      himself, and even of his sister, whom he blamed for this awful situation
+      into which he had tumbled; at other times he wept from self-pity and sheer
+      fright.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once, indeed, he imagined that he saw light, that he saw a way out of the
+      peril that hemmed him in. His mind turned for a moment in the direction
+      that Trenchard had feared it might. He bethought him of his association
+      with the Monmouth Cause&mdash;into which he had been beguiled by the
+      sordid hope of gain&mdash;and of Wilding's important share in that same
+      business. He was even moved to rise and ride that very night for Exeter to
+      betray to Albemarle the Cause itself, so that he might have Wilding laid
+      by the heels. But if Trenchard had been right in having little faith in
+      Richard's loyalty, he had, it seems, in fearing treachery made the mistake
+      of giving Richard credit for more courage than was his endowment. For
+      when, sitting up in bed, fired by his inspiration, young Westmacott came
+      to consider the questions the Lord-Lieutenant of Devon would be likely to
+      ask him, he reflected that the answers he must return would so incriminate
+      himself that he would be risking his own neck in the betrayal. He flung
+      himself down again with a curse and a groan, and thought no more of the
+      salvation that might lie for him that way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The morning of that last day of May found him pale and limp and all
+      a-tremble. He rose betimes and dressed, but stirred not from his chamber
+      till in the garden under his window he heard his sister's voice, and that
+      of Diana Horton, joined anon by a man's deeper tones, which he recognized
+      with a start as Blake's. What did the baronet here so early? Assuredly it
+      must concern the impending duel. Richard knew no mawkishness on the score
+      of eavesdropping. He stole to his window and lent an ear, but the voices
+      were receding, and to his vexation he caught nothing of what was said. He
+      wondered how soon Vallancey would come, and for what hour the encounter
+      had been appointed. Vallancey had remained behind at Scoresby Hall last
+      night to make the necessary arrangements with Trenchard, who was to act
+      for Mr. Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now it chanced that Trenchard and Wilding had business&mdash;business of
+      Monmouth's&mdash;to transact in Taunton that morning; business which might
+      not be delayed. There were odd rumours afloat in the West; persistent
+      rumours which had come fast upon the heels of the news of Argyle's landing
+      in Scotland; rumours which maintained that Monmouth himself was coming
+      over from Holland. These tales Wilding and his associates had ignored. The
+      Duke, they knew, was to spend the summer in retreat in Sweden, with (it
+      was alleged) the Lady Henrietta Wentworth to bear him company, and in the
+      mean time his trusted agents were to pave the way for his coming in the
+      following spring. Of late the lack of direct news from the Duke had been a
+      source of mystification to his friends in the West, and now, suddenly, the
+      information went abroad&mdash;it was something more than rumour this time&mdash;that
+      a letter of the greatest importance had been intercepted. From whom that
+      letter proceeded or to whom it was addressed, could not yet be discovered.
+      But it seemed clear that it was connected with the Monmouth Cause, and it
+      behoved Mr. Wilding to discover what he could. With this intent he rode
+      with Trenchard that Sunday morning to Taunton, hoping that at the Red Lion
+      Inn&mdash;that meeting-place of dissenters&mdash;he might cull reliable
+      information.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was in consequence of this that the meeting with Richard Westmacott was
+      not to take place until the evening, and therefore Vallancey came not to
+      Lupton House as early as Richard thought he should expect him. Blake,
+      however&mdash;more no doubt out of a selfish fear of losing a valued ally
+      in the winning of Ruth's hand than out of any excessive concern for
+      Richard himself&mdash;had risen early and hastened to Lupton House, in the
+      hope, which he recognized as all but forlorn, of yet being able to avert
+      the disaster he foresaw for Richard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peering over the orchard wall as he rode by, he caught a glimpse, through
+      an opening between the trees, of Ruth herself and Diana on the lawn
+      beyond. There was a wicket gate that stood unlatched, and availing himself
+      of this Sir Rowland tethered his horse in the lane and threading his way
+      briskly through the orchard came suddenly upon the girls. Their laughter
+      reached him as he advanced, and told him they could know nothing yet of
+      Richard's danger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On his abrupt and unexpected apparition, Diana paled and Ruth flushed
+      slightly, whereupon Sir Rowland might have bethought him, had he been
+      book-learned, of the axiom, &ldquo;Amour qui rougit, fleurette; amour qui plit,
+      drame du coeur.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He doffed his hat and bowed, his fair ringlets tumbling forward till they
+      hid his face, which was exceeding grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth gave him good morning pleasantly. &ldquo;You London folk are earlier risers
+      than we are led to think,&rdquo; she added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Twill be the change of air makes Sir Rowland matutinal,&rdquo; said Diana,
+      making a gallant recovery from her agitation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I vow,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that I had grown matutinal earlier had I known what
+      here awaited me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Awaited you?&rdquo; quoth Diana, and tossed her head archly disdainful. &ldquo;La!
+      Sir Rowland, your modesty will be the death of you.&rdquo; Archness became this
+      lady of the sunny hair, tip-tilted nose, and complexion that outvied the
+      apple-blossoms. She was shorter by a half-head than her darker cousin, and
+      made up in sprightliness what she lacked of Ruth's gentle dignity. The
+      pair were foils, each setting off the graces of the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I protest I am foolish,&rdquo; answered Blake, a shade discomfited. &ldquo;But I want
+      not for excuse. I have it in the matter that brings me here.&rdquo; So solemn
+      was his air, so sober his voice, that both girls felt a premonition of the
+      untoward message that he bore. It was Ruth who asked him to explain
+      himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you walk, ladies?&rdquo; said Blake, and waved the hand that still held
+      his hat riverwards, adown the sloping lawn. They moved away together, Sir
+      Rowland pacing between his love of yesterday and his love of to-day,
+      pressed with questions from both. He shaded his eyes to look at the river,
+      dazzling in the morning sunlight that came over Polden Hill, and, standing
+      thus, he unburdened himself at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My news concerns Richard and&mdash;Mr. Wilding.&rdquo; They looked at him. Miss
+      Westmacott's fine level brows were knit. He paused to ask, as if suddenly
+      observing his absence, &ldquo;Is Richard not yet risen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet,&rdquo; said Ruth, and waited for him to proceed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It does credit to his courage that he should sleep late on such a day,&rdquo;
+       said Blake, and was pleased with the adroitness wherewith he broke the
+      news. &ldquo;He quarrelled last night with Anthony Wilding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth's hand went to her bosom; fear stared at Blake from out her eyes,
+      blue as the heavens overhead; a grey shade overcast the usual warm pallor
+      of her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With Mr. Wilding?&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;That man!&rdquo; And though she said no more her
+      eyes implored him to go on, and tell her what more there might be. He did
+      so, and he spared not Wilding. The task, indeed, was one to which he
+      applied himself with a certain zest; whatever might be the outcome of the
+      affair, there was no denying that he was by way of reaping profit from it
+      by the final overthrow of an acknowledged rival. And when he told her how
+      Richard had flung his wine in Wilding's face when Wilding stood to toast
+      her, a faint flush crept to her cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Richard did well,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;I am proud of him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The words pleased Sir Rowland vastly; but he reckoned without Diana. Miss
+      Horton's mind was illumined by her knowledge of herself. In the light of
+      that she saw precisely what capital this tale-bearer sought to make. The
+      occasion might not be without its opportunities for her; and to begin
+      with, it was no part of her intention that Wilding should be thus maligned
+      and finally driven from the lists of rivalry with Blake. Upon Wilding,
+      indeed, and his notorious masterfulness did she found what hopes she still
+      entertained of winning back Sir Rowland.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;you are a little hard on Mr. Wilding. You speak as if
+      he were the first gallant that ever toasted lady's eyes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am no lady of his, Diana,&rdquo; Ruth reminded her, with a faint show of
+      heat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana shrugged her shoulders. &ldquo;You may not love him, but you can't ordain
+      that he shall not love you. You are very harsh, I think. To me it rather
+      seems that Richard acted like a boor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, mistress,&rdquo; cried Sir Rowland, half out of countenance, and stifling
+      his vexation, &ldquo;in these matters it all depends upon the manner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, yes,&rdquo; she agreed; &ldquo;and whatever Mr. Wilding's manner, if I know him
+      at all, it would be nothing but respectful to the last degree.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My own conception of respect,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;is not to bandy a lady's name
+      about a company of revellers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bethink you, though, you said just now, it all depended on the manner,&rdquo;
+       she rejoined. Sir Rowland shrugged and turned half from her to her
+      listening cousin. When all is said, poor Diana appears&mdash;despite her
+      cunning&mdash;to have been short-sighted. Aiming at a defined advantage in
+      the game she played, she either ignored or held too lightly the
+      concomitant disadvantage of vexing Blake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It were perhaps best to tell us the exact words he used, Sir Rowland,&rdquo;
+       she suggested, &ldquo;that for ourselves we may judge how far he lacked
+      respect.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What signify the words!&rdquo; cried Blake, now almost out of temper. &ldquo;I don't
+      recall them. It is the air with which he pledged Mistress Westmacott.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah yes&mdash;the manner,&rdquo; quoth Diana irritatingly. &ldquo;We'll let that be.
+      Richard threw his wine in Mr. Wilding's face? What followed then? What
+      said Mr. Wilding?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Rowland remembered what Mr. Wilding had said, and bethought him that
+      it were impolitic in him to repeat it. At the same time, not having looked
+      for this cross-questioning, he was all unprepared with any likely answer.
+      He hesitated, until Ruth echoed Diana's question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell us, Sir Rowland,&rdquo; she begged him, &ldquo;what Mr. Wilding said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Being forced to say something, and being by nature slow-witted and
+      sluggish of invention, Sir Rowland was compelled, to his unspeakable
+      chagrin, to fall back upon the truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is not that proof?&rdquo; cried Diana in triumph. &ldquo;Mr. Wilding was reluctant to
+      quarrel with Richard. He was even ready to swallow such an affront as
+      that, thinking it might be offered him under a misconception of his
+      meaning. He plainly professed the respect that filled him for Mistress
+      Westmacott, and yet, and yet, Sir Rowland, you tell us that he lacked
+      respect!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam,&rdquo; cried Blake, turning crimson, &ldquo;that matters nothing. It was not
+      the place or time to introduce your cousin's name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You think, Sir Rowland,&rdquo; put in Ruth, her air grave, judicial almost,
+      &ldquo;that Richard behaved well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As I would like to behave myself, as I would have a son of mine behave on
+      the like occasion,&rdquo; Blake protested. &ldquo;But we waste words,&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;I
+      did not come to defend Richard, nor just to bear you this untoward news. I
+      came to consult with you, in the hope that we might find some way to avert
+      this peril from your brother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What way is possible?&rdquo; asked Ruth, and sighed. &ldquo;I would not... I would
+      not have Richard a coward.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you prefer him dead?&rdquo; asked Blake, sadly grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sooner than craven&mdash;yes,&rdquo; Ruth answered him, very white.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no question of that,&rdquo; was Blake's rejoinder. &ldquo;The question is
+      that Wilding said last night that he would kill the boy, and what Wilding
+      says he does. Out of the affection that I bear Richard is born my anxiety
+      to save him despite himself. It is in this that I come to seek your aid or
+      offer mine. Allied we might accomplish what singly neither of us could.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had at once the reward of his cunning speech. Ruth held out her hands.
+      &ldquo;You are a good friend, Sir Rowland,&rdquo; she said, with a pale smile; and
+      pale too was the smile with which Diana watched them. No more than Ruth
+      did she suspect the sincerity of Blake's protestations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am proud you should account me that,&rdquo; said the baronet, taking Ruth's
+      hands and holding them a moment; &ldquo;and I would that I could prove myself
+      your friend in this to some good purpose. Believe me, if Wilding would
+      consent that I might take your brother's place, I would gladly do so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a safe boast, knowing as he did that Wilding would consent to no
+      such thing; but it earned him a glance of greater kindliness from Ruth&mdash;who
+      began to think that hitherto perhaps she had done him some injustice&mdash;and
+      a look of greater admiration from Diana, who saw in him her beau-ideal of
+      the gallant lover.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would not have you endanger yourself so,&rdquo; said Ruth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It might,&rdquo; said Blake, his blue eyes very fierce, &ldquo;be no great danger,
+      after all.&rdquo; And then dismissing that part of the subject as if, like a
+      brave man, the notion of being thought boastful were unpleasant, he passed
+      on to the discussion of ways and means by which the coming duel might be
+      averted. But when they came to grips with facts, it seemed that Sir
+      Rowland had as little idea of what might be done as had the ladies. True,
+      he began by making the obvious suggestion that Richard should tender
+      Wilding a full apology. That, indeed, was the only door of escape, and
+      Blake shrewdly suspected that what the boy had been unwilling to do last
+      night&mdash;partly through wine, and partly through the fear of looking
+      fearful in the eyes of Lord Gervase Scoresby's guests&mdash;he might be
+      willing enough to do to-day, sober and upon reflection. For the rest Blake
+      was as far from suspecting Mr. Wilding's peculiar frame of mind as had
+      Richard been last night. This his words showed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am satisfied,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that if Richard were to go to-day to Wilding
+      and express his regret for a thing done in the heat of wine, Wilding would
+      be forced to accept it as satisfaction, and none would think that it did
+      other than reflect credit upon Richard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you very sure of that?&rdquo; asked Ruth, her tone dubious, her glance
+      hopefully anxious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What else is to be thought?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; put in Diana shrewdly, &ldquo;it were an admission of Richard's that he
+      had done wrong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No less,&rdquo; he agreed, and Ruth caught her breath in fresh dismay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And yet you have said that he did as you would have a son of yours do,&rdquo;
+       Diana reminded him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I maintain it,&rdquo; answered Blake; his wits worked slowly ever. It was
+      for Ruth to reveal the flaw to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you not understand, then,&rdquo; she asked him sadly, &ldquo;that such an
+      admission on Richard's part would amount to a lie&mdash;a lie uttered to
+      save himself from an encounter, the worst form of lie, a lie of cowardice?
+      Surely, Sir Rowland, your kindly anxiety for his life outruns your anxiety
+      for his honour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana, having accomplished her task, hung her head in silence, pondering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Rowland was routed utterly. He glanced from one to the other of his
+      companions, and grew afraid that he&mdash;the town gallant&mdash;might
+      come to look foolish in the eyes of these country ladies. He protested
+      again his love for Richard, and increased Ruth's terror by his mention of
+      Wilding's swordsmanship; but when all was said, he saw that he had best
+      retreat ere he spoiled the good effect which he hoped his solicitude had
+      created. And so he spoke of seeking counsel with Lord Gervase Scoresby,
+      and took his leave, promising to return by noon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III. DIANA SCHEMES
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Notwithstanding the brave face Ruth Westmacott had kept during his
+      presence, when he departed Sir Rowland left behind him a distress
+      amounting almost to anguish in her mind. Yet though she might suffer,
+      there was no weakness in Ruth's nature. She knew how to endure. Diana,
+      bearing Richard not a tenth of the affection his sister consecrated to
+      him, was alarmed for him. Besides, her own interests urged the averting of
+      this encounter. And so she held in accents almost tearful that something
+      must be done to save him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This, too, appeared to be Richard's own view, when presently&mdash;within
+      a few minutes of Blake's departure&mdash;he came to join them. They
+      watched his approach in silence, and both noted&mdash;though with
+      different eyes and different feelings&mdash;the pallor of his fair face,
+      the dark lines under his colourless eyes. His condition was abject, and
+      his manners, never of the best&mdash;for there was much of the spoiled
+      child about Richard&mdash;were clearly suffering from it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stood before his sister and his cousin, moving his eyes shiftily from
+      one to the other, rubbing his hands nervously together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your precious friend Sir Rowland has been here,&rdquo; said he, and it was not
+      clear from his manner which of them he addressed. &ldquo;Not a doubt but he will
+      have brought you the news.&rdquo; He seemed to sneer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth advanced towards him, her face grave, her sweet eyes full of pitying
+      concern. She placed a hand upon his sleeve. &ldquo;My poor Richard...&rdquo; she
+      began, but he shook off her kindly touch, laughing angrily&mdash;a mere
+      cackle of irritability.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Odso!&rdquo; he interrupted her. &ldquo;It is a thought late for this mock
+      kindliness!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana, in the background, arched her brows, then with a shrug turned aside
+      and seated herself on the stone seat by which they had been standing. Ruth
+      shrank back as if her brother had struck her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Richard!&rdquo; she cried, and searched his livid face with her eyes.
+      &ldquo;Richard!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He read a question in the interjection, and he answered it. &ldquo;Had you known
+      any real care, any true concern for me, you had not given cause for this
+      affair,&rdquo; he chid her peevishly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you saying?&rdquo; she cried, and it occurred to her at last that
+      Richard was afraid. He was a coward! She felt as she would faint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am saying,&rdquo; said he, hunching his shoulders, and shivering as he spoke,
+      yet, his glance unable to meet hers, &ldquo;that it is your fault that I am like
+      to get my throat cut before sunset.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My fault?&rdquo; she murmured. The slope of lawn seemed to wave and swim about
+      her. &ldquo;My fault?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The fault of your wanton ways,&rdquo; he accused her harshly. &ldquo;You have so
+      played fast and loose with this fellow Wilding that he makes free of your
+      name in my very presence, and puts upon me the need to get myself killed
+      by him to save the family honour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He would have said more in this strain, but something in her glance gave
+      him pause. There fell a silence. From the distance came the melodious
+      pealing of church bells. High overhead a lark was pouring out its song; in
+      the lane at the orchard end rang the beat of trotting hoofs. It was Diana
+      who spoke presently. Just indignation stirred her, and, when stirred, she
+      knew no pity, set no limits to her speech.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think, indeed,&rdquo; said she, her voice crisp and merciless, &ldquo;that the
+      family honour will best be saved if Mr. Wilding kills you. It is in danger
+      while you live. You are a coward, Richard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Diana!&rdquo; he thundered&mdash;he could be mighty brave with women&mdash;whilst
+      Ruth clutched her arm to restrain her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she continued, undeterred: &ldquo;You are a coward&mdash;a pitiful coward,&rdquo;
+       she told him. &ldquo;Consult your mirror. It will tell you what a palsied thing
+      you are. That you should dare so speak to Ruth...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't!&rdquo; Ruth begged her, turning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye,&rdquo; growled Richard, &ldquo;she had best be silent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana rose, to battle, her cheeks crimson. &ldquo;It asks a braver man than you
+      to compel my obedience,&rdquo; she told him. &ldquo;La!&rdquo; she fumed, &ldquo;I'll swear that
+      had Mr. Wilding overheard what you have said to your sister, you would
+      have little to fear from his sword. A cane would be the weapon he'd use on
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard's pale eyes flamed malevolently; a violent rage possessed him and
+      flooded out his fear, for nothing can so goad a man as an offensive truth.
+      Ruth approached him again; again she took him by the arm, seeking to
+      soothe his over-troubled spirit; but again he shook her off. And then to
+      save the situation came a servant from the house. So lost in anger was all
+      Richard's sense of decency that the mere supervention of the man would not
+      have been enough to have silenced him could he have found adequate words
+      in which to answer Mistress Horton. But even as he racked his mind, the
+      footman's voice broke the silence, and the words the fellow uttered did
+      what his presence alone might not have sufficed to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Vallancey is asking for you, sir,&rdquo; he announced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard started. Vallancey! He had come at last, and his coming was
+      connected with the impending duel. The thought was paralyzing to young
+      Westmacott. The flush of anger faded from his face; its leaden hue
+      returned and he shivered as with cold. At last he mastered himself
+      sufficiently to ask:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is he, Jasper?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the library, sir,&rdquo; replied the servant. &ldquo;Shall I bring him hither?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;no,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;I will come to him.&rdquo; He turned his back upon
+      the ladies, paused a moment, still irresolute. Then, as by an effort, he
+      followed the servant across the lawn and vanished through the ivied porch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he went Diana flew to her cousin. Her shallow nature was touched with
+      transient pity. &ldquo;My poor Ruth...&rdquo; she murmured soothingly, and set her arm
+      about the other's waist. There was a gleam of tears in the eyes Ruth
+      turned upon her. Together they came to the granite seat and sank to it
+      side by side, fronting the placid river. There Ruth, her elbows on her
+      knees, cradled her chin in her hands, and with a sigh of misery stared
+      straight before her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was untrue!&rdquo; she said at last. &ldquo;What Richard said of me was untrue.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, yes,&rdquo; Diana snapped, contemptuous. &ldquo;The only truth is that Richard
+      is afraid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth shivered. &ldquo;Ah, no,&rdquo; she pleaded&mdash;she knew how true was the
+      impeachment. &ldquo;Don't say it, Diana.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It matters little that I say it,&rdquo; snorted Diana impatiently. &ldquo;It is a
+      truth proclaimed by the first glance at him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is in poor health, perhaps,&rdquo; said Ruth, seeking miserably to excuse
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye,&rdquo; said Diana. &ldquo;He's suffering from an ague&mdash;the result of a lack
+      of courage. That he should so have spoken to you! Give me patience,
+      Heaven!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth crimsoned again at the memory of his words; a wave of indignation
+      swept through her gentle soul, but was gone at once, leaving an ineffable
+      sadness in its room. What was to be done? She turned to Diana for counsel.
+      But Diana was still whipping up her scorn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If he goes out to meet Mr. Wilding, he'll shame himself and every man and
+      woman that bears the name of Westmacott,&rdquo; said she, and struck a new fear
+      with that into the heart of Ruth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He must not go!&rdquo; she answered passionately. &ldquo;He must not meet him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana flashed her a sidelong glance. &ldquo;And if he doesn't, will things be
+      mended?&rdquo; she inquired. &ldquo;Will it save his honour to have Mr. Wilding come
+      and cane him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He'd not do that?&rdquo; said Ruth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not if you asked him&mdash;no,&rdquo; was Diana's sharp retort, and she caught
+      her breath on the last word of it, for just then the Devil dropped the
+      seed of a suggestion into the fertile soil of her lovesick soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Diana!&rdquo; Ruth exclaimed in reproof, turning to confront her cousin. But
+      Diana's mind started upon its scheming journey was now travelling fast.
+      Out of that devil's seed there sprang with amazing rapidity a tree-like
+      growth, throwing out branches, putting forth leaves, bearing already&mdash;in
+      her fancy&mdash;bloom and fruit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo; quoth she after a breathing space, and her voice was gentle,
+      her tone innocent beyond compare. &ldquo;Why should you not ask him?&rdquo; Ruth
+      frowned, perplexed and thoughtful, and now Diana turned to her with the
+      lively eye of one into whose mind has leapt a sudden inspiration. &ldquo;Ruth!&rdquo;
+       she exclaimed. &ldquo;Why, indeed, should you not ask him to forgo this duel?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How, how could I?&rdquo; faltered Ruth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He'd not deny you; you know he'd not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not know it,&rdquo; answered Ruth. &ldquo;But if I did, how could I ask it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Were I Richard's sister, and had I his life and honour at heart as you
+      have, I'd not ask how. If Richard goes to that encounter he loses both,
+      remember&mdash;unless between this and then he undergoes some change. Were
+      I in your place, I'd straight to Wilding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To him?&rdquo; mused Ruth, sitting up. &ldquo;How could I go to him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go to him, yes,&rdquo; Diana insisted. &ldquo;Go to him at once&mdash;while there is
+      yet time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth rose and moved away a step or two towards the water, deep in thought.
+      Diana watched her furtively and slyly, the rapid rise and fall of her
+      maiden breast betraying the agitation that filled her as she waited&mdash;like
+      a gamester&mdash;for the turn of the card that would show her whether she
+      had won or lost. For she saw clearly how Ruth might be so compromised that
+      there was something more than a chance that Diana would no longer have
+      cause to account her cousin a barrier between herself and Blake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I could not go alone,&rdquo; said Ruth, and her tone was that of one still
+      battling with a notion that is repugnant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, if that is all,&rdquo; said Diana, &ldquo;then I'll go with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't! I can't! Consider the humiliation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Consider Richard rather,&rdquo; the fair temptress made answer eagerly. &ldquo;Be
+      sure that Mr. Wilding will save you all humiliation. He'll not deny you.
+      At a word from you, I know what answer he will make. He will refuse to
+      push the matter forward&mdash;acknowledge himself in the wrong, do
+      whatever you may ask him. He can do it. None will question his courage. It
+      has been proved too often.&rdquo; She rose and came to Ruth. She set her arm
+      about her waist again, and poured shrewd persuasion over her cousin's
+      indecision. &ldquo;To-night you'll thank me for this thought,&rdquo; she assured her.
+      &ldquo;Why do you pause? Are you so selfish as to think more of the little
+      humiliation that may await you than of Richard's life and honour?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; Ruth protested feebly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, then? Is Richard to go out and slay his honour by a show of fear
+      before he is slain, himself, by the man he has insulted?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll go,&rdquo; said Ruth. Now that the resolve was taken, she was brisk,
+      impatient. &ldquo;Come, Diana. Let Jerry saddle for us. We'll ride to Zoyland
+      Chase at once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They went without a word to Richard who was still closeted with Vallancey,
+      and riding forth they crossed the river and took the road that, skirting
+      Sedgemoor, runs south to Weston Zoyland. They rode with little said until
+      they came to the point where the road branches on the left, throwing out
+      an arm across the moor towards Chedzoy, a mile or so short of Zoyland
+      Chase. Here Diana reined in with a sharp gasp of pain. Ruth checked, and
+      cried to know what ailed her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the sun, I think,&rdquo; muttered Diana, her hand to her brow. &ldquo;I am sick
+      and giddy.&rdquo; And she slipped a thought heavily to the ground. In an instant
+      Ruth had dismounted and was beside her. Diana was pale, which lent colour
+      to her complaint, for Ruth was not to know that the pallor sprang from her
+      agitation in wondering whether the ruse she attempted would succeed or
+      not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A short stone's-throw from where they had halted stood a cottage back from
+      the road in a little plot of ground, the property of a kindly old woman
+      known to both. There Diana expressed the wish to rest awhile, and thither
+      they took their way, Ruth leading both horses and supporting her faltering
+      cousin. The dame was all solicitude. Diana was led into her parlour, and
+      what could be done was done. Her corsage was loosened, water drawn from
+      the well and brought her to drink and bathe her brow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She sat back languidly, her head lolling sideways against one of the wings
+      of the great chair, and languidly assured them she would be better soon if
+      she were but allowed to rest awhile. Ruth drew up a stool to sit beside
+      her, for all that her soul fretted at this delay. What if in consequence
+      she should reach Zoyland Chase too late&mdash;to find that Mr. Wilding had
+      gone forth already? But even as she was about to sit, it seemed that the
+      same thought had of a sudden come to Diana. The girl leaned forward,
+      thrusting&mdash;as if by an effort&mdash;some of her faintness from her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not wait for me, Ruth,&rdquo; she begged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must, child.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must not;&rdquo; the other insisted. &ldquo;Think what it may mean&mdash;Richard's
+      life, perhaps. No, no, Ruth, dear. Go on; go on to Zoyland. I'll follow
+      you in a few minutes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll wait for you,&rdquo; said Ruth with firmness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At that Diana rose, and in rising staggered. &ldquo;Then we'll push on at once,&rdquo;
+       she gasped, as if speech itself were an excruciating effort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you are in no case to stand!&rdquo; said Ruth. &ldquo;Sit, Diana, sit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Either you go on alone or I go with you, but go at once you must. At any
+      moment Mr. Wilding may go forth, and your chance is lost. I'll not have
+      Richard's blood upon my head.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth wrung her hands in her dismay, confronted by a parlous choice.
+      Consent to Diana's accompanying her in this condition she could not; ride
+      on alone to Mr. Wilding's house was hardly to be thought of, and yet if
+      she delayed she was endangering Richard's life. By the very strength of
+      her nature she was caught in the mesh of Diana's scheme. She saw that her
+      hesitation was unworthy. This was no ordinary cause, no ordinary occasion.
+      It was a time for heroic measures. She must ride on, nor could she consent
+      to take Diana.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so in the end she went, having seen her cousin settled again in the
+      high chair, and took with her Diana's feeble assurances that she would
+      follow her in a few moments, as soon as her faintness passed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV. TERMS OF SURRENDER
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;MR. WILDING rode at dawn with Mr. Trenchard, madam,&rdquo; announced old
+      Walters, the butler at Zoyland Chase. Old and familiar servant though he
+      was, he kept from his countenance all manifestation of the deep surprise
+      occasioned him by the advent of Mistress Westmacott, unescorted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He rode... at dawn?&rdquo; faltered Ruth, and for a moment she stood
+      irresolute, afraid and pondering in the shade of the great pillared porch.
+      Then she took heart again. If he rode at dawn, it was not in quest of
+      Richard that he went, since it had been near eleven o'clock when she had
+      left Bridgwater. He must have gone on other business first, and,
+      doubtless, before he went to the encounter he would be returning home.
+      &ldquo;Said he at what hour he would return?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He bade us expect him by noon, madam.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This gave confirmation to her thoughts. It wanted more than half an hour
+      to noon already. &ldquo;Then he may return at any moment?&rdquo; said she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At any moment, madam,&rdquo; was the grave reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She took her resolve. &ldquo;I will wait,&rdquo; she announced, to the man's
+      increasing if undisplayed astonishment. &ldquo;Let my horse be seen to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He bowed his obedience, and she followed him&mdash;a slender, graceful
+      figure in her dove-coloured riding-habit laced with silver&mdash;across
+      the stone-flagged vestibule, through the cool gloom of the great hall,
+      into the spacious library of which he held the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mistress Horton is following me,&rdquo; she informed the butler. &ldquo;Will you
+      bring her to me when she comes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bowing again in silent acquiescence, the white-haired servant closed the
+      door and left her. She stood in the centre of the great room, drawing off
+      her riding-gloves, perturbed and frightened beyond all reason at finding
+      herself for the first time under Mr. Wilding's roof. He was most
+      handsomely housed. His grandfather, who had travelled in Italy, had built
+      the Chase upon the severe and noble lines which there he had learnt to
+      admire, and he had embellished its interior, too, with many treasures of
+      art which with that intent he had there collected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She dropped her whip and gloves on to a table, and sank into a chair to
+      wait, her heart fluttering in her throat. Time passed, and in the silence
+      of the great house her anxiety was gradually quieted, until at last
+      through the long window that stood open came faintly wafted to her on the
+      soft breeze of that June morning the sound of a church clock at Weston
+      Zoyland chiming twelve. She rose with a start, bethinking her suddenly of
+      Diana, and wondering why she had not yet arrived. Was the child's
+      indisposition graver than she had led Ruth to suppose? She crossed to the
+      windows and stood there drumming impatiently upon the pane, her eyes
+      straying idly over the sweep of elm-fringed lawns towards the river
+      gleaming silvery here and there between the trees in the distance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly she caught a sound of hoofs. Was this Diana? She sped to the
+      other window, the one that stood open, and now she heard the crunch of
+      gravel and the champ of bits and the sound of more than two pairs of
+      hoofs. She caught a glimpse of Mr. Wilding and Mr. Trenchard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She felt the colour flying from her cheeks; again her heart fluttered in
+      her throat, and it was in vain that with her hand she sought to repress
+      the heaving of her breast. She was afraid; her every instinct bade her
+      slip through the window at which she stood and run from Zoyland Chase. And
+      then she thought of Richard and his danger, and she seemed to gather
+      courage from the reflection of her purpose in this house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Men's voices reached her&mdash;a laugh, the harsh cawing of Nick
+      Trenchard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A lady!&rdquo; she heard him cry. &ldquo;'Od's heart, Tony! Is this a time for
+      trafficking with doxies?&rdquo; She crimsoned an instant at the coarse word and
+      set her teeth, only to pale again the next. The voices were lowered so
+      that she heard not what was said; one sharp exclamation she recognized to
+      be in Wilding's voice, but caught not the word he uttered. There followed
+      a pause, and she stirred uneasily, waiting. Then came swift steps and
+      jangling spurs across the hall, the door opened suddenly, and Mr. Wilding,
+      in a scarlet riding-coat, his boots white with dust, stood bowing to her
+      from the threshold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your servant, Mistress Westmacott,&rdquo; she heard him murmur. &ldquo;My house is
+      deeply honoured.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She dropped him a half-curtsy, pale and tongue-tied. He turned to deliver
+      hat and whip and gloves to Walters, who had followed him, then closed the
+      door and came forward into the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will forgive that I present myself thus before you,&rdquo; he said, in
+      apology for his dusty raiment. &ldquo;But I bethought me you might be in haste,
+      and Walters tells me that already have you waited nigh upon an hour. Will
+      you not sit, madam?&rdquo; And he advanced a chair. His long white face was set
+      like a mask; but his dark, slanting eyes devoured her. He guessed the
+      reason of her visit. She who had humbled him, who had driven him to the
+      very borders of despair, was now to be humbled and to despair before him.
+      Under the impassive face his soul exulted fiercely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She disregarded the chair he proffered. &ldquo;My visit... has no doubt
+      surprised you,&rdquo; she began, tremulous and hesitating.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I' faith, no,&rdquo; he answered quietly. &ldquo;The cause, after all, is not very
+      far to seek. You are come on Richard's behalf.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not on Richard's,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;On my own.&rdquo; And now that the ice was
+      broken, the suspense of waiting over, she found the tide of her courage
+      flowing fast. &ldquo;This encounter must not take place, Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; she
+      informed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He raised his eyebrows&mdash;fine and level as her own&mdash;his thin lips
+      smiled never so faintly. &ldquo;It is, I think,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;for Richard to
+      prevent it. The chance was his last night. It shall be his again when we
+      meet. If he will express regret...&rdquo; He left his sentence there. In truth
+      he mocked her, though she guessed it not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;that if he makes apology...?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What else? What other way remains?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shook her head, and, if pale, her face was resolute, her glance
+      steady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is impossible,&rdquo; she told him. &ldquo;Last night&mdash;as I have the story&mdash;he
+      might have done it without shame. To-day it is too late. To tender his
+      apology on the ground would be to proclaim himself a coward.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding pursed his lips and shifted his position. &ldquo;It is difficult,
+      perhaps,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;but not impossible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is impossible,&rdquo; she insisted firmly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll not quarrel with you for a word,&rdquo; he answered, mighty agreeable.
+      &ldquo;Call it impossible, if you will. Admit, however, that it is all I can
+      suggest. You will do me the justice, I am sure, to see that in expressing
+      my willingness to accept your brother's expressions of regret I am proving
+      myself once more your very obedient servant. But that it is you who ask it&mdash;and
+      whose desires are my commands&mdash;I should let no man go unpunished for
+      an insult such as your brother put upon me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She winced at his words, at the bow with which he had professed himself
+      once more her servant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is no clemency that you offer him,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You leave him a choice
+      between death and dishonour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has,&rdquo; Wilding reminded her, &ldquo;the chance of combat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She flung back her head impatiently. &ldquo;I think you mock me,&rdquo; said she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at her keenly. &ldquo;Will you tell me plainly, madam,&rdquo; he begged,
+      &ldquo;what you would have me do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She flushed under his gaze, and the flush told him what he sought to
+      learn. There was, of course, another way, and she had thought of it; but
+      she lacked&mdash;as well she might, all things considered&mdash;the
+      courage to propose it. She had come to Mr. Wilding in the vague hope that
+      he himself would choose the heroic part. And he, to punish for her scorn
+      of him this woman whom he loved to hating-point, was resolved that she
+      herself must beg it of him. Whether, having so far compelled her, he would
+      grant her prayer or not was something he could not just then himself have
+      told you. She bowed her head in silence, and Wilding, that faint smile,
+      half friendliness, half mockery, hovering ever on his lips, turned aside
+      and moved softly towards the window. Her eyes, veiled behind the long
+      lashes of their drooping lids, followed him furtively. She felt that she
+      hated him in very truth. She marked the upright elegance of his figure,
+      the easy grace of his movements, the fine aristocratic mould of the
+      aquiline face, which she beheld in profile; and she hated him the more for
+      these outward favours that must commend him to no lack of women. He was
+      too masterful. He made her realize too keenly her own weakness and that of
+      Richard. She felt that just now he controlled the vice that held her fast&mdash;her
+      affection for her brother. And because of that she hated him the more.
+      &ldquo;You see, Mistress Westmacott,&rdquo; said he, his shoulder to her, his tone
+      sweet to the point of sadness, &ldquo;that there is nothing else.&rdquo; She stood,
+      her eyes following the pattern of the parquetry, her foot unconsciously
+      tracing it; her courage ebbed, and she had no answer for him. After a
+      pause he spoke again, still without turning. &ldquo;If that was not enough to
+      suit your ends&rdquo;&mdash;and though he spoke in a tone of ever-increasing
+      sadness, there glinted through it the faintest ray of mockery&mdash;&ldquo;I
+      marvel you should have come to Zoyland&mdash;to compromise yourself to so
+      little purpose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She raised a startled face. &ldquo;Com... compromise myself?&rdquo; she echoed. &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo;
+       It was a cry of indignation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What else?&rdquo; quoth he, and turned abruptly to confront her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mistress Horton was... was with me,&rdquo; she panted, her voice quivering as
+      on the brink of tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis unfortunate you should have separated,&rdquo; he condoled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But... but, Mr. Wilding, I... I trusted to your honour. I accounted you a
+      gentleman. Surely... surely, sir, you will not let it be known that... I
+      came to you? You will keep my secret?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Secret!&rdquo; said he, his eyebrows raised. &ldquo;'Tis already the talk of the
+      servants' hall. By to-morrow 'twill be the gossip of Bridgwater.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Air failed her. Her blue eyes fixed him in horror out of her stricken face.
+      Not a word had she wherewith to answer him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sight of her, thus, affected him oddly. His passion for her surged up,
+      aroused by pity for her plight, and awakened in him a sense of his
+      brutality. A faint flush stirred in his cheeks. He stepped quickly to her,
+      and caught her hand. She let it lie, cold and inert, within his nervous
+      grasp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ruth, Ruth!&rdquo; he cried, and his voice was for once unsteady. &ldquo;Give it no
+      thought! I love you, Ruth. If you'll but heed that, no breath of scandal
+      can hurt you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She swallowed hard. &ldquo;As how?&rdquo; she asked mechanically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He bowed low over her hand&mdash;so low that his face was hidden from her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you will do me the honour to become my wife...&rdquo; he began, but got no
+      further, for she snatched away her hand, her cheeks crimsoning, her eyes
+      aflame with indignation. He stepped back, crimsoning too. She had dashed
+      the gentleness from his mood. He was angered now and tigerish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; she panted. &ldquo;It is to affront me! Is this the time or place...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He cropped her flow of indignant speech ere it was well begun. He caught
+      her in his arms, and held her tight, and so sudden was the act, so firm
+      his grip that she had not the thought or force to struggle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All time is love's time, all places are love's place,&rdquo; he told her, his
+      face close to her own. &ldquo;And of all time and places the present ever
+      preferable to the wise&mdash;for life is uncertain and short at best. I
+      bring you worship, and you answer me with scorn. But I shall prevail, and
+      you shall come to love me in very spite of your own self.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She threw back her head, away from his as far as the bonds he had cast
+      about her would allow. &ldquo;Air! Air!&rdquo; she panted feebly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you shall have air enough anon,&rdquo; he answered with a half-strangled
+      laugh, his passion mounting ever. &ldquo;Hark you, now&mdash;hark you, for
+      Richard's sake, since you'll not listen for my own nor yours. There is
+      another course by which I can save both Richard's life and honour. You
+      know it, and you counted upon my generosity to suggest it. But you
+      overlooked the thing on which you should have counted. You overlooked my
+      love. Count upon that, my Ruth, and Richard shall have naught to fear.
+      Count upon that, and when we meet this evening, Richard and I, it is I who
+      will tender the apology, I who will admit that I was wrong to introduce
+      your name into that company last night, and that what Richard did was a
+      just and well-deserved punishment upon me. This will I do if you'll but
+      count upon my love.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked up at him fearfully, yet with flutterings of hope. &ldquo;What is't
+      you mean?&rdquo; she asked him faintly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That if you'll promise to be my wife...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your wife!&rdquo; she interrupted him. She struggled to free herself, released
+      one arm and struck him in the face. &ldquo;Let me go, you coward!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was answered. His arms melted from her. He fell back a pace, very white
+      and even trembling, the fire all gone from his eye, which was now turned
+      dull and deadly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So be it,&rdquo; he said, and strode to the bell-rope. &ldquo;I'll not offend again.
+      I had not offended now&rdquo;&mdash;he continued, in the voice of one offering
+      an explanation cold and formal&mdash;&ldquo;but that when first I came into your
+      life you seemed to bid me welcome.&rdquo; His fingers closed upon the crimson
+      bell-cord. She guessed his purpose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait!&rdquo; she gasped, and put forth her hand. He paused, the rope in his,
+      his eye kindling anew. &ldquo;You... you mean to kill Richard now?&rdquo; she asked
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A swift lifting of his brows was his only answer. He tugged the cord. From
+      the distance the peal of the bell reached them faintly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, wait, wait!&rdquo; she begged, her hands pressed against her cheeks. He
+      stood impassible&mdash;hatefully impassible. &ldquo;....... if I were to consent
+      to... this... how... how soon...?&rdquo; He understood the unfinished question.
+      Interest warmed his face again. He took a step towards her, but by a
+      gesture she seemed to beg him come no nearer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you will promise to marry me within the week, Richard shall have no
+      cause to fear either for his life or his honour at my hands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She seemed now to be recovering her calm. &ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; she said, her voice
+      singularly steady. &ldquo;Let that be a bargain between us. Spare Richard's life
+      and honour&mdash;both, remember!&mdash;and on Sunday next...&rdquo; For all her
+      courage her voice quavered and faltered. She dared add no more, lest it
+      should break altogether.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding drew a deep breath. Again he would have advanced. &ldquo;Ruth!&rdquo; he
+      cried, and some repentance smote him, some shame shook him in his purpose.
+      At that moment it was in his mind to capitulate unconditionally; to tell
+      her that Richard should have naught to fear from him, and yet that she
+      should go free as the winds. Her gesture checked him. It was so eloquent
+      of aversion. He paused in his advance, stifled his better feelings, and
+      turned once more, relentless. The door opened and old Walters stood
+      awaiting his commands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mistress Westmacott is leaving,&rdquo; he informed his servant, and bowed low
+      and formally in farewell before her. She passed out without another word,
+      the old butler following, and presently through the door that remained
+      open came Trenchard, in quest of Mr. Wilding who stood bemused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nick sauntered in, his left eye almost hidden by the rakish cock of his
+      hat, one hand tucked away under the skirts of his plum-coloured coat, the
+      other supporting the stem of a long clay pipe, at which he was pulling
+      thoughtfully. The pipe and he were all but inseparable; indeed, the year
+      before in London he had given appalling scandal by appearing with it in
+      the Mall, and had there remained him any character to lose, he must
+      assuredly have lost it then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He observed his friend through narrowing eyes&mdash;he had small eyes,
+      very blue and very bright, in which there usually abode a roguish gleam.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My sight, Anthony,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;reminds me that I am growing old. I wonder
+      did it mislead me on the score of your visitor?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The lady who left,&rdquo; said Wilding with a touch of severity, &ldquo;will be
+      Mistress Wilding by this day se'night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard took the pipe from his lips, audibly blew out a cloud of smoke
+      and stared at his friend. &ldquo;Body o' me!&rdquo; quoth he. &ldquo;Is this a time for
+      marrying?&mdash;with these rumours of Monmouth's coming over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding made an impatient gesture. &ldquo;I thought to have convinced you they
+      are idle,&rdquo; said he, and flung himself into a chair at his writing-table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nick came over and perched himself upon the table's edge, one leg swinging
+      in the air. &ldquo;And what of this matter of the intercepted letter from London
+      to our Taunton friends?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't tell you. But of this I am sure, His Grace is incapable of
+      anything so rash. Certain is it that he'll not stir until Battiscomb
+      returns to Holland, and Battiscomb is still in Cheshire sounding the
+      Duke's friends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet were I you, I should not marry just at present.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding smiled. &ldquo;If you were me, you'd never marry at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Faith, no!&rdquo; said Trenchard. &ldquo;I'd as soon play at 'hot-cockles,' or
+      'Parson-has-lost-his-cloak.' 'Tis a mort more amusing and the sooner done
+      with.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V. THE ENCOUNTER
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Ruth Wesmacott rode back like one in a dream, with vague and hazy notions
+      of what she saw or did. So overwrought was she by the interview from which
+      she came, her mind so obsessed by it, that never a thought had she for
+      Diana and her indisposition until she arrived home to find her cousin
+      there before her. Diana was in tears, called up by the reproaches of her
+      mother, Lady Horton&mdash;the relict of that fine soldier Sir Cholmondeley
+      Horton, of Taunton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl had arrived at Lupton House a half-hour ahead of Miss Westmacott,
+      and upon her arrival she had expressed surprise, either feigned or real,
+      at finding Ruth still absent. Detecting the alarm that Diana was careful
+      to throw into her voice and manner, her mother questioned her, and
+      elicited the story of her faintness and of Ruth's having ridden on alone
+      to Mr. Wilding's. So outraged was Lady Horton that for once in a way this
+      woman, usually so meek and ease-loving, was roused to an energy and anger
+      with her daughter and her niece that threatened to remove Diana at once
+      from the pernicious atmosphere of Lupton House and carry her home to
+      Taunton. Ruth found her still at her remonstrances, arrived, indeed, in
+      time for her share of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been sore mistaken in you, Ruth!&rdquo; the dame reproached her. &ldquo;I can
+      scarce believe it of you. I have held you up as an example to Diana, for
+      the discretion and wisdom of your conduct, and you do this! You go alone
+      to Mr. Wilding's house&mdash;to Mr. Wilding's, of all men!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was no time for ordinary measures,&rdquo; said Ruth, but she spoke without
+      any of the heat of one who defends her conduct. She was, the slyly
+      watchful Diana observed, very white and tired. &ldquo;It was no time to think of
+      nice conduct. There was Richard to be saved.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And was it worth ruining yourself to do that?&rdquo; quoth Lady Horton, her
+      colour high.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ruining myself?&rdquo; echoed Ruth, and she smiled never so weary a smile. &ldquo;I
+      have, indeed, done that, though not in the way you mean.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mother and daughter eyed her, mystified. &ldquo;Your good name is blasted,&rdquo; said
+      her aunt, &ldquo;unless so be that Mr. Wilding is proposing to make you his
+      wife.&rdquo; It was a sneer the good woman could not, in her indignation,
+      repress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is what Mr. Wilding has done me the honour to propose,&rdquo; Ruth
+      answered bitterly, and left them gaping. &ldquo;We are to be married this day
+      se'night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A dead silence followed the calm announcement. Then Diana rose. At the
+      misery, the anguish that could impress so strange and white a look on
+      Ruth's winsome face, she was smitten with remorse, her incipient
+      satisfaction dashed. This was her work; the fruit of her scheming. But it
+      had gone further than she had foreseen; and for all that no result could
+      better harmonize with her own ambitions and desires, for the moment&mdash;under
+      the first shock of that announcement&mdash;she felt guilty and grew
+      afraid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ruth!&rdquo; she cried, her voice a whisper of stupefaction. &ldquo;Oh, I wish I had
+      come with you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you couldn't; you were faint.&rdquo; And then&mdash;recalling what had
+      passed&mdash;her mind was filled with sudden concern for Diana, even amid
+      her own sore troubles. &ldquo;Are you quite yourself again, Diana?&rdquo; she
+      inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana answered almost fiercely, &ldquo;I am quite well.&rdquo; And then, with a change
+      to wistfulness, she added, &ldquo;Oh, I would I had come with you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Matters had been no different,&rdquo; Ruth assured her. &ldquo;It was a bargain Mr.
+      Wilding drove. It was the price I had to pay for Richard's life and
+      honour.&rdquo; She swallowed hard, and let her hands fall limply to her sides.
+      &ldquo;Where is Richard?&rdquo; she inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was her aunt who answered her. &ldquo;He went forth half an hour agone with
+      Mr. Vallancey and Sir Rowland.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir Rowland had returned, then?&rdquo; She looked up quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; answered Diana. &ldquo;But he had achieved nothing by his visit to Lord
+      Gervase. His lordship would not intervene; he swore he hoped the cub would
+      be flayed alive by Wilding. Those were his lordship's words, as Sir
+      Rowland repeated them. Sir Rowland is in sore distress for Richard. He has
+      gone with them to the meeting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At least, he has no longer cause for his distress,&rdquo; said Miss Westmacott
+      with her bitter smile, and sank as one exhausted to a chair. Lady Horton
+      moved to comfort her, her motherliness all aroused for this motherless
+      girl, usually so wise and strong, and seemingly wiser and stronger than
+      ever in this thing that Lady Horton had deemed a weakness and a folly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, Richard and his two friends were on their way to the moors
+      across the river to the encounter with Mr. Wilding. But before they had
+      got him to ride forth, Vallancey had had occasion to regret that he stood
+      committed to a share in this quarrel, for he came to know Richard as he
+      really was. He had found him in an abject state, white and trembling, his
+      coward's fancy anticipating a hundred times a minute the death he was anon
+      to die.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vallancey had hailed him cheerily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The day is yours, Dick,&rdquo; he had cried, when Richard entered the library
+      where he awaited him. &ldquo;Wild Wilding has ridden to Taunton this morning and
+      is to be back by noon. Odsbud, Dick!&mdash;twenty miles and more in the
+      saddle before coming on the ground. Heard you ever of the like madness?
+      He'll be stiff as a broom-handle&mdash;an easy victim.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard listened, stared, and, finding Vallancey's eyes fixed steadily
+      upon him, attempted a smile and achieved a horrible grimace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What ails you, man?&rdquo; cried his second, and caught him by the wrist. He
+      felt the quiver of the other's limb. &ldquo;Stab me!&rdquo; quoth he, &ldquo;you are in no
+      case to fight. What the plague ails you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am none so well this morning,&rdquo; answered Richard feebly. &ldquo;Lord Gervase's
+      claret,&rdquo; he added, passing a hand across his brow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord Gervase's claret?&rdquo; echoed Vallancey in horror, as at some outrageous
+      blasphemy. &ldquo;Frontignac at ten shillings the bottle!&rdquo; he exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Still, claret never does lie easy on my stomach,&rdquo; Richard explained,
+      intent upon blaming Lord Gervase s wine&mdash;since he could think of
+      nothing else&mdash;for his condition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vallancey looked at him shrewdly. &ldquo;My cock,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;if you're to fight
+      we'll have to mend your temper.&rdquo; He took it upon himself to ring the bell,
+      and to order up two bottles of Canary and one of brandy. If he was to get
+      his man to the ground at all&mdash;and young Vallancey had a due sense of
+      his responsibilities in that connection&mdash;it would be well to supply
+      Richard with something to replace the courage that had oozed out
+      overnight. Young Richard, never loath to fortify himself, proved amenable
+      enough to the stiffly laced Canary that his friend set before him. Then,
+      to divert his mind, Vallancey, with that rash freedom that had made the
+      whole of Somerset know him for a rebel, set himself to talk of the
+      Protestant Duke and his right to the crown of England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was still at his talk, Richard listening moodily what time he was
+      slowly but surely befuddling himself, when Sir Rowland&mdash;returning
+      from Scoresby Hall&mdash;came to bring the news of his lack of success.
+      Richard hailed him noisily, and bade him ring for another glass, adding,
+      with a burst of oaths, some appalling threats of how anon he should serve
+      Anthony Wilding. His wits drowned in the stiff liquor Vallancey had
+      pressed upon him, he seemed of a sudden to have grown as fierce and
+      bloodthirsty as any scourer that ever terrorized the watch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake listened to him and grunted. &ldquo;Body o' me!&rdquo; swore the town gallant.
+      &ldquo;If that's the humour you're going out to fight in, I'll trouble you for
+      the eight guineas I won from you at Primero yesterday before you start.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard reared himself, by the help of the table, and stood a thought
+      unsteadily, his glance laboriously striving to engage Blake's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damn me!&rdquo; quoth he. &ldquo;Your want of faith dishgraces me&mdash;and 't
+      'shgraces you. Shalt ha' the guineas when we're back&mdash;and not
+      before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hum!&rdquo; quoth Blake, to whom eight guineas were a consideration in these
+      bankrupt days. &ldquo;And if you don't come back at all upon whom am I to draw?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The suggestion sank through Dick's half-fuddled senses, and the scare it
+      gave him was reflected on his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damn you, Blake!&rdquo; swore Vallancey between his teeth. &ldquo;Is that a decent
+      way to talk to a man who is going out? Never heed him, Dick! Let him wait
+      for his dirty guineas till we return.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thirty guineas?&rdquo; hiccoughed Richard. &ldquo;It was only eight. Anyhow&mdash;wait'll
+      I've sli' the gullet of's Mr. Wilding.&rdquo; He checked on a thought that
+      suddenly occurred to him. He turned to Vallancey with a ludicrous
+      solemnity. &ldquo;'Sbud!&rdquo; he swore. &ldquo;'S a scurvy trick I'm playing the Duke. 'S
+      treason to him&mdash;treason no less.&rdquo; And he smote the table with his
+      open hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's that?&rdquo; quoth Blake so sharply, his eyes so suddenly alert that
+      Vallancey made haste to cover up his fellow rebel's indiscretion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's the brandy-and-Canary makes him dream,&rdquo; said he with a laugh, and
+      rising as he spoke he announced that it was high time they should set out.
+      Thus he brought about a bustle that drove the Duke's business from
+      Richard's mind, and left Blake without a pretext to pursue his quest for
+      information. But the mischief was done, and Blake's suspicions were awake.
+      He bethought him now of dark hints that Richard had let fall to Vallancey
+      in the past few days, and of hints less dark with which Vallancey&mdash;who
+      was a careless fellow at ordinary times&mdash;had answered. And now this
+      mention of the Duke and of treason to him&mdash;to what Duke could it
+      refer but Monmouth?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake was well aware of the wild tales that were going round, and he began
+      to wonder now was aught really afoot, and was his good friend Westmacott
+      in it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If there was, he bethought him that the knowledge might be of value, and
+      it might help to float once more his shipwrecked fortunes. The haste with
+      which Vallancey had proffered a frivolous explanation of Richard's words,
+      the bustle with which upon the instant he swept Richard and Sir Rowland
+      from the house to get to horse and ride out to Bridgwater were in
+      themselves circumstances that went to heighten those suspicions of Sir
+      Rowland's. But lacking all opportunity for investigation at the moment, he
+      deemed it wisest to say no more just then lest he should betray his
+      watchfulness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were the first to arrive upon the ground&mdash;an open space on the
+      borders of Sedgemoor, in the shelter of Polden Hill. But they had not long
+      to wait before Wilding and Trenchard rode up, attended by a groom. Their
+      arrival had an oddly sobering effect upon young Westmacott, for which Mr.
+      Vallancey was thankful. For during their ride he had begun to fear that he
+      had carried too far the business of equipping his principal with
+      artificial valour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard came forward to offer Vallancey the courteous suggestion that
+      Mr. Wilding's servant should charge himself with the care of the horses of
+      Mr. Westmacott's party, if this would be a convenience to them. Vallancey
+      thanked him and accepted the offer, and thus the groom&mdash;instructed by
+      Trenchard&mdash;led the five horses some distance from the spot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It now became a matter of making preparation, and leaving Richard to
+      divest himself of such garments as he might deem cumbrous, Vallancey went
+      forward to consult with Trenchard upon the choice of ground. At that same
+      moment Mr. Wilding lounged forward, flicking the grass with his whip in an
+      absent manner.
+    </p>
+<p>
+ &ldquo;Mr. Vallancey,&rdquo; he began, when Trenchard turned to interrupt him.
+</p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can leave it safely to me, Tony,&rdquo; he growled. &ldquo;But there is something
+      I wish to say, Nick,&rdquo; answered Mr. Wilding, his manner mild. &ldquo;By your
+      leave, then.&rdquo; And he turned again to Valiancey. &ldquo;Will you be so good as to
+      call Mr. Westmacott hither?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Vallancey stared. &ldquo;For what purpose, sir?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For my purpose,&rdquo; answered Mr. Wilding sweetly. &ldquo;It is no longer my wish
+      to engage with Mr. Westmacott.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anthony!&rdquo; cried Trenchard, and in his amazement forgot to swear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I propose,&rdquo; added Mr. Wilding, &ldquo;to relieve Mr. Westmacott of the
+      necessity of fighting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Vallancey in his heart thought this might be pleasant news for his
+      principal. Still, he did not quite see how the end was to be attained, and
+      said so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall be enlightened if you will do as I request,&rdquo; Wilding insisted,
+      and Vallancey, with a lift of the brows, a snort, and a shrug, turned away
+      to comply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean,&rdquo; quoth Trenchard, bursting with indignation, &ldquo;that you will
+      let live a man who has struck you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding took his friend affectionately by the arm. &ldquo;It is a whim of mine,&rdquo;
+       said he. &ldquo;Do you think, Nick, that it is more than I can afford to
+      indulge?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say not so,&rdquo; was the ready answer; &ldquo;but...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought you'd not,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding, interrupting. &ldquo;And if any does&mdash;why,
+      I shall be glad to prove it upon him that he lies.&rdquo; He laughed, and
+      Trenchard, vexed though he was, was forced to laugh with him. Then Nick
+      set himself to urge the thing that last night had plagued his mind: that
+      this Richard might prove a danger to the Cause; that in the Duke's
+      interest, if not to safeguard his own person from some vindictive
+      betrayal, Wilding would be better advised in imposing a reliable silence
+      upon him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But why vindictive?&rdquo; Mr. Wilding remonstrated. &ldquo;Rather must he have cause
+      for gratitude.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Trenchard laughed short and contemptuously. &ldquo;There is,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;no
+      rancour more bitter than that of the mean man who has offended you and
+      whom you have spared. I beg you'll ponder it.&rdquo; He lowered his voice as he
+      ended his admonition, for Vallancey and Westmacott were coming up,
+      followed by Sir Rowland Blake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard, although his courage had been sinking lower and lower in a
+      measure as he had grown more and more sober with the approach of the
+      moment for engaging, came forward now with a firm step and an arrogant
+      mien; for Vallancey had given him more than a hint of what was toward. His
+      heart had leapt, not only at the deliverance that was promised him, but
+      out of satisfaction at the reflection of how accurately last night he had
+      gauged what Mr. Wilding would endure. It had dismayed him then, as we have
+      seen, that this man who, he thought, must stomach any affront from him out
+      of consideration for his sister, should have ended by calling him to
+      account. He concluded now that upon reflection Wilding had seen his error,
+      and was prepared to make amends that he might extricate himself from an
+      impossible situation, and Richard blamed himself for having overlooked
+      this inevitable solution and given way to idle panic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vallancey and Blake watching him, and the sudden metamorphosis that was
+      wrought in him, despised him heartily, and yet were glad&mdash;for the
+      sake of their association with him&mdash;that things were as they were.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Westmacott,&rdquo; said Wilding quietly, his eyes steadily set upon
+      Richard's own arrogant gaze, his lips smiling a little, &ldquo;I am here not to
+      fight, but to apologize.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard's sneer was audible to all. Oh, he was gathering courage fast now
+      that there no longer was the need for it. It urged him to lengths of
+      daring possible only to a fool.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you can take a blow, Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; said he offensively, &ldquo;that is your
+      own affair.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And his friends gasped at his temerity and trembled for him, not knowing
+      what grounds he had for counting himself unassailable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just so,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding, as meek and humble as a nun, and Trenchard,
+      who had expected something very different from him, swore aloud and with
+      some circumstance of oaths. &ldquo;The fact is,&rdquo; continued Mr. Wilding, &ldquo;that
+      what I did last night, I did in the heat of wine, and I am sorry for it. I
+      recognize that this quarrel is of my provoking; that it was unwarrantable
+      in me to introduce the name of Mistress Westmacott, no matter how
+      respectfully; and that in doing so I gave Mr. Westmacott ample grounds for
+      offence. For that I beg his pardon, and I venture to hope that this matter
+      need go no further.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Vallancey and Blake were speechless in astonishment; Trenchard livid with
+      fury. Westmacott moved a step or two forward, a swagger unmistakable in
+      his gait, his nether-lip thrust out in a sneer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; said he, his voice mighty disdainful, &ldquo;if Mr. Wilding apologizes,
+      the matter hardly can go further.&rdquo; He conveyed such a suggestion of regret
+      at this that Trenchard bounded forward, stung to speech.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But if Mr. Westmacott's disappointment threatens to overwhelm him,&rdquo; he
+      snapped, very tartly, &ldquo;I am his humble servant, and he may call upon me to
+      see that he's not robbed of the exercise he came to take.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding set a restraining hand upon Trenchard's arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Westmacott turned to him, the sneer, however, gone from his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no quarrel with you, sir,&rdquo; said he, with an uneasy assumption of
+      dignity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's a want that may be soon supplied,&rdquo; answered Trenchard briskly, and,
+      as he afterwards confessed, had not Wilding checked him at that moment, he
+      had thrown his hat in Richard's face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Vallancey who saved the situation, cursing in his heart the bearing
+      of his principal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;this is very handsome in you. You are of the
+      happy few who may tender such an apology without reflection upon your
+      courage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding made him a leg very elegantly. &ldquo;You are vastly kind, sir,&rdquo;
+       said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have given Mr. Westmacott the fullest satisfaction, and it is with an
+      increased respect for you&mdash;if that were possible&mdash;that I
+      acknowledge it on my friend's behalf.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are, sir, a very mirror of the elegancies,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding, and
+      Vallancey wondered was he being laughed at. Whether he was or not, he
+      conceived that he had done the only seemly thing. He had made handsome
+      acknowledgment of a handsome apology, stung to it by the currishness of
+      Richard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And there the matter ended, despite Trenchard's burning eagerness to carry
+      it himself to a different consummation. Wilding prevailed upon him, and
+      withdrew him from the field. But as they rode back to Zoyland Chase the
+      old rake was bitter in his inveighings against Wilding's folly and
+      weakness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I pray Heaven,&rdquo; he kept repeating, &ldquo;that it may not come to cost you
+      dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have done,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding, a trifle out of patience. &ldquo;Could I wed the
+      sister having slain the brother?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Trenchard, understanding at last, accounted himself a numskull that he
+      had not understood before. But he none the less deemed it a pity Richard
+      had been spared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI. THE CHAMPION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      As vainglorious was Richard Westmacott's retreat from the field of
+      unstricken battle as his advance upon it had been inglorious. He spoke
+      with confidence now of the narrow escape that Wilding had had at his
+      hands, of the things he would have done to Wilding had not that gentleman
+      grown wise in time. Sir Rowland, who had seen little of Richard's earlier
+      stricken condition, was in a measure imposed upon by his blustering tone
+      and manner; not so Vallancey, who remembered the steps he had been forced
+      to take to bolster up the young man's courage sufficiently to admit of his
+      being brought to the encounter. Richard so disgusted him that he felt if
+      he did not quit his company soon, he would be quarrelling with him
+      himself. So, congratulating him, in a caustic manner that Richard did not
+      relish, upon the happy termination of the affair, Vallancey took his leave
+      of him and Blake at the cross-roads, pleading business with Lord Gervase,
+      and left them to proceed without him to Bridgwater.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake, whose suspicions of some secret matter to which Vallancey and
+      Richard were wedded, had been earlier excited by Westmacott's
+      indiscretions, was full of sly questions now touching the business which
+      might be taking Vallancey to Scoresby. But Richard was too full of the
+      subject of the fear he had instilled into Wilding to afford his companion
+      much satisfaction on any other score. Thus they came to Lupton House, and
+      as Richard swaggered down the lawn into the presence of the ladies&mdash;Ruth
+      and her aunt were occupying the stone bench, Diana the circular seat about
+      the great oak in the centre of the lawn&mdash;he was a very different
+      person from the pale, limp creature they had beheld there some few hours
+      earlier. Loud and offensive was he now in self-laudation, and so
+      indifferent to all else that he left unobserved the little smile, half
+      wistful, half scornful, that visited his sister's lips when he sneeringly
+      told how Mr. Wilding had chosen that better part of valour which
+      discretion is alleged to be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It needed Diana, who, blinded by no sisterly affection, saw him exactly as
+      he was, and despised him accordingly, to enlighten him. It may also be
+      that in doing so at once she had ends of her own to serve; for Sir Rowland
+      was still of the company.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilding afraid?&rdquo; she cried, her voice so charged with derision that
+      it inclined to shrillness. &ldquo;La! Richard, Mr. Wilding was never afraid of
+      any man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Faith!&rdquo; said Rowland, although his acquaintance with Mr. Wilding was
+      slight and recent. &ldquo;It is what I should think. He does not look like a man
+      familiar with fear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard struck something of an attitude, his fair face flushed, his pale
+      eyes glittering. &ldquo;He took a blow,&rdquo; said he, and sneered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There may have been reasons,&rdquo; Diana suggested darkly, and Sir Rowland's
+      eyes narrowed at the hint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+Again he recalled the words Richard had let fall that afternoon. Wilding
+and he were fellow workers in some secret business, and Richard had said
+that the encounter was treason to that same business, whatever it might
+be. And of what it might be Sir Rowland had grounds upon which to found
+at least a guess. Had perhaps Wilding acted upon some similar feelings
+in avoiding the duel? He wondered; and when Richard dismissed Diana's
+challenge with a fatuous laugh, it was Blake who took it up.
+</p>
+    <p>
+&ldquo;You speak, ma'am,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;as if you knew that there were
+reasons, and knew, too, what those reasons might be.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana looked at Ruth, as if for guidance before replying. But Ruth sat
+      calm and seemingly impassive, looking straight before her. She was,
+      indeed, indifferent how much Diana said, for in any case the matter could
+      not remain a secret long. Lady Horton, silent too and listening, looked a
+      question at her daughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so, after a pause: &ldquo;I know both,&rdquo; said Diana, her eyes straying again
+      to Ruth; and a subtler man than Blake would have read that glance and
+      understood that this same reason which he sought so diligently sat there
+      before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard, indeed, catching that sly look of his cousin's, checked his
+      assurance, and stood frowning, cogitating. Then, quite suddenly, his voice
+      harsh:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean, Diana?&rdquo; he inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana shrugged and turned her shoulder to him. &ldquo;You had best ask Ruth,&rdquo;
+       said she, which was an answer more or less plain to both the men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They stood at gaze, Richard looking a thought foolish. Blake, frowning,
+      his heavy lip caught in his strong, white teeth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth turned to her brother with an almost piteous attempt at a smile. She
+      sought to spare him pain by excluding from her manner all suggestion that
+      things were other than she desired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am betrothed to Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; said she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Rowland made a sudden forward movement, drew a deep breath, and as
+      suddenly stood still. Richard looked at his sister as she were mad and
+      raving. Then he laughed, between unbelief and derision.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a jest,&rdquo; said he, but his accents lacked conviction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the truth,&rdquo; Ruth assured him quietly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+ &ldquo;The truth?&rdquo; His brow darkened ominously&mdash;stupendously for one so
+fair. &ldquo;The truth, you baggage...?&rdquo; He began and stopped in very fury.
+</p>
+    <p>
+      She saw that she must tell him all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I promised to wed Mr. Wilding this day se'night so that he saved your
+      life and honour,&rdquo; she told him calmly, and added, &ldquo;It was a bargain that
+      we drove.&rdquo; Richard continued to stare at her. The thing she told him was
+      too big to be swallowed at a mouthful; he was absorbing it by slow
+      degrees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So now,&rdquo; said Diana, &ldquo;you know the sacrifice your sister has made to save
+      you, and when you speak of the apology Mr. Wilding tendered you, perhaps
+      you'll speak of it in a tone less loud.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But the sarcasm was no longer needed. Already poor Richard was very
+      humble, his make-believe spirit all snuffed out. He observed at last how
+      pale and set was his sister's face, and he realized something of the
+      sacrifice she had made. Never in all his life was Richard so near to
+      lapsing from the love of himself; never so near to forgetting his own
+      interests, and preferring those of Ruth. Lady Horton sat silent, her heart
+      fluttering with dismay and perplexity. Heaven had not equipped her with a
+      spirit capable of dealing with a situation such as this. Blake stood in
+      make believe stolidity dissembling his infinite chagrin and the stormy
+      emotions warring within him, for some signs of which Diana watched his
+      countenance in vain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall not do it!&rdquo; cried Richard suddenly. He came forward and laid
+      his hand on his sister's shoulder. His voice was almost gentle. &ldquo;Ruth, you
+      shall not do this for me. You must not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Heaven, no!&rdquo; snapped Blake before she could reply. &ldquo;You are right,
+Richard. Mistress Westmacott must not be the scapegoat. She shall not
+play the part of Iphigenia.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+    <p>
+     But Ruth smiled wistfully as she answered him with a question,
+&ldquo;Where is the help for it?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard knew where the help for it lay, and for once&mdash;for just a
+      moment&mdash;he contemplated danger and even death with equanimity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can take up this quarrel again,&rdquo; he announced. &ldquo;I can compel Mr.
+      Wilding to meet me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth's eyes, looking up at him, kindled with pride and admiration. It
+      warmed her heart to hear him speak thus, to have this assurance that he
+      was anything but the coward she had been so disloyal as to deem him; no
+      doubt she had been right in saying that it was his health was the cause of
+      the palsy he had displayed that morning; he was a little wild, she knew;
+      inclined to sit over-late at the bottle; with advancing manhood, she had
+      no doubt, he would overcome this boyish failing. Meanwhile it was this
+      foolish habit&mdash;nothing more&mdash;that undermined the inherent
+      firmness of his nature. And it comforted her generous soul to have this
+      proof that he was full worthy of the sacrifice she was making for him.
+      Diana watched him in some surprise, and never doubted but that his offer
+      was impulsive, and that he would regret it when his ardour had had time to
+      cool.
+    </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It were idle,&rdquo; said Ruth at last&mdash;not that she quite believed it, but
+that it was all-important to her that Richard should not be imperilled.
+&ldquo;Mr. Wilding will prefer the bargain he has made.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+    <p>
+&ldquo;No doubt,&rdquo; growled Blake, &ldquo;but he shall be forced to unmake it.&rdquo;
+ He advanced and bowed low before her. &ldquo;Madam,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;will you grant
+me leave to champion your cause and remove this troublesome Mr. Wilding
+from your path?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana's eyes narrowed; her cheeks paled, partly from fear for Blake,
+      partly from vexation at the promptness of an offer that afforded a fresh
+      and so eloquent proof of the trend of his affections.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth smiled at him in a very friendly manner, but gently shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thank you, sir,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;But it were more than I could permit. This
+      has become a family affair.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was in her tone something which, despite its friendliness, gave Sir
+      Rowland his dismissal. He was not at best a man of keen sensibilities; yet
+      even so, he could not mistake the request to withdraw that was implicit in
+      her tone and manner. He took his leave, registering, however, in his heart
+      a vow that he would have his way with Wilding. Thus must he&mdash;through
+      her gratitude&mdash;assuredly come to have his way with Ruth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana rose and turned to her mother. &ldquo;Come,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;we'll speed Sir
+      Rowland. Ruth and Richard would perhaps prefer to remain alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth thanked her with her eyes. Richard, standing beside his sister with
+      bent head and moody gaze, did not appear to have heard. Thus he remained
+      until he and his half-sister were alone together, then he flung himself
+      wearily into the seat beside her, and took her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ruth,&rdquo; he faltered, &ldquo;Ruth!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stroked his hand, her honest, intelligent eyes bent upon him in a look
+      of pity&mdash;and to indulge this pity for him, she forgot how much
+      herself she needed pity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take it not so to heart,&rdquo; she urged him, her voice low and crooning
+      &mdash;as that of a mother to her babe. &ldquo;Take it not so to heart, Richard.
+      I should have married some day, and, after all, it may well be that Mr.
+      Wilding will make me as good a husband as another. I do believe,&rdquo; she
+      added, her only intent to comfort Richard; &ldquo;that he loves me; and if he
+      loves me, surely he will prove kind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He flung himself back with an exclamation of angry pain. He was white to
+      the lips, his eyes bloodshot. &ldquo;It must not be&mdash;it shall not be&mdash;I'll
+      not endure it!&rdquo; he cried hoarsely.
+    </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Richard, dear...&rdquo; she began, recapturing the hand he had snatched from
+hers in his gust of emotion.
+</p>
+    <p>
+     He rose abruptly, interrupting her. &ldquo;I'll go to Wilding now,&rdquo; he
+cried, his voice resolute. &ldquo;He shall cancel this bargain he had no right
+to make. He shall take up his quarrel with me where it stood before you
+went to him.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no, Richard, you must not!&rdquo; she urged him, frightened, rising too,
+      and clinging to his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;At the worst he can but kill me. But at least you
+      shall not be sacrificed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sit here, Richard,&rdquo; she bade him. &ldquo;There is something you have not
+      considered. If you die, if Mr. Wilding kills you...&rdquo; she paused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at her, and at the repetition of the fate that would probably
+      await him if he persevered in the course he threatened, his purely
+      emotional courage again began to fail him. A look of fear crept gradually
+      into his face to take the room of the resolution that had been stamped
+      upon it but a moment since.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He swallowed hard. &ldquo;What then?&rdquo; he asked, his voice harsh, and, obeying
+      her command and the pressure on his hand, he resumed his seat beside her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She spoke now at length and very gravely, dwelling upon the circumstance
+      that he was the head of the family, the last Westmacott of his line,
+      pointing out to him the importance of his existence, the insignificance of
+      her own. She was but a girl, a thing of small account where the
+      perpetuation of a family was at issue. After all, she must marry somebody
+      some day, she repeated, and perhaps she had been foolish in attaching too
+      much importance to the tales she had heard of Mr. Wilding. Probably he was
+      no worse than other men, and after all he was a gentleman of wealth and
+      position, such a man as half the women in Somerset might be proud to own
+      for husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her arguments and his weakness&mdash;his returning cowardice, which made
+      him lend an ear to those same arguments&mdash;prevailed with him; at least
+      they convinced him that he was far too important a person to risk his life
+      in this quarrel upon which he had so rashly entered. He did not say that
+      he was convinced; but he said that he would give the matter thought,
+      hinting that perhaps some other way might present itself of cancelling the
+      bargain she had made. They had a week before them, and in any case he
+      promised readily in answer to her entreaties&mdash;for her faith in him
+      was a thing unquenchable&mdash;that he would do nothing without taking
+      counsel with her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Diana had escorted Sir Rowland to the main gates of Lupton
+      House, in front of which Miss Westmacott's groom was walking his horse,
+      awaiting him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir Rowland,&rdquo; said she at parting, &ldquo;your chivalry makes you take this
+      matter too deeply to heart. You overlook the possibility that my cousin
+      may have good reason for not desiring your interference.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked keenly at this little lady to whom a month ago he had been on
+      the point of offering marriage. His coxcombry might readily have suggested
+      to him that she was in love with him, but that his conscience and
+      inclinations urged him to assure himself that this was not the case.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What shall that mean, madam?&rdquo; he asked her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana hesitated. &ldquo;What I have said is plain,&rdquo; she answered, and it was
+      clear that she held something back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Rowland flattered himself upon the shrewdness with which he read her,
+      never dreaming that he had but read just what she intended he should.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stood squarely before her, shaking his great head. &ldquo;Not plain enough
+      for me,&rdquo; he said. Then his tone softened to one of prayer. &ldquo;Tell me,&rdquo; he
+      besought her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't! I can't!&rdquo; she cried in feigned distress. &ldquo;It were too disloyal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He frowned. He caught her arm and pressed it, his heart sick with jealous
+      alarm. &ldquo;What do you mean? Tell me, tell me, Mistress Horton.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana lowered her eyes. &ldquo;You'll not betray me?&rdquo; she stipulated.
+    </p>
+<p>
+ &ldquo;Why, no. Tell me.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+    <p>
+      She flushed delicately. &ldquo;I am disloyal to Ruth,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and yet I am
+      loath to see you cozened.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cozened?&rdquo; quoth he hoarsely, his egregious vanity in arms. &ldquo;Cozened?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana explained. &ldquo;Ruth was at his house to-day,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;closeted alone
+      with him for an hour or more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Impossible!&rdquo; he cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where else was the bargain made?&rdquo; she asked, and shattered his last
+      doubt. &ldquo;You know that Mr. Wilding has not been here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet Blake struggled heroically against conviction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She went to intercede for Richard,&rdquo; he protested. Miss Horton looked up
+      at him, and under her glance Sir Rowland felt that he was a man of
+      unfathomable ignorance. Then she turned aside her eyes and shrugged her
+      shoulders very eloquently. &ldquo;You are a man of the world, Sir Rowland. You
+      cannot seriously suppose that any maid would so imperil her good name in
+      any cause?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Darker grew his florid countenance; his bulging eyes looked troubled and
+      perplexed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean that she loves him?&rdquo; he said, between question and assertion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana pursed her lips. &ldquo;You shall draw your own inference,&rdquo; quoth she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He breathed heavily, and squared his broad shoulders, as one who braces
+      himself for battle against an element stronger than himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But her talk of sacrifice?&rdquo; he cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana laughed, and again he was stung by her contempt of his perceptions.
+      &ldquo;Her brother is set against her marrying him,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;Here was her
+      chance. Is it not very plain?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Doubt stared from his eyes. &ldquo;Why do you tell me this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I esteem you, Sir Rowland,&rdquo; she answered very gently. &ldquo;I would
+      not have you meddle in a matter you cannot mend.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Which I am not desired to mend, say rather,&rdquo; he replied with heavy
+      sarcasm. &ldquo;She would not have my interference!&rdquo; He laughed angrily. &ldquo;I
+      think you are right, Mistress Diana,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and I think that more than
+      ever is there the need to kill this Mr. Wilding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He took his departure abruptly, leaving her scared at the mischief she had
+      made for him in seeking to save him from it, and that very night he sought
+      out Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Wilding was from home again. Under its placid surface the West Country
+      was in a ferment. And if hitherto Mr. Wilding had disdained the insistent
+      rumours of Monmouth's coming, his assurance was shaken now by proof that
+      the Government, itself, was stirring; for four companies of foot and a
+      troop of horse had been that day ordered to Taunton by the
+      Deputy-Lieutenant. Wilding was gone with Trenchard to White Lackington in
+      a vain hope that there he might find news to confirm his persisting
+      unbelief in any such rashness as was alleged on Monmouth's part.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So Blake was forced to wait, but his purpose suffered nothing by delay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Returning on the morrow, he found Mr. Wilding at table with Nick
+      Trenchard, and he cut short the greetings of both men. He flung his hat&mdash;a
+      black castor trimmed with a black feather&mdash;rudely among the dishes on
+      the board.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have come to ask you, Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;to be so good as to tell
+      me the colour of that hat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding raised one eyebrow and looked aslant at Trenchard, whose
+      weather-beaten face was suddenly agrin with stupefaction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I could not,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding, &ldquo;deny an answer to a question set so
+      courteously.&rdquo; He looked up into Blake's flushed and scowling face with the
+      sweetest and most innocent of smiles. &ldquo;You'll no doubt disagree with me,&rdquo;
+       said he, &ldquo;but I love to meet a man halfway. Your hat, sir, is as white as
+      virgin snow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake's slow wits were disconcerted for a moment. Then he smiled
+      viciously. &ldquo;You mistake, Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;My hat is black.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding looked more attentively at the object in dispute. He was in a
+      trifling mood, and the stupidity of this runagate debtor afforded him
+      opportunities to indulge it. &ldquo;Why, true,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;now that I come to
+      look, I perceive that it is indeed black.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And again was Sir Rowland disconcerted. Still he pursued the lesson he had
+      taught himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are mistaken again,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that hat is green.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed?&rdquo; quoth Mr. Wilding, like one surprised and he turned to
+      Trenchard, who was enjoying himself. &ldquo;What is your own opinion of it,
+      Nick?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus appealed to, Trenchard's reply was prompt. &ldquo;Why, since you ask me,&rdquo;
+       said he, &ldquo;my opinion is that it's a noisome thing not meet for a
+      gentleman's table.&rdquo; And he took it up, and threw it through the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Rowland was entirely put out of countenance. Here was a deliberate
+      shifting of the quarrel he had come to pick, which left him all at sea. It
+      was his duty to himself to take offence at Mr. Trenchard's action. But
+      that was not the business on which he had come. He became angry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Blister me!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Must I sweep the cloth from the table before
+      you'll understand me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you were to do anything so unmannerly I should have you flung out of
+      the house,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding, &ldquo;and it would distress me so to treat a
+      person of your station and quality. The hat shall serve your purpose,
+      although Mr. Trenchard's concern for my table has removed it. Our memories
+      will supply its absence. What colour did you say it was?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I said it was green,&rdquo; answered Blake, quite ready to keep to the point.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, I am sure you were wrong,&rdquo; said Wilding with a grave air. &ldquo;Although
+      I admit that since it is your own hat, you should be the best judge of its
+      colour, I am, nevertheless, of opinion that it is black.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if I were to say that it is white?&rdquo; asked Blake, feeling mighty
+      ridiculous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, in that case you would be confirming my first impression of it,&rdquo;
+       answered Wilding, and Trenchard let fly a burst of laughter at sight of
+      the baronet's furious and bewildered countenance. &ldquo;And since we are agreed
+      on that,&rdquo; continued Mr. Wilding, imperturbable, &ldquo;I hope you'll join us at
+      supper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll be damned,&rdquo; roared Blake, &ldquo;if ever I sit at table of yours, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding regretfully. &ldquo;Now you become offensive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean to be,&rdquo; said Blake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You astonish me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You lie! I don't,&rdquo; Sir Rowland answered him in triumph. He had got it out
+      at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding sat back in his chair, and looked at him, his face
+      inexpressibly shocked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you of your own accord deprive us of your company, Sir Rowland,&rdquo; he
+      wondered, &ldquo;or shall Mr. Trenchard throw you after your hat?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean...&rdquo; gasped the other, &ldquo;that you'll ask no satisfaction of
+      me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not so. Mr. Trenchard shall wait upon your friends to-morrow, and I hope
+      you'll afford us then as felicitous entertainment as you do now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Rowland snorted, and, turning on his heel, made for the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give you a good night, Sir Rowland,&rdquo; Mr. Wilding called after him.
+      &ldquo;Walters, you rascal, light Sir Rowland to the door.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor Blake went home deeply vexed; but it was no more than the beginning
+      of his humiliation at Mr. Wilding's hands&mdash;for what can be more
+      humiliating to a quarrel&mdash;seeking man than to have his enemy refuse
+      to treat him seriously? He and Mr. Wilding met next morning, and before
+      noon the tale of it had run through Bridgwater that Wild Wilding was at
+      his tricks again. It made a pretty story how twice he had disarmed and
+      each time spared the London beau, who still insisted&mdash;each time more
+      furiously&mdash;upon renewing the encounter, till Mr. Wilding had been
+      forced to run him through the sword-arm and thus put him out of all case
+      of continuing. It was a story that heaped ridicule upon Sir Rowland and
+      did credit to Mr. Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard heard it, and trembled, enraged and impotent. Ruth heard it, and
+      was stirred despite herself to a feeling of gratitude towards Wilding for
+      the patience and toleration he had displayed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There for a while the matter rested, and the days passed slowly. But Sir
+      Rowland's nature&mdash;mean at bottom&mdash;was spurred to find him some
+      other way of wiping out the score that lay 'twixt him and Mr. Wilding, a
+      score mightily increased by the shame that Mr. Wilding had put upon him in
+      that encounter from which&mdash;whatever the issue&mdash;he had looked to
+      cull great credit in Ruth's eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had been thinking constantly of the incautious words that Richard had
+      let fall, thinking of them in conjunction with the startling rumours that
+      were now the talk of the whole countryside. He laid two and two together,
+      and the four he found them make afforded him some hope. Then he realized&mdash;as
+      he might have realized before had he been shrewder&mdash;that Richard's
+      mood was one that made him ripe for any villainy. He thought that he was
+      much in error if a treachery existed so black that Richard would quail
+      before it, if it but afforded him the means of ridding himself and the
+      world of Mr. Wilding. He was considering how best to approach the subject,
+      when it happened that one night when Richard sat at play with him in his
+      own lodging, the boy grew talkative through excess of wine. It happened
+      naturally enough that Richard sought an ally in Blake, just as Blake
+      sought an ally in Richard. Indeed, their fortunes&mdash;so far as Ruth was
+      concerned&mdash;were bound up together. The baronet saw that Richard,
+      half-fuddled, was ripe for any confidences that might aim at the
+      destruction of his enemy. He questioned him adroitly, and drew from him
+      the story of the rising that was being planned, and of the share that Mr.
+      Wilding&mdash;one of the Duke of Monmouth's chief movement-men&mdash;bore
+      in the business that was toward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When, towards midnight, Richard Westmacott went home, he left in Sir
+      Rowland's hands an instrument which the latter accounted potential not
+      only for the destruction of Anthony Wilding, but perhaps also for laying
+      the foundations to the building of his own fortunes anew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII. THE NUPTIALS OF RUTH WESTMACOTT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Here was Sir Rowland Blake in high fettle at knowing himself armed with a
+      portentous weapon for the destruction of Anthony Wilding. Upon closer
+      inspection of it, however, he came to realize&mdash;as Richard had
+      realized earlier&mdash;that it was double-edged, and that the wielding of
+      it must be fraught with as much danger for Richard as for their common
+      enemy. For to betray Mr. Wilding and the plot would scarce be possible
+      without betraying young Westmacott, and that was unthinkable, since to
+      ruin Richard&mdash;a thing he would have done with a light heart so far as
+      Richard was himself concerned&mdash;would be to ruin his own hopes of
+      winning Ruth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Therefore, during the days that followed, Sir Rowland was forced to fret
+      in idleness what time his wound was healing; but if his arm was invalided,
+      his eyes and ears were sound, and he remained watchful for an opportunity
+      to apply the knowledge he had gained. Richard mentioned the subject no
+      more, so that Blake almost came to wonder whether the boy remembered what
+      in his cups he had betrayed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Mr. Wilding moved serene and smiling on his way. Daily there
+      were great armfuls of flowers deposited at Lupton House&mdash;his lover's
+      offering to his mistress&mdash;and no day went by but that some richer
+      gift accompanied them. Now it was a collar of brilliants, anon a rope of
+      pearls, again a priceless ring that had been Mr. Wilding's mother's. Ruth
+      received with reluctance these pledges of his undesired affection. It were
+      idle to reject them, considering that she was to marry him; yet it hurt
+      her sorely to retain them. On her side she made no dispositions for the
+      marriage, but went about her daily tasks as though she were to remain a
+      maid at Lupton House for a time as yet indefinite.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Diana, Wilding had&mdash;though he was far from guessing it&mdash;an
+      entirely exceptional ally. Lady Horton, too, was favourably disposed
+      towards him. A foolish, worldly woman, who never probed beneath life's
+      surface, nor indeed dreamed that anything existed in life beyond that to
+      which her five senses testified, she was content placidly to contemplate
+      the advantages that must accrue to her niece from this alliance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so mother and daughter in Mr. Wilding's absence pleaded his cause with
+      his refractory bride-elect. But they pleaded it to little real purpose.
+      Something perhaps they achieved in that Ruth grew more or less resigned to
+      the fate that awaited her. By repeating to herself the arguments she had
+      employed to Richard&mdash;that she must wed some day, and that Mr. Wilding
+      would prove no doubt as good a husband as another&mdash;she came in a
+      measure to believe them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard meanwhile appeared to avoid her. Lacking the courage to adopt the
+      heroic measures which at first he had promised, yet had he grace enough to
+      take shame at his inaction. But if he was idle so far as Mr. Wilding was
+      concerned, there was no lack of work for him in other connections. The
+      clouds of war were gathering in that summer sky, and about to loose the
+      storm gestating in them upon that fair country of the West, and young
+      Westmacott, committed as he stood to the Duke of Monmouth's party, was
+      forced to take his share in the surreptitious bustle that was toward. He
+      was away two days in that week, having been summoned to a meeting of the
+      leading gentlemen of the party at White Lackington, where he was forced
+      into the unwelcome company of his future brother-in-law, to meet with
+      courteous, deferential treatment from that imperturbable gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding, indeed, seemed to have forgotten that any quarrel had ever
+      existed between them. For the rest, he came and went, supremely calm, as
+      if he were, and knew himself to be, most welcome at Lupton House. Thrice
+      in the course of that week of waiting he rode over from Zoyland Chase to
+      pay his duty to Mistress Westmacott, and Ruth was persuaded on each
+      occasion by her aunt and cousin to receive him. Indeed, how could she well
+      refuse?
+    </p>
+<p>
+His manner was ever all that could be desired. Gallant, affectionate,
+deferential. He was in word and look and tone Ruth's most obedient
+servant. Had she been less prejudiced she must have admired the
+admirable restraint with which he kept all exultation from his manner,
+for, after all, it is difficult to force a victory as he had forced his,
+and not to triumph.
+</p>
+    <p>
+     It is to be feared that during that week he neglected a good deal
+of his duty to the Duke, leaving Trenchard to supply his place and
+undertake tasks of a seditious nature that should have been his own.
+</p>
+    <p>
+      At heart, however, in spite of the stories current and the militia at
+      Taunton, Wilding remained convinced&mdash;as did most of the other leading
+      partisans of the Protestant Cause&mdash;that no such madness as this
+      premature landing could be in contemplation by the Duke. Besides, were it
+      so, they must unfailingly have definite word of it; and they had none.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard was less assured, but Wilding laughed at the old rake's
+      forebodings, and serenely went about the business of his marriage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the eve of the wedding he paid Ruth his last visit in the quality of a
+      lover, and was received by her in the garden. He found her looking paler
+      than her wont, and there was a cloud of sadness on her brow, a haunting
+      sadness in her eyes. It touched him to the soul, and for a moment he
+      wavered in his purpose. He stood beside her&mdash;she seated on the old
+      lichened seat&mdash;and a silence fell between them, during which Mr.
+      Wilding's conscience wrestled with his stronger passion. It was his habit
+      to be glib, talking incessantly what time he was in her company, and
+      seeing to it that his talk was shallow and touched at nothing belonging to
+      the deeps of human life. Thus was it, perhaps, that this sudden and
+      enduring silence affected her most oddly; it was as if she had absorbed
+      some notion of what was passing in his mind. She looked up suddenly into
+      his face, so white and so composed. Their eyes met, and he stooped to her
+      suddenly, his long brown ringlets tumbling forward. She feared his kiss,
+      yet never moved, staring up with fixed, dilated eyes as if fascinated by
+      his dark, brooding gaze. He paused, hovering above her upturned face as
+      hovers the hawk above the dove.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Child,&rdquo; he said at last, and his voice was soft and winning from very
+      sadness, &ldquo;child, why do you fear me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The truth of it went home to her. She feared him; she feared the strength
+      that lay behind that calm; she feared the masterfulness of his wild but
+      inscrutably hidden nature; she was afraid to surrender to such a man as
+      this, afraid that in the hot crucible of his love her own nature would be
+      dissolved, transmuted, and rendered part of his. Yet, though the truth was
+      now made plain to her, she thrust it from her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not fear you,&rdquo; said she, and her voice at least rang fearlessly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you hate me, then?&rdquo; he asked. Her glance grew troubled and fell away
+      from his; it sought the calm of the river, gleaming golden in the sunset.
+      There was a pause. Wilding sighed heavily, and straightened himself from
+      his bending posture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You should not have sought thus to compel me, she said presently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I own it,&rdquo; he answered a thought bitterly. &ldquo;I own it. Yet what hope had I
+      but in compulsion?&rdquo; She returned him no answer. &ldquo;You see,&rdquo; he said, with
+      increasing bitterness, &ldquo;you see, that had I not seized the chance that was
+      mine to win you by compulsion I had not won you at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It might,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;have been better so for both of us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Better for neither,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;Ah, think it not! In time, I swear, you
+      shall not think it. For you shall come to love me, Ruth,&rdquo; he added with a
+      note of such assurance that she turned to meet again his gaze. He answered
+      the wordless question of her eyes. &ldquo;There is,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;no love of man
+      for woman, so that the man be not wholly unworthy, so that his passion be
+      sincere and strong, that can fail in time to arouse response.&rdquo; She smiled
+      a little pitiful smile of unbelief. &ldquo;Were I a boy,&rdquo; he rejoined, his
+      earnestness vibrating now in a voice that was usually so calm and level,
+      &ldquo;offering you protestations of a callow worship, you might have cause to
+      doubt me. But I am a man, Ruth&mdash;a tried, and haply a sinful man,
+      alas!&mdash;a man who needs you, and who will have you at all costs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At all costs?&rdquo; she echoed, and her lip took on a curl. &ldquo;And you call this
+      egotism by the name of love! No doubt you are right,&rdquo; she continued with
+      an irony that stung him, &ldquo;for love it is&mdash;love of yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And is not all love of another founded upon the love of self?&rdquo; he asked
+      her, startling her with a question that revealed to her clear-sighted mind
+      a truth undreamed of. &ldquo;When some day&mdash;please Heaven&mdash;I come to
+      find favour in your eyes, and you come to love me, what will it mean but
+      that you have come to find me necessary to yourself and to your happiness?
+      Would you deny me now your love if you felt that you had need of mine? I
+      love you because I love myself, you say. I grant it you. But you'll
+      confess that if you do not love me yet, it is for the same reason, and
+      that when you do come to love me the reason will be still the same.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very sure that I shall come to love you,&rdquo; said she, shifting
+      woman-like the ground of argument now that she found insecure the place on
+      which at first she had taken her stand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Were I not, think you I should compel you to the church to-morrow?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She trembled at his calm assurance. It was as if she almost feared that
+      what he said might come to pass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Since you bear such faith in your heart,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;were it not nobler,
+      more generous, that you should set yourself to win me first and wed me
+      afterwards?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the course I should, myself, prefer,&rdquo; he answered quietly. &ldquo;But it
+      is a course denied me. I was viewed here with disfavour, almost denied
+      your house. What chance had I whilst I might not come near you, whilst
+      your mind was poisoned against me by the idle, vicious prattle that goes
+      round and round the countryside, increasing ever in bulk from constant
+      repetition?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you say that these tales are groundless?&rdquo; she asked, with a sudden
+      lifting of the eyes, a sudden keen eagerness that did not escape him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would to God I could,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;since from your manner I see that
+      would improve me in your sight. But there is just sufficient truth in them
+      to forbid me, as I am, I hope, a gentleman, from giving them a full
+      denial. Yet in what am I worse than my fellows? Are you of those who think
+      a husband should come to them as one whose youth has been the youth of
+      cloistered nun? Heaven knows, I am not one to draw parallels 'twixt myself
+      and any other, yet you compel me. Whilst you deny me, you receive this
+      fellow Blake&mdash;a London night-scourer, a broken gamester who has given
+      his creditors leg-bail, and who woos you that with your fortune he may
+      close the doors of the debtor's gaol that's open to receive him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is unworthy in you,&rdquo; she exclaimed, her tone indignant&mdash;so
+      indignant that he experienced his first pang of jealousy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would be were I his rival,&rdquo; he answered quietly. &ldquo;But I am not. I have
+      saved you from becoming the prey of such as he by forcing you to marry
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That I may become the prey of such as you, instead,&rdquo; was her retort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at her a moment, smiling sadly. Then, with pardonable
+      self-esteem when we think of what manner of man it was with whom he now
+      compared himself, &ldquo;Surely,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;it is better to become the prey of
+      the lion than the jackal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To the victim it can matter little,&rdquo; she answered, and he saw the tears
+      gathering in her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Compassion moved him. It rose in arms to batter down his will, and in a
+      weaker man had triumphed. Mr. Wilding bent his knee and went down beside
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I swear,&rdquo; he said impassionedly, &ldquo;that as my wife you shall never count
+      yourself a victim. You shall be honoured by all men, but by none more
+      deeply than by him who will ever strive to be worthy of the proud title of
+      your husband.&rdquo; He took her hand and kissed it reverentially. He rose and
+      looked at her. &ldquo;To-morrow,&rdquo; he said, and bowing low before her went his
+      way, leaving her with emotions that found their vent in tears, but defied
+      her maiden mind to understand them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The morrow came her wedding-day&mdash;a sunny day of early June, and Ruth&mdash;assisted
+      by Diana and Lady Horton&mdash;made preparation for her marriage as
+      spirited women have made preparation for the scaffold, determined to show
+      the world a brave, serene exterior. The sacrifice was necessary for
+      Richard's sake. That was a thing long since determined. Yet it would have
+      been some comfort to her to have had Richard at her side; it would have
+      lent her strength to have had his kiss of thanks for the holocaust which
+      for him she was making of all that a woman holds most dear and sacred. But
+      Richard was away&mdash;he had been absent since yesterday, and none could
+      tell her where he tarried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With Lady Horton and Diana she took her way to Saint Mary's Church at
+      noon, and there she found Mr. Wilding&mdash;very fine in a suit of
+      sky-blue satin, laced with silver&mdash;awaiting her. And with him was old
+      Lord Gervase Scoresby, his friend and cousin, the very incarnation of
+      benignity and ruddy health.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a wonder Nick Trenchard was not at Mr. Wilding's side. But Nick had
+      definitely refused to be of the party, emphasizing his refusal by certain
+      choice reflections wholly unflattering to the married state.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some idlers of the town were the only witnesses&mdash;and little did they
+      guess the extent of the tragedy they were witnessing. There was no music,
+      and the ceremony was brief and soon at an end. The only touch of joy, of
+      festiveness, was that afforded by the choice blooms with which Mr. Wilding
+      had smothered nave and choir and altar-rails. Their perfume hung heavy as
+      incense in the temple.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?&rdquo; droned the parson's
+      voice, and Wilding smiled defiantly a smile which seemed to answer him,
+      &ldquo;No man. I have taken her for myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Gervase stood forward as her sponsor, and as in a dream Ruth felt her
+      hand lying in Mr. Wilding's cool, firm grasp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ecclesiastic's voice droned on, his voice hanging like the hum of some
+      great Insect upon the scented air. It was accomplished, and they were
+      welded each to the other until death should part them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Down the festooned nave she came on his arm, her step unfaltering, her
+      face calm; black misery in her heart. Behind followed her aunt and cousin
+      and Lord Gervase. On Mr. Wilding's aquiline face a pale smile glimmered,
+      like a beam of moonlight upon tranquil waters, and it abode there until
+      they reached the porch and were suddenly confronted by Nick Trenchard, red
+      of face for once, perspiring, excited, and dust-stained from head to foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had arrived that very instant; and, urged by the fearful news that
+      brought him, he had come resolved to pluck Wilding from the altar be the
+      ceremony done or not. But in that he reckoned without Mr. Wilding&mdash;for
+      he should have known him better than to have hoped to succeed. He stepped
+      forward now, and gripped him with his dusty glove by the sleeve of his
+      shimmering bridegroom's coat. His voice came harsh with excitement and
+      smouldering rage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A word with you, Anthony!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding turned placidly to regard him. &ldquo;What now?&rdquo; he asked, his
+      bride's hand retained in the crook of his elbow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Treachery!&rdquo; snapped Trenchard in a whisper. &ldquo;Hell and damnation! Step
+      aside, man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding turned to Lord Gervase, and begged of him to take charge of
+      Mistress Wilding. &ldquo;I deplore this interruption,&rdquo; he told her, no whit
+      ruffled by what he had heard. &ldquo;But I shall rejoin you soon. Meanwhile, his
+      lordship will do the honours for me.&rdquo; This last he said with his eyes
+      moving to Lady Horton and her daughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Gervase, in some surprise, but overruled by his cousin's calm, took
+      the bride on his arm and led her from the churchyard to the waiting
+      carriage. To this he handed her, and after her her aunt and cousin. Then,
+      mounting himself, they drove away, leaving Wilding and Trenchard among the
+      tombstones, whither the messenger of evil had meanwhile led his friend.
+      Trenchard rapped out his story briefly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shenke,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;who was riding from Lyme with letters for you from the
+      Duke, was robbed of his dispatches late last night a mile or so this side
+      Taunton.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Highwaymen?&rdquo; inquired Mr. Wilding, his tone calm, though his glance had
+      hardened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Highwaymen? No! Government agents belike. There were two of them, he says&mdash;for
+      I have the tale from himself&mdash;and they met him at the Hare and Hounds
+      at Taunton, where he stayed to sup last night. One of them gave him the
+      password, and he conceived him to be a friend. But afterwards, growing
+      suspicious, he refused to tell them too much. They followed him, it
+      appears, and on the road they overtook and fell upon him; they knocked him
+      from his horse, possessed themselves of the contents of his wallet, and
+      left him for dead&mdash;with his head broken.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding drew a sharp breath. His wits worked quickly. He was, he
+      realized, in deadly peril. One thought he gave to Ruth. If the worst came
+      to pass here was one who would rejoice in her freedom. The reflection cut
+      through him like a sword. He would be loath to die until he had taught her
+      to regret him. Then his mind returned to what Trenchard had told him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You said a Government agent,&rdquo; he mused slowly. &ldquo;How would a Government
+      agent know the password?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard's mouth fell open. &ldquo;I had not thought...&rdquo; he began. Then ended
+      with an oath. &ldquo;'Tis a traitor from inside.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding nodded. &ldquo;It must be one of those who met at White Lackington three
+      nights ago,&rdquo; he answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Idlers&mdash;the witnesses of the wedding&mdash;were watching them with
+      interest from the path, and others from over the low wall of the
+      churchyard, as well they might, for Mr. Wilding's behaviour was, for a
+      bridegroom, extraordinary. Trenchard did not relish the audience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We had best away,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Indeed,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;we had best out of
+      England altogether before the hue and cry is raised. The bubble's
+      pricked.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding's hand fell on his arm, and its grasp was steady. Wilding's eyes
+      met his, and their gaze was calm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where have you bestowed this messenger?&rdquo; quoth he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is here in Bridgwater, in bed, at the Bell Inn, whence he sent for you
+      to Zoyland Chase. Suspecting trouble, I rode to him at once myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, then,&rdquo; said Wilding. &ldquo;We'll go talk with him. This matter needs
+      probing ere we decide on flight. You do not seem to have sought to
+      discover who were the thieves, nor other matters that it may be of use to
+      know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rat me!&rdquo; swore Trenchard. &ldquo;I was in haste to bring you news of it.
+      Besides, there were other things to talk of. There is news that Albemarle
+      has gone to Exeter, and that Sir Edward Phelips and Colonel Luttrell have
+      been ordered to Taunton by the King.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding stared at him with sudden dismay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Odso!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;Is King James taking fright at last?&rdquo; Then he
+      shrugged his shoulders and laughed; &ldquo;Pshaw!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;They are starting
+      at a shadow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heaven send,&rdquo; prayed Trenchard, &ldquo;that the shadow does not prove to have a
+      substance immediately behind it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Folly!&rdquo; said Wilding. &ldquo;When Monmouth comes, indeed, we shall not lack
+      forewarning. Come,&rdquo; he added briskly. &ldquo;We'll see this messenger and
+      endeavour to discover who were these fellows that beset him.&rdquo; And he drew
+      Trenchard from among the tombstones to the open path, and thus from the
+      churchyard and the eyes of the gaping onlookers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII. BRIDE AND GROOM
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      And so the bridegroom, in all his wedding finery, made his way with
+      Trenchard to the Bell Inn, in the High Street, whilst his bride, escorted
+      by Lord Gervase, was being driven to Zoyland Chase, of which she was now
+      the mistress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she was not destined just yet to cross its threshold. For scarcely
+      were they over the river when a horseman barred their way, and called upon
+      the driver to pull up. Lady Horton, in a panic, huddled herself in the
+      great coach and spoke of tobymen, whilst Lord Gervase thrust his head from
+      the window to discover that the rider who stayed their progress was
+      Richard Westmacott. His lordship hailed the boy, who, thereupon, walked
+      his horse to the carriage door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord Gervase,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;will you bid the coachman put about and drive to
+      Lupton House?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+<p>
+Lord Gervase stared at him in hopeless bewilderment. &ldquo;Drive to Lupton
+House?&rdquo; he echoed. The more he saw of this odd wedding, the less he
+understood of it. It seemed to the placid old gentleman that he was
+fallen among a parcel of Bedlamites. &ldquo;Surely, sir, it is for Mistress
+Wilding to say whither she will be driven,&rdquo; and he drew in his head and
+turned to Ruth for her commands. But, bewildered herself, she had none
+to give him. It was her turn to lean from the carriage window to ask her
+brother what he meant.
+</p>
+    <p>
+     &ldquo;I mean you are to drive home again,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;There is something
+I must tell you. When you have heard me it shall be yours to decide
+whether you will proceed or not to Zoyland Chase.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+    <p>
+      Hers to decide? How was that possible? What could he mean? She pressed him
+      with some such questions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It means, in short,&rdquo; he answered impatiently, &ldquo;that I hold your salvation
+      in my hands. For the rest, this is not the time or place to tell you more.
+      Bid the fellow put about.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth sat back and looked once more at her companions. But from none did
+      she receive the least helpful suggestion. Lady Horton made great prattle
+      to little purpose; Lord Gervase followed her example, whilst Diana, whose
+      alert if trivial mind was the one that might have offered assistance, sat
+      silent. Ruth pondered. She bethought her of Trenchard's sudden arrival at
+      Saint Mary's, his dust-stained person and excited manner, and of how he
+      had drawn Mr. Wilding aside with news that seemed of moment. And now her
+      brother spoke of saving her; it was a little late for that, she thought.
+      Outside the coach his voice still urged her, and it grew peevish and
+      angry, as was usual when he was crossed. In the end she consented to do
+      his will. If she were to fathom this mystery that was thickening about her
+      there seemed to be no other course. She turned to Lord Gervase.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you do as Richard says?&rdquo; she begged him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His lordship blew out his chubby cheeks in his astonishment; he hesitated
+      a moment, thinking of his cousin Wilding; then, with a shrug, he leaned
+      from the window and gave the order she desired. The carriage turned about,
+      and with Richard following lumbered back across the bridge and through the
+      town to Lupton House. At the door Lord Gervase took his leave of them. He
+      had acted as Ruth had bidden him; but he had no wish to be further
+      involved in this affair, whatever it might portend. Rather was it his duty
+      at once to go acquaint Mr. Wilding&mdash;if he could find him&mdash;with
+      what was taking place, and leave it to Mr. Wilding to take what measures
+      might seem best to him. He told them so, and having told them, left them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard begged to be alone with his sister, and alone they passed together
+      into the library. His manner was restless; he trembled with excitement,
+      and his eyes glittered almost feverishly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may have thought, Ruth, that I was resigned to your marriage with
+      this fellow Wilding,&rdquo; he began; &ldquo;or that for other reasons I thought it
+      wiser not to interfere. If you thought that you wronged me. I&mdash;Blake
+      and I&mdash;have been at work for you during these last days, and I
+      rejoice to say our labours have not been idle.&rdquo; His manner grew assertive,
+      boastful, as he proceeded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know, of course,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;that I am married.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He made a gesture of disdain. &ldquo;No matter,&rdquo; said he exultantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It matters something, I think,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;O Richard, Richard, why
+      did you not come to me sooner if you possessed the means of sparing me
+      this thing?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He shrugged impatiently; her remonstrance seemed to throw him out of
+      temper. &ldquo;Oons!&rdquo; he cried; &ldquo;I came as soon as was ever possible, and,
+      depend upon it, I am not come too late. Indeed, I think I am come in the
+      very nick of time.&rdquo; He drew a sheet of paper from an inside pocket of his
+      coat and slapped it down upon the table. &ldquo;There is the wherewithal to hang
+      your fine husband,&rdquo; he announced in triumph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She recoiled. &ldquo;To hang him?&rdquo; she echoed. With all her aversion to Mr.
+      Wilding it was plain she did not wish him hanged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye, to hang him,&rdquo; Richard repeated, and drew himself to the full height
+      of his short stature in pride at the thing he had achieved. &ldquo;Read it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She took the paper almost mechanically, and for some moments she studied
+      the crabbed signature before realizing whose it was. Then she started.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From the Duke of Monmouth!&rdquo; she exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed. &ldquo;Read it,&rdquo; he bade her again, though there was no need for the
+      injunction, for already she was deciphering the crabbed hand and the
+      atrocious spelling&mdash;for His Grace of Monmouth's education had been
+      notoriously neglected. The letter, which was dated from The Hague, was
+      addressed &ldquo;To my good friend W., at Bridgwater.&rdquo; It began, &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; spoke of
+      the imminent arrival of His Grace in the West, and gave certain
+      instructions for the collection of arms and the work of preparing men for
+      enlistment in his Cause, ending with protestations of His Grace's
+      friendship and esteem.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth read the epistle twice before its treasonable nature was made clear
+      to her; before she understood the thing that was foreshadowed. Then she
+      raised troubled eyes to her brother's face, and in answer to the question
+      of her glance he made clear to her the shrewd means by which they had
+      become possessed of this weapon that should destroy their enemy Mr.
+      Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake and he, forewarned&mdash;he said not how&mdash;of the coming of this
+      messenger, had lain in wait for him at the Hare and Hounds, at Taunton.
+      They had sought at first to become possessed of the letter without
+      violence. But, having failed in this through having aroused the
+      messenger's suspicions, they had been forced to follow and attack him on a
+      lonely stretch of road, where they had robbed him of the contents of his
+      wallet. Richard added that the letter was, no doubt, one of several sent
+      over by Monmouth to some friend at Lyme for distribution among his
+      principal agents in the West. It was regrettable that they should have
+      endeavoured to take gentle measures with the courier, as this had
+      forewarned him, and he had apparently been led to remove the letter's
+      outer wrapper&mdash;which, no doubt, bore Wilding's full name and address&mdash;against
+      the chance of such an attack as they had made upon him. Nevertheless, as
+      it was, that letter &ldquo;to my good friend W.,&rdquo; backed by Richard's and
+      Blake's evidence of the destination intended for it, would be more than
+      enough to lay Mr. Wilding safely by the heels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would to Heaven,&rdquo; he repeated in conclusion, &ldquo;I could have come in time
+      to save you from becoming his wife. But at least it is in my power to make
+      you very speedily his widow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That,&rdquo; said Ruth, still retaining the letter, &ldquo;is what you propose to
+      do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shook her head. &ldquo;It must not be, Richard,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I'll not consent
+      to it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Taken aback, he stared at her; then laughed unpleasantly. &ldquo;Odds my life!
+      Are you in love with the man? Have you been fooling us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;But I'll be no party to his murder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Murder, quotha! Who talks of murder?&rdquo; Her shrewd eyes searched his face.
+      &ldquo;How came you by your knowledge that this courier rode to Mr. Wilding?&rdquo;
+       she asked him suddenly, and the swift change that overspread his
+      countenance showed her that she had touched him in a tender spot, assured
+      her of the thing she had suddenly come to suspect&mdash;a suspicion which
+      at the same time started from and explained much that had been mysterious
+      in Richard's ways of late. &ldquo;You had knowledge of this conspiracy,&rdquo; she
+      pursued, answering her own question before he had time to speak, &ldquo;because
+      you were one of the conspirators.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At least I am so no longer,&rdquo; he blurted out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thank Heaven for that, Richard; for your life is very dear to me. But
+      it would ill become you to make such use as this of the knowledge you came
+      by in that manner. It were a Judas's act.&rdquo; He would have interrupted her,
+      but her manner dominated him. &ldquo;You will leave this letter with me,
+      Richard,&rdquo; she continued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damn me! no...&rdquo; he began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, yes, Richard,&rdquo; she insisted. &ldquo;You will give it to me, and I shall
+      thank you for the gift. It shall prove a weapon for my salvation, never
+      fear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It shall, indeed,&rdquo; he cried, with an ugly laugh; &ldquo;when I have ridden to
+      Exeter to lay it before Albemarle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not so,&rdquo; she answered him. &ldquo;It shall be a weapon of defence&mdash;not of
+      offence. It shall stand as a buckler between me and Mr. Wilding. Trust me,
+      I shall know how to use it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But there is Blake to consider,&rdquo; he expostulated, growing angry. &ldquo;I am
+      pledged to him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your first duty is to me...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tut!&rdquo; he interrupted. &ldquo;Blake feels that he owes it to his loyalty to lay
+      this letter before the Lord-Lieutenant, and, for that matter, so do I.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir Rowland would not cross my wishes in this,&rdquo; she answered him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Folly!&rdquo; he cried, now thoroughly aroused. &ldquo;Give me that letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, Richard,&rdquo; she answered, and waved him back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he advanced nevertheless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give it me,&rdquo; he bade her, waxing fierce. &ldquo;Gad! It was folly to have told
+      you of it. I had not done so but that I never thought you such a fool as
+      to oppose yourself to the thing we intend.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen, Richard...&rdquo; she besought him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he was grown insensible to pleadings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me that letter,&rdquo; he insisted, and caught her wrist. Her other hand,
+      however&mdash;the one that held the sheet&mdash;was already behind her
+      back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The door was suddenly thrust open, and Diana appeared. &ldquo;Ruth,&rdquo; she
+      announced, &ldquo;Mr. Wilding is here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the mention of that name, Richard let her free. &ldquo;Wilding!&rdquo; he
+      ejaculated, his fierceness all blown out of him. He had imagined that
+      already Mr. Wilding would be in full flight. Was the fellow mad?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is following me,&rdquo; said Diana, and, indeed, a step could be heard in
+      the passage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The letter!&rdquo; growled Richard in a frenzy, between fear and anger now.
+      &ldquo;Give it me! Give it me, do you hear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sh! You'll betray yourself,&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;He is here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And at that same moment Mr. Wilding's tall figure, still arrayed in his
+      bridegroom's finery of sky-blue satin, loomed in the doorway. He was
+      serene and calm as ever. Neither the discovery of the plot by the
+      abstraction of the messenger's letter, nor Ruth's strange conduct&mdash;of
+      which he had heard from Lord Gervase&mdash;had sufficed to ruffle,
+      outwardly at least, the inscrutable serenity of his air and manner. He
+      paused to make his bow, then advanced into the room, with a passing glance
+      at Richard still spurred and booted and all dust-stained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You appear to have ridden far, Dick,&rdquo; said he, smiling, and Richard
+      shivered in spite of himself at the mocking note that seemed to ring
+      faintly at the words. &ldquo;I saw your friend, Sir Rowland, in the garden,&rdquo; he
+      added. &ldquo;I think he waits for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Though Richard could not fail to apprehend the implied dismissal, he was
+      minded at first to disregard it. But Mr. Wilding, turning, held the door,
+      addressing Diana.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mistress Horton,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;will you give us leave?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana curtsied and passed out, and Mr. Wilding's eye falling upon the
+      lingering Richard at that moment, Richard thought it best to follow her
+      example. But he went with rage in his heart at being forced to leave that
+      precious document behind him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Mr. Wilding, his back to her a moment, closed the door, Ruth slipped
+      the paper hurriedly into the bosom of her low-necked gown. He turned to
+      her, calm but very grave, and his dark eyes seemed to reproach her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is ill done, Ruth,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ill done, or well done,&rdquo; she answered him, &ldquo;done it is, and shall so
+      remain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He raised his brows. &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I appear, then, to have
+      misapprehended the situation. From what Gervase told me, I understood it
+      was your brother forced you to return.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not forced, sir,&rdquo; she answered him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Induced, then,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;It but remains me to induce you to repair what
+      I think was a mistake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shook her head. &ldquo;I have returned home for good,&rdquo; said she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll pardon me,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that I am so egotistical as to prefer
+      Zoyland Chase to Lupton House. Despite the manifold attractions of the
+      latter, I do not intend to take up my abode here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are not asked to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hated him for the smile, for his masterful air, which seemed to imply
+      that he humoured her because he scorned to use authority, but that when he
+      did use it, hers must it be to obey him. Again she felt that everlasting
+      calm, arguing such latent forces, was the thing she hated most in him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I had best be plain with you,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;I have fulfilled my
+      part of the bargain that we made. I intend to do no more. I promised that
+      if you spared my brother, I would go to the altar with you to-day. I have
+      carried out my contract to the letter. It is at an end.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;I think it has not yet begun.&rdquo; He advanced towards
+      her, and took her hand. She yielded it, unwilling though she was. &ldquo;This is
+      unworthy of you, madam,&rdquo; said he, his tone grave and deferential. &ldquo;You
+      think to escape fulfilling the spirit of your bargain by adhering to the
+      letter of it. Not so,&rdquo; he ended, and shook his head, smiling gently. &ldquo;The
+      carriage is still at your door. You return with me to Zoyland Chase to
+      take possession of your home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mistake,&rdquo; said she, and tore her hand from his. &ldquo;You say that what I
+      have done is unworthy. I admit it; but it is with unworthiness that we
+      must combat unworthiness. Was your attitude towards me less unworthy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll make amends for it if you'll come home,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My home is here. You cannot compel me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should be loath to,&rdquo; he admitted, sighing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You cannot,&rdquo; she insisted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I can,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;There is a law..&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A law that will hang you if you invoke it,&rdquo; she cut in quickly. &ldquo;This
+      much can I safely promise you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had need to say no more to tell him everything. At all times half a
+      word was as much to Mr. Wilding as a whole sentence to another. She saw
+      the tightening of his lips, the hardening of his eyes, beyond which he
+      gave no other sign that she had hit him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;It is another bargain that you make. I do suspect there
+      is some trader's blood in the Westmacott veins. Let us be clear. You hold
+      the wherewithal to ruin me, and you will use it if I insist upon my
+      husband's rights. Is it not so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She nodded in silence, surprised at the rapidity with which he had read
+      the situation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I admit,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that you have me between sword and wall.&rdquo; He laughed
+      shortly. &ldquo;Let me know more,&rdquo; he begged her. &ldquo;Am I to understand that so
+      long as I leave you in peace&mdash;so long as I do not insist upon your
+      becoming my wife in more than name&mdash;you will not wield the weapon
+      that you hold?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are to understand so,&rdquo; she answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took a turn in the room, very thoughtful. Not of himself was he
+      thinking now, but of the Duke of Monmouth. Trenchard had told him some
+      ugly truths that morning of how in his love-making he appeared to have
+      shipwrecked the Cause ere it was well launched. If this letter got to
+      Whitehall there was no gauging&mdash;ignorant as he was of what was in it&mdash;the
+      ruin that might follow; but they had reason to fear the worst. He saw his
+      duty to the Duke most clearly, and he breathed a prayer of thanks that
+      Richard had chosen to put that letter to such a use as this. He knew
+      himself checkmated; but he was a man who knew how to bear defeat in a
+      becoming manner. He turned suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The letter is in your hands?&rdquo; he inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is,&rdquo; she answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May I see it?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She shook her head&mdash;not daring to show it or betray its whereabouts
+      lest he should use force to become possessed of it&mdash;a thing, indeed,
+      that was very far from his purpose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He considered a moment, his mind intent now rather upon the Duke's
+      interest than his own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know,&rdquo; quoth he, &ldquo;the desperate enterprise to which I stand
+      committed. But it is a bargain between us that you do not betray me nor
+      that enterprise so long as I leave you rid of my presence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is the bargain I propose,&rdquo; said she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at her a moment with hungry eyes, and she found his glance
+      almost more than she could bear, so strong was its appeal. Besides, it may
+      be that she was a thought beglamoured by the danger in which he stood,
+      which seemed to invest him with a certain heroic dignity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ruth,&rdquo; he said at length, &ldquo;it may well be that that which you desire may
+      speedily come to pass; it may well be that in the course of this rebellion
+      that is hatching you may be widowed. But at least I know that if my head
+      falls it will not be my wife who has betrayed me to the axe. For that
+      much, believe me, I am supremely grateful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He advanced. He took her unresisting hand again and bore it to his lips,
+      bowing low before her. Then erect and graceful he turned on his heel and
+      left her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX. MR. TRENCHARD'S COUNTERSTROKE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Now, however much it might satisfy Mr. Wilding to have Ruth's word for it
+      that so long as he left her in peace neither he nor the Cause had any
+      betrayal to fear from her, Mr. Trenchard was of a very different mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He fumed and swore and worked himself into a very passion. &ldquo;Zoons, man!&rdquo;
+       he cried, &ldquo;it would mean utter ruin to you if that letter reached
+      Whitehall.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I realize it; but my mind is easy. I have her promise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A woman's promise!&rdquo; snorted Trenchard, and proceeded with great
+      circumstance of expletives to damn &ldquo;everything that daggled a petticoat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your fears are idle,&rdquo; Wilding assured him. &ldquo;What she says, she will do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And her brother?&rdquo; quoth Trenchard. &ldquo;Have you bethought you of that
+      canary-bird? He'll know the letter's whereabouts. He has cause to fear you
+      more than ever now. Are you sure he'll not be making use of it to lay you
+      by the heels?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding smiled upon the fury provoked by Trenchard's concern and love
+      for him. &ldquo;She has promised,&rdquo; he said with an insistent faith that was fuel
+      to Trenchard's anger, &ldquo;and I can depend her word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So cannot I,&rdquo; snapped his friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The thing that plagues me most,&rdquo; said Wilding, ignoring the remark, &ldquo;is
+      that we are kept in ignorance of the letter's contents at a time when we
+      most long for news. Not a doubt but it would have enabled us to set our
+      minds at ease on the score of these foolish rumours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye&mdash;or else confirmed them,&rdquo; said pessimistic Trenchard. He wagged
+      his head. &ldquo;They say the Duke has put to sea already.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Folly!&rdquo; Wilding protested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whitehall thinks otherwise. What of the troops at Taunton?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;More folly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well-I would you had that letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At least,&rdquo; said Wilding, &ldquo;I have the superscription, and we know from
+      Shenke that no name was mentioned in the letter itself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's evidence enough without it,&rdquo; Trenchard reminded him, and fell
+      soon after into abstraction, turning over in his mind a notion with which
+      he had suddenly been inspired. That notion kept Trenchard secretly
+      occupied for a couple of days; but in the end he succeeded in perfecting
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now it befell that towards dusk one evening early in the week Richard
+      Westmacott went abroad alone, as was commonly his habit, his goal being
+      the Saracen's Head, where he and Sir Rowland spent many a night over wine
+      and cards&mdash;to Sir Rowland's moderate profit, for he had not played
+      the pigeon in town so long without having acquired sufficient knowledge to
+      enable him to play the rook in the country. As Westmacott was passing up
+      the High Street, a black shadow fell athwart the light that streamed from
+      the door of the Bell Inn, and out through the doorway lurched Mr.
+      Trenchard a thought unsteadily to hurtle so violently against Richard that
+      he broke the long stem of the white clay pipe he was carrying. Now Richard
+      was not to know that Mr. Trenchard&mdash;having informed himself of Mr.
+      Westmacott's evening habits&mdash;had been waiting for the past half-hour
+      in that doorway hoping that Mr. Westmacott would not depart this evening
+      from his usual custom. Another thing that Mr. Westmacott was not to know&mdash;considering
+      his youth&mdash;was the singular histrionic ability which this old rake
+      had displayed in those younger days of his when he had been a player, and
+      the further circumstance that he had excelled in those parts in which
+      ebriety was to be counterfeited. Indeed, we have it on the word of no less
+      an authority on theatrical matters than Mr. Pepys that Mr. Nicholas
+      Trenchard's appearance as Pistol in &ldquo;Henry IV&rdquo; in the year of the blessed
+      Restoration was the talk alike of town and court.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Trenchard steadied himself from the impact, and, swearing a round and
+      awful Elizabethan oath, accused the other of being drunk, then struck an
+      attitude to demand with truculence, &ldquo;Would ye take the wall o' me, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard hastened to make himself known to this turbulent roysterer, who
+      straightway forgot his grievance to take Westmacott affectionately by the
+      hand and overwhelm him with apologies. And that done, Trenchard&mdash;who
+      affected the condition known as maudlin drunk&mdash;must needs protest
+      almost in tears how profound was his love for Richard, and insist that the
+      boy return with him to the Bell Inn, that they might pledge each other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard, himself sober, was contemptuous of Trenchard so obviously
+      obfuscated. At first it was his impulse to excuse himself, as possibly
+      Blake might be already waiting for him; but on second thoughts,
+      remembering that Trenchard was Mr. Wilding's most intimate famulus, it
+      occurred to him that by a little crafty questioning he might succeed in
+      smoking Mr. Wilding's intentions in the matter of that letter&mdash;for
+      from his sister he had failed to get satisfaction. So he permitted himself
+      to be led indoors to a table by the window which stood vacant. There were
+      at the time a dozen guests or so in the common-room. Trenchard bawled for
+      wine and brandy, and for all that he babbled in an irresponsible, foolish
+      manner of all things that were of no matter, yet not the most adroit of
+      pumping could elicit from him any such information as Richard sought.
+      Perforce young Westmacott must remain, plying him with more and more drink&mdash;and
+      being plied in his turn&mdash;to the end that he might not waste the
+      occasion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An hour later found Richard much the worse for wear, and Trenchard
+      certainly no better. Richard forgot his purpose, forgot that Blake waited
+      for him at the Saracen's Head. And now Trenchard seemed to be pulling
+      himself together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to talk to you, Richard,&rdquo; said he, and although thick, there was
+      in his voice a certain impressive quality that had been absent hitherto.
+      &ldquo;'S a rumour current.&rdquo; He lowered his voice to a whisper almost, and,
+      leaning across, took his companion by the arm. He hiccoughed noisily, then
+      began again. &ldquo;'S a rumour current, sweetheart, that you're disaffected.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard started, and his mind flapped and struggled like a trapped bird to
+      escape the meshes of the wine, to the end that he might convincingly
+      defend himself from such an imputation&mdash;so dangerously true.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'S a lie!&rdquo; he gasped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard shut one eye and owlishly surveyed his companion with the other.
+      &ldquo;They say,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;that you're for forsaking 'Duke's party.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Villainous!&rdquo; Richard protested. &ldquo;I'll sli' throat of any man 't says so.&rdquo;
+       And draining the pewter at his elbow, he smashed it down on the table to
+      emphasize his seriousness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard replenished it with the utmost promptness, then sat back in his
+      tall chair and pulled a moment at the fresh pipe with which he had
+      equipped himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I espy,&rdquo;' he quoted presently, &ldquo;'virtue and valour crouched in
+      thine eye.' And yet... and yet... if I had cause to think it true, I'd...
+      I'd run you through the vitals&mdash;jus' so,&rdquo; and he prodded Richard's
+      waistcoat with the point of his pipe-stem. His swarthy face darkened, his
+      eyes glittered fiercely. &ldquo;Are ye sure ye're norrer foul traitor?&rdquo; he
+      demanded suddenly. &ldquo;Are y' sure, for if ye're not...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He left the terrible menace unuttered, but it was none the less
+      understood. It penetrated the vinous fog that beset the brain of Richard,
+      and startled him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Swear I'm not!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;'Swear mos' solemnly I'm not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Swear?&rdquo; echoed Trenchard, and his scowl grew darker still. &ldquo;Swear? A man
+      may swear and yet lie&mdash;'a man may smile and smile and be a villain.'
+      I'll have proof of your loyalty to us. I'll have proof, or as there's a
+      heaven above and a hell below, I'll rip you up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His mien was terrific, and his voice the more threatening in that it was
+      not raised above a whisper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard sat back appalled, afraid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wha'... what proof'll satisfy you?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard considered it, pulling at his pipe again. &ldquo;Pledge me the Duke,&rdquo;
+       said he at length. &ldquo;Ther's truth 'n wine. Pledge me the Duke and confusion
+      to His Majesty the goldfinch.&rdquo; Richard reached for his pewter, glad that
+      the test was to be so light. &ldquo;Up on your feet, man,&rdquo; grumbled Trenchard.
+      &ldquo;On your feet, and see that your words have a ring of truth in them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard did as he was bidden, the little reason left him being
+      concentrated wholly on the convincing of his fellow tippler. He rose to
+      his feet, so unsteadily that his chair fell over with a bang. He never
+      heeded it, but others in the room turned at the sound, and a hush fell in
+      the chamber. Dominating this came Richard's voice, strident with
+      intensity, if thick of utterance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Down with Popery, and God save the Protestant Duke!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Down with
+      Popery!&rdquo; And he looked at Trenchard for applause, and assurance that
+      Trenchard no longer thought there was cause to quarrel with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Behind him there was a stir in the room that went unheeded by the boy. Men
+      nudged their neighbours; some looked frightened and some grinned at the
+      treasonable words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A swift change came over Trenchard. His drunkenness fell from him like a
+      discarded mantle. He sat like a man amazed. Then he heaved himself to his
+      feet in a fury, and smashed down his pipestem on the wooden table, sending
+      its fragments flying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damn me!&rdquo; he roared. &ldquo;Have I sat at table with a traitor?&rdquo; And he thrust
+      at Richard with his open palm, lightly yet with sufficient force to throw
+      Richard off his precarious balance and send him sprawling on the sanded
+      floor. Men rose from the tables about and approached them, some few
+      amused, but the majority very grave. Dodsley, the landlord, came hurrying
+      to assist Richard to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Westmacott,&rdquo; he whispered in the rash fool's ear, &ldquo;you were best
+      away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard stood up, leaning his full weight upon the arm the landlord had
+      about his waist. He passed a hand over his brow, as if to brush aside the
+      veil that obscured his wits. What had happened? What had he said? What had
+      Trenchard done? Why did these fellows stand and gape at him? He heard his
+      companion's voice, raised to address the company.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gentlemen,&rdquo; he heard him say, &ldquo;I trust there is none present will impute
+      to me any share in such treasonable sentiments as Mr. Westmacott has
+      expressed. But if there is any who questions my loyalty, I have a
+      convincing argument for him&mdash;in my scabbard.&rdquo; And he struck his
+      sword-hilt with his fist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he clapped on his hat, aslant over the locks of his golden wig, and,
+      taking up his whip, he moved with leisurely dignity towards the door. He
+      looked back with a sardonic smile at the ado he was leaving behind him,
+      listened a moment to the voices that already were being raised in
+      excitement, then closed the door and made his way briskly to the
+      stable-yard, where he called for his horse. He rode out of Bridgwater ten
+      minutes later, and took the road to Taunton as the moon was rising big and
+      yellow over the hills on his left. He reached Taunton towards ten o'clock
+      that night, having ridden hell-to-leather. His first visit was to the Hare
+      and Hounds, where Blake and Westmacott had overtaken the courier. His next
+      to the house where Sir Edward Phelips and Colonel Luttrell&mdash;the
+      gentlemen lately ordered to Taunton by His Majesty&mdash;had their
+      lodging.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fruits of Mr. Trenchard's extraordinary behaviour that night were to
+      be seen at an early hour on the following day, when a constable and three
+      tything-men came with a Lord-Lieutenant's warrant to arrest Mr. Richard
+      Westmacott on a charge of high treason. They found the young man still
+      abed, and most guilty was his panic when they bade him rise and dress
+      himself&mdash;though little did he dream of the full extent to which Mr.
+      Trenchard had enmeshed him, or indeed that Mr. Trenchard had any hand at
+      all in this affair. What time he was getting into his clothes with a
+      tything-man outside his door and another on guard under his window, the
+      constable and his third myrmidon made an exhaustive search of the house.
+      All they found of interest was a letter signed &ldquo;Monmouth,&rdquo; which they took
+      from the secret drawer of a secretary in the library; but that, it seemed,
+      was all they sought, for having found it, they proceeded no further with
+      their reckless and destructive ransacking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With that letter and the person of Richard Westmacott, the constable and
+      his men took their departure, and rode back to Taunton, leaving alarm and
+      sore distress at Lupton House. In her despair poor Ruth was all for
+      following her brother, in the hope that at least by giving evidence of how
+      that letter came into his possession she might do something to assist him.
+      But knowing, as she did, that he had had his share in the treason that was
+      hatching, she had cause to fear that his guilt would not lack for other
+      proofs. It was Diana who urged her to repair instead to the only man upon
+      whose resource she might depend, provided he were willing to exert it.
+      That man was Anthony Wilding, and whether Diana urged it from motives of
+      her own or out of concern for Richard, it would be difficult to say with
+      certainty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The very thought of going to him for aid, after all that had passed, was
+      repugnant to Ruth. And yet what choice had she? Convinced by her cousin
+      and urged by her affection and duty to Richard, she repressed her
+      aversion, and, calling for a horse, rode out to Zoyland Chase, attended by
+      a groom. Wilding by good fortune was at home, hard at work upon a mass of
+      documents in that same library where she had talked with him on the
+      occasion of her first visit to his home&mdash;to the home of which she
+      remembered that she was now, herself, the mistress. He was preparing for
+      circulation in the West a mass of libels and incendiary pamphlets
+      calculated to forward the cause of the Protestant Duke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dissembling his surprise, he bade old Walters&mdash;who left her waiting
+      in the hall whilst he went to announce her&mdash;to admit her instantly,
+      and he advanced to the door to receive and welcome her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ruth,&rdquo; said he, and his face was oddly alight, &ldquo;you have come at last.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She smiled a wan smile of self-pity. &ldquo;I have been constrained,&rdquo; said she,
+      and told him what had happened; that her brother had been arrested for
+      high treason, and that the constable in searching the house had come upon
+      the Monmouth letter she had locked away in her desk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And not a doubt,&rdquo; she ended, &ldquo;but it will be believed that it was to
+      Richard the letter was indited by the Duke. You will remember that its
+      only address was 'to my good friend, W.,' and that will stand for
+      Westmacott as well as Wilding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding was fain to laugh at the irony of this surprising turn of
+      things of which she brought him news; for he had neither knowledge nor
+      suspicion of the machinations of his friend Trenchard, to which these
+      events were due. But noting and respecting her anxiety for her brother, he
+      curbed his natural amusement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a judgment upon you,&rdquo; said he, nevertheless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you exult?&rdquo; she asked indignantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; but I cannot repress my admiration for the ways of Divine Justice. If
+      you are come to me for advice, I can but suggest that you should follow
+      your brother's captors to Taunton, and inform the lieutenants of how the
+      letter came into your power.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him in anger almost at what seemed a callousness. &ldquo;Would he
+      believe me, think you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Belike he would not,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding. &ldquo;You can but try.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I told them it was addressed to you,&rdquo; she said, eyeing him sternly,
+      &ldquo;does it not occur to you that they would send for you to question you,
+      and that if they did so, as you are a gentleman you could not lie away my
+      brother's life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, yes,&rdquo; said he quite calmly, &ldquo;it does occur to me. But does it not
+      occur to you that by the time they came here they would find me gone?&rdquo; He
+      laughed at her dismay. &ldquo;I thank you, madam, for this warning,&rdquo; he added.
+      &ldquo;I think I'll bid them saddle for me without delay. Too long already have
+      I tarried.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And must Richard hang?&rdquo; she asked him fiercely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding produced a snuffbox of tortoise shell and gold. He opened it
+      deliberately. &ldquo;If he does, you'll admit that he will hang on the gallows
+      that he has built himself&mdash;although intended for another. I'faith!
+      He's not the first booby to be caught in his own springe. There is in this
+      a measure of poetic justice. Poetry and justice! Do you know, Ruth, they
+      are two things I have ever loved?&rdquo; And he took a pinch of choice Bergamot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you be serious?&rdquo; she demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Trenchard would tell you that it were to make an exception from the rule
+      of my life,&rdquo; he assured her, smiling. &ldquo;Yet even that might I do at your
+      bidding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But this is a serious matter,&rdquo; she told him angrily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For Richard,&rdquo; he acknowledged, closing his snuffbox with a snap. &ldquo;Tell
+      me, what would you have me do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Since he asked her thus, she answered him in two words. &ldquo;Save him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At the cost of my own neck?&rdquo; quoth he. &ldquo;The price is high,&rdquo; he reminded
+      her. &ldquo;Do you think that Richard is quite worth it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And are you to save yourself at the cost of his?&rdquo; she counter-questioned.
+      &ldquo;Are you capable of such a baseness?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at her thoughtfully a moment. &ldquo;You have not reflected,&rdquo; said he
+      slowly, &ldquo;that in this affair is involved more than mine or Richard's life.
+      There is a great cause weighing in the balance against all personal
+      considerations. If I accounted Richard of more value to Monmouth than I am
+      myself, I should not hesitate in riding to set him free by taking his
+      place. As it is, however, I think I am of the greatest conceivable
+      importance to His Grace, whilst if twenty Richards perished&mdash;frankly&mdash;their
+      loss would be something of a gain, for Richard has played a traitor's part
+      already. That is with me the first of all considerations.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Am I of no consideration to you?&rdquo; she asked him. And in an agony of
+      terror for her brother she now approached him, and, obeying a sudden
+      impulse, cast herself upon her knees before him. &ldquo;Listen!&rdquo; she cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not thus,&rdquo; said he, a frown between his eyes. He took her by the elbows
+      and gently but very firmly brought her to her feet again. &ldquo;It is not
+      fitting you should kneel save at your prayers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was standing now, and very close to him, his hands still held her
+      elbows, though their touch was so light that she scarce felt it. To
+      release them was easy, and the next second her hands were on his
+      shoulders, her brave eyes raised to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; she implored him, &ldquo;you'll not let Richard be destroyed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked down at her with kindling glance, his arms slipped round her
+      lissom waist. &ldquo;It is hard to deny you, Ruth,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Yet not my love of
+      my own life compels me; but my duty, my loyalty to the cause to which I am
+      pledged. I were a traitor were I now to place myself in peril.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She pressed against him, her face so close to his that her breath fanned
+      his cheek, whither a faint colour crept in quick response. Despite herself
+      almost, instinctively, unconsciously, she exerted the weapons of her sex
+      to bend him to her will.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You say you love me,&rdquo; she whispered. &ldquo;Prove it me now, and I will believe
+      you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; he sighed. &ldquo;And believing me? What then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had himself grimly in hand, yet feared he should not prove strong
+      enough to hold himself for long.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You... you shall find me your... dutiful wife,&rdquo; she faltered, crimsoning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His arms tightened about her; he crushed her to him, he bent his head to
+      hers and his lips burnt the lips she yielded to him as though they had
+      been living fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anon, she was to weep in shame&mdash;in shame and in astonishment&mdash;at
+      that instant of surrender, but for the moment she had no thought save for
+      her brother. Exultation filled her. She accounted that she had conquered,
+      and she gloried in the power her beauty gave her, a power that had
+      sufficed to melt to water the hard-frozen purposes of this self-willed
+      man. The next instant, however, she was cold again with dismay and newborn
+      terror. He unclasped her arms, he drew back, shaking off the hands she had
+      rested upon his shoulders. His white face&mdash;the flush had faded from
+      it again&mdash;smiled a thought disdainfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You bargain with me,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But I have some knowledge of your ways of
+      trading. They are overshrewd for an honest gentleman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean,&rdquo; she gasped, her hand pressed to her heart, her face a deathly
+      white, &ldquo;you mean that you'll not save him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that I will have no further bargains with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was such hard finality in his tone that she recoiled, beaten and
+      without power, to return to the assault. She had played and lost. She had
+      yielded her lips to his kisses, and&mdash;husband though he might be in
+      name&mdash;shame was her only guerdon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One look she gave him from out of that face so white and pitiful, then
+      with a shudder turned from him and fled his presence. He sprang after her
+      as the door closed, then checked and stood in thought, very grim for one
+      who professed to bestow no seriousness on the affairs of life. Then he
+      returned slowly to his writing-table, and rummaged there among the papers
+      with which it was encumbered, seeking something of which he now had need.
+      Through the open window he heard the retreating beat of her horse's hoofs.
+      He sighed and sat down heavily, to take his long square chin in his hand
+      and stare before him at the sunlight on the lawn outside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And whilst he sat thus, Ruth made all haste back to Lupton House to tell
+      of the failure that had attended her. There was nothing left her now but
+      to embark upon the forlorn hope of following Richard to Taunton, to offer
+      her evidence of how the incriminating letter had come to be locked in the
+      drawer in which the constable had discovered it. Diana met her with a face
+      as white as her own and infinitely more startled. She had just learnt that
+      Sir Rowland Blake had been arrested also and that he had been carried to
+      Taunton together with Richard, and, as a consequence, she was as eager now
+      that Ruth should repair to Albemarle as she had erstwhile been earnest in
+      urging her to seek out Mr. Wilding; indeed, Diana went so far as to offer
+      to accompany her, an offer that Ruth gladly, gratefully accepted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Within an hour Ruth and Diana&mdash;in spite of all that poor, docile Lady
+      Horton had said to stay them&mdash;were riding to Taunton, attended by the
+      same groom who had so lately accompanied his mistress to Zoyland Chase.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X. THEIR OWN PETARD
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In a lofty, spacious room of the town hall at Taunton sat Sir Edward
+      Phelips and Colonel Luttrell to dispense justice, and with them, flanked
+      by one of them on either side of him, sat Christopher Monk, Duke of
+      Albemarle, Lord-Lieutenant of Devonshire, who had been summoned in all
+      haste from Exeter that he might be present at an examination which
+      promised to be of so vast importance. The three sat at a long table at the
+      room's end, attended by two secretaries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before them, guarded by constable and tything-men, weaponless, their hands
+      pinioned behind them&mdash;Blake's arm was healed by now&mdash;stood Mr.
+      Westmacott and his friend Sir Rowland to answer this grave charge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard, not knowing who might have betrayed him and to what extent, was
+      very fearful&mdash;having through his connection with the Cause every
+      reason so to be. Blake, on the other hand, conscious of his innocence of
+      any plotting, was impatient of his position, and a thought contemptuous.
+      It was he who, upon being ushered by the constable and his men into the
+      august presence of the Lord-Lieutenant, clamoured to know precisely of
+      what he was accused that he might straightway clear himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Albemarle reared his great massive head, smothered in a mighty black
+      peruke, and scowled upon the florid London beau. A black-visaged gentleman
+      was Christopher Monk. His pendulous cheeks, it is true, were of a sallow
+      pallor, but what with his black wig, black eyebrows, dark eyes, and the
+      blue-black tint of shaven beard on his great jaw and upper lip, he
+      presented an appearance sombrely sinister. His netherlip was thick and
+      very prominent; deep creases ran from the corners of his mouth adown his
+      heavy chin; his eyes were dull and lack-lustre, with great pouches under
+      them. In the main, the air of this son of the great Parliamentarian
+      general was stupid, dull, unprepossessing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The creases of his mouth deepened as Blake protested against what he
+      termed this outrage that had been done him; he sneered ponderously,
+      thrusting further forward his heavily undershot jowl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are informed, sir, of your antecedents,&rdquo; he staggered Blake by
+      answering. &ldquo;We have learnt the reason why you left London and your
+      creditors, and in all my life, sir, I have never known a man more ready to
+      turn his hand to treason than a broken gamester. Your kind turns by
+      instinct to such work as this, as a last resource for the mending of
+      battered fortunes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake crimsoned from chin to brow. &ldquo;I'm forejudged, it, seems,&rdquo; he made
+      answer haughtily, tossing his fair locks, his blue eyes glaring upon his
+      judges. &ldquo;May I, at least, know the name of my accuser?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall receive impartial justice at our hands,&rdquo; put in Phelips, whose
+      manner was of a dangerous mildness. &ldquo;Depend on that. Not only shall you
+      know the name of your accuser, but you shall be confronted by him.
+      Meanwhile, sirs&rdquo;&mdash;and his glance strayed from Blake's flushed and
+      angry countenance to Richard's, pale and timid&mdash;&ldquo;meanwhile, are we to
+      understand that you deny the charge?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have heard none as yet,&rdquo; said Sir Rowland insolently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Albemarle turned to one of the secretaries. &ldquo;Read them the indictment,&rdquo;
+       said he, and sank back in his chair, his dull glance upon the prisoners,
+      whilst the clerk in a droning voice read from a document which he took up.
+      It impeached Sir Rowland Blake and Mr. Richard Westmacott of holding
+      treasonable communication with James Scott, Duke of Monmouth, and of
+      plotting against His Majesty's life and throne and the peace of His
+      Majesty's realms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake listened with unconcealed impatience to the farrago of legal
+      phrases, and snorted contemptuously when the reading came to an end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Albemarle looked at him darkly. &ldquo;I do thank God,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that through
+      Mr. Westmacott's folly has this hideous plot, this black and damnable
+      treason, been brought to light in time to enable us to stamp out this fire
+      ere it is well kindled. Have you aught to say, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have to say that the whole charge a foul and unfounded lie,&rdquo; said Sir
+      Rowland bluntly: &ldquo;I never plotted in my life against anything but my own
+      prosperity, nor against any man but myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Albemarle smiled coldly at his colleagues, then turned to Westmacott. &ldquo;And
+      you, sir?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Are you as stubborn as your friend?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I incontinently deny the charge,&rdquo; said Richard, and he contrived that his
+      voice should ring bold and resolute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A charge built on air,&rdquo; sneered Blake, &ldquo;which the first breath of truth
+      should utterly dispel. We have heard the impeachment. Will Your Grace with
+      the same consideration permit us to see the proofs that we may lay bare
+      their falseness? It should not be difficult.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you say there is no such plot as is here alleged?&rdquo; quoth the Duke, and
+      smote a paper sharply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake shrugged his shoulders. &ldquo;How should I know?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;I say I have
+      no share in any, that I am acquainted with none.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Call Mr. Trenchard,&rdquo; said the Duke quietly, and an usher who had stood
+      tamely by the door at the far end of the room departed on the errand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard started at the mention of that name. He had a singular dread of
+      Mr. Trenchard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Colonel Luttrell&mdash;lean and wiry&mdash;now addressed the prisoners,
+      Blake more particularly. &ldquo;Still,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;you will admit that such a
+      plot may, indeed, exist?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It may, indeed, for aught I know&mdash;or care,&rdquo; he added incautiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Albemarle smote the table with a heavy hand. &ldquo;By God!&rdquo; he cried in that
+      deep booming voice of his, &ldquo;there spoke a traitor! You do not care, you
+      say, what plots may be hatched against His Majesty's life and crown! Yet
+      you ask me to believe you a true and loyal subject.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake was angered; he was at best a short-tempered man. Deliberately he
+      floundered further into the mire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have not asked Your Grace to believe me anything,&rdquo; he answered hotly.
+      &ldquo;It is all one to me what Your Grace believes me. I take it I have not
+      been fetched hither to be confronted with what Your Grace believes. You
+      have preferred a lying charge against me; I ask for proofs, not Your
+      Grace's beliefs and opinions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By God, sir, you are a daring rogue!&rdquo; cried Albemarle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Rowland's eyes blazed. &ldquo;Anon, Your Grace, when, having failed of your
+      proofs, you shall be constrained to restore me to liberty, I shall ask
+      Your Grace to unsay that word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Albemarle stared, confounded, and in that moment the door opened, and
+      Trenchard sauntered in, cane in hand, his hat under his arm, a wicked
+      smile on his wizened face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leaving Blake's veiled threat unanswered, the Duke turned to the old rake.
+      &ldquo;These rogues,&rdquo; said he, pointing to the prisoners, &ldquo;demand proofs ere
+      they will admit the truth of the impeachment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Those proofs,&rdquo; said Trenchard, &ldquo;are already in Your Grace's hands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye, but they have asked to be confronted with their accuser.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard bowed. &ldquo;Is it your wish, then, that I recite for them the counts
+      on which I have based the accusation I laid before Your Grace?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you will condescend so far,&rdquo; said Albemarle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Blister me...!&rdquo; roared Blake, when the Duke interrupted him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By God, sir!&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;I'll have no such disrespectful language here.
+      You'll observe the decency of speech and forbear from profanities, you
+      damned rogue, or by God! I'll commit you forthwith.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will endeavour,&rdquo; said Blake, with a sarcasm lost on Albemarle, &ldquo;to
+      follow Your Grace's lofty example.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will do well, sir,&rdquo; said the Duke, and was shocked that Trenchard
+      should laugh at such a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was about to protest, sir,&rdquo; said Blake, &ldquo;that it is monstrous I should
+      be accused by Mr. Trenchard. He has but the slightest acquaintance with
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard bowed to him across the chamber. &ldquo;Admitted, sir,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;What
+      should I be doing in bad company?&rdquo; An answer this that set Albemarle
+      bawling with laughter. Trenchard turned to the Duke. &ldquo;I will begin, an it
+      please Your Grace, with the expressions used last night in my presence at
+      the Bell Inn at Bridgwater by Mr. Richard Westmacott, and I will confine
+      myself strictly to those matters on which my testimony can be corroborated
+      by that of other witnesses.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Colonel Luttrell interrupted him to turn to Richard. &ldquo;Do you recall those
+      expressions, sir?&rdquo; he asked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard winced under the question. Nevertheless, he braced himself to make
+      the best defence he could. &ldquo;I have not yet heard,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;what those
+      expressions were; nor when I hear them must it follow that I recognize
+      them as my own. I must admit to having taken more wine, perhaps, than...
+      than...&rdquo; Whilst he sought the expression that he needed Trenchard cut in
+      with a laugh. &ldquo;In vino veritas, gentlemen,&rdquo; and His Grace and Sir Edward
+      nodded sagely; Luttrell preserved a stolid exterior. He seemed less prone
+      than his colleagues to forejudging.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you repeat the expressions used by Mr. Westmacott?&rdquo; Sir Edward
+      begged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will repeat the one that, to my mind, matters most.&rdquo; Mr. Westmacott,
+      getting to his feet and in a loud voice, exclaimed, &ldquo;God save the
+      Protestant Duke!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you admit it, sir?&rdquo; thundered Albemarle, his eyes glowering upon
+      Richard hesitated a moment, pale and trembling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will waste breath in denying it,&rdquo; said Trenchard suavely, &ldquo;for I have
+      a drawer from the Bell Inn, and two gentlemen who overheard you waiting
+      outside.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'faith, sir,&rdquo; cried Blake, &ldquo;what treason was therein that? If he...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Silence!&rdquo; thundered Albemarle. &ldquo;Let Mr. Westmacott speak for himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard, inspired by the defence Blake had begun, took the same line of
+      argument. &ldquo;I admit that in the heat of wine I may have used such words,&rdquo;
+       said he. &ldquo;But I deny their intent to be treasonable. There are many men
+      who drink to the prosperity of the late Kings's son...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Natural son, sir; natural son,&rdquo; Albemarle amended. &ldquo;It is treason to
+      speak of him otherwise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will be a treason presently to draw breath,&rdquo; sneered Blake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it be,&rdquo; said Trenchard, &ldquo;it is a treason you'll not be long
+      committing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Faith, you are right, Mr. Trenchard,&rdquo; said the Duke with a laugh. Indeed,
+      he found Mr. Trenchard a most pleasant and facetious gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Still,&rdquo; insisted Richard, endeavouring in spite of these irrelevancies to
+      make good his point, &ldquo;there be many men who drink daily to the prosperity
+      of the late King's natural son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye, sir,&rdquo; answered Albemarle; &ldquo;but not his prosperity in horrid plots
+      against the life of our beloved sovereign.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;True, Your Grace; very true,&rdquo; purred Sir Edward. &ldquo;It was not so I meant
+      to toast him,&rdquo; cried Richard. Albemarle made an impatient gesture, and
+      took up a sheet of paper. &ldquo;How, then,&rdquo; he asked, &ldquo;comes this letter&mdash;this
+      letter which makes plain the treason upon which the Duke of Monmouth is
+      embarked, just as it makes plain your participation in it&mdash;how comes
+      this letter to be found in your possession?&rdquo; And he waved the letter in
+      the air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard went the colour of ashes. He faltered a moment, then took refuge
+      in the truth, for all that he knew beforehand that the truth was bound to
+      ring more false than any lie he could invent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That letter was not addressed to me,&rdquo; he stammered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Albemarle read the subscription, &ldquo;To my good friend W., at Bridgwater.&rdquo; He
+      looked up, a heavy sneer thrusting his heavy lip still further out. &ldquo;What
+      do you say to that? Does not 'W' stand for Westmacott?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It does not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course not,&rdquo; said Albemarle with heavy sarcasm. &ldquo;It stands for
+      Wilkins, or Williams, or... or... What-not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed, I can bear witness that it does not,&rdquo; exclaimed Sir Rowland.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be silent, sir, I tell you!&rdquo; bawled the Duke at him again. &ldquo;You shall
+      bear witness soon enough, I promise you. To whom, then,&rdquo; he resumed,
+      turning again to Richard, &ldquo;do you say that this letter was addressed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To Mr. Wilding&mdash;Mr. Anthony Wilding,&rdquo; Richard answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would have Your Grace to observe,&rdquo; put in Trench ard quietly, &ldquo;that Mr.
+      Wilding, properly speaking, does not reside in Bridgwater.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tush!&rdquo; cried Albemarle; &ldquo;the rogue but mentions the first name with a 'W'
+      that occurs to him. He's not even an ingenious liar. And how, sir,&rdquo; he
+      asked Richard, &ldquo;does it come to be in your possession, having been
+      addressed, as you say, to Mr. Wilding?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye, sir,&rdquo; said Sir Edward, blinking his weak eyes. &ldquo;Tell us that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard hesitated again, and looked at Blake. Blake, who by now had come
+      to realize that his friend's affairs were not mended by his interruptions,
+      moodily shrugged his shoulders, scowling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, sir,&rdquo; said Colonel Luttrell, engagingly, &ldquo;answer the question.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye,&rdquo; roared Albemarle; &ldquo;let your invention have free rein.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again poor Richard sought refuge in the truth. &ldquo;We&mdash;Sir Rowland here
+      and I&mdash;had reason to suspect that he was awaiting such a letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell us your reasons, sir, if we are to credit you,&rdquo; said the Duke, and
+      it was plain he mocked the prisoner. It was, moreover, a request that
+      staggered Richard. Still, he sought to find a reason that should sound
+      plausible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We inferred it from certain remarks that Mr. Wilding let fall in our
+      presence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell us the remarks, sir,&rdquo; the Duke insisted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed, I do not call his precise words to mind, Your Grace. But they
+      were such that we suspicioned him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you would have me believe that hearing words which awoke in you such
+      grave suspicions, you kept your suspicions and straightway forgot the
+      words. You're but an indifferent liar.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard, who was standing by the long table, leaned forward now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It might be well, an it please Your Grace,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;to waive the point,
+      and let us come to those matters which are of greater moment. Let him tell
+      Your Grace how he came by the letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye,&rdquo; said Albemarle. &ldquo;We do but waste time. Tell us, then, how came the
+      letter into your hands?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With Sir Rowland, here, I robbed the courier as he was riding from
+      Taunton to Bridgwater.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Albemarle laughed, and Sir Edward smiled. &ldquo;You robbed him, eh?&rdquo; said His
+      Grace. &ldquo;Very well. But how did it happen that you knew he had the letter
+      upon him, or was it that you were playing the hightobymen, and that in
+      robbing him you hoped to find other matters?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not so, sir,&rdquo; answered Richard. &ldquo;I sought but the letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how knew you that he carried it? Did you learn that, too, from Mr.
+      Wilding's indiscretion?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Grace has said it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Slife! What an impudent rogue have we here!&rdquo; cried the angry Duke, who
+      conceived that Richard was purposely dealing in effrontery. &ldquo;Mr.
+      Trenchard, I do think we are wasting time. Be so good as to confound them
+      both with the truth of this matter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That letter,&rdquo; said Trenchard, &ldquo;was delivered to them at the Hare and
+      Hounds, here at Taunton, by a gentleman who put up at the inn, and was
+      there joined by Mr. Westmacott and Sir Rowland Blake. They opened the
+      conversation with certain cant phrases very clearly intended as passwords.
+      Thus: the prisoners said to the messenger, as they seated themselves at
+      the table he occupied, 'You have the air, sir, of being from overseas,' to
+      which the courier answered, 'Indeed, yes. I am from Holland. 'From the
+      land of Orange,' says one of the prisoners. 'Aye, and other things,'
+      replies the messenger. 'There is a fair wind blowing,' he adds; to which
+      one of the prisoners, I believe it was Sir Rowland, makes answer, 'Mayit
+      prosper the Protestant Duke and blow Popery to hell.' Thereupon the
+      landlord caught some mention of a letter, but these plotters, perceiving
+      that they were perhaps being overheard, sent him away to fetch them wine.
+      A half-hour later the messenger took his leave, and the prisoners followed
+      a very few minutes afterwards.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Albemarle turned to the prisoners. &ldquo;You have heard Mr. Trenchard's story.
+      How do you say&mdash;is it true or untrue?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will waste breath in denying it,&rdquo; Trenchard took it again upon
+      himself to admonish them. &ldquo;For I have with me the landlord of the Hare and
+      Hounds, who will corroborate, upon oath, what I have said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We do not deny it,&rdquo; put in Blake. &ldquo;But we submit that the matter is
+      susceptible to explanation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can keep your explanations till your trial, then,&rdquo; snapped Albemarle.
+      &ldquo;I have heard more than enough to commit the pair of you to gaol.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Your Grace,&rdquo; cried Sir Rowland, so fiercely that one of the
+      tything-men set a restraining hand upon his shoulder, &ldquo;I am ready to swear
+      that what I did, and what my friend Mr. Westmacott did, was done in the
+      interests of His Majesty. We were working to discover this plot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Which, no doubt,&rdquo; put in Trenchard slyly, &ldquo;is the reason why, having got
+      the letter, your friend Mr. Westmacott locked it in a desk, and you kept
+      silence on the matter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see,&rdquo; exclaimed Albemarle, &ldquo;how your lies do but serve further to
+      bind you in the toils. It is ever thus with traitors.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do think you are a damned traitor, Trenchard,&rdquo; began Blake; &ldquo;a foul...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But what more he would have said was checked by Albemarle, who thundered
+      forth an order for their removal, and then, scarce were the words uttered
+      than the door at the far end of the hall was opened, and through it came a
+      sound of women's voices. Richard started, for one was the voice of Ruth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An usher advanced. &ldquo;May it please Your Grace, there are two ladies here
+      beg that you will hear their evidence in the matter of Mr. Westmacott and
+      Sir Rowland Blake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Albemarle considered a moment. Trenchard stood very thoughtful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed,&rdquo; said the Duke, at last, &ldquo;I have heard as much as I need hear,&rdquo;
+       and Sir Phelips nodded in token of concurrence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not so, however, Colonel Luttrell. &ldquo;Still,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;in the interests of
+      His Majesty, perhaps, we should be doing well to receive them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Albemarle blew out his cheeks like a man wearied, and stared an instant at
+      Luttrell. Then he shrugged his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Admit them, then,&rdquo; he commanded almost peevishly, and Ruth and Diana were
+      ushered into the hall. Both were pale, but whilst Diana was fluttered with
+      excitement, Ruth was calm and cool, and it was she who spoke in answer to
+      the Duke's invitation. The burden of her speech was a clear, succinct
+      recitation&mdash;in which she spared neither Wilding nor herself&mdash;of
+      how the letter came to have remained in her hands and silence to have been
+      preserved regarding it. Albemarle heard her very patiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If what you say is true, mistress,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;and God forbid that I
+      should be so ungallant as to throw doubt upon a lady's word, it certainly
+      explains&mdash;although most strangely&mdash;how the letter was not
+      brought to us at once by your brother and his friend Sir Rowland. You are
+      prepared to swear that this letter was intended for Mr. Wilding?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am prepared to swear it,&rdquo; she replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is very serious,&rdquo; said the Duke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very serious,&rdquo; assented Sir Edward Phelips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Albemarle, a little flustered, turned to his colleagues. &ldquo;What do you say
+      to this? Were it perhaps well to order Mr. Wilding's apprehension, and to
+      have him brought hither?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It were to give yourselves useless trouble, gentlemen,&rdquo; said Trenchard,
+      with so much assurance that it was plain Albemarle hesitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beware of Mr. Trenchard, Your Grace,&rdquo; cried Ruth. &ldquo;He is Mr. Wilding's
+      friend, and if there is a plot he is sure to be in it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Albemarle, startled, looked at Trenchard. Had the accusation come from
+      either of the men the Duke would have silenced him and abused him; but
+      coming from a woman, and so comely a woman, it seemed to His Grace worthy
+      at least of consideration. But nimble Mr. Trenchard was easily master of
+      the situation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Which, of course,&rdquo; he answered, with fine sarcasm, &ldquo;is the reason why I
+      have been at work for the past four-and-twenty hours to lay proofs of this
+      plot before Your Grace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Albemarle was ashamed of his momentary hesitation.
+    </p>
+<p>
+     &ldquo;For the rest,&rdquo; said Trenchard, &ldquo;it is perfectly true that I am
+Mr. Wilding's friend. But the lady is even more intimately connected
+with him. It happens that she is his wife.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His... his wife!&rdquo; gasped the Duke, whilst Phelips chuckled, and Colonel
+      Luttrell's face grew dark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard's wicked smile flickered upon his mobile features. &ldquo;There are
+      rumours current of court paid her by Sir Rowland, there. Who knows?&rdquo; he
+      questioned most suggestively, arching his brows and tightening his lips.
+      &ldquo;Wives are strange kittle-kattle, and husbands have been known before to
+      grow inconvenient. Upon reflection, Your Grace will no doubt discern the
+      precise degree of faith to attach to what this lady may tell you against
+      Mr. Wilding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; exclaimed Ruth, her cheeks flaming crimson. &ldquo;But this is monstrous!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tis how I should myself describe it,&rdquo; answered Trenchard without shame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Spurred to it thus, Ruth poured out the entire story of her marriage, and
+      so clear and lucid was her statement that it threw upon the affair a flood
+      of light, whilst so frank and truthful was her tone, her narrative hung so
+      well together, that the Bench began to recover from the shock to its
+      faith, and was again in danger of believing her. Trenchard saw this and
+      trembled. To save Wilding for the Cause he had resorted to this desperate
+      expedient of betraying that Cause. It must be observed, however, that he
+      had not done so save under the conviction that betrayed it was bound to
+      be, and that since that was inevitable the thing had better come from him&mdash;for
+      Wilding's sake&mdash;than from Richard Westmacott. He had taken the bull
+      by the horns in a most desperate fashion when he had determined to hoist
+      Richard and Blake with their own petard, hoping that, after all, the harm
+      would reach no further than the destruction of these two&mdash;a purely
+      defensive measure. But now this girl threatened to wreck his scheme just
+      as it was being safely steered to harbour. Suddenly he swung round,
+      interrupting her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lies, lies, lies!&rdquo; he clamoured, and his interruption coming at such a
+      time served to impress the Duke most unfavourably&mdash;as well it might.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is our wish to hear this lady out, Mr. Trenchard,&rdquo; the Duke reproved
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Mr. Trenchard was undismayed. Indeed, he had just discovered a
+      hitherto neglected card, which should put an end to this dangerous game.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do abhor to hear Your Grace's patience thus abused,&rdquo; he exclaimed with
+      some show of heat. &ldquo;This lady makes a mock of you. If you'll allow me to
+      ask two questions&mdash;or perhaps three&mdash;I'll promise finally to
+      prick this bubble for you. Have I Your Grace's leave?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, well,&rdquo; said Albemarle. &ldquo;Let us hear your questions.&rdquo; And his
+      colleagues nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard turned airily to Ruth. Behind her Diana sat&mdash;an attendant
+      had fetched a chair for her&mdash;in fear and wonder at what she saw and
+      heard, her eyes ever and anon straying to Sir Rowland's back, which was
+      towards her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This letter, madam,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;for the possession of which you have
+      accounted in so... so... picturesque a manner, was intended for and
+      addressed to Mr. Wilding, you say. And you are prepared to swear to it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth turned indignantly to the Bench. &ldquo;Must I answer this man's
+      questions?&rdquo; she demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think, perhaps, it were best you did,&rdquo; said the Duke, still showing her
+      all deference.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned to Trenchard, her head high, her eyes full upon his wrinkled,
+      cynical face. &ldquo;I swear, then...&rdquo; she began, but he&mdash;consummate actor
+      that he was and versed in tricks that impress an audience&mdash;interrupted
+      her, raising one of his gnarled, yellow hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, nay,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;I would not have perjury proved against you. I do
+      not ask you to swear. It will be sufficient if you pronounce yourself
+      prepared to swear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She pouted her lip a trifle, her whole expression manifesting her contempt
+      of him. &ldquo;I am in no fear of perjuring myself,&rdquo; she answered fearlessly.
+      &ldquo;And I swear that the letter in question was addressed to Mr. Wilding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As you will,&rdquo; said Trenchard, and was careful not to ask her how she came
+      by her knowledge. &ldquo;The letter, no doubt, was in an outer wrapper, on which
+      there would be a superscription&mdash;the name of the person to whom the
+      letter was addressed?&rdquo; he half questioned, and Luttrell, who saw the drift
+      of the question, nodded gravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No doubt,&rdquo; said Ruth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now you will acknowledge, I am sure, madam, that such a wrapper would be
+      a document of the greatest importance, as important, indeed, as the letter
+      itself, since we could depend upon it finally to clear up this point on
+      which we differ. You will admit so much, I think?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, yes,&rdquo; she answered, but her voice faltered a little, and her glance
+      was not quite so fearless. She, too, saw at last the pit he had dug for
+      her. He leaned forward, smiling quietly, his voice impressively subdued,
+      and launched the bolt that was to annihilate the credibility of the story
+      she had told.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can you, then, explain how it comes that that wrapper has been
+      suppressed? Can you tell us how&mdash;the matter being as you state it&mdash;in
+      very self-defence against the dangers of keeping such a letter, your
+      brother did not also keep that wrapper?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her eyes fell away from his face, they turned to Albemarle, who sat
+      scowling again, and from him they flickered unsteadily to Phelips and
+      Luttrell, and lastly, to Richard, who, very white and with set teeth,
+      stood listening to the working of his ruin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I... I do not know,&rdquo; she faltered at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said Trenchard, drawing a deep breath. He turned to the Bench. &ldquo;Need
+      I suggest what was the need&mdash;the urgent need&mdash;for suppressing
+      that wrapper?&rdquo; quoth he. &ldquo;Need I say what name was inscribed upon it? I
+      think not. Your Grace's keen insight, and yours, gentlemen, will determine
+      what was probable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Rowland now stood forward, addressing Albemarle. &ldquo;Will Your Grace
+      permit me to offer my explanation of this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Albemarle banged the table. His patience was at an end, since he came now
+      to believe&mdash;as Trenchard had earlier suggested&mdash;that he had been
+      played upon by Ruth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Too many explanations have I heard already, sir,&rdquo; he answered. He turned
+      to one of his secretaries. In his sudden excess of choler he forgot his
+      colleagues altogether. &ldquo;The prisoners are committed for trial,&rdquo; said he
+      harshly, and Trenchard breathed freely at last. But the next instant he
+      caught his breath again, for a ringing voice was heard without demanding
+      to see His Grace of Albemarle at once, and the voice was the voice of
+      Anthony Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI. THE MARPLOT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding's appearance produced as many different emotions as there were
+      individuals present. He made the company a sweeping bow on his admission
+      by Albemarle's orders, a bow which was returned by a stare from one and
+      all. Diana eyed him in amazement, Ruth in hope; Richard averted his glance
+      from that of his brother-in-law, whilst Sir Rowland met it with a scowl of
+      enmity&mdash;they had not come face to face since the occasion of that
+      encounter in which Sir Rowland's self-love had been so rudely handled.
+      Albemarle's face expressed a sort of satisfaction, which was reflected on
+      the countenances of Phelips and Luttrell; whilst Trenchard never thought
+      of attempting to dissemble his profound dismay. And this dismay was
+      shared, though not in so deep a measure, by Wilding himself. Trenchard's
+      presence gave him pause; for he had been far, indeed, from dreaming that
+      his friend had a hand in this affair. At sight of him all was made clear
+      to Mr. Wilding. At once he saw the role which Trenchard had assumed on
+      this occasion, saw to the bottom of the motives that had inspired him to
+      take the bull by the horns and level against Richard and Blake this
+      accusation before they had leisure to level it against himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His quick wits having fathomed Trenchard's motive, Mr. Wilding was deeply
+      touched by this proof of friendship, and for a second, as deeply
+      nonplussed, at loss now how to discharge the task on which he came.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very choicely come, Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; said Albemarle. &ldquo;You will be
+      able to resolve me certain doubts which have been set on foot by these
+      traitors.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding, &ldquo;is the purpose for which I am here. News
+      reached me of the arrest that had been made. May I beg that Your Grace
+      will place me in possession of the facts that have so far transpired.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was one of his secretaries who, at Albemarle's bidding, gave Wilding
+      the information that he craved. He listened gravely; then, before
+      Albemarle had time to question him on the score of the name that might
+      have been upon the enfolding wrapper of the letter, he begged that he
+      might confer apart a moment with Mr. Trenchard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; said Colonel Luttrell, surprised not to hear the
+      immediate denial of the imputation they had expected, &ldquo;we should first
+      like to hear...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By your leave, sirs,&rdquo; Wilding interrupted, &ldquo;I should prefer that you ask
+      me nothing until I have consulted with Mr. Trenchard.&rdquo; He saw Luttrell's
+      frown, observed Sir Edward shift his wig to scratch his head in sheer
+      perplexity, and caught the fore-shadowing of denial on the Duke's face.
+      So, without giving any of them time to say him nay, he added quickly and
+      very seriously, &ldquo;I am begging this in the interests of justice. Your Grace
+      has told me that some lingering doubt still haunts your mind upon the
+      subject of this letter&mdash;the other charges can matter little, apart
+      from that treasonable document. It lies within my power to resolve such
+      doubts most clearly and finally. But I warn you, sirs, that not one word
+      will I utter in this connection until I have had speech with Mr.
+      Trenchard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was about his mien and voice a firmness that forewarned Albemarle
+      that to insist would be worse than idle. A slight pause followed his
+      words, and Luttrell leaned across to whisper in His Grace's ear; from the
+      Duke's other side Sir Edward bent his head forward till it almost touched
+      those of his companions. Blake watched, and was most foolishly impatient.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Grace will never allow this!&rdquo; he cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh?&rdquo; said Albemarle, scowling at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you allow those two villains to consort together we are all undone,&rdquo;
+       the baronet protested, and ruined what chance there was of Albemarle's not
+      consenting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the one thing needed to determine Albemarle. Like the stubborn man
+      he was, there was naught he detested so much as to have his course
+      dictated to him. More than that, in Sir Rowland's anxiety that Wilding and
+      Trenchard should not be allowed to confer apart, he smoked a fear on Sir
+      Rowland's part, based upon the baronet's consciousness of his own guilt.
+      He turned from him with a sneering smile, and without so much as
+      consulting his associates he glanced at Wilding and waved his hand towards
+      the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pray do as you suggest, Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;But I depend upon you not
+      to tax our patience.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not keep Mr. Trenchard a moment longer than is necessary,&rdquo; said
+      Wilding, giving no hint of the second meaning in his words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stepped to the door, opened it himself, and signed to Trenchard to pass
+      out. The old player obeyed him readily, if in silence. An usher closed the
+      door after them, and in silence they walked together to the end of the
+      passage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is your horse, Nick?&rdquo; quoth Wilding abruptly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a plague do you mean, where is my horse?&rdquo; flashed Trenchard. &ldquo;What
+      midsummer frenzy is this? Damn you for a marplot, Anthony! What a pox are
+      you thinking of to thrust yourself in here at such a time?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had no knowledge you were in the affair,&rdquo; said Wilding. &ldquo;You should
+      have told me.&rdquo; His manner was brisk to the point of dryness. &ldquo;However,
+      there is still time to get you out of it. Where is your horse?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damn my horse!&rdquo; answered Trenchard in a passion. &ldquo;You have spoiled
+      everything!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On the contrary,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding tartly, &ldquo;it seems you had done that
+      very thoroughly before I arrived. Whilst I am touched by the regard for me
+      which has misled you into turning the tables on Blake and Westmacott, yet
+      I do blame you for this betrayal of the Cause.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was no help for it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, no; and that is why you should have left matters where they stood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard stamped his foot; indeed, he almost danced in the excess of his
+      vexation. &ldquo;Left them where they stood!&rdquo; he echoed. &ldquo;Body o' me! Where are
+      your wits? Left them where they stood! And at any moment you might have
+      been taken unawares as a consequence of this accusation being lodged
+      against you by Richard or by Blake. Then the Cause would have been
+      betrayed, indeed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not more so than it is now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not less, at least,&rdquo; snapped the player. &ldquo;You give me credit for no more
+      wit than yourself. Do you think that I am the man to do things by halves?
+      I have betrayed the plot to Albemarle; but do you imagine I have made no
+      provision for what must follow?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Provision?&rdquo; echoed Wilding, staring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye, provision. God lack! What do you suppose Albemarle will do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dispatch a messenger to Whitehall with the letter within an hour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You perceive it, do you? And where the plague do you think Nick
+      Trenchard'll be what time that messenger rides?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding understood. &ldquo;Aye, you may stare,&rdquo; sneered Trenchard. &ldquo;A letter
+      that has once been stolen may be stolen again. The courier must go by way
+      of Walford. I had in my mind arranged the spot, close by the ford, where I
+      should fall upon him, rob him of his dispatches, and take him&mdash;bound
+      hand and foot if necessary&mdash;to Vallancey's, who lives close by; and
+      there I'd leave him until word came that the Duke had landed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That the Duke had landed?&rdquo; cried Wilding. &ldquo;You talk as though the thing
+      were imminent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And imminent it is. For aught we know he may be in England already.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding laughed impatiently. &ldquo;You must forever be building on these
+      crack-brained rumours, Nick,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rumours!&rdquo; roared the other. &ldquo;Rumours? Ha!&rdquo; He checked his wild scorn, and
+      proceeded in a different key. &ldquo;I was forgetting. You do not know the
+      Contents of that stolen letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding started. Underlying his disbelief in the talk of the countryside,
+      and even in the military measures which by the King's orders were being
+      taken in the West, was an uneasy dread lest they should prove to be well
+      founded, lest Argyle's operations in Scotland should be but the forerunner
+      of a rash and premature invasion by Monmouth. He knew the Duke was
+      surrounded by such reckless, foolhardy counsellors as Grey and Ferguson&mdash;and
+      yet he could not think the Duke would ruin all by coming before he had
+      definite word that his friends were ready. He looked at Trenchard now with
+      anxious eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you seen the letter, Nick?&rdquo; he asked, and almost dreaded the reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Albemarle showed it me an hour ago,&rdquo; said Trenchard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And it contains?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The news we fear. It is in the Duke's own hand, and intimates that he
+      will follow it in a few days&mdash;in a few days, man in person.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding clenched teeth and hands. &ldquo;God help us all, then!&rdquo; he muttered
+      grimly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Meanwhile,&rdquo; quoth Trenchard, bringing him back to the point, &ldquo;there is
+      this precious business here. I had as choice a plan as could have been
+      devised, and it must have succeeded, had you not come blundering into it
+      to mar it all at the last moment. That fat fool Albemarle had swallowed my
+      impeachment like a draught of muscadine. Do you hear me?&rdquo; he ended
+      sharply, for Mr. Wilding stood bemused, his thoughts plainly wandering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He let his hand fall upon Trenchard's shoulder. &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I wasn't
+      listening. No matter; for even had I known the full extent of your scheme
+      I still must have interfered.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For the sake of Mistress Westmacott's blue eyes, no doubt,&rdquo; sneered
+      Trenchard. &ldquo;Pah! Wherever there's a woman there's the loss of a man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For the sake of Mistress Wilding's blue eyes,&rdquo; his friend corrected him.
+      &ldquo;I'll allow no brother of hers to hang in my place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will be interesting to see how you will rescue him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By telling the truth to Albemarle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He'll not believe it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall prove it,&rdquo; said Wilding quietly. Trenchard swung round upon him
+      in mingled anger and alarm for him. &ldquo;You shall not do it!&rdquo; he snarled. &ldquo;It
+      is nothing short of treason to the Duke to get yourself laid by the heels
+      at such a time as this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope to avoid it,&rdquo; answered Wilding confidently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Avoid it? How?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not by staying longer here in talk. That will ruin all. Away with you,
+      Trenchard!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By my soul, no!&rdquo; answered Trenchard. &ldquo;I'll not leave you. If I have got
+      you into this, I'll help to get you out again, or stay in it with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bethink you of Monmouth?&rdquo; Wilding admonished him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damn Monmouth!&rdquo; was the vicious answer. &ldquo;I am here, and here I stay.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Get to horse, you fool, and ride to Walford as you proposed, there to
+      ambush the messenger. The letter will go to Whitehall none the less in
+      spite of what I shall tell Albemarle. If things go well with me, I shall
+      join you at Vallancey's before long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, if that is your intention,&rdquo; said Trenchard, &ldquo;I had better stay, and
+      we can ride together. It will make it less uncertain for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But less certain for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The more reason why I should remain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The door of the hall was suddenly flung open at the far end of the
+      corridor, and Albemarle's booming voice, impatiently raised, reached them
+      where they stood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In any case,&rdquo; added Trenchard, &ldquo;it seems there is no help for it now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding shrugged his shoulders, but otherwise dissembled his vexation.
+      Up the passage floated the constable's voice calling them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Side by side they moved down, and side by side they stepped once more into
+      the presence of Christopher Monk and his associates.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sirs, you have not been in haste,&rdquo; was the Duke's ill-humoured greeting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have tarried a little that we might make an end the sooner,&rdquo; answered
+      Trenchard dryly, and this was the first indication he gave Mr. Wilding of
+      how naturally&mdash;like the inimitable actor that he was&mdash;he had
+      slipped into his new role.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Albemarle waved the frivolous rejoinder aside. &ldquo;Come, Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; said
+      he, &ldquo;let us hear what you may have to say. You are not, I take it, about
+      to urge any reasons why these rogues should not be committed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed, Your Grace,&rdquo; said Wilding, &ldquo;that is what I am about to urge.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake and Richard looked at him suddenly, and from him to Trenchard; but
+      it was only Ruth whose eyes were shrewd enough to observe the altered
+      demeanour of the latter. Her hopes rose, founded upon this oddly assorted
+      pair. Already in anticipation she was stirred by gratitude towards
+      Wilding, and it was in impatient and almost wondering awe that she waited
+      for him to proceed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I take it, sir,&rdquo; he said, without waiting for Albemarle to express any of
+      the fresh astonishment his countenance manifested, &ldquo;that the accusation
+      against these gentlemen rests entirely upon the letter which you have been
+      led to believe was addressed to Mr. Westmacott.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke scowled a moment before replying. &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;if it could be
+      shown&mdash;irrefutably shown&mdash;that the letter was not addressed to
+      either of them, that would no doubt establish the truth of what they say&mdash;that
+      they possessed themselves of the letter in the interests of His Majesty.&rdquo;
+       He turned to Luttrell and Phelips, and they nodded their concurrence with
+      his view of the matter. &ldquo;But,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;if you are proposing to
+      prove any such thing, I think you will find it difficult.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding drew a crumpled paper from his pocket. &ldquo;When the courier whom
+      they robbed, as they have correctly informed you,&rdquo; said he quietly,
+      &ldquo;suspected their design upon the contents of his wallet, he bethought him
+      of removing the wrapper from the letter, so that in case the letter were
+      seized by them it should prove nothing against any man in particular. He
+      stuffed the wrapper into the lining of his hat, preserving it as a proof
+      of his good faith against the time when he should bring the letter to its
+      destination, or come to confess that it had been taken from him. That
+      wrapper the courier brought to me, and I have it here. The evidence it
+      will give should be more than sufficient to warrant your restoring these
+      unjustly accused gentlemen their liberty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The courier took it to you?&rdquo; echoed Albemarle, stupefaction in his
+      glance. &ldquo;But why to you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because,&rdquo; said Wilding, and with his left hand he placed the wrapper
+      before Albemarle, whilst his right dropped again to his pocket, &ldquo;the
+      letter, as you may see, was addressed to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The quiet manner in which he made the announcement conveyed almost as
+      great a shock as the announcement itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Albemarle took up the wrapper; Luttrell and Phelips craned forward to join
+      him in his scrutiny of it. They compared the two, paper with paper,
+      writing with writing. Then Monk flung one and the other down in front of
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What lies have I been hearing, then?&rdquo; he demanded furiously of Trenchard.
+      &ldquo;'Slife I'll make an example of you. Arrest me that rogue&mdash;arrest
+      them both,&rdquo; and he half rose from his seat, his trembling hand pointing to
+      Wilding and Trenchard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two of the tything-men stirred to do his bidding, but in the same instant
+      Albemarle found himself looking into the round nozzle of a pistol.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding, &ldquo;a finger is laid upon Mr. Trenchard or me I shall
+      have the extreme mortification of being compelled to shoot Your Grace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His pleasantly modulated voice was as deliberate and calm as if he were
+      offering the Bench a pinch of snuff. Albemarle's dark visage crimsoned;
+      his eyes became at once wicked and afraid. Sir Edward's cheeks turned
+      pale, his glance grew startled. Luttrell alone, vigilant and dangerous,
+      preserved his calm. But the situation baffled even him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Behind the two friends the tything-men had come to a terror-stricken halt.
+      Diana had risen from her chair in the excitement of the moment and had
+      drawn close to Ruth, who looked on with parted lips and bosom that rose
+      and fell. Even Blake could not stifle his admiration of Mr. Wilding's
+      coolness and address. Richard, on the other hand, was concerned only with
+      thoughts for himself, wondering how it would fare with him if Wilding and
+      Trenchard succeeded in getting away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nick,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding, &ldquo;will you desire those catchpolls behind us to
+      stand aside? If Your Grace raises your voice to call for help, if, indeed,
+      any measures are taken calculated to lead to our capture, I can promise
+      Your Grace&mdash;notwithstanding my profound reluctance to use violence&mdash;that
+      they will be the last measures you will take in life. Be good enough to
+      open the door, Nick, and to see that the key is on the outside.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard, who was by way of enjoying himself now, stepped briskly down
+      the hall to do as his friend bade him, with a wary eye on the tything-men.
+      But never so much as a finger did they dare to lift. Mr. Wilding's calm
+      was too deadly; they had seen a man in earnest before this, and they knew
+      his appearance now. From the doorway Trenchard called Mr. Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must be going, Your Grace,&rdquo; said the latter very courteously, &ldquo;but I
+      shall not be so wanting in deference to His Majesty's august
+      representatives as to turn my back upon you.&rdquo; Saying which, he walked
+      backwards, holding his pistol level, until he had reached Trenchard and
+      the door. There he paused and made them a deep bow, his manner the more
+      mocking in that there was no tinge of mockery perceptible. &ldquo;Your very
+      obedient servant,&rdquo; said he, and stepped outside. Trenchard turned the key,
+      withdrew it from the lock, and, standing on tiptoe, thrust it upon the
+      ledge of the lintel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Instantly a clamour arose within the chamber. But the two friends never
+      stayed to listen. Down the passage they sped at the double, and out into
+      the courtyard. Here Ruth's groom, mounted himself, was walking his
+      mistress's and Diana's horses up and down whilst he waited; yonder one of
+      Sir Edward's stable-boys was holding Mr. Wilding's roan. Two or three men
+      of the Somerset militia, in their red and yellow liveries, lounged by the
+      gates, and turned uninterested eyes upon these newcomers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding approached his wife's groom. &ldquo;Get down,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I need your
+      horse&mdash;on the King's business. Get down, I say,&rdquo; he added
+      impatiently, upon noting the fellow's stare, and, seizing his leg, he
+      helped him to dismount by almost dragging him from the saddle. &ldquo;Up with
+      you, Nick,&rdquo; said he, and Nick very promptly mounted. &ldquo;Your mistress will
+      be here presently,&rdquo; Wilding told the groom, and, turning on his heel,
+      strode to his own mare. A moment later Trenchard and he vanished through
+      the gateway with a tremendous clatter, just as the Lord-Lieutenant,
+      Colonel Luttrell, Sir Edward Phelips, the constable, the tything-men, Sir
+      Rowland, Richard, and the ladies made their appearance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth pushed her way quickly to the front. She feared lest her horse and
+      her cousin's being at hand might be used for the pursuit; so urging Diana
+      to do the same, she snatched her reins from the hands of the dumbfounded
+      groom and leapt nimbly to the saddle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After them!&rdquo; roared Albemarle, and the constable with two of his men made
+      a dash for the gateway to raise the hue and cry, whilst the militiamen
+      watched them in stupid, inactive wonder. &ldquo;Damnation, mistress!&rdquo; thundered
+      the Duke in ever-increasing passion, &ldquo;hold your nag! Hold your nag,
+      woman!&rdquo; For Ruth's horse had become unmanageable, and was caracoling about
+      the yard between the men and the gateway in such a manner that they dared
+      not attempt to win past her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have scared him with your bellowing,&rdquo; she panted, tugging at the
+      bridle, and all but backed into the constable who had been endeavouring to
+      get round behind her. The beast continued its wild prancing, and the Duke
+      abated nothing in his furious profanity, until suddenly the groom, having
+      relinquished to Diana the reins of the other horse, sprang to Ruth's
+      assistance and caught her bridle in a firm grasp which brought the animal
+      to a standstill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You fool!&rdquo; she hissed at him, and half raised her whip to strike, but
+      checked on the impulse, bethinking her in time that, after all, what the
+      poor lad had done he had done thinking her distressed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The constable and a couple of his fellows won through; others were rousing
+      the stable and getting to horse, and in the courtyard all was bustle and
+      commotion. Meanwhile, however, Mr. Wilding and Trenchard had made the most
+      of their start, and were thundering through the town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII. AT THE FORD
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      As Mr. Wilding and Nick Trenchard rode hell-to-leather through Taunton
+      streets they never noticed a horseman at the door of the Red Lion Inn. But
+      the horseman noticed them. He looked up at the sound of their wild
+      approach, started upon recognizing them, and turned in his saddle as they
+      swept past him to call upon them excitedly to stop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hi!&rdquo; he shouted. &ldquo;Nick Trenchard! Hi! Wilding!&rdquo; Then, seeing that they
+      either did not hear or did not heed him, he loosed a volley of oaths,
+      wheeled his horse about, drove home the spurs, and started in pursuit. Out
+      of the town he followed them and along the road towards Walford, shouting
+      and clamouring at first, afterwards in a grim and angry silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, despite their natural anxiety for their own safety, Wilding and
+      Trenchard had by no means abandoned their project of taking cover by the
+      ford to await the messenger whom Albemarle and the others would no doubt
+      be sending to Whitehall; and this mad fellow thundering after them seemed
+      in a fair way to mar their plan. As they reluctantly passed the spot they
+      had marked out for their ambush, splashed through the ford and breasted
+      the rising ground beyond, they took counsel. They determined to stand and
+      meet this rash pursuer. Trenchard calmly opined that if necessary they
+      must shoot him; he was, I fear, a bloody-minded fellow at bottom,
+      although, it is true he justified himself now by pointing out that this
+      was no time to hesitate at trifles. Partly because they talked and partly
+      because the gradient was steep and their horses needed breathing, they
+      slackened rein, and the horseman behind them came tearing through the
+      water of the ford and lessened the distance considerably in the next few
+      minutes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He bethought him of using his lungs once more. &ldquo;Hi, Wilding! Hold, damn
+      you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He curses you in a most intimate manner,&rdquo; quoth Trenchard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding reined in and turned in the saddle. &ldquo;His voice has a familiar
+      sound,&rdquo; said he. He shaded his eyes with his hand, and looked down the
+      slope at the pursuer, who came on crouching low upon the withers of his
+      goaded beast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait!&rdquo; the fellow shouted. &ldquo;I have news&mdash;news for you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's Vallancey!&rdquo; cried Wilding suddenly. Trenchard too had drawn rein and
+      was looking behind him. Instead of expressing relief at the discovery that
+      this was not an enemy, he swore at the trouble to which they had so
+      needlessly put themselves, and he was still at his vituperations when
+      Vallancey came up with them, red in the face and very angry, cursing them
+      roundly for the folly of their mad career, and for not having stopped when
+      he bade them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was no doubt discourteous,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding &ldquo;but we took you for some
+      friend of the Lord-Lieutenant's.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are they after you?&rdquo; quoth Vallancey, his face of a sudden very startled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Like enough,&rdquo; said Trenchard, &ldquo;if they have found their horses yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forward, then,&rdquo; Vallancey urged them in excitement, and he picked up his
+      reins again. &ldquo;You shall hear my news as we ride.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not so,&rdquo; said Trenchard. &ldquo;We have business here down yonder at the ford.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Business? What business?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They told him, and scarce had they got the words out than he cut in
+      impatiently. &ldquo;That's no matter now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet, perhaps,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding; &ldquo;but it will be if that letter gets
+      to Whitehall.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Odso!&rdquo; was the impatient retort, &ldquo;there's other news travelling to
+      Whitehall that will make small-beer of this&mdash;and belike it's well on
+      its way there already.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What news is that?&rdquo; asked Trenchard. Vallancey told them. &ldquo;The Duke has
+      landed&mdash;he came ashore this morning at Lyme.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Duke?&rdquo; quoth Mr. Wilding, whilst Trenchard merely stared. &ldquo;What
+      Duke?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What Duke! Lord, you weary me! What dukes be there? The Duke of Monmouth,
+      man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monmouth!&rdquo; They uttered the name in a breath. &ldquo;But is this really true?&rdquo;
+       asked Wilding. &ldquo;Or is it but another rumour?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Remember the letter your friends intercepted,&rdquo; Trenchard bade him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not forgetting it,&rdquo; said Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's no rumour,&rdquo; Vallancey assured them. &ldquo;I was at White Lackington three
+      hours ago when the news came to George Speke, and I was riding to carry it
+      to you, going by way of Taunton that I might drop word of it for our
+      friends at the Red Lion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard needed no further convincing; he looked accordingly dismayed.
+      But Wilding found it still almost impossible&mdash;in spite of what
+      already he had learnt&mdash;to credit this amazing news. It was hard to
+      believe the Duke of Monmouth mad enough to spoil all by this sudden and
+      unheralded precipitation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You heard the news at White Lackington?&rdquo; said he slowly. &ldquo;Who carried it
+      thither?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There were two messengers,&rdquo; answered Vallancey, with restrained
+      impatience, &ldquo;and they were Heywood Dare&mdash;who has been appointed
+      paymaster to the Duke's forces&mdash;and Mr. Chamberlain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding was observed for once to change colour. He gripped Vallancey
+      by the wrist. &ldquo;You saw them?&rdquo; he demanded, and his voice had a husky,
+      unusual sound. &ldquo;You saw them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With these two eyes,&rdquo; answered Vallancey, &ldquo;and I spoke with them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was true, then! There was no room for further doubt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding looked at Trenchard, who shrugged his shoulders and made a wry
+      face. &ldquo;I never thought but that we were working in the service of a
+      hairbrain,&rdquo; said he contemptuously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vallancey proceeded to details. &ldquo;Dare and Chamberlain,&rdquo; he informed them,
+      &ldquo;came off the Duke's own frigate at daybreak to-day. They were put ashore
+      at Seatown, and they rode straight to Mr. Speke's with the news, returning
+      afterwards to Lyme.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What men has the Duke with him, did you learn?&rdquo; asked Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not more than a hundred or so, from what Dare told us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A hundred! God help us all! And is England to be conquered with a hundred
+      men? Oh, this is midsummer frenzy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He counts on all true Protestants to flock to his banner,&rdquo; put in
+      Trenchard, and it was not plain whether he expressed a fact or sneered at
+      one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does he bring money and arms, at least?&rdquo; asked Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not ask,&rdquo; answered Vallancey. &ldquo;But Dare told us that three vessels
+      had come over, so that it is to be supposed he brings some manner of
+      provision with him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is to be hoped so, Vallancey; but hardly to be supposed,&rdquo; quoth
+      Trenchard, and then he touched Wilding on the arm and pointed with his
+      whip across the fields towards Taunton. A cloud of dust was rising from
+      between tall hedges where ran the road. &ldquo;I think it were wise to be
+      moving. At least, this sudden landing of James Scott relieves my mind in
+      the matter of that letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding, having taken a look at the floating dust that announced the
+      oncoming of their pursuers, was now lost in thought. Vallancey, who,
+      beyond excitement at the news of which he was the bearer, seemed to have
+      no opinion of his own as to the wisdom or folly of the Duke's sudden
+      arrival, looked from one to the other of these two men whom he had known
+      as the prime secret agents in the West, and waited. Trenchard moved his
+      horse a few paces nearer the hedge, &ldquo;Whither now, Anthony?&rdquo; he asked
+      suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may ask, indeed!&rdquo; exclaimed Wilding, and his voice was as bitter as
+      ever Trenchard had heard it. &ldquo;'S heart! We are in it now! We had best make
+      for Lyme&mdash;if only that we may attempt to persuade this crack-brained
+      boy to ship back to Holland again, and ship ourselves with him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's sense in you at last,&rdquo; grumbled Trenchard. &ldquo;But I misdoubt me
+      he'll turn back after having come so far. Have you any money?&rdquo; he asked.
+      He could be very practical at times.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A guinea or two. But I can get money at Ilminster.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how do you propose to reach Ilminster with these gentlemen by way of
+      cutting us off?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'll double back as far as the cross-roads,&rdquo; said Wilding promptly, &ldquo;and
+      strike south over Swell Hill for Hatch. If we ride hard we can do it
+      easily, and have little fear of being followed. They'll naturally take it
+      we have made for Bridgwater.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They acted on the suggestion there and then, Vallancey going with them;
+      for his task was now accomplished, and he was all eager to get to Lyme to
+      kiss the hand of the Protestant Duke. They rode hard, as Wilding had said
+      they must, and they reached the junction of the roads before their
+      pursuers hove in sight. Here Wilding suddenly detained them again. The
+      road ahead of them ran straight for almost a mile, so that if they took it
+      now they were almost sure to be seen presently by the messengers. On their
+      right a thickly grown coppice stretched from the road to the stream that
+      babbled in the hollow. He gave it as his advice that they should lie
+      hidden there until those who hunted them should have gone by. Obviously
+      that was the only plan, and his companions instantly adopted it. They
+      found a way through a gate into an adjacent field, and from this they
+      gained the shelter of the trees. Trenchard, neglectful of his finery and
+      oblivious of the ubiquitous brambles, left his horse in Vallancey's care
+      and crept to the edge of the thicket that he might take a peep at the
+      pursuers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They came up very soon, six militiamen in lobster coats with yellow
+      facings, and a sergeant, which was what Mr. Trenchard might have expected.
+      There was, however, something else that Mr. Trenchard did not expect;
+      something that afforded him considerable surprise. At the head of the
+      party rode Sir Rowland Blake&mdash;obviously leading it&mdash;and with him
+      was Richard Westmacott. Amongst them went a man in grey clothes, whom Mr.
+      Trenchard rightly conjectured to be the messenger riding for Whitehall. He
+      thought with a smile of what a handful he and Wilding would have had had
+      they waited to rob that messenger of the incriminating letter that he
+      bore. Then he checked his smile to consider again how Sir Rowland Blake
+      came to head that party. He abandoned the problem, as the little troop
+      swept unhesitatingly round to the left and went pounding along the road
+      that led northwards to Bridgwater, clearly never doubting which way their
+      quarry had sped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for Sir Rowland Blake's connection with this pursuit, the town gallant
+      had by his earnestness not only convinced Colonel Luttrell of his loyalty
+      and devotion to King James, but had actually gone so far as to beg that he
+      might be allowed to prove that same loyalty by leading the soldiers to the
+      capture of those self-confessed traitors, Mr. Wilding and Mr. Trenchard.
+      From his knowledge of their haunts he was confident, he assured Colonel
+      Luttrell, that he could be of service to the King in this matter. The
+      fierce sincerity of his purpose shone through his words; Luttrell caught
+      the accent of hate in Sir Rowland's tense voice, and, being a shrewd man,
+      he saw that if Mr. Wilding was to be taken, an enemy would surely be the
+      best pursuer to accomplish it. So he prevailed, and gave him the trust he
+      sought, in spite of Albemarle's expressed reluctance. And never did
+      bloodhound set out more relentlessly purposeful upon a scent than did Sir
+      Rowland follow now in what he believed to be the track of this man who
+      stood between him and Ruth Westmacott. Until Ruth was widowed, Sir
+      Rowland's hopes of her must lie fallow; and so it was with a zest that he
+      flung himself into the task of widowing her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the party passed out of view round the angle of the white road,
+      Trenchard made his way back to Wilding to tell him what he had seen and to
+      lay before him, for his enucleation, the problem of Blake's being the
+      leader of it. But Wilding thought little of Blake, and cared little of
+      what he might be the leader.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'll stay here,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;until they have passed the crest of the
+      hill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This, Trenchard told him, was his own purpose; for to leave their
+      concealment earlier would be to reveal themselves to any of the troopers
+      who might happen to glance over his shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so they waited some ten minutes or so, and then walked their horses
+      slowly and carefully forward through the trees towards the road. Wilding
+      was alongside and slightly ahead of Trenchard; Vallancey followed close
+      upon their tails. Suddenly, as Wilding was about to put his mare at the
+      low stone wall, Trenchard leaned forward and caught his bridle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ss!&rdquo; he hissed. &ldquo;Horses!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And now that they halted they heard the hoofbeats clear and close at hand;
+      the crackling of undergrowth and the rustle of the leaves through which
+      they had thrust their passage had deafened their ears to other sounds
+      until this moment. They checked and waited where they stood, barely
+      screened by the few boughs that still might intervene between them and the
+      open, not daring to advance, and not daring to retreat lest their
+      movements should draw attention to themselves. They remained absolutely
+      still, scarcely breathing, their only hope being that if these who came
+      should chance to be enemies they might ride on without looking to right or
+      left. It was so slender a hope that Wilding looked to the priming of his
+      pistols, whilst Trenchard, who had none, loosened his sword in its
+      scabbard. Nearer came the riders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are not more than three,&rdquo; whispered Trenchard, who had been
+      listening intently, and Mr. Wilding nodded, but said nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another moment and the little party was abreast of those watchers; a dark
+      brown riding-habit flashed into their line of vision, and a blue one laced
+      with gold. At sight of the first Mr. Wilding's eyelids flickered; he had
+      recognized it for Ruth's, with whom rode Diana, whilst some twenty paces
+      or so behind came Jerry, the groom. They were returning to Bridgwater.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They came along, looking neither to right nor to left, as the three men
+      had hoped they would, and they were all but past, when suddenly Wilding
+      gave his roan a touch of the spur and bounded forward. Diana's horse
+      swerved so that it nearly threw her. Ruth, slightly ahead, reined in at
+      once; so, too, did the groom in the rear, and so violently in his sudden
+      fear of highwaymen that he brought his horse on to its hind legs and had
+      it prancing and rearing madly about the road, so that he was hard put to
+      it to keep his seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth looked round as Mr. Wilding's voice greeted her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mistress Wilding,&rdquo; he called to her. &ldquo;A moment, if I may detain you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have eluded them!&rdquo; she cried, entirely off her guard in her surprise
+      at seeing him, and there echoed through her words a note of genuine
+      gladness that almost disconcerted her husband for a moment. The next
+      instant a crimson flush overspread her pale face, and her eyes were veiled
+      from him, vexation in her heart at having betrayed the lively satisfaction
+      it afforded her to see him safe when she feared him captured already or at
+      least upon the point of capture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had admired him almost unconsciously for his daring at the town hall
+      that day, when his strong calm had stood out in such sharp contrast to the
+      fluster and excitement of the men about him; of them all, indeed, it had
+      seemed to her in those stressful moments that he was the only man, and she
+      was&mdash;although she did not realize it&mdash;in danger of being proud
+      of him. Then again the thing he had done. He had come deliberately to
+      thrust his head into the lion's maw that he might save her brother. It was
+      possible that he had done it in answer to the entreaties which she had
+      earlier feared she had poured into deaf ears; or it was possible that he
+      had done it spurred by his sense of right and justice, which would not
+      permit him to allow another to suffer in his stead&mdash;however much that
+      other might be caught in the very toils that he had prepared for Mr.
+      Wilding himself. Her admiration, then, was swelled by gratitude, and it
+      was a compound of these that had urged her to hinder the tything-men from
+      winning past her until he and Trenchard should have got well away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Afterwards, when with Diana and her groom&mdash;on a horse which Sir
+      Edward Phelips insisted upon lending them&mdash;she rode homeward from
+      Taunton, there was Diana to keep alive the spark of kindness that glowed
+      at last for Wilding in Ruth's breast. Miss Horton extolled his bravery,
+      his chivalry, his nobility, and ended by expressing her envy of Ruth that
+      she should have won such a man amongst men for her husband, and wondered
+      what it might be that kept Ruth from claiming him for her own as was her
+      right. Ruth had answered little, but she had ridden very thoughtful; there
+      was that in the past she found it hard to forgive Wilding. And yet she
+      would now have welcomed an opportunity of thanking him for what he had
+      done, of expressing to him something of the respect he had won in her eyes
+      by his act of self-denunciation to save her brother. This chance, it
+      seemed, was given her, for there he stood, with head bared before her; and
+      already she thought no longer of seizing the chance, vexed as she was at
+      having been surprised into a betrayal of feelings whose warmth she had
+      until that moment scarce estimated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In answer to her cry of &ldquo;You have eluded them!&rdquo; he waved a hand towards
+      the rising ground and the road to Bridgwater.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They passed that way but a few moments since,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;and by the rate
+      at which they were travelling they should be nearing Newton by now. In
+      their great haste to catch me they could not pause to look for me so close
+      at hand,&rdquo; he added with a smile, &ldquo;and for that I am thankful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She sat her horse and answered nothing, which threw her cousin out of all
+      patience with her. &ldquo;Come, Jerry,&rdquo; Diana called to the groom. &ldquo;We will walk
+      our horses up the hill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very good, madam,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding, and he bowed to the withers
+      of his roan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth said nothing; expressed neither approval nor disapproval of Diana's
+      withdrawal, and the latter, with a word of greeting to Wilding, went ahead
+      followed by Jerry, who had regained control by now of the beast he
+      bestrode. Wilding watched them until they turned the corner, then he
+      walked his mare slowly forward until he was alongside Ruth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Before I go,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;there is something I should like to say.&rdquo; His
+      dark eyes were sombre, his manner betrayed some hesitation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The diffidence of his tone proved startling to her by virtue of its
+      unusualness. What might it portend, she wondered, and sought with grave
+      eyes to read his baffling countenance; and then a wild alarm swept into
+      her and shook her spirit in its grip; there was something of which until
+      this moment she had not thought&mdash;something connected with the fateful
+      matter of that letter. It had stood as a barrier between them, her
+      buckler, her sole defence against him. It had been to her what its sting
+      is to the bee&mdash;a thing which if once used in self-defence is
+      self-destructive. Not, indeed, that she had used it as her sting; it had
+      been forced from her by the machinations of Trenchard; but used it had
+      been, and was done with; she had it no longer that with it she might hold
+      him in defiance, and it did not occur to her that he was no longer in case
+      to invoke the law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her face grew stony, a dry glitter came to her blue eyes; she cast a
+      glance over her shoulder at Diana and her servant. Wilding observed it and
+      read what was passing in her mind; indeed, it was not to be mistaken, no
+      more than what is passing in the mind of the recruit who looks behind him
+      in the act of charging. His lips half smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of what are you afraid?&rdquo; he asked her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not afraid,&rdquo; she answered in husky accents that belied her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps to reassure her, perhaps because he thought of his companions
+      lurking in the thicket and cared not to have them for his audience, he
+      suggested they should go a little way in the direction her cousin had
+      taken. She wheeled her horse, and, side by side, they ambled up the dusty
+      road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The thing I have to tell you,&rdquo; said he presently, &ldquo;concerns myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does it concern me?&rdquo; she asked him coldly, and her coolness was urged
+      partly by her newborn fears, partly to counterbalance such impression as
+      her illjudged show of gladness at his safety might have made upon his
+      mind. He flashed her a sidelong glance, the long white fingers of his
+      right hand toying thoughtfully with a ringlet of the dark brown hair that
+      fell upon the shoulders of his scarlet coat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely, madam,&rdquo; he answered dryly, &ldquo;what concerns a man may well concern
+      his wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She bowed her head, her eyes upon the road before her. &ldquo;True,&rdquo; said she,
+      her voice expressionless. &ldquo;I had forgot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He reined in and turned to look at her; her horse moved on a pace or two,
+      then came to a halt, apparently of its own accord.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do protest,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;you treat me less kindly than I deserve.&rdquo; He
+      urged his mare forward until he had come up with her again, and then drew
+      rein once more. &ldquo;I think that I may lay some claim to&mdash;at least&mdash;your
+      gratitude for what I did to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is my inclination to be grateful,&rdquo; said she. She was very wary of him.
+      &ldquo;Forgive me, if I am still mistrustful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But of what?&rdquo; he cried, a thought impatiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of you. What ends did you seek to serve? Was it to save Richard that you
+      came?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Unless you think that it was to save Blake,&rdquo; he said ironically. &ldquo;What
+      other ends do you conceive I could have served?&rdquo; She made him no answer,
+      and so he resumed after a pause. &ldquo;I rode to Taunton to serve you for two
+      reasons; because you asked me, and because I would have no innocent men
+      suffer in my stead&mdash;not even though, as these men, they were but
+      caught in their own toils, hoist with the petard they had charged for me.
+      Beyond these two motives, I had no other thought in ruining myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ruining yourself?&rdquo; she cried. Yes, it was true; but she had not thought
+      of it until this moment; there had been so much to think of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it not ruin to be outlawed, to have a price set upon your head, as
+      will no doubt a price be set on mine when Albemarle's messenger shall have
+      reached Whitehall? Is it not ruin to have my lands and all I own made
+      forfeit to the State, to find myself a beggar, hunted and proscribed?
+      Forgive me that I harass you with this catalogue of my misfortunes. You'll
+      say, no doubt, that I have brought them upon myself by compelling you
+      against your will to marry me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll not deny that it is in my mind,&rdquo; said she, and of set purpose
+      stifled pity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sighed and looked at her again, but she would not meet his eye, else
+      its whimsical expression might have intrigued her. &ldquo;Can you deny my
+      magnanimity, I wonder?&rdquo; said he, and spoke almost as one amused. &ldquo;All I
+      had I sacrificed to do your will, to save your brother from the snare of
+      his own contriving against me. I wonder do you yet realize how much I
+      sacrificed to-day at Taunton! I wonder!&rdquo; And he paused, looking at her and
+      waiting for some word from her; but she had none for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Clearly you do not, else I think you would show me if only a pretence of
+      kindness.&rdquo; She was looking at him at last, her eyes less hard. They seemed
+      to ask him to explain. &ldquo;When you came this morning with the tale of how
+      the tables had been turned upon your brother, of how he was caught in his
+      own springe, and the letter found in his keeping was before the King's
+      folk at Taunton with every appearance of having been addressed to him, and
+      not a tittle of evidence to show that it had been meant for me, do you
+      know what news it was you brought me?&rdquo; He paused a second, looking at her
+      from narrowing eyes. Then he answered his own question. &ldquo;You brought me
+      the news that you were mine to take whensoe'er I pleased. Whilst that
+      letter was in your hands it gave you the power to make me your obedient
+      slave. You might blow upon me as you listed whilst you held it, and I was
+      a vane that must turn to your blowing for my honour's sake and for the
+      sake of the cause in which I worked. Through no rashness of mine must that
+      letter come into the hands of the King's friends, else was I dishonoured.
+      It was an effective barrier between us. So long as you possessed that
+      letter you might pipe as you pleased, and I must dance to the tune you
+      set. And then this morning what you came to tell me was that things were
+      changed; that it was mine to call the tune. Had I had the strength to be a
+      villain, you had been mine now, and your brother and Sir Rowland might
+      have hanged on the rope of their own weaving.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him in a startled, almost shamefaced manner. This was an
+      aspect of the case she had not considered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You realize it, I see,&rdquo; he said, and smiled wistfully. &ldquo;Then perhaps you
+      realize why you found me so unwilling to do the thing you craved. Having
+      treated me ungenerously, you came to cast yourself upon my generosity,
+      asking me&mdash;though I scarcely think you understood&mdash;to beggar
+      myself of life itself with all it held for me. God knows I make no
+      pretence to virtue, and yet I think I had been something more than human
+      had I not refused you and the bargain you offered&mdash;a bargain that you
+      would never be called upon to fulfil if I did the thing you asked.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At last she interrupted him; she could bear it no longer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had not thought of it!&rdquo; she cried. It was a piteous wail that broke
+      from her. &ldquo;I swear I had not thought of that. I was all distraught for
+      poor Richard's sake. Oh, Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; she turned to him, holding out a
+      hand; her eyes shone, filmed with moisture, &ldquo;I shall have a kindness for
+      you... all my days for your... generosity to-day.&rdquo; It was lamentably weak,
+      far from the hot expressions which she forced it to replace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I was generous,&rdquo; he admitted. &ldquo;We will move on as far as the
+      cross-roads.&rdquo; Again they ambled gently forward. Up the slope from the ford
+      Diana and Jerry were slowly climbing; not another human being was in sight
+      ahead or behind them. &ldquo;After you left me,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;your memory and
+      your entreaties lingered with me. I gave the matter of our position
+      thought, and it seemed to me that all was monstrously ill-done. I loved
+      you, Ruth, I needed you, and you disdained me. My love was master of me.
+      But 'neath your disdain it was transmuted oddly.&rdquo; He checked the passion
+      that was vibrating in his voice and resumed after a pause, in the calm,
+      slow tones, soft and musical, that were his own. &ldquo;There is scarce the need
+      for so much recapitulation. When the power was mine I bent you unfairly to
+      my will; you did as much by me when the power suddenly became yours. It
+      was a strange war between us, and I accepted its conditions. To-day, when
+      the power was mine again, mine to bring you at last to subjection, behold,
+      I have capitulated at your bidding, and all that I held&mdash;including
+      your own self&mdash;have I relinquished. It is perhaps fitting. Haply I am
+      punished for having wed you before I had wooed you.&rdquo; Again his tone
+      changed, it grew more cold, more matter-of-fact. &ldquo;I rode this way a little
+      while ago a hunted man, my only hope to reach home and collect what moneys
+      and valuables I could carry, and make for the coast to find a vessel bound
+      for Holland. I have been engaged, as you know, in stirring up rebellion to
+      check the iniquities and persecutions that are toward in a land I love.
+      I'll not weary you with details. Time was needed for this as for all
+      things, and by next spring, perhaps, had matters gone well, this vineyard
+      that so carefully and secretly I have been tending, would have been,
+      maybe, in condition to bear fruit. Even now, in the hour of my flight, I
+      learn that others have come to force this delicate growth into sudden
+      maturity. There! Soon ripe, soon rotten. The Duke of Monmouth has landed
+      at Lyme this morning. I am riding to him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To what end?&rdquo; she cried, and he saw in her face a dismay that amounted
+      almost to fear, and he wondered was it for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To place my sword at his service. Were I not encompassed by this ruin, I
+      should not have stirred a foot in that direction&mdash;so rash, so
+      foredoomed to failure is this invasion. As it is,&rdquo;&mdash;he shrugged and
+      laughed&mdash;&ldquo;it is the only hope&mdash;all forlorn though it may be&mdash;for
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The trammels she had imposed upon her soul fell away at that like bonds of
+      cobweb. She laid her hand upon his wrists, tears stood in her eyes; her
+      lips quivered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anthony, forgive me,&rdquo; she besought him. He trembled under her touch,
+      under the caress of her voice, and at the sound of his name for the first
+      time upon her lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What have I to forgive?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The thing that I did in the matter of that letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You poor child,&rdquo; said he, smiling gently upon her, &ldquo;you did it in
+      self-defence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet say that you forgive me&mdash;say it before you go!&rdquo; she begged him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He considered her gravely a moment. &ldquo;To what end,&rdquo; he asked, &ldquo;do you
+      imagine that I have talked so much? To the end that I might show you that
+      however I may have wronged you I have at the last made some amends; and
+      that for the sake of this, the truest proof of penitence, I may have your
+      forgiveness ere I go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was weeping softly. &ldquo;It was an ill day on which we met,&rdquo; she sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For you&mdash;aye.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay&mdash;for you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'll say for both of us, then,&rdquo; he compromised. &ldquo;See, Ruth, your cousin
+      grows weary, and I have a couple of comrades who are no doubt impatient to
+      be gone. It may not be good for us to tarry in these parts. Some amends I
+      have made; but there is one crowning wrong which I have done you for which
+      there is but one amend to make.&rdquo; He paused. He steadied himself before
+      continuing. In his attempt to render his voice cold and commonplace he
+      went near to achieving harshness. &ldquo;It may be that this crackbrained
+      rebellion of which the torch is already alight will, if it does no other
+      good in England, at least make a widow of you. When that has come to pass,
+      when I have thus repaired the wrong I did you, I hope you'll bear me as
+      kindly as may be in your thought. Good-bye, my Ruth! I would you might
+      have loved me. I sought to force it.&rdquo; He smiled ever so wanly. &ldquo;Perhaps
+      that was my mistake. It is an ill thing to eat one's hay while it is
+      grass.&rdquo; He raised to his lips the little gloved hand that still rested on
+      his wrist. &ldquo;God keep you, Ruth!&rdquo; he murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She sought to answer him, but something choked her; a sob was all she
+      achieved. Had he caught her to him in that moment there is little doubt
+      but that she had yielded. Perhaps he knew it; and knowing it kept the
+      tighter rein upon desire. She was as metal molten in the crucible, to be
+      moulded by his craftsman's hands into any pattern that he chose. But the
+      crucible was the crucible of pity, not of love; that, too, he knew, and,
+      knowing it, forbore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He dropped her hand, doffed his hat, and, wheeling his horse about,
+      touched it with the spur and rode back towards the thicket where his
+      friends awaited him. As he left her, she too wheeled about, as if to
+      follow him. She strove to command her voice that she might recall him; but
+      at that same moment Trenchard, hearing his returning hoofs, thrust out
+      into the road with Vallancey following at his heels. The old player's
+      harsh voice reached her where she stood, and it was querulous with
+      impatience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a plague do you mean, dallying here at such a time, Anthony?&rdquo; he
+      cried, to which Vallancey added: &ldquo;In God's name, let us push on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At that she checked her impulse&mdash;it may even be that she mistrusted
+      it. She paused, lingering undecided for an instant; then, turning her
+      horse once more, she ambled up the slope to rejoin Diana.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII. &ldquo;PRO RELIGIONE ET LIBERTATE&rdquo;
+     </h2>
+    <p>
+      The evening was far advanced when Mr. Wilding and his two companions
+      descended to Uplyme Common from the heights whence as they rode they had
+      commanded a clear view of the fair valley of the Axe, lying now under a
+      thin opalescent veil of evening mist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had paused at Ilminster for fresh horses, and there Wilding had paid
+      a visit to one of his agents from whom he had procured a hundred guineas.
+      Thence they had come south at a sharp pace, and with little said. Wilding
+      was moody and thoughtful, filled with chagrin at this unconscionable
+      rashness of the man upon whom all his hopes were centred. As they cantered
+      briskly across Uplyme Common in the twilight they passed several bodies of
+      countrymen, all heading for the town, and one group sent up a shout of
+      &ldquo;God save the Protestant Duke!&rdquo; as they rode past him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Amen to that,&rdquo; muttered Mr. Wilding grimly, &ldquo;for I am afraid that no man
+      can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the narrow lane by Hay Farm a horseman, going in the opposite
+      direction, passed them at the gallop; but they had met several such since
+      leaving Ilminster, for indeed the news was spreading fast, and the whole
+      countryside was alive with messengers, some on foot and some on horseback,
+      but all hurrying as if their lives depended on their haste.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They made their way to the Market-Place where Monmouth's declaration&mdash;that
+      remarkable manifesto from the pen of Ferguson&mdash;had been read some
+      hours before. Thence, having ascertained where His Grace was lodged, they
+      made their way to the George Inn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Coombe Street they found the crowd so dense that they could but with
+      difficulty open out a way for their horses through the human press. Not a
+      window but was open, and thronged with sight-seers&mdash;mostly women,
+      indeed, for the men were in the press below. On every hand resounded the
+      cries of &ldquo;A Monmouth! A Monmouth! The Protestant Religion! Religion and
+      Liberty,&rdquo; which latter were the words inscribed on the standard Monmouth
+      had set up that evening on the Church Cliffs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In truth, Wilding was amazed at what he saw, and said as much to
+      Trenchard. So pessimistic had been his outlook that he had almost expected
+      to find the rebellion snuffed out by the time they reached
+      Lyme-of-the-King. What had the authorities been about that they had
+      permitted Monmouth to come ashore, or had Vallancey's information been
+      wrong in the matter of the numbers that accompanied the Protestant
+      Champion? Wilding's red coat attracted some attention. In the dusk its
+      colour was almost all that could be discerned of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here's a militia captain for the Duke!&rdquo; cried one, and others took up the
+      cry, and if it did nothing else it opened a way for them through that
+      solid human mass and permitted them to win through to the yard of the
+      George Inn. They found the spacious quadrangle thronged with men, armed
+      and unarmed, and on the steps stood a tall, well-knit, soldierly man, his
+      hat rakishly cocked, about whom a crowd of townsmen and country fellows
+      were pressing with insistence. At a glance Mr. Wilding recognized Captain
+      Venner&mdash;raised to the rank of colonel by Monmouth on the way from
+      Holland.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard dismounted, and taking a distracted stable-boy by the arm, bade
+      him see to their horses. The fellow endeavoured to swing himself free of
+      the other's tenacious grasp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me go,&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;I am for the Duke!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so are we, my fine rebel,&rdquo; answered Trenchard, holding fast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me go,&rdquo; the lout insisted. &ldquo;I am going to enlist.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so you shall when you have stabled our nags. See to him, Vallancey;
+      he is brainsick with the fumes of war.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The fellow protested, but Trenchard's way was brisk and short; and so,
+      protesting still, he led away their cattle in the end, Vallancey going
+      with him to see that he performed this last duty as a stable-boy ere he
+      too became a champion militant of the Protestant Cause. Trenchard sped
+      after Wilding, who was elbowing his way through the yokels about the
+      steps. The glare of a newly lighted lamp from the doorway fell full upon
+      his long white face as he advanced, and Venner espied and recognized him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilding!&rdquo; he cried, and there was a glad ring in his voice, for
+      though cobblers, tailors, deserters from the militia, pot-boys,
+      stable-boys, and shuffling yokels had been coming in in numbers during the
+      past few hours since the Declaration had been read, this was the first
+      gentleman that arrived to welcome Monmouth. The soldier stretched out a
+      hand to grasp the newcomer's. &ldquo;His Grace will see you this instant, not a
+      doubt of it.&rdquo; He turned and called down the passage. &ldquo;Cragg!&rdquo; A young man
+      in a buff coat came forward, and to him Venner delivered Wilding and
+      Trenchard that he might announce them to His Grace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the room that had been set apart for him abovestairs, Monmouth still
+      sat at table. He had just supped, with but an indifferent appetite, so
+      fevered was he by the events of his landing. He was excited with hope&mdash;inspired
+      by the readiness with which the men of Lyme and its neighbourhood had
+      flocked to his banner&mdash;and fretted by anxiety that none of the gentry
+      of the vicinity should yet have followed the example of the meaner folk,
+      in answer to the messages dispatched at dawn from Seaton. The board at
+      which he sat was still cumbered with some glasses and platters and
+      vestiges of his repast. Below him on his right sat Ferguson&mdash;that
+      prince of plotters&mdash;very busy with pen and ink, his keen face almost
+      hidden by his great periwig; opposite were Lord Grey, of Werke, and Andrew
+      Fletcher, of Saltoun, whilst, standing at the foot of the table barely
+      within the circle of candlelight from the branch on the polished oak, was
+      Nathaniel Wade, the lawyer, who had fled to Holland on account of his
+      alleged complicity in the Rye House plot and was now returned a major in
+      the Duke's service. Erect and soldierly of figure, girt with a great sword
+      and with the butt of a pistol protruding from his belt, he had little the
+      air of a man whose methods of contention were forensic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You understand, then, Major Wade,&rdquo; His Grace was saying, his voice
+      pleasant and musical. &ldquo;It is decided that the guns had best be got ashore
+      forthwith and mounted.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wade bowed. &ldquo;I shall set about it at once, Your Grace. I shall not want
+      for help. Have I Your Grace's leave to go?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Monmouth nodded, and as Wade passed out, Ensign Cragg entered to announce
+      Mr. Wilding and Mr. Trenchard. The Duke rose to his feet, his glance
+      suddenly brightening. Fletcher and Grey rose with him; Ferguson paid no
+      heed, absorbed in his task, which he industriously continued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At last!&rdquo; exclaimed the Duke. &ldquo;Admit them, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When they entered, Wilding coming first, his hat under his arm, the Duke
+      sprang to meet him, a tall young figure, lithe and slender as a blade of
+      steel, and of a steely strength for all his slimness. He was dressed in a
+      suit of purple that became him marvellously well, and on his breast a star
+      of diamonds flashed and smouldered like a thing of fire. He was of an
+      exceeding beauty of face, wherein he mainly favoured that &ldquo;bold, handsome
+      woman&rdquo; that was his mother, without, however, any of his mother's
+      insipidity; fine eyes, a good nose, straight and slender, and a mouth
+      which, if sensual and indicating a lack of strength, was beautifully
+      shaped. His chin was slightly cleft, the shape of his face a delicate
+      oval, framed now in the waving masses of his brown wig. Some likeness to
+      his late Majesty was also discernible, in spite of the wart, out of which
+      his uncle James made so much capital.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a slight flush on his cheeks, an added lustre in his eye, as he
+      took Wilding's hand and shook it heartily before Wilding had time to kiss
+      His Grace's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are late,&rdquo; he said, but there was no reproach in his voice. &ldquo;We had
+      looked to find you here when we came ashore. You had my letter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had not, Your Grace,&rdquo; answered Wilding, very grave. &ldquo;It was stolen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stolen?&rdquo; cried the Duke, and behind him Grey pressed forward, whilst even
+      Ferguson paused in his writing to raise his piercing eyes and listen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is no matter,&rdquo; Wilding reassured him. &ldquo;Although stolen, it has but
+      gone to Whitehall to-day, when it can add little to the news that is
+      already on its way there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke laughed softly, with a flash of white teeth, and looked past
+      Wilding at Trenchard. Some of the light faded out of his eyes. &ldquo;They told
+      me Mr. Trenchard...&rdquo; he began, when Wilding, half turning to his friend,
+      explained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is Mr. Nicholas Trenchard&mdash;John Trenchard's cousin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I bid you welcome, sir,&rdquo; said the Duke, very agreeably, &ldquo;and I trust your
+      cousin follows you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Alas,&rdquo; said Trenchard, &ldquo;my cousin is in France,&rdquo; and in a few brief words
+      he related the matter of John Trenchard's home-coming on his acquittal and
+      the trouble there had been connected with it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke received the news in silence. He had expected good support from
+      old Speke's son-in-law. Indeed, there was a promise that when he came,
+      John Trenchard would bring fifteen hundred men from Taunton. He took a
+      turn in the room deep in thought, and there was a pause until Ferguson,
+      rubbing his great Roman nose, asked suddenly had Mr. Wilding seen the
+      Declaration. Mr. Wilding had not, and thereupon the plotting parson, who
+      was proud of his composition, would have read it to him there and then,
+      but that Grey sourly told him the matter would keep, and that they had
+      other things to discuss with Mr. Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This the Duke himself confirmed, stating that there were matters on which
+      he would be glad to have their opinion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He invited the newcomers to draw chairs to the table; glasses were called
+      for, and a couple of fresh bottles of Canary went round the board. The
+      talk was desultory for a few moments, whilst Wilding and Trenchard washed
+      the dust from their throats; then Monmouth broke the ice by asking them
+      bluntly what they thought of his coming thus, earlier than was at first
+      agreed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding never hesitated in his reply. &ldquo;Frankly, Your Grace,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I
+      like it not at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fletcher looked up sharply, his clear intelligent eyes full upon Wilding's
+      calm face, his countenance expressing as little as did Wilding's. Ferguson
+      seemed slightly taken aback. Grey's thick lips were twisted in a sneering
+      smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Faith,&rdquo; said the latter with elaborate sarcasm, &ldquo;in that case it only
+      remains for us to ship again, heave anchor, and back to Holland.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is what I should advise,&rdquo; said Wilding slowly and quietly, &ldquo;if I
+      thought there was a chance of my advice being taken.&rdquo; He had a calm,
+      almost apathetic way of uttering startling things which rendered them
+      doubly startling. The sneer seemed to freeze on Lord Grey's lips; Fletcher
+      continued to stare, but his eyes had grown more round; Ferguson scowled
+      darkly. The Duke's boyish face&mdash;it was still very youthful despite
+      his six-and-thirty years&mdash;expressed a wondering consternation. He
+      looked at Wilding, and from Wilding to the others, and his glance seemed
+      to entreat them to suggest an answer to him. It was Grey at last who took
+      the matter up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall explain your meaning, sir, or we must hold you a traitor,&rdquo; he
+      exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;King James does that already,&rdquo; answered Wilding with a quiet smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;D'ye mean the Duke of York?&rdquo; rumbled Ferguson's Scottish accent with
+      startling suddenness, and Monmouth nodded approval of the correction. &ldquo;If
+      ye mean that bloody papist and fratricide, it were well so to speak of
+      him. Had ye read the Declaration...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Fletcher cropped his speech in mid-growth. He was ever a
+      short-tempered man, intolerant of irrelevancies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It were well, perhaps,&rdquo; said he, his accent abundantly proclaiming him a
+      fellow countryman of Ferguson's, &ldquo;to keep to the matter before us. Mr.
+      Wilding, no doubt, will state the reasons that exist, or that he fancies
+      may exist, for giving advice which is hardly worthy of the cause to which
+      he stands committed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye, Fletcher,&rdquo; said Monmouth, &ldquo;there is sense in you. Tell us what is in
+      your mind, Mr. Wilding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is in my mind, Your Grace, that this invasion is rash, premature, and
+      ill-advised.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Odds life!&rdquo; cried Grey, and he swung angrily round fully to face the
+      Duke, the nostrils of his heavy nose dilating. &ldquo;Are we to listen to this
+      milksop prattle?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nick Trenchard, who had hitherto been silent, cleared his throat so
+      noisily that he drew all eyes to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Grace,&rdquo; Mr. Wilding pursued, his air calm and dignified, and
+      gathering more dignity from the circumstance that he proceeded as if there
+      had been no interruption, &ldquo;when I had the honour of conferring with you at
+      The Hague two months ago, it was agreed that you should spend the summer
+      in Sweden&mdash;away from politics and scheming, leaving the work of
+      preparation to your accredited agents here. That work I have been slowly
+      but surely pushing forward. It was not to be hurried; men of position are
+      not to be won over in a day; men with anything to lose need some guarantee
+      that they are not wantonly casting their possessions to the winds. By next
+      spring, as was agreed, all would have been ready. Delay could not have
+      hurt you. Indeed, with every day by which you delayed your coming you did
+      good service to your cause, you strengthened its prospects of success; for
+      every day the people's burden of oppression and persecution grows more
+      heavy, and the people's temper more short; every day, by the methods that
+      he is pursuing, King James brings himself into deeper hatred. This hatred
+      is spreading. It was the business of myself and those others to help it
+      on, until from the cottage of the ploughman the infection of anger should
+      have spread to the mansion of the squire. Had Your Grace but given me
+      time, as I entreated you, and as you promised me, you might have marched
+      to Whitehall with scarce the shedding of a drop of blood; had Your Grace
+      but waited until we were ready, England would have so trembled at your
+      landing that your uncle's throne would have toppled over 'neath the shock.
+      As it is...&rdquo; He shrugged his shoulders, sighed and spread his hands,
+      leaving his sentence uncompleted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monmouth sat sobered by these sober words; the intoxication that had come
+      to him from the little measure of success that had attended the opening of
+      the listing on Church Cliffs, deserted him now; he saw the thing stark and
+      in its true proportions, and not even the shouting of the folk in the
+      streets below, crying his name and acclaiming him their champion, served
+      to lighten the gloom that Wilding's words cast like a cloud over his
+      volatile heart. Alas, poor Monmouth! He was ever a weathercock, and even
+      as Wilding's words seemed to strike the courage out of him, so did Grey's
+      short contemptuous answer restore it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As it is, we'll thrust that throne over with our hands,&rdquo; said he after a
+      moment's pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye,&rdquo; cried Monmouth. &ldquo;We'll do it, God helping us!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our dependence and trust is in the Lord of Hosts, in Whose Name we go
+      forth,&rdquo; boomed the voice of Ferguson, quoting from his precious
+      Declaration. &ldquo;The Lord will do that which seemeth good unto Him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An unanswerable argument,&rdquo; said Wilding, smiling. &ldquo;But the Lord, I am
+      told by the gentlemen of your cloth, works in His own good time, and my
+      fears are all lest, finding us unprepared of ourselves, the Lord's good
+      time be not yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Out on ye, sir,&rdquo; cried Ferguson. &ldquo;Ye want for reverence!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Common sense will serve us better at the moment,&rdquo; answered Wilding with a
+      touch of sharpness. He turned to the frowning and perplexed Duke&mdash;whose
+      mind was being tossed this way and that, like a shuttlecock upon the
+      battledore of these men's words. &ldquo;Your Grace,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;forgive me that I
+      speak it if hear it you will, or forbid me to say it if your resolve is
+      unalterable in this matter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is unalterable,&rdquo; answered Grey for the Duke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Monmouth gently overruled him for once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nevertheless, speak by all means, Mr. Wilding. Whatever you may say, you
+      need have no fear that any of us can doubt your good intentions to
+      ourselves.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thank Your Grace. What I have to say is but a repetition of the first
+      words I uttered at this table. I would urge Your Grace even now to
+      retreat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What? Are you mad?&rdquo; It was Lord Grey who asked the impatient question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I doubt it's over-late for that,&rdquo; said Fletcher slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not so sure,&rdquo; answered Wilding. &ldquo;But I am sure that to attempt it
+      were the safer course&mdash;the surer in the end. I myself may not linger
+      to push forward the task of stirring up the people, for I am already
+      something more than under suspicion. But there are others who will remain
+      to carry on the work after I have departed with Your Grace, if Your Grace
+      thinks well. From the Continent by correspondence we can mature our plans.
+      In a twelvemonth things will be very different, and we can return with
+      confidence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Grey shrugged and turned his shoulder upon Wilding, but said no word.
+      There was silence of some few moments. Andrew Fletcher leaned his elbow on
+      the table and took his brow in his great bony hand. Wilding's words seemed
+      an echo of those he himself had spoken a week or two ago, only to be
+      overruled by Grey, who swayed the Duke more than did any other&mdash;and
+      that he did not do so of fell purpose, and seeking deliberately to work
+      Monmouth's ruin, no man will ever be able to say with certainty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ferguson rose, a tall, spare, stooping figure, and smote the board with
+      his fist. &ldquo;It is a good cause,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;and God will not leave us
+      unless we leave Him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Henry the Seventh landed with fewer men than did Your Grace,&rdquo; said Grey,
+      &ldquo;and he succeeded.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;True,&rdquo; put in Fletcher. &ldquo;But Henry the Seventh was sure of the support of
+      not a few of the nobility, which does not seem to be our case.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ferguson and Grey stared at him in horror; Monmouth sat biting his lip,
+      more bewildered than thoughtful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O man of little faith!&rdquo; roared Ferguson in a passion. &ldquo;Are ye to be
+      swayed like a straw in the wind?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am no' swayed. Ye ken this was ever my own view. I feel, in my heart,
+      that what Mr. Wilding says is right. It is but what I said myself, and
+      Captain Matthews with me, before we embarked upon this expedition. We were
+      in danger of ruining all by a needless precipitancy. Nay, man, never stare
+      so,&rdquo; he said to Grey, &ldquo;I am in it now and I am no' the man to draw back,
+      nor do I go so far as Mr. Wilding in counselling such a course. We've set
+      our hands to the plough; let us go forward in God's name. Yet I would
+      remind you that what Mr. Wilding says is true. Had we waited until next
+      year, we had found the usurper's throne tottering under him, and, on our
+      landing, it would have toppled o'er of itself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have said already that we'll overset it with our hands,&rdquo; Grey answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How many hands have you?&rdquo; asked a new voice, a crisp, discordant voice,
+      much steeped in mockery. It was Nick Trenchard's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have we another here of Mr. Wilding's mind?&rdquo; cried Grey, staring at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am seldom of any other,&rdquo; answered Trenchard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall no' want for hands,&rdquo; Ferguson assured him. &ldquo;Had ye arrived
+      earlier ye might have seen how readily men enlisted.&rdquo; He had risen and
+      approached the window as he spoke; he pulled it open, to let in the full
+      volume of sound that rose from the street below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A Monmouth! A Monmouth!&rdquo; voices shouted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ferguson struck a theatrical posture, one long, lean arm stretched outward
+      from the shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye hear them, sirs,&rdquo; he cried, and there was a gleam of triumph in his
+      eye. &ldquo;That is answer enough to those who want for faith, to the feckless
+      ones that think the Lord will abandon those that have set out to serve
+      Him,&rdquo; and his glance comprehended Fletcher, Trenchard, and Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke stirred in his chair, stretched a hand for the bottle and filled
+      a glass. His mercurial spirits were rising again. He smiled at Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you are answered, sir,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;and I hope that like Fletcher
+      there, who shared your doubts, you will come to agree that since we have
+      set our hands to the plough we must go forward.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have said that which I had it on my conscience to say. Your Grace may
+      have found me over-ready with my counsel; at least you shall find me no
+      less ready with my sword.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Odso! That is better.&rdquo; Grey applauded, and his manner was almost
+      pleasant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never doubted it, Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; His Grace replied; &ldquo;but I should like
+      to hear you say that you are convinced&mdash;at least in part,&rdquo; and he
+      waved his hand towards the window. It was almost as if he pleaded for
+      encouragement. In common with most men who came in contact with Wilding,
+      he had felt the latent force of this man's nature, the strength that was
+      hidden under that calm surface, and the acuteness of the judgment that
+      must be wedded to it. He longed to have the word of such a man that his
+      enterprise was not as desperate as Wilding had seemed at first to paint
+      it. But Wilding made no concession to hopes or desires when he dealt with
+      facts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Men will flock to you, no doubt; persecution has wearied many of the
+      country-folk, and they are ready for revolt. But they are all untrained in
+      arms; they are rustics, not soldiers. If any of the men of position were
+      to rally round your standard they would bring the militia, and others in
+      their train; they would bring arms, horses, and money, all of which Your
+      Grace must be sorely needing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They will come,&rdquo; answered the Duke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some, no doubt,&rdquo; Wilding agreed; &ldquo;but had it been next year, I would have
+      answered for it that it would have been no handful had ridden in to
+      welcome you. Scarce a gentleman of Devon or Somerset, of Dorset or
+      Hampshire, of Wiltshire or Cheshire but would have hastened to your side.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They will come as it is,&rdquo; the Duke repeated with an almost womanish
+      insistence, persisting in believing what he hoped, all evidence apart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The door opened and Ensign Cragg made his appearance. &ldquo;May it please Your
+      Grace,&rdquo; he announced, &ldquo;Mr. Battiscomb has just arrived, and asks will Your
+      Grace receive him to-night?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Battiscomb!&rdquo; cried the Duke. Again his cheek flushed and his eye
+      sparkled. &ldquo;Aye, in Heaven's name, show him up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And may the Lord refresh us with good tidings!&rdquo; prayed Ferguson devoutly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monmouth turned to Wilding. &ldquo;It is the agent I sent ahead of me from
+      Holland to stir up the gentry from here to the Mersey.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know,&rdquo; said Wilding; &ldquo;we conferred together some weeks since.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now you shall see how idle are your fears,&rdquo; the Duke promised him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Wilding, who was better informed on that score, kept silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV. HIS GRACE' IN COUNSEL
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Christopher Battiscomb, that mild-mannered Dorchester gentleman, who,
+      like Wade, was by vocation a lawyer, was ushered into the Duke's presence.
+      He was dressed in black, and, like Ferguson, was almost smothered in a
+      great periwig, which he may have adopted for purposes of disguise rather
+      than adornment. Certainly he had none of that air of the soldier of
+      fortune which distinguished his brother of the robe. He advanced, hat in
+      hand, towards the table, greeting the company about it, and Wilding
+      observed that he wore silk stockings and shoes, upon which there rested
+      not a speck of dust. Mr. Battiscomb was plainly a man who loved his ease,
+      since on such a day he had travelled to Lyme in a coach. The lawyer bent
+      low to kiss the Duke's hand, and scarce was that formal homage paid than
+      questions poured upon him from Grey, from Fletcher, and from Ferguson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gentlemen, gentlemen,&rdquo; the Duke entreated them, smiling; and remembering
+      their manners they fell silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Wilding afterwards told Trenchard, they reminded him of a parcel of
+      saucy lacqueys who take liberties with an upstart master for whom they are
+      wanting in respect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad to see you, Battiscomb,&rdquo; said Monmouth, when quiet was
+      restored, &ldquo;and I trust I behold in you a bearer of good tidings.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The lawyer's full face was usually pale; to-night it was, in addition,
+      solemn, and the smile that haunted his lips was a courtesy smile that
+      expressed neither mirth nor satisfaction. He cleared his throat, as if
+      nervous. He avoided the Duke's question as to the quality of the news he
+      brought by answering that he had made all haste to come to Lyme upon
+      hearing of His Grace's landing. He was surprised, he said; as well he
+      might be, for the arrangement was that having done his work he was to
+      return to Holland and report to Monmouth upon the feeling of the gentry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But your news, Battiscomb,&rdquo; the Duke insisted. &ldquo;Aye,&rdquo; put in Grey; &ldquo;in
+      Heaven's name, let us hear that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again there was the little nervous cough from Battiscomb. &ldquo;I have scarce
+      had time to complete my round of visits,&rdquo; he temporized. &ldquo;Your Grace has
+      taken us so by surprise. I... I was with Sir Walter Young at Colyton when
+      the news of your landing came some few hours ago.&rdquo; His voice faltered and
+      seemed to die away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; cried the Duke. His brows were drawn together. Already he realized
+      that Battiscomb's tidings were not good, else would he be hesitating less
+      in uttering them. &ldquo;Is Sir Walter with you, at least?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I grieve to say that he is not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not?&rdquo; It was Grey who spoke, and he followed the ejaculation by an oath.
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is following, no doubt?&rdquo; suggested Fletcher.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We may hope, sirs,&rdquo; answered Battiscomb, &ldquo;that in a few days&mdash;when
+      he shall have seen the zeal of the countryside&mdash;he will be cured of
+      his present luke-warmness.&rdquo; Thus, discreetly, did the man of law break the
+      bad news he bore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monmouth sank back into his chair like one who has lost some of his
+      strength. &ldquo;Lukewarmness?&rdquo; he repeated dully. &ldquo;Sir Walter Young lukewarm!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Even so, Your Grace&mdash;alas!&rdquo; and Battiscomb sighed audibly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ferguson's voice boomed forth again to startle them. &ldquo;The ox knoweth his
+      owner,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;the ass his master's crib; but Israel doth not know, my
+      people doth not consider.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Grey pushed the bottle contemptuously across the table to the parson.
+      &ldquo;Drink, man, and get sense, said he, and turned aside to question
+      Battiscomb touching others of the neighbourhood upon whom they had
+      depended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What of Sir Francis Rolles?&rdquo; he inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Battiscomb answered the question, addressing himself to the Duke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Alas! Sir Francis, no doubt, would have been faithful to Your Grace, but,
+      unfortunately, Sir Francis is in prison already.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Deeper grew Monmouth's frown; his fingers drummed the table absently.
+      Fletcher poured himself wine, his face inscrutable. Grey threw one leg
+      over the other and in a voice that was carefully careless he inquired,
+      &ldquo;And what of Sidney Clifford?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is considering,&rdquo; said Battiscomb. &ldquo;I was to have seen him again at the
+      end of the month; meanwhile, he would take no resolve.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord Gervase Scoresby?&rdquo; questioned Grey, less carelessly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Battiscomb half turned to him, then faced the Duke again as he made
+      answer, &ldquo;Mr. Wilding there, can tell you more concerning Lord Gervase.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All eyes swept round to Wilding who sat in silence, listening; Monmouth's
+      were laden with inquiry and some anxiety. Wilding shook his head slowly,
+      sadly. &ldquo;You must not depend upon him,&rdquo; he answered; &ldquo;Lord Gervase was not
+      yet ripe. A little longer and I think I must have won him for Your Grace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heaven help us!&rdquo; exclaimed the Duke in petulant vexation. &ldquo;Is no one
+      coming in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ferguson swung a hand towards the still open window, drawing attention to
+      the sounds without.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does Your Grace not hear, that ye can ask?&rdquo; he cried, almost
+      reproachfully; but they scarce heeded him, for Grey was inquiring if Mr.
+      Strode might be depended upon to join, and that was a matter that claimed
+      the greater attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; said Battiscomb, &ldquo;that he might have been depended upon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Might have been?&rdquo; questioned Fletcher, speaking now for the first time
+      since Battiscomb's arrival.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Like Sir Francis Rolles, he is in prison,&rdquo; the lawyer explained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monmouth leaned forward, and his young face looked careworn now; he thrust
+      a slender hand under the brown curls upon his brow. &ldquo;Will you tell us, Mr.
+      Battiscomb, upon what friends you think that we may count?&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Battiscomb pursed his lips a second, pondering. &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that
+      you may count upon Mr. Legge and Mr. Hooper, and possibly upon Colonel
+      Churchill, though I cannot say what following they will bring, if any. Mr.
+      Trenchard, upon whom we counted for fifteen hundred men of Taunton, has
+      been obliged to fly the country to escape arrest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have heard that from Mr. Trenchard's cousin,&rdquo; answered the Duke. &ldquo;What
+      of Prideaux, of Ford? Is he lukewarm?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was unable to elicit a definite promise from him. But he was favourably
+      disposed to Your Grace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His Grace made a gesture that seemed to dismiss Prideaux from their
+      calculations. &ldquo;And Mr. Hucker, of Taunton?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Battiscomb's manner grew yet more ill at ease. &ldquo;Mr. Hucker himself, I am
+      sure, would place his sword at your disposal. But his brother is a red-hot
+      Tory.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, well,&rdquo; sighed the Duke, &ldquo;I take it we must not make certain of Mr.
+      Hucker. Are there any others besides Legge and Hooper upon whom you think
+      that we may reckon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord Wiltshire, perhaps,&rdquo; said Battiscomb, but with a lack of assurance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A plague on perhaps!&rdquo; exclaimed Monmouth, growing irritable; &ldquo;I want you
+      to name the men of whom you are certain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Battiscomb stood silent for a moment, pondering. He looked almost foolish,
+      like a schoolboy who hesitates to confess his ignorance of the answer to a
+      question set him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fletcher swung round, his grey eyes flashing angrily, his accent more
+      Scottish than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it that ye're certain o' none, Mr. Battiscomb?&rdquo; he exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed,&rdquo; said Battiscomb, &ldquo;I think we may be fairly certain of Mr. Legge
+      and Mr. Hooper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And of none besides?&rdquo; questioned Fletcher again. &ldquo;Be these the only
+      representatives of the flower of England's nobility that is to flock to
+      the banner of the cause of England's freedom and religion?&rdquo; Scorn was
+      stamped on every word of his question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Battiscomb spread his hands, raised his brows, and said nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Lord knows I do not say it exulting,&rdquo; said Fletcher; &ldquo;but I told Your
+      Grace yours was hardly the case of Henry the Seventh, as my Lord Grey
+      would have you believe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall see,&rdquo; snapped Grey, scowling at the Scot. &ldquo;The people are coming
+      in hundreds&mdash;aye, in thousands&mdash;the gentry will follow; they
+      must.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Make not too sure, Your Grace&mdash;oh, make not too sure,&rdquo; Wilding
+      besought the Duke. &ldquo;As I have said, these hinds have nothing to lose but
+      their lives.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Faith, can a man lose more?&rdquo; asked Grey contemptuously. He disliked
+      Wilding by instinct, which was but a reciprocation of the feeling with
+      which Wilding was inspired by him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think he can,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding quietly. &ldquo;A man may lose honour, he may
+      plunge his family into ruin. These are things of more weight with a
+      gentleman than life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Odds death!&rdquo; blazed Grey, giving a free rein to his dislike of this calm
+      gentleman. &ldquo;Do you suggest that a man's honour is imperilled in His
+      Grace's service?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suggest nothing,&rdquo; answered Wilding, unmoved. &ldquo;What I think, I state. If
+      I thought a man's honour imperilled in this service, you would not see me
+      at this table now. I can make you no more convincing answer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Grey laughed unpleasantly, and Wilding, a faint tinge on his cheek-bones,
+      measured him with a stern, intrepid look before which his lordship's
+      shifty glance was observed to fall. Wilding's eye, having achieved that
+      much, passed from him to the Duke, and its expression softened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Grace sees,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;how well founded were the fears I expressed
+      that your coming has been premature.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In God's name, what would you have me do?&rdquo; cried the Duke, and petulance
+      made his voice unsteady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding rose, moved out of his habitual calm by the earnestness that
+      pervaded him. &ldquo;It is not for me to say again what I would have Your Grace
+      do. Your Grace has heard my views, and those of these gentlemen. It is for
+      Your Grace to decide.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean whether I will go forward with this thing? What alternative have
+      I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No alternative,&rdquo; put in Grey with finality. &ldquo;Nor is alternative needed.
+      We'll carry this through in spite of timorous folk and birds of ill-omen
+      that croak to affright us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our service is the service of the Lord,&rdquo; cried Ferguson, returning from
+      the window in the embrasure of which he had been standing; &ldquo;the Lord
+      cannot but destine it to prevail.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye said so before,&rdquo; quoth Fletcher testily. &ldquo;We need here men, money, and
+      weapons&mdash;not divinity.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are plainly infected with Mr. Wilding's disease,&rdquo; sneered Grey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ford,&rdquo; cried the Duke, who saw Wilding's eyes flash fire; &ldquo;you go too
+      fast. Mr. Wilding, you will not heed his lordship.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should not be likely to do so, Your Grace,&rdquo; answered Wilding, who had
+      resumed his seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What shall that mean?&rdquo; quoth Grey, leaping to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Make it quite clear to him, Tony,&rdquo; whispered Trenchard coaxingly; but Mr.
+      Wilding was not as lost as were these immediate followers of the Duke's to
+      all sense of the respect due to His Grace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; said Wilding quietly, &ldquo;that you have forgotten something.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forgotten what?&rdquo; bawled Grey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His Grace's presence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His lordship turned crimson, his anger swelled to think that the very
+      terms of the rebuke precluded his allowing his feelings a free rein.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monmouth leaned forward. &ldquo;Sit down,&rdquo; he said to Grey, and Grey, so lately
+      called to the respect he owed His Grace, obeyed him. &ldquo;You will both
+      promise me that this affair shall go no further. I know you will do it if
+      I ask you, particularly when you remember how few are the followers upon
+      whom I may depend. I am not in case to lose either of you through foolish
+      words uttered in a heat which, in both your hearts, is born, I know, of
+      your loyalty to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Grey's coarse, elderly face took on a sulky look, his heavy lips were
+      pouted, his glance sullen. Mr. Wilding, on the contrary, smiled across the
+      table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For my part I very gladly give Your Grace the undertaking,&rdquo; said he, and
+      took care not to observe the sneer that altered the line of Lord Grey's
+      lips. His lordship, too, was forced to give the same pledge, and he
+      followed it up by inveighing sturdily against the suggestion that they
+      should retreat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do protest,&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;that those who advise Your Grace to do
+      anything but go forward boldly now, are evil counsellors. If you put back
+      to Holland, you may leave every hope behind. There will be no second
+      coming for you. Your influence will have been dissipated. Men will not
+      trust you another time. I do not think that even Mr. Wilding can deny the
+      truth of this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am by no means sure,&rdquo; said Wilding, and Fletcher looked at him with
+      eyes that were full of understanding. This sturdy Scot, the only soldier
+      worthy of the name in the Duke's following, who, ever since the project
+      had first been mooted, had held out against it, counselling delay, was in
+      sympathy with Mr. Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monmouth rose, his face anxious, his voice fretful. &ldquo;There can be no
+      retreat for me, gentlemen. Though many that we depended upon are not here
+      to join us, yet let us remember that Heaven is on our side, and that we
+      are come to fight in the sacred cause of religion and a nation's
+      emancipation from the thraldom of popery, oppression, and superstition.
+      Let this dispel such doubts as yet may linger in our minds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His words had a brave sound, but, when analysed, they but formed a
+      paraphrase of what Grey and Ferguson had said. It was his destiny to be a
+      mere echo of the minds of other men, just as he was now the tool of these
+      two, one of whom plotted, seemingly, because plotting was a disease that
+      had got into his blood; the other for reasons that may have been of
+      ambition or of revenge&mdash;no man will ever know for certain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the chamber they shared, Trenchard and Mr. Wilding reviewed that night
+      the scene so lately enacted, in which one had taken an active part, the
+      other been little more than a spectator. Trenchard had come from the
+      Duke's presence entirely out of conceit with Monmouth and his cause,
+      contemptuous of Ferguson, angry with Grey, and indifferent towards
+      Fletcher.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am committed, and I'll not draw back,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;but I tell you,
+      Anthony, my heart is not confederate with my hand in this. Bah!&rdquo; he
+      railed. &ldquo;We serve a man of straw, a Perkin, a very pope of a fellow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding sighed. &ldquo;He's scarce the man for such an undertaking,&rdquo; said
+      he. &ldquo;I fear we have been misled.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard was drawing off his boots. He paused in the act. &ldquo;Aye,&rdquo; said he,
+      &ldquo;misled by our blindness. What else, after all, should we have expected of
+      him?&rdquo; he cried contemptuously. &ldquo;The Cause is good; but its leader&mdash;-Pshaw!
+      Would you have such a puppet as that on the throne of England?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He does not aim so high.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be not so sure. We shall hear more of the black box anon, and of the
+      marriage certificate it contains. 'Twould not surprise me if they were to
+      produce forgeries of the one and the other to prove his father's marriage
+      to Lucy Walters. Anthony, Anthony! To what a business are we wedded?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding, already abed, turned impatiently. &ldquo;Things cried aloud to be
+      redressed; a leader was necessary, and none other offered. That is the
+      whole story. But our chance is slender, and it might have been great.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That rake-hell, Ford, Lord Grey has made it so,&rdquo; grumbled Trenchard, busy
+      with his stockings. &ldquo;This sudden coming is his work. You heard what
+      Fletcher said&mdash;how he opposed it when first it was urged.&rdquo; He paused,
+      and looked up suddenly. &ldquo;Blister me!&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;is it his lordship's
+      purpose, think you, to work the ruin of Monmouth?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you saying, Nick?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are certain rumours current touching His Grace and Lady Grey. A man
+      like Grey might well resort to some such scheme of vengeance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Get to sleep, Nick,&rdquo; said Wilding, yawning; &ldquo;you are dreaming already.
+      Such a plan would be over elaborate for his lordship's mind. It would ask
+      a villainy parallel with your own.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard climbed into bed, and settled himself under the coverlet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Maybe,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;and maybe not; but I think that were it not for that
+      cursed business of the letter Richard Westmacott stole from us, I should
+      be going my ways to-morrow and leaving His Grace of Monmouth to go his.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye, and I'd go with you,&rdquo; answered Wilding. &ldquo;I've little taste for
+      suicide; but we are in it now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Twas a sad pity you meddled this morning in that affair at Taunton,&rdquo;
+       mused Trenchard wistfully. &ldquo;A sadder pity you were bitten with a taste for
+      matrimony,&rdquo; he added thoughtfully, and blew out the rushlight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XV. LYME OF THE KING
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On the next day, which was Friday, the country folk continued to come in,
+      and by evening Monmouth's forces amounted to a thousand foot and a hundred
+      and fifty horse. The men were armed as fast as they were enrolled, and
+      scarce a field or quiet avenue in the district but resounded to the tramp
+      of feet, the rattle of weapons, and the sharp orders of the officers who,
+      by drilling, were converting this raw material into soldiers. On the
+      Saturday the rally of the Duke's standard was such that Monmouth threw off
+      at last the gloomy forebodings that had burdened his soul since that
+      meeting on Thursday night. Wade, Holmes, Foulkes, and Fox were able to set
+      about forming the first four regiments&mdash;the Duke's, and the Green,
+      the White, and the Yellow. Monmouth's spirits continued to rise, for he
+      had been joined by now by Legge and Hooper&mdash;the two upon whom
+      Battiscomb had counted&mdash;and by Colonel Joshua Churchill, of whom
+      Battiscomb had been less certain. Captain Matthews brought news that Lord
+      Wiltshire and the gentlemen of Hampshire might be expected if they could
+      force their way through Albemarle's militia, which was already closing
+      round Lyme.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Long before evening willing fellows were being turned away in hundreds for
+      lack of weapons. In spite of Monmouth's big talk on landing, and of the
+      rumour that had gone out, that he could arm thirty thousand men, his stock
+      of arms was exhausted by a mere fifteen hundred. Trenchard, who now held a
+      Major's rank in the horse attached to the Duke's own regiment, was loud in
+      his scorn of this state of things; Mr. Wilding was sad, and his depression
+      again spread to the Duke after a few words had passed between them towards
+      evening. Fletcher was for heroic measures. He looked only ahead now, like
+      the good soldier that he was; and, already, he began to suggest a bold
+      dash for Exeter, for weapons, horses, and possibly the militia as well,
+      for they had ample evidence that the men composing it might easily be
+      induced to desert to the Duke's side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The suggestion was one that instantly received Mr. Wilding's heartiest
+      approval. It seemed to fill him suddenly with hope, and he spoke of it,
+      indeed, as an inspiration which, if acted upon, might yet save the
+      situation. The Duke was undecided as ever; he was too much troubled
+      weighing the chances for and against, and he would decide upon nothing
+      until he had consulted Grey and the others. He would summon a council that
+      night, he promised, and the matter should be considered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But that council was never to be called, for Andrew Fletcher's association
+      with the rebellion was drawing rapidly to its close, and there was that to
+      happen in the next few hours which should counteract all the encouragement
+      with which the Duke had been fortified that day. Towards evening little
+      Heywood Dare, the Taunton goldsmith, who had landed at Seatown and gone
+      out with the news of the Duke's arrival, rode into Lyme with forty horse,
+      mounted, himself, upon a beautiful charger which was destined to be the
+      undoing of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      News came, too, that the Dorset militia were at Bridport, eight miles
+      away, whereupon Wilding and Fletcher postponed all further suggestion of
+      the dash for Exeter, proposing that in the mean time a night attack upon
+      Bridport might result well. For once Lord Grey was in agreement with them,
+      and so the matter was decided. Fletcher went down to arm and mount, and
+      all the world knows the story of the foolish, ill-fated quarrel which
+      robbed Monmouth of two of his most valued adherents. By ill-luck the
+      Scot's eyes lighted upon the fine horse that Dare had brought from Ford
+      Abbey. It occurred to him that nothing could be more fitting than that the
+      best man should sit upon the best horse, and he forthwith led the beast
+      from the stables and was about to mount when Dare came forth to catch him
+      in the very act. The goldsmith was a rude, peppery fellow, who did not
+      mince his words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a plague are you doing with that horse?&rdquo; he cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fletcher paused, one foot in the stirrup, and looked the fellow up and
+      down. &ldquo;I am mounting it,&rdquo; said he, and proceeded to do as he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Dare caught him by the tails of his coat and brought him back to
+      earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are making a mistake, Mr. Fletcher,&rdquo; he cried angrily. &ldquo;That horse is
+      mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fletcher, whose temper was by no means of the most peaceful, kept himself
+      with difficulty in hand at the indignity Dare offered him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yours?&rdquo; quoth he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye, mine. I brought it from Ford Abbey myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For the Duke's service,&rdquo; Fletcher reminded him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For my own, sir; for my own I would have you know.&rdquo; And brushing the Scot
+      aside, he caught the bridle, and sought to wrench it from Fletcher's hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Fletcher maintained his hold. &ldquo;Softly, Mr. Dare,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Ye're a
+      trifle o'er true to your name, as you once told his late Majesty
+      yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take your hands from my horse,&rdquo; Dare shouted, very angry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Several loiterers in the yard gathered round to watch the scene, culling
+      diversion from it and speculating upon the conclusion it might have. One
+      rash young fellow offered audibly to lay ten to one that Paymaster Dare
+      would have the best of the argument.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dare overheard, and was spurred on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will, by God!&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;Come, Mr. Fletcher!&rdquo; And he shook the
+      bridle again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a dull flush showing through the tan of Fletcher's skin. &ldquo;Mr.
+      Dare,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;this horse is no more yours than mine. It is the Duke's,
+      and I, as one o' the leaders, claim it in the Duke's service.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye, sir,&rdquo; cried an onlooker, encouraging Fletcher, and did the mischief.
+      It so goaded Dare to have his antagonist in this trifling matter supported
+      that he utterly lost his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have said the horse is mine, and I repeat it. Let go the bridle&mdash;let
+      it go!&rdquo; Still, Fletcher, striving hard to keep his calm, clung to the
+      reins. &ldquo;Let it go, you damned, thieving Scot!&rdquo; screamed Dare in a fury,
+      and struck Fletcher with his whip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was unfortunate for them both that he should have had that switch in
+      his hand at such a time, but more unfortunate still was it that Fletcher
+      should have had a pistol in his belt. The Scot dropped the bridle at last;
+      dropped it to pluck forth the weapon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hi! I did not...&rdquo; began Dare, who had stood appalled by what he had done
+      in the second or two that had passed since he had delivered the blow. The
+      rest of his sentence was drowned in the report of Fletcher's pistol, and
+      Dare dropped dead on the rough cobbles of the yard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ferguson has left it on record&mdash;and, presumably, he had Fletcher's
+      word for it&mdash;that it was no part of the Scot's intent to do Mr. Dare
+      a mischief. He had but drawn the pistol to intimidate him into better
+      manners, but in his haste he accidentally pulled the trigger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However that may be, there was Dare as dead as the stones on which he lay,
+      and Fletcher with a smoking pistol in his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After that all was confusion. Fletcher was seized by those who had
+      witnessed the deed; there was none thought it an accident; indeed, they
+      were all ready enough to say that Fletcher had received excessive
+      provocation. He was haled to the presence of the Duke with whom were Grey
+      and Wilding at the time; and old Dare's son&mdash;an ensign in
+      Goodenough's company&mdash;came clamouring for vengeance backed by such
+      goodly numbers that the distraught Duke was forced to show at least the
+      outward seeming of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding, who knew the value of this Scottish soldier of fortune who had
+      seen so much service, strenuously urged his enlargement. It was not a time
+      to let the fortunes of a cause suffer through such an act as this,
+      deplorable though it might be. The evidence showed that Fletcher had been
+      provoked; he had been struck, a thing that might well justify the anger in
+      the heat of which he had done this thing. Grey was stolid and silent,
+      saying nothing either for or against the man who had divided with him
+      under the Duke the honours of the supreme command.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monmouth, white and horror-stricken, sat and listened first to Wilding,
+      then to Dare, and lastly to Fletcher himself. But it was young Dare&mdash;Dare
+      and his followers, who prevailed. They were too numerous and turbulent,
+      and they must at all costs be conciliated, or there was no telling to what
+      extremes they might not go. And so there was an end to the share of Andrew
+      Fletcher of Saltoun in this undertaking&mdash;the end of the only man who
+      was of any capacity to pilot it through the troubled waters that lay
+      before it. Monmouth placed him under arrest and sent him aboard the
+      frigate again, ordering her captain to sail at once. That was the utmost
+      Monmouth could do to save him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding continued to plead with the Duke after Fletcher's removal, and to
+      such good purpose that at last Monmouth determined that Fletcher should
+      rejoin them later, when the affair should have blown over, and he sent
+      word accordingly to the Scot. Even in this there were manifestations of
+      antagonism between Mr. Wilding and Lord Grey, and it almost seemed enough
+      that Wilding should suggest a course for Lord Grey instantly to oppose it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The effects of Fletcher's removal were not long in following. On the
+      morrow came the Bridport affair, and Grey's shameful conduct when, had he
+      stood his ground, victory must have been assured the Duke's forces instead
+      of just that honourable retreat by which Colonel Wade so gallantly saved
+      the situation. Mr. Wilding did not mince his words in putting it that Grey
+      had run away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In his room at the George Inn, Monmouth, deeply distressed, asked Wilding
+      and Colonel Matthews what action he should take in the matter&mdash;how
+      deal with Grey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no other general in Europe would ask that, Your Grace,&rdquo; answered
+      Matthews gravely, and Mr. Wilding added without an instant's hesitation
+      that His Grace's course was plain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would be an unwise thing to expose the troops to the chance of more
+      such happenings.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Monmouth dismissed them and sent for Grey, and he seemed resolved to deal
+      with him as he deserved. Yet an hour later, when Wilding, Matthews, Wade,
+      and the others were ordered to attend the Duke in council, there was his
+      lordship seemingly on as good terms as ever with His Grace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were assembled to discuss the next step which it might be advisable
+      to take, for the militia was closing in around them, and to remain longer
+      in Lyme would be to be caught there as in a trap. It was Grey who advanced
+      the first suggestion, his assurance no whit abated by the shameful thing
+      that had befallen, by the cowardice which he had betrayed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That we must quit Lyme we are all agreed,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;I would propose that
+      Your Grace march north to Gloucester, where our Cheshire friends will
+      assemble to meet us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Colonel Matthews reminded the Duke of Andrew Fletcher's proposal that they
+      should make a raid upon Exeter with a view to seizing arms, of which they
+      stood so sorely in need.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This Mr. Wilding was quick to support. &ldquo;Not only that, Your Grace,&rdquo; he
+      said, &ldquo;but I am confident that with very little inducement the greater
+      portion of the militia will desert to us as soon as we appear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What assurance can you give of that?&rdquo; asked Grey, his heavy lip
+      protruded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I take it,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding, &ldquo;that in such matters no man can give an
+      assurance of anything. I speak with knowledge of the country and the folk
+      from which the militia is enlisted. I offer it as my opinion that the
+      militia is favourably disposed to Your Grace. I can do no more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If Mr. Wilding says so, Your Grace,&rdquo; put in Matthews, &ldquo;I have no doubt he
+      has sound reasons upon which to base his opinion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No doubt,&rdquo; said Monmouth. &ldquo;Indeed, I had already thought of the step that
+      you suggest, Colonel Matthews, and what Mr. Wilding says causes me to look
+      upon it still more favourably.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Grey frowned. &ldquo;Consider, Your Grace,&rdquo; he said earnestly, &ldquo;that you are in
+      no case to fight at present.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What fighting do you suggest there would be?&rdquo; asked the Duke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is Albemarle between us and Exeter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But with the militia,&rdquo; Wilding reminded him; &ldquo;and if the militia deserts
+      him for Your Grace, in what case will Albemarle find himself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if the militia does not desert? If you should be proven wrong, sir?
+      What then? What then?&rdquo; asked Grey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye&mdash;true&mdash;what then, Mr. Wilding?&rdquo; quoth the Duke, already
+      wavering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding considered a moment, all eyes upon him. &ldquo;Even then,&rdquo; said he
+      presently, &ldquo;I do maintain that in this dash for Exeter lies Your Grace's
+      greatest chance of success. We can deliver battle if need be. Already we
+      are three thousand strong...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Grey interrupted him rudely. &ldquo;Nay,&rdquo; he insisted. &ldquo;You must not presume
+      upon that. We are not yet fit to fight. It is His Grace's business at
+      present to drill and discipline his troops and induce more friends to join
+      him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Already we are turning men away because we have no weapons to put into
+      their hands,&rdquo; Wilding reminded them, and a murmur of approval ran round,
+      which but served to anger Grey the more, to render more obstinate his
+      opposition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But all that come in are not unprovided,&rdquo; was his lordship's retort.
+      &ldquo;There are the Hampshire gentry and their friends. They will come armed,
+      and so will others if we have patience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye,&rdquo; said Wilding, &ldquo;and if you have patience enough there will be troops
+      the Parliament will send against us. They, too, will be armed, I can
+      assure your lordship.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In God's name let us keep from wrangling,&rdquo; the Duke besought them. &ldquo;It is
+      difficult enough to determine for the best. If the dash to Exeter were
+      successful...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It cannot be,&rdquo; Grey interrupted again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The liberties he took with Monmouth and which Monmouth permitted him might
+      well be a source of wonder to all who heard them. Monmouth paused now in
+      his interrupted speech and looked about him a trifle wearily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It seems idle to insist,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding; &ldquo;such is the temper of Your
+      Grace's counsellors, that we get no further than contradictions.&rdquo; Grey's
+      bold eyes were upon Wilding as he spoke. &ldquo;I would remind Your Grace, and I
+      am sure that many present will agree with me, that in a desperate
+      enterprise a sudden unexpected movement will often strike terror.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is true,&rdquo; said Monmouth, but apparently without enthusiasm, and
+      having approved what was urged on one side, he looked at Grey, as if
+      waiting to hear what might be said on the other. His indecision was
+      pitiful&mdash;tragical, indeed, in the leader of so bold an enterprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We should do better, I think,&rdquo; said Grey, &ldquo;to deal with the facts as we
+      know them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is what I am endeavouring to do, Your Grace,&rdquo; protested Wilding, a
+      note of despair in his voice. &ldquo;Perhaps some other gentleman will put
+      forward better counsel than mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye! In Heaven's name let us hope so,&rdquo; snorted Grey; and Monmouth,
+      catching the sudden flash of Mr. Wilding's eye, set a hand upon his
+      lordship's arm as if to urge him to be gentler. But he continued, &ldquo;When
+      men talk of striking terror by sudden movements they build on air.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had hardly thought to hear that from your lordship,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding,
+      and he permitted himself that tight-lipped smile that gave his face so
+      wicked a look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And why not?&rdquo; asked Grey, stupidly unsuspicious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I had thought you might have concluded otherwise from your own
+      experience at Bridport this morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Grey got angrily to his feet, rage and shame flushing his face, and it
+      needed Ferguson and the Duke to restore him to some semblance of calm.
+      Indeed, it may well be that it was to complete this that His Grace decided
+      there and then that they should follow Grey's advice and go by way of
+      Taunton, Bridgwater, and Bristol to Gloucester. He was, like all weak men,
+      of conspicuous mental short-sightedness. The matter of the moment was ever
+      of greater importance to him than any result that might attend it in the
+      future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He insisted that Wilding and Grey should shake hands before the breaking
+      up of that most astounding council, and as he had done last night, he now
+      again imposed upon them his commands that they must not allow this matter
+      to go further.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding paved the way for peace by making an apology within
+      limitations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If, in my zeal to serve Your Grace to the best of my ability, I have said
+      that which Lord Grey thinks fit to resent, I would bid him consider my
+      motive rather than my actual words.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But when all had gone save Ferguson, the chaplain approached the
+      preoccupied and distressed Duke with counsel that Mr. Wilding should be
+      sent away from the army.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Else there'll be trouble 'twixt him and Grey,&rdquo; the plotting parson
+      foretold. &ldquo;We'll be having a repetition of the unfortunate Fletcher and
+      Dare affair, and I think that has cost Your Grace enough already.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you suggest that I dismiss Wilding?&rdquo; cried the Duke. &ldquo;You know his
+      influence, and the bad impression his removal would leave.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ferguson stroked his long lean jaw. &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;all I suggest is
+      that you find Mr. Wilding work to do elsewhere.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Elsewhere?&rdquo; the Duke questioned. &ldquo;Where else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have thought of that, too. Send him to London to see Danvers and to
+      stir up your friends there. And,&rdquo; he added, lowering his voice, &ldquo;give him
+      discretion to see Sunderland if he thinks well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The proposition pleased Monmouth, and it seemed to please Mr. Wilding no
+      less when, having sent for him, the Duke communicated it to him in
+      Ferguson's presence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon this mission Mr. Wilding set out that very night, leaving Nick
+      Trenchard in despair at being separated from him at a time when there
+      seemed to be every chance that such a separation might be eternal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monmouth and Ferguson may have conceived they did a wise thing in removing
+      a man who was instinctively spoiling for a little sword-play with my Lord
+      Grey. It is odds that had he remained, the brewing storm between the pair
+      would have come to a head. Had it done so, it is more than likely, from
+      what we know of Mr. Wilding's accomplishments, that he had given Lord Grey
+      his quietus. And had that happened, it is to be inferred from history that
+      it is possible the Duke of Monmouth's rebellion might have had a less
+      disastrous issue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVI. PLOTS AND PLOTTERS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding left Monmouth's army at Lyme on Sunday, the 14th of June, and
+      rejoined it at Bridgwater exactly three weeks later. In the meanwhile a
+      good deal had happened, yet the happenings on every hand had fallen far
+      short of the expectations aroused in Mr. Wilding's mind, now by one
+      circumstance, now by another. In reaching London he had experienced no
+      difficulty. Men travelling in that direction were not subjected to the
+      scrutiny that fell to the share of those travelling from it towards the
+      West, or, rather, to the scrutiny ordained by the Government; for Wilding
+      had more than one opportunity of observing how very lax and indifferent
+      were the constables and tything-men&mdash;particularly in Somerset and
+      Wiltshire&mdash;in the performance of this duty. Wayfarers were questioned
+      as a matter of form, but in no case did Wilding hear of any one being
+      detained upon suspicion. This was calculated to raise his drooping hopes,
+      pointing as it did to the general favouring of Monmouth that was toward.
+      He grew less despondent on the score of the Duke's possible ultimate
+      success, and he came to hope that the efforts he went to exert would not
+      be fruitless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But rude were the disappointments that awaited him in town. London, like
+      the rest of the country, was not ready. There were not wanting men who
+      favoured Monmouth; but no rising had been organized, and the Duke's
+      partisans were not disposed to rashness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding lodged at Covent Garden, in a house recommended to him by Colonel
+      Danvers, and there&mdash;an outlaw himself&mdash;he threw himself with a
+      will into his task. He heard of the burning of Monmouth's Declaration by
+      the common hangman at the Royal Exchange, and of the bill passed by the
+      Commons to make it treason for any to assert that Lucy Walters was married
+      to the late King. He attended meetings at the &ldquo;Bull's Head,&rdquo; in
+      Bishopsgate, where he met Disney and Danvers, Payton and Lock; but though
+      they talked and argued at prodigious length, they did naught besides.
+      Danvers, who was their hope in town, definitely refused to have a hand in
+      anything that was not properly organized, and in common with the others
+      urged that they should wait until Cheshire had risen, as was reported that
+      it must.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, troops had gone west under Kirke and Churchill, and the
+      Parliament had voted nearly half a million for the putting down of the
+      rebellion. London was flung into a fever of excitement by the news that
+      was reaching it. The position was not quite as Monmouth's advisers&mdash;before
+      coming over from Holland&mdash;had represented that it would be. They had
+      thought that out of fear of tumults about his own person, King James would
+      have been compelled to keep near him what troops he had, sparing none to
+      be sent against Monmouth. This, King James had not done; he had all but
+      emptied London of soldiery, and, considering the general disaffection, no
+      moment could have been more favourable than this for a rising in London
+      itself. The confusion that must have resulted from the recalling of troops
+      would have given Monmouth not only a mighty grip of the West, but would
+      have heartened those who&mdash;like Sunderland himself&mdash;were sitting
+      on the wall, to declare themselves for the Protestant Champion. This
+      Wilding saw, and almost frenziedly did he urge it upon Danvers that all
+      London needed at the moment was a resolute leader. But the Colonel still
+      held back; indeed, he had neither truth nor valour; he was timid, and used
+      deceit to mask his timidity; he urged frivolous reasons for inaction, and
+      when Wilding waxed impatient with him, he suggested that Wilding himself
+      should head the rising if he were so confident of its success. And Wilding
+      would have done it but that, being unknown in London, he had no reason to
+      suppose that men would flock to him if he raised the Duke's banner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Later, when the excitement grew and rumours ran through town that Monmouth
+      had now a following of twenty thousand men and that the King's forces were
+      falling back before him, and discontent was rife at the commissioning of
+      Catholic lords to levy troops, Wilding again pressed the matter upon
+      Danvers. Surely no moment could be more propitious. But again he received
+      the same answer, that Danvers had lacked time to organize matters
+      sufficiently; that the Duke's coming had taken him by surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lastly came the news that Monmouth had been crowned at Taunton amid the
+      wildest enthusiasm, and that there were now in England two men each of
+      whom called himself King James the Second. This was the excuse that
+      Danvers needed to be rid of a business he had not the courage to transact
+      to a finish. He swore that he washed his hands of Monmouth's affairs; that
+      the latter had broken faith with him and the promise he had made him in
+      having himself proclaimed King. He protested that Monmouth had done ill,
+      and prophesied that his act would alienate from him the numerous
+      republicans who, like Danvers, had hitherto looked to him for the
+      country's salvation. Wilding himself was appalled at the news for Monmouth
+      was indeed going further than men had been given to understand.
+      Nevertheless, for his own sake, in very self-defence now, if out of no
+      motives of loyalty to the Duke, he must urge forward the fortunes of this
+      man. He had high words with Danvers, and the two might have quarrelled
+      before long but for the sudden arrest of Disney, which threw Danvers into
+      such a panic that he fled incontinently, abandoning in body, as he already
+      appeared to have abandoned in spirit, the Monmouth Cause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The arrest of Disney struck a chill into Wilding. From his lodging at
+      Covent Garden he had communicated cautiously with Sunderland a few days
+      after his arrival, building upon certain information he had received from
+      the Duke at parting as to Sunderland's attachment to the Cause. He had
+      carefully chosen his moment for making this communication, having a
+      certain innate mistrust of a man who so obviously as Sunderland was
+      running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. He had sent a letter to
+      the Secretary of State when London was agog with the Axminster affair, and
+      the tale&mdash;of which Sir Edward Phelips wrote to Colonel Berkeley as
+      &ldquo;the shamefullest story that you ever heard&rdquo;&mdash;of how Albemarle's
+      forces and the Somerset militia had run before Monmouth in spite of their
+      own overwhelming numbers. This promised ill for James, particularly when
+      it was perceived as perceived it was&mdash;that this running away was not
+      all cowardice, not all &ldquo;the shamefullest story&rdquo; that Phelips accounted it.
+      It was an expression of good-will towards Monmouth on the part of the
+      militia of the West, and it was confidently expected that the next news
+      would be that these men who had decamped before him would presently be
+      found to have ranged themselves under his banner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sunderland had given no sign that he had received Wilding's communication.
+      And Wilding drew his own contemptuous conclusions of the Secretary of
+      State's cautious policy. It was a fortnight later&mdash;when London was
+      settling down again from the diversion of excitement created by the news
+      of Argyle's defeat in Scotland&mdash;before Mr. Wilding attempted to
+      approach Sunderland again. He awaited a favourable opportunity, and this
+      he had when London was thrown into consternation by the alarming news of
+      the Duke of Somerset's urgent demand for reinforcements. Unless he had
+      them, he declared, the whole country was lost, as he could not get the
+      militia to stand, whilst Lord Stawell's regiment were all fled and mostly
+      gone over to the rebels at Bridgwater.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was grave news, but it was followed in a few days by graver. The
+      affair at Philips Norton was exaggerated by report into a wholesale defeat
+      of the loyal army, and it was reported&mdash;on, apparently, such good
+      authority that it received credence in quarters that might have waited for
+      official news&mdash;that the Duke of Albemarle had been slain by the
+      militia which had mutinied and deserted to Monmouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was while this news was going round that Sunderland&mdash;in a moment
+      of panic&mdash;at last vouchsafed an answer to Mr. Wilding's letters, and
+      he vouchsafed it in person, just as Wilding&mdash;particularly since
+      Disney's arrest&mdash;was beginning to lose all hope. He came one evening
+      to Mr. Wilding's lodgings in Covent Garden, unattended and closely
+      muffled, and he remained closeted with the Duke's ambassador for nigh upon
+      an hour, at the end of which he entrusted Mr. Wilding with a letter for
+      the Duke, very brief but entirely to the point, which expressed him
+      Monmouth's most devoted servant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may well judge, sir,&rdquo; he had said at parting, &ldquo;that this is not such
+      a letter as I should entrust to any man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding had bowed gravely, and gravely he had expressed himself
+      sensible of the exceptional honour his lordship did him by such a trust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I depend upon you, sir, as you are a man of honour, to take such
+      measures as will ensure against its falling into any but the hands for
+      which it is intended.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As I am a man of honour, you may depend upon me,&rdquo; Mr. Wilding solemnly
+      promised. &ldquo;Will your lordship give me three lines above your signature
+      that will save me from molestation; thus you will facilitate the
+      preservation of this letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had already thought of that,&rdquo; was Sunderland's answer, and he placed
+      before Mr. Wilding three lines of writing signed and sealed which enjoined
+      all, straitly, in the King's name to suffer the bearer to pass and repass
+      and to offer him no hindrance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On that they shook hands and parted, Sunderland to return to Whitehall and
+      his obedience to the King James whom he was ready to betray as soon as he
+      saw profit for himself in the act, Mr. Wilding to return to Somerset to
+      the King James in whom his faith was scant, indeed, but with whom his
+      fortunes were irrevocably bound up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, Monmouth was back in Bridgwater, his second occupation of which
+      town was not being looked upon with unmixed favour. The inhabitants had
+      suffered enough already from his first visit; his return there, after the
+      Philips Norton affair of which such grossly exaggerated reports had
+      reached London, and which, in point of fact, had been little better than a
+      drawn battle&mdash;had been looked upon with dread by some, with disfavour
+      by others, and with dismay by not a few who viewed in this an augury of
+      failure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now Sir Rowland Blake, who since his pursuit of Mr. Wilding and Trenchard
+      on the occasion of their flight from Taunton had&mdash;in spite of his
+      failure on that occasion&mdash;been more or less in the service of
+      Albemarle and the loyal army, saw in this indisposition towards Monmouth
+      of so many of Bridgwater's inhabitants great possibilities of profit to
+      himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was at Lupton House, the guest of his friend Richard Westmacott, and
+      the open suitor of Ruth, entirely ignoring the circumstance that she was
+      nominally the wife of Mr. Wilding&mdash;this to the infinite chagrin of
+      Miss Horton, who saw all her scheming likely to go for nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In his heart of hearts it was a matter of not the slightest consequence to
+      Sir Rowland whether James Stuart or James Scott occupied the throne of
+      England. His own affairs gave him more than enough to think of, and these
+      disturbances in the West were very welcome to him, since they rendered
+      difficult any attempt to trace him on the part of his London creditors. It
+      happens, however, very commonly that enmity to an individual will lead to
+      enmity to the cause which that individual espouses. Thus may it have been
+      with Sir Rowland. His hatred of Wilding and his keen desire to see Wilding
+      destroyed had made him a zealous partisan of the loyal cause. Richard
+      Westmacott, easily swayed and overborne by the town rake, whose vices made
+      him seem to Richard the embodiment of all that is splendid and enviable in
+      man, had become practically the baronet's tool, now that he had abandoned
+      Monmouth's Cause. Sir Rowland had not considered it beneath the dignity of
+      his name and station to discharge in Bridgwater certain functions that
+      made him more or less a spy. And so reliable had been the information he
+      had sent Feversham and Albemarle during Monmouth's first occupation of the
+      town, that he had won by now their complete confidence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The second occupation and its unpopularity with many of those who earlier&mdash;if
+      lukewarm&mdash;had been partisans of the Duke, swelled the number of
+      loyally inclined people in Bridgwater, and suddenly inspired Sir Rowland
+      with a scheme by which at a blow he might snuff out the rebellion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This scheme involved the capture of the Duke, and the reward of success
+      should mean far more to Blake than the five thousand pounds at which the
+      value of the Duke's head had already been fixed by Parliament. He needed a
+      tool for this, and he even thought of Westmacott and Lupton House, but
+      afterwards preferred a Mr. Newlington, who was in better case to assist
+      him. This Newlington, an exceedingly prosperous merchant and one of the
+      richest men perhaps in the whole West of England, looked with extreme
+      disfavour upon Monmouth, whose advent had paralyzed his industries to an
+      extent that was costing him a fine round sum of money weekly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was now in alarm lest the town of Bridgwater should be made to pay
+      dearly for having harboured the Protestant Duke&mdash;he had no faith
+      whatever in the Protestant Duke's ultimate prevailing&mdash;and that he,
+      as one of the town's most prominent and prosperous citizens, might be
+      amongst the heaviest sufferers in spite of his neutrality. This neutrality
+      he observed because it was hardly safe in that disaffected town for a man
+      to proclaim himself a loyalist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To him Sir Rowland expounded his audacious plan... He sought out the
+      merchant in his handsome mansion on the night of that Friday which had
+      witnessed Monmouth's return, and the merchant, honoured by the visit of
+      this gallant&mdash;ignorant as he was of the gentleman's fame in town&mdash;placed
+      himself entirely and instantly at his disposal, though the hour was late.
+      Sounding him carefully, and finding the fellow most amenable to any scheme
+      that should achieve the salvation of his purse and industries, Blake
+      boldly laid his plan before him. Startled at first, Mr. Newlington upon
+      considering it became so enthusiastic that he hailed Sir Rowland as his
+      deliverer, and heartily promised his cooperation. Indeed, it was Mr.
+      Newlington who was, himself, to take the first step.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well pleased with his evening's work, Sir Rowland went home to Lupton
+      House and to bed. In the morning he broached the matter to Richard. He had
+      all the vanity of the inferior not only to lessen the appearance of his
+      inferiority, but to clothe himself in a mantle of importance; and it was
+      this vanity urged him to acquaint Richard with his plans in the very
+      presence of Ruth.
+    </p>
+<p>
+They had broken their fast, and they still lingered in the dining-room,
+the largest and most important room in Lupton House. It was cool and
+pleasant here in contrast to the heat of the July sun, which, following
+upon the late wet weather, beat fiercely on the lawn, the window-doors
+to which stood open. The cloth had been raised, and Diana and her mother
+had lately left the room. Ruth, in the window-seat, at a small oval
+table, was arranging a cluster of roses in an old bronze bowl. Sir
+Rowland, his stiff short figure carefully dressed in a suit of brown
+camlet, his fair wig very carefully curled, occupied a tall-backed
+armchair near the empty fireplace. Richard, perched on the table's edge,
+swung his shapely legs idly backwards and forwards and cogitated upon a
+pretext to call for a morning draught of last October's ale.
+</p>
+    <p>
+ Ruth completed her task with the roses and turned her eyes upon her
+brother.
+</p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are not looking well, Richard,&rdquo; she said, which was true enough, for
+      much hard drinking was beginning to set its stamp on Richard, and young as
+      he was, his insipidly fair face began to display a bloatedness that was
+      exceedingly unhealthy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I am well enough,&rdquo; he answered almost peevishly, for these allusions
+      to his looks were becoming more frequent than he savoured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gad!&rdquo; cried Sir Rowland's deep voice, &ldquo;you'll need to be well. I have
+      work for you to-morrow, Dick.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dick did not appear to share his enthusiasm. &ldquo;I am sick of the work you
+      discover for us, Rowland,&rdquo; he answered ungraciously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Blake showed no resentment. &ldquo;Maybe you'll find the present task more
+      to your taste. If it's deeds of derring-do you pine for, I am the man to
+      satisfy you.&rdquo; He smiled grimly, his bold grey eyes glancing across at
+      Ruth, who was observing him, listening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard sneered, but offered him no encouragement to proceed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see,&rdquo; said Blake, &ldquo;that I shall have to tell you the whole story before
+      you'll credit me. Shalt have it, then. But...&rdquo; and he checked on the word,
+      his face growing serious, his eye wandering to the door, &ldquo;I would not have
+      it overheard&mdash;not for a king's ransom,&rdquo; which was more literally true
+      than he may have intended it to be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard looked over his shoulder carelessly at the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have no eavesdroppers,&rdquo; he said, and his voice bespoke his contempt of
+      the gravity of this news of which Sir Rowland made so much in
+      anticipation. He was acquainted with Sir Rowland's ways, and the
+      importance of them. &ldquo;What are you considering?&rdquo; he inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To end the rebellion,&rdquo; answered Blake, his voice cautiously lowered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard laughed outright. &ldquo;There are several others considering that&mdash;notably
+      His Majesty King James, the Duke of Albemarle, and the Earl of Feversham.
+      Yet they don't appear to achieve it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is in that particular,&rdquo; said Blake complacently, &ldquo;that I shall differ
+      from them.&rdquo; He turned to Ruth, eager to engage her in the conversation, to
+      flatter her by including her in the secret. Knowing the loyalist
+      principles she entertained, he had no reason to fear that his plans could
+      other than meet her approval. &ldquo;What do you say, Mistress Ruth?&rdquo; Presuming
+      upon his friendship with her brother, he had taken to calling her by that
+      name in preference to the other which he could not bring himself to give
+      her. &ldquo;Is it not an object worthy of a gentleman's endeavour?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you can save so many poor people from encompassing their ruin by
+      following that rash young man the Duke of Monmouth, you will indeed be
+      doing a worthy deed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake rose, and made her a leg. &ldquo;Madam,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;had aught been wanting
+      to cement my resolve, your words would supply it to me. My plan is
+      simplicity itself. I propose to capture Monmouth and his principal agents,
+      and deliver them over to the King. And that is all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A mere nothing,&rdquo; croaked Richard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Could more be needed?&rdquo; quoth Blake. &ldquo;Once the rebel army is deprived of
+      its leaders it will melt and dissolve of itself. Once the Duke is in the
+      hands of his enemies there will be nothing left to fight for. Is it not
+      shrewd?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are telling us the object rather than the plan,&rdquo; Ruth reminded him.
+      &ldquo;If the plan is as good as the object...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As good?&rdquo; he echoed, chuckling. &ldquo;You shall judge.&rdquo; And briefly he
+      sketched for her the springe he was setting with the help of Mr.
+      Newlington. &ldquo;Newlington is rich; the Duke is in straits for money.
+      Newlington goes to-day to offer him twenty thousand pounds; and the Duke
+      is to do him the honour of supping at his house to-morrow night to fetch
+      the money. It is a reasonable request for Mr. Newlington to make under the
+      circumstances, and the Duke cannot&mdash;dare not refuse it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But how will that advance your project?&rdquo; Ruth inquired, for Blake had
+      paused again, thinking that the rest must be obvious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In Mr. Newlington's orchard I propose to post a score or so of men, well
+      armed. Oh! I shall run no risks of betrayal by engaging Bridgwater folk.
+      I'll get the fellows I need from General Feversham. We take Monmouth at
+      supper, as quietly as may be, with what gentlemen happen to have
+      accompanied him. We bind and gag the Duke, and we convey him with all
+      speed and quiet out of Bridgwater. Feversham shall send a troop to await
+      me a mile or so from the town on the road to Weston Zoyland. We shall join
+      them with our captive, and thus convey him to the Royalist General. Could
+      aught be simpler or more infallible?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard had slipped from the table. He had changed his mind on the subject
+      of the importance of the business Blake had in view. Excited by it, he
+      clapped his friend on the back approvingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A great plan!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Is it not, Ruth?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It should be the means of saving hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives,&rdquo;
+       said she, &ldquo;and so it deserves to prosper. But what of the officers who may
+      be with the Duke?&rdquo; she inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are not likely to be many&mdash;half a dozen, say. We shall have to
+      make short work of them, lest they should raise an alarm.&rdquo; He saw her
+      glance clouding. &ldquo;That is the ugly part of the affair,&rdquo; he was quick to
+      add, himself assuming a look of sadness. He sighed. &ldquo;What help is there?&rdquo;
+       he asked. &ldquo;Better that those few should suffer than that, as you yourself
+      have said, there should be some thousands of lives lost before this
+      rebellion is put down. Besides,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;Monmouth's officers are
+      far-seeing, ambitious men, who have entered into this affair to promote
+      their own personal fortunes. They are gamesters who have set their lives
+      upon the board against a great prize, and they know it. But these other
+      poor misguided people who have gone out to fight for liberty and religion&mdash;it
+      is these whom I am striving to rescue.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His words sounded fervent, his sentiments almost heroic. Ruth looked at
+      him, and wondered had she misjudged him in the past. She sighed. Then she
+      thought of Wilding. He was on the other side, but where was he? Rumour ran
+      that he was dead; that he and Grey had quarrelled at Lyme, and that
+      Wilding had been killed as a result. Had it not been for Diana, who
+      strenuously bade her attach no credit to these reports, she would readily
+      have believed them. As it was she waited, wondering, thinking of him
+      always as she had seen him on that day at Walford when he had taken his
+      leave of her, and more than once, when she pondered the words he had said,
+      the look that had invested his drooping eyes, she found herself with tears
+      in her own. They welled up now, and she rose hastily to her feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked a moment at Blake who was watching her keenly, speculating upon
+      this emotion of which she betrayed some sign, and wondering might not his
+      heroism have touched her, for, as we have seen, he had arrayed a deed of
+      excessive meanness, a deed worthy, almost, of the Iscariot, in the panoply
+      of heroic achievement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;that you are setting your hand to a very worthy and
+      glorious enterprise, and I hope, nay, I am sure, that success must attend
+      your efforts.&rdquo; He was still bowing his thanks when she passed out through
+      the open window-doors into the sunshine of the garden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Rowland swung round upon Richard. &ldquo;A great enterprise, Dick,&rdquo; he
+      cried; &ldquo;I may count upon you for one?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye,&rdquo; said Dick, who had found at last the pretext that he needed, &ldquo;you
+      may count on me. Pull the bell, we'll drink to the success of the
+      venture.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVII. MR. WILDING'S RETURN
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The preparations to be made for the momentous coup Sir Rowland meditated
+      were considerable. Mr. Newlington was yet to be concerted with and
+      advised, and, that done, Sir Rowland had to face the difficulty of eluding
+      the Bridgwater guards and make his way to Feversham's camp at Somerton to
+      enlist the general's cooperation to the extent that we have seen he looked
+      for. That done, he was to return and ripen his preparations for the
+      business he had undertaken. Nevertheless, in spite of all that lay before
+      him, he did not find it possible to leave Lupton House without stepping
+      out into the garden in quest of Ruth. Through the window, whilst he and
+      Richard were at their ale, he had watched her between whiles, and had
+      lingered, waiting; for Diana was with her, and it was not his wish to seek
+      her whilst Diana was at hand. Speak with her, ere he went, he must. He was
+      an opportunist, and now, he fondly imagined, was his opportunity. He had
+      made that day, at last, a favourable impression upon Richard's sister; he
+      had revealed himself in an heroic light, and egregiously misreading the
+      emotion she had shown before withdrawing, he was satisfied that did he
+      strike now victory must attend him. He sighed his satisfaction and
+      pleasurable anticipation. He had been wary and he had known how to wait;
+      and now, it seemed to him, he was to be rewarded for his patience. Then he
+      frowned, as another glance showed him that Diana still lingered with her
+      cousin; he wished Diana at the devil. He had come to hate this fair-haired
+      doll to whom he had once paid court. She was too continually in his way, a
+      constant obstacle in his path, ever ready to remind Ruth of Anthony
+      Wilding when Sir Rowland most desired Anthony Wilding to be forgotten; and
+      in Diana's feelings towards himself such a change had been gradually
+      wrought that she had come to reciprocate his sentiments&mdash;to hate him
+      with all the bitter hatred into which love can be by scorn transmuted. At
+      first her object in keeping Ruth's thoughts on Mr. Wilding, in pleading
+      his cause, and seeking to present him in a favourable light to the lady
+      whom he had constrained to become his wife, had been that he might stand a
+      barrier between Ruth and Sir Rowland to the end that Diana might hope to
+      see revived&mdash;faute de mieux, since possible in no other way&mdash;the
+      feelings that once Sir Rowland had professed for herself. The situation
+      was rich in humiliations for poor, vain, foolishly crafty Diana, and these
+      humiliations were daily rendered more bitter by Sir Rowland's unwavering
+      courtship of her cousin in spite of all that she could do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the end the poison of them entered her soul, corroded her sentiments
+      towards him, dissolved the love she had borne him, and transformed it into
+      venom. She would not have him now if he did penitence for his disaffection
+      by going in sackcloth and crawling after her on his knees for a full
+      twelvemonth. But neither should he have Ruth if she could thwart his
+      purpose. On that she was resolved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had she but guessed that he watched them from the windows, waiting for her
+      to take her departure, she had lingered all the morning, and all the
+      afternoon if need be, at Ruth's side. But being ignorant of the
+      circumstance&mdash;believing that he had already left the house&mdash;she
+      presently quitted Ruth to go indoors, and no sooner was she gone than
+      there was Blake replacing her at Ruth's elbow. Mistress Wilding met him
+      with unsmiling, but not ungentle face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet gone, Sir Rowland?&rdquo; she asked him, and a less sanguine man had
+      been discouraged by the words.
+    </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It may be forgiven me that I tarry at such a time,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;when we
+consider that I go, perhaps&mdash;to return no more.&rdquo; It was an inspiration
+on his part to assume the role of the hero going forth to a possible
+death. It invested him with noble, valiant pathos which could not, he
+thought, fail of its effect upon a woman's mind. But he looked in vain
+for a change of colour, be it ever so slight, or a quickening of the
+breath. He found neither; though, indeed, her deep blue eyes seemed to
+soften as they observed him.
+</p>
+    <p>
+     &ldquo;There is danger in this thing that you are undertaking?&rdquo; said she,
+between question and assertion.
+</p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not my wish to overstate it; yet I leave you to imagine what the
+      risk may be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a good cause,&rdquo; said she, thinking of the poor, deluded, humble folk
+      that followed Monmouth's banner, whom Blake's fine action was to rescue
+      from impending ruin and annihilation, &ldquo;and surely Heaven will be on your
+      side.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We must prevail,&rdquo; cried Blake with kindling eye, and you had thought him
+      a fanatic, not a miserable earner of blood-money. &ldquo;We must prevail, though
+      some of us may pay dearly for the victory. I have a foreboding...&rdquo; He
+      paused, sighed, then laughed and flung back his head, as if throwing off
+      some weight that had oppressed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was admirably played; Nick Trenchard, had he observed it, might have
+      envied the performance; and it took effect with her, this adding of a
+      prospective martyr's crown to the hero's raiment he had earlier donned. It
+      was a master-touch worthy of one who was deeply learned&mdash;from the
+      school of foul experience&mdash;in the secret ways that lead to a woman's
+      favour. In a pursuit of this kind there was no subterfuge too mean, no
+      treachery too base for Sir Rowland Blake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you walk, mistress?&rdquo; he said, and she, feeling that it were an
+      unkindness not to do his will, assented gravely. They moved down the
+      sloping lawn, side by side, Sir Rowland leaning on his cane, bareheaded,
+      his feathered hat tucked under his arm. Before them the river's smooth
+      expanse, swollen and yellow with the recent rains, glowed like a sheet of
+      copper, so that it blurred the sight to look upon it long.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few steps they took with no word uttered, then Sir Rowland spoke. &ldquo;With
+      this foreboding that is on me,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I could not go without seeing
+      you, without saying something that I may never have another chance of
+      saying; something that&mdash;who knows?&mdash;but for the emprise to which
+      I am now wedded you had never heard from me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He shot her a furtive, sidelong glance from under his heavy, beetling
+      brows, and now, indeed, he observed a change ripple over the composure of
+      her face like a sudden breeze across a sheet of water. The deep lace
+      collar at her throat rose and fell, and her fingers toyed nervously with a
+      ribbon of her grey bodice. She recovered in an instant, and threw up
+      entrenchments against the attack she saw he was about to make.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You exaggerate, I trust,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;Your forebodings will be proved
+      groundless. You will return safe and sound from this venture, as indeed I
+      hope you may.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was his cue. &ldquo;You hope it?&rdquo; he cried, arresting his step, turning,
+      and imprisoning her left hand in his right. &ldquo;You hope it? Ah, if you hope
+      for my return, return I will; but unless I know that you will have some
+      welcome for me such as I desire from you, I think...&rdquo; his voice quivered
+      cleverly, &ldquo;I think, perhaps, it were well if... if my forebodings were not
+      as groundless as you say they are. Tell me, Ruth...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But she interrupted him. It was high time, she thought. Her face he saw
+      was flushed, her eyes had hardened somewhat. Calmly she disengaged her
+      hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is't you mean?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;Speak, Sir Rowland, speak plainly, that
+      I may give you a plain answer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a challenge in which another man had seen how hopeless was his
+      case, and, accepting defeat, had made as orderly a retreat as still was
+      possible. But Sir Rowland, stricken in his vanity, went headlong on to
+      utter rout.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Since you ask me in such terms I will be plain, indeed,&rdquo; he answered her.
+      &ldquo;I mean...&rdquo; He almost quailed before the look that met him from her
+      intrepid eyes. &ldquo;Do you not see my meaning, Ruth?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That which I see,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;I do not believe, and as I would not wrong
+      you by any foolish imaginings, I would have you plain with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet the egregious fool went on. &ldquo;And why should you not believe your
+      senses?&rdquo; he asked her, between anger and entreaty. &ldquo;Is it wonderful that I
+      should love you? Is it...?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop!&rdquo; She drew back a pace from him. There was a moment's silence,
+      during which it seemed she gathered her forces to destroy him, and, in the
+      spirit, he bowed his head before the coming storm. Then, with a sudden
+      relaxing of the stiffness her lissom figure had assumed, &ldquo;I think you had
+      better leave me, Sir Rowland,&rdquo; she advised him. She half turned and moved
+      a step away; he followed with lowering glance, his upper lip lifting and
+      laying bare his powerful teeth. In a stride he was beside her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you hate me, Ruth?&rdquo; he asked her hoarsely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why should I hate you?&rdquo; she counter-questioned, sadly. &ldquo;I do not even
+      dislike you,&rdquo; she continued in a more friendly tone, adding, as if by way
+      of explaining this phenomenon, &ldquo;You are my brother's friend. But I am
+      disappointed in you, Sir Rowland. You had, I know, no intention of
+      offering me disrespect; and yet it is what you have done.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As how?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Knowing me another's wife...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He broke in tempestuously. &ldquo;A mock marriage! If it is but that scruple
+      stands between us...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think there is more,&rdquo; she answered him. &ldquo;You compel me to hurt you; I
+      do so as the surgeon does&mdash;that I may heal you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, thanks for nothing,&rdquo; he made answer, unable to repress a sneer.
+      Then, checking himself, and resuming the hero-martyr posture, &ldquo;I go,
+      mistress,&rdquo; he told her sadly, &ldquo;and if I lose my life to-night, or
+      to-morrow, in this affair...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall pray for you,&rdquo; said she; for she had found him out at last,
+      perceived the nature of the bow he sought to draw across her
+      heart-strings, and, having perceived it, contempt awoke in her. He had
+      attempted to move her by unfair, insidious means.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He fell back, crimson from chin to brow. He stifled the wrath that welled
+      up, threatening to choke him. He was a short-necked man, of the sort&mdash;as
+      Trenchard had once reminded him&mdash;that falls a prey to apoplexy, and
+      surely he was never nearer it than at that moment. He made her a profound
+      bow, bending himself almost in two before her in a very irony of
+      deference; then, drawing himself up again, he turned and left her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The plot which with some pride he had hatched and the reward he looked to
+      cull from it, were now to his soul as ashes to his lips. What could it
+      profit him to destroy Monmouth so that Anthony Wilding lived? For whether
+      she loved Wilding or not, she was Wilding's wife. Wilding, nominally, at
+      least, was master of that which Sir Rowland coveted; not her heart,
+      indeed, but her ample fortune. Wilding had been a stumbling-block to him
+      since he had come to Bridgwater; but for Wilding he might have run a
+      smooth course; he was still fool enough to hug that dear illusion to his
+      soul. Somewhere in England&mdash;if not dead already&mdash;this Wilding
+      lurked, an outlaw, whom any might shoot down at sight. Sir Rowland swore
+      he would not rest until he knew that Anthony Wilding cumbered the earth no
+      more&mdash;leastways, not the surface of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He went forth to seek Newlington. The merchant had sent his message to the
+      rebel King, and had word in answer that His Majesty would be graciously
+      pleased to sup at Mr. Newlington's at nine o'clock on the following
+      evening, attended by a few gentlemen of his immediate following. Sir
+      Rowland received the news with satisfaction, and sighed to think that Mr.
+      Wilding&mdash;still absent, Heaven knew where&mdash;would not be of the
+      party. It was reported that on the Monday Monmouth was to march to
+      Gloucester, hoping there to be joined by his Cheshire friends, so that it
+      seemed Sir Rowland had not matured his plan a day too soon. He got to
+      horse, and contriving to win out of Bridgwater, rode off to Somerton to
+      concert with Lord Feversham concerning the men he would need for his undertaking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That night Richard made free talk of the undertaking to Diana and to Ruth,
+      loving, as does the pusillanimous, to show himself engaged in daring
+      enterprises. Emulating his friend Sir Rowland, he held forth with
+      prolixity upon the great service he was to do the State, and Ruth,
+      listening to him, was proud of his zeal, the sincerity of which it never
+      entered her mind to doubt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana listened, too, but without illusions concerning Master Richard, and
+      she kept her conclusions to herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the afternoon of the morrow, which was Sunday, Sir Rowland returned
+      to Bridgwater, his mission to Feversham entirely successful, and all
+      preparations made. He completed his arrangements, and towards eight
+      o'clock that night the twenty men sent by Feversham&mdash;they had slipped
+      singly into the town&mdash;began to muster in the orchard at the back of
+      Mr. Newlington's house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was just about that same hour that Mr. Wilding, saddle-worn and
+      dust-clogged in every pore, rode into Bridgwater, and made his way to the
+      sign of The Ship in the High Street, overlooking the Cross where Trenchard
+      was lodged. His friend was absent&mdash;possibly gone with his men to the
+      sermon Ferguson was preaching to the army in the Castle Fields. Having put
+      up his horse, Mr. Wilding, all dusty as he was, repaired straight to the
+      Castle to report himself to Monmouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was informed that His Majesty was in council. Nevertheless, urging that
+      his news was of importance, he begged to be instantly announced. After a
+      pause, he was ushered into a lofty, roomy chamber where, in the fading
+      daylight, King Monmouth sat in council with Grey and Wade, Matthews,
+      Speke, Ferguson, and others. At the foot of the table stood a sturdy
+      country-fellow, unknown to Wilding. It was Godfrey, the spy, who was to
+      act as their guide across Sedgemoor that night; for the matter that was
+      engaging them just then was the completion of their plans for the attack
+      that was to be made that very night upon Feversham's unprepared camp&mdash;a
+      matter which had been resolved during the last few hours as an alternative
+      preferable to the retreat towards Gloucester that had at first been
+      intended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding was shocked at the change that had been wrought in Monmouth's
+      appearance during the few weeks since last he had seen him. His face was
+      thin, pale, and haggard, his eyes were more sombre, and beneath them there
+      were heavy, dark stains of sleeplessness and care, his very voice, when
+      presently he spoke, seemed to have lost the musical timbre that had
+      earlier distinguished it; it was grown harsh and rasping. Disappointment
+      after disappointment, set down to ill-luck, but in reality the fruit of
+      incompetence, had served to sour him. The climax had been reached in the
+      serious desertions after the Philips Norton fight, and the flight of
+      Paymaster Goodenough with the funds for the campaign. The company sat
+      about the long oak table on which a map was spread, and Colonel Wade was
+      speaking when Wilding entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On his appearance Wade ceased, and every eye was turned upon the messenger
+      from London. Ferguson, fresh from his sermon, sat with elbows resting on
+      the table, his long chin supported by his hands, his eyes gleaming sharply
+      under the shadow of his wig which was pulled down in front to the level of
+      his eyebrows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the Duke who addressed Mr. Wilding, and the latter's keen ears were
+      quick to catch the bitterness that underlay his words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are glad to see you, sir; we had not looked to do so again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not looked to do so, Your Gr... Majesty!&rdquo; he echoed, plainly not
+      understanding, and it was observed that he stumbled over the Duke's new
+      title.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We had imagined that the pleasures of the town were claiming your entire
+      attention.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding looked from one to the other of the men before him, and on the
+      face of all he saw a gravity that amounted to disapproval of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The pleasures of the town?&rdquo; said he, frowning, and again&mdash;&ldquo;the
+      pleasures of the town? There is something in this that I fear I do not
+      understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you bring us news that London has risen?&rdquo; asked Grey suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would I could,&rdquo; said Wilding, smiling wistfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it a laughing matter?&rdquo; quoth Grey angrily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A smiling matter, my lord,&rdquo; answered Wilding, nettled. &ldquo;Your lordship
+      will observe that I did but smile.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; said Monmouth darkly, &ldquo;we are not pleased with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In that case,&rdquo; returned Wilding, more and more irritated, &ldquo;Your Majesty
+      expected of me more than was possible to any man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have wasted your time in London, sir,&rdquo; the Duke explained. &ldquo;We sent
+      you thither counting upon your loyalty and devotion to ourselves. What
+      have you done?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As much as a man could...&rdquo; Wilding began, when Grey again interrupted
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As little as a man could,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;Were His Grace not the most
+      foolishly clement prince in Christendom, a halter would be your reward for
+      the fine things you have done in London.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding stiffened visibly, his long white face grew set, and his
+      slanting eyes looked wicked. He was not a man readily moved to anger, but
+      to be greeted in such words as these by one who constituted himself the
+      mouthpiece of him for whom Wilding had incurred ruin was more than he
+      could bear with equanimity; that the risks to which he had exposed himself
+      in London&mdash;where, indeed, he had been in almost hourly expectation of
+      arrest and such short shrift as poor Disney had&mdash;should be
+      acknowledged in such terms as these, was something that turned him almost
+      sick with disgust. To what manner of men had he leagued himself? He looked
+      Grey steadily between the eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mind me of an occasion on which such a charge of foolish clemency
+      might, indeed&mdash;and with greater justice&mdash;have been levelled
+      against His Majesty,&rdquo; said he and his calm was almost terrible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His lordship grew pale at the obvious allusion to Monmouth's mild
+      treatment of him for his cowardice at Bridport, and his eyes were as
+      baleful as Wilding's own at that moment. But before he could speak,
+      Monmouth had already answered Mr. Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are wanting in respect to us, sir,&rdquo; he admonished him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding bowed to the rebuke in a submission that seemed ironical. The
+      blood mounted slowly to Monmouth's cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; put in Wade, who was anxious for peace, &ldquo;Mr. Wilding has some
+      explanation to offer us of his failure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His failure! They took too much for granted. Stitched in the lining of his
+      boot was the letter from the Secretary of State. To have achieved that was
+      surely to have achieved something.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thank you, sir, for supposing it,&rdquo; answered Wilding, his voice hard
+      with self-restraint; &ldquo;I have indeed an explanation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will hear it,&rdquo; said Monmouth condescendingly, and Grey sneered,
+      thrusting out his bloated lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have to offer the explanation that Your Majesty is served in London by
+      cowards; self-sufficient and self-important cowards who have hindered me
+      in my task instead of helping me. I refer particularly to Colonel
+      Danvers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Grey interrupted him. &ldquo;You have a rare effrontery, sir&mdash;aye, by God!
+      Do you dare call Danvers a coward?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not I who so call him; but the facts. Colonel Danvers has run away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Danvers gone?&rdquo; cried Ferguson, voicing the consternation of all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding shrugged and smiled; Grey's eye was offensively upon him. He
+      elected to answer the challenge of that glance. &ldquo;He has followed the
+      illustrious example set him by other of Your Majesty's devoted followers,&rdquo;
+       said Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Grey rose suddenly. This was too much. &ldquo;I'll not endure it from this
+      knave!&rdquo; he cried, appealing to Monmouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monmouth wearily waved him to a seat; but Grey disregarded the command.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What have I said that should touch your lordship?&rdquo; asked Wilding, and,
+      smiling sardonically, he looked into Grey's eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not what you have said. It is what you have inferred.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And to call me knave!&rdquo; said Wilding in a mocking horror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The repression of his anger lent him a rare bitterness, and an almost
+      devilishly subtle manner of expressing wordlessly what was passing in his
+      mind. There was not one present but gathered from his utterance of those
+      five words that he did not hold Grey worthy the honour of being called to
+      account for that offensive epithet. He made just an exclamatory protest,
+      such as he might have made had a woman applied the term to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Grey turned from him slowly to Monmouth. &ldquo;It might be well,&rdquo; said he, in
+      his turn controlling himself at last, &ldquo;to place Mr. Wilding under arrest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding's manner quickened on the instant from passive to active
+      anger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Upon what charge, sir?&rdquo; he demanded sharply. In truth it was the only
+      thing wanting that, after all that he had undergone, he should be
+      arrested. His eyes were upon the Duke's melancholy face, and his anger was
+      such that in that moment he vowed that if Monmouth acted upon this
+      suggestion of Grey's he should not have so much as the consolation of
+      Sunderland's letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have been wanting in respect to us, sir,&rdquo; the Duke answered him. He
+      seemed able to do little more than repeat himself. &ldquo;You return from London
+      empty-handed, your task unaccomplished, and instead of a becoming
+      contrition, you hector it here before us in this manner.&rdquo; He shook his
+      head. &ldquo;We are not pleased with you, Mr. Wilding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Your Grace,&rdquo; exclaimed Wilding, &ldquo;is it my fault that your London
+      agents had failed to organize the rising? That rising should have taken
+      place, and it would have taken place had Your Majesty been more ably
+      represented there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You were there, Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; said Grey with heavy sarcasm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would it no' be better to leave Mr. Wilding's affair until afterwards?&rdquo;
+       suggested Ferguson at that moment. &ldquo;It is already past eight, Your
+      Majesty, and there be still some details of this attack to settle that
+      your officers may prepare for it, whilst Mr. Newlington awaits Your
+      Majesty to supper at nine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;True,&rdquo; said Monmouth, ever ready to take a solution offered by another.
+      &ldquo;We will confer with you again later, Mr. Wilding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding bowed, accepting his dismissal. &ldquo;Before I go, Your Majesty, there
+      are certain things I would report...&rdquo; he began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have heard, sir,&rdquo; Grey broke in. &ldquo;Not now. This is not the time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed, no. This is not the time, Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; echoed the Duke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding set his teeth in the intensity of his vexation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What I have to tell Your Majesty is of importance,&rdquo; he exclaimed, and
+      Monmouth seemed to waver, whilst Grey looked disdainful unbelief of the
+      importance of any communication Wilding might have to make.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have little time, Your Majesty,&rdquo; Ferguson reminded Monmouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; put in friendly Wade, &ldquo;Your Majesty might see Mr. Wilding at
+      Mr. Newlington's.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it really necessary?&rdquo; quoth Grey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This treatment of him inspired Mr. Wilding with malice. The mere mention
+      of Sunderland's letter would have changed their tone. But he elected by no
+      such word to urge the importance of his business. It should be entirely as
+      Monmouth should elect or be constrained by these gentlemen about his
+      council-table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would serve two purposes,&rdquo; said Wade, whilst Monmouth still
+      considered. &ldquo;Your Majesty will be none too well attended, your officers
+      having this other matter to prepare for. Mr. Wilding would form another to
+      swell your escort of gentlemen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you are right, Colonel Wade,&rdquo; said Monmouth. &ldquo;We sup at Mr.
+      Newlington's at nine o'clock, Mr. Wilding. We shall expect you to attend
+      us there. Lieutenant Cragg,&rdquo; said His Grace to the young officer who had
+      admitted Wilding, and who had remained at attention by the door, &ldquo;you may
+      reconduct Mr. Wilding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding bowed, his lips tight to keep in the anger that craved expression.
+      Then, without another word spoken, he turned and departed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An insolent, overbearing knave!&rdquo; was Grey's comment upon him after he had
+      left the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us attend to this, your lordship,&rdquo; said Speke, tapping the map. &ldquo;Time
+      presses,&rdquo; and he invited Wade to continue the matter that Wilding's advent
+      had interrupted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVIII. BETRAYAL
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Still smarting under the cavalier treatment he had received, Mr. Wilding
+      came forth from the Castle to find Trenchard awaiting him among the crowd
+      of officers and men that thronged the yard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nick linked his arm through his friend's and led him away. They quitted
+      the place in silence, and in silence took their way south towards the High
+      Street, Nick waiting for Mr. Wilding to speak, Mr. Wilding's mind still in
+      turmoil at the things he had endured. At last Nick halted suddenly and
+      looked keenly at his friend in the failing light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a plague ails you, Tony?&rdquo; said he sharply. &ldquo;You are as silent as I
+      am impatient for your news.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding told him in brief, disdainful terms of the reception they had
+      given him at the Castle, and of how they had blamed him for the
+      circumstance that London had failed to proclaim itself for Monmouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard snarled viciously. &ldquo;'Tis that mongrel Grey,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Oh,
+      Anthony, to what an affair have we set our hands? Naught can prosper with
+      that fellow in it.&rdquo; He laid his hand on Wilding's arm and lowered his
+      voice. &ldquo;As I have hinted before, 'twould not surprise me if time proved
+      him a traitor. Failure attends him everywhere, and so unfailingly that one
+      wonders is not failure invited by him. And that fool Monmouth! Pshaw! See
+      what it is to serve a weakling. With another in his place and the country
+      disaffected as it is, we had been masters of England by now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Two ladies passed them at that moment, cloaked and hooded, walking
+      briskly. One of them turned to look at Trenchard, who, waving his arms in
+      wild gesticulation, was a conspicuous object. She checked in her walk,
+      arresting her companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilding!&rdquo; she exclaimed. It was Lady Horton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilding!&rdquo; cried Diana, her companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding doffed his hat and bowed, Trenchard following his example.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We had scarce looked to see you in Bridgwater again,&rdquo; said the mother,
+      her mild, pleasant countenance reflecting the satisfaction it gave her to
+      behold him safe and sound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There have been moments,&rdquo; answered Wilding, &ldquo;when myself I scarce
+      expected to return. Your ladyship's greeting shows me what I had lost had
+      I not done so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are but newly arrived?&rdquo; quoth Diana, scanning him in the gloaming.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From London, an hour since.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An hour?&rdquo; she echoed, and observed that he was still booted and
+      dust-stained. &ldquo;You will have been to Lupton House?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A shadow crossed his face, his glance seemed to grow clouded, all of which
+      watchful Diana did not fail to observe. &ldquo;Not yet,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a laggard,&rdquo; she laughed at him, and he felt the blood driven back
+      upon his heart. What did she mean? Was it possible she suggested that he
+      should be welcome, that his wife's feelings towards him had undergone a
+      change? His last parting from her on the road near Walford had been ever
+      in his mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have had weighty business to transact, he replied, and Trenchard
+      snorted, his mind flying back to the council-room at the Castle, and what
+      his friend had told him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But now that you have disposed of that you will sup with us,&rdquo; said Lady
+      Horton, who was convinced that since Ruth had gone to the altar with him
+      he was Ruth's lover in spite of the odd things she had heard. Appearances
+      with Lady Horton counted for everything, and all that glittered was gold
+      to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would,&rdquo; he answered, &ldquo;but that I am to sup at Mr. Newlington's with His
+      Majesty. My visit must wait until to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us hope,&rdquo; said Trenchard, &ldquo;that it waits no longer.&rdquo; He was already
+      instructed touching the night attack on Feversham's camp on Sedgemoor, and
+      thought it likely Wilding would accompany them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are going to Mr. Newlington's?&rdquo; said Diana, and Trenchard thought she
+      had turned singularly pale. Her hand was over her heart, her eyes wide.
+      She seemed about to add something, but checked herself. She took her
+      mother's arm. &ldquo;We are detaining Mr. Wilding, mother,&rdquo; said she, and her
+      voice quivered as if her whole being were shaken by some gusty agitation.
+      They spoke their farewells briefly, and moved on. A second later Diana was
+      back at their side again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are you lodged, Mr. Wilding?&rdquo; she inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With my friend Trenchard&mdash;at the sign of The Ship, by the Cross.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She briefly acknowledged the information, rejoined her mother, and hurried
+      away with her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard stood staring after them a moment. &ldquo;Odd!&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;did you mark
+      that girl's discomposure?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Wilding's thoughts were elsewhere. &ldquo;Come, Nick! If I am to render
+      myself fit to sit at table with Monmouth, we'll need to hasten.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They went their way, but not so fast as went Diana, urging with her her
+      protesting and short-winded mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is your mistress?&rdquo; the girl asked excitedly of the first servant
+      she met at Lupton House.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In her room, madam,&rdquo; the man replied, and to Ruth's room went Diana
+      breathlessly, leaving Lady Horton gaping after her and understanding
+      nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth, who was seated pensive by her window, rose on Diana's impetuous
+      entrance, and in the deepening twilight she looked almost ghostly in her
+      gown of shimmering white satin, sewn with pearls about the neck of the
+      low-cut bodice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Diana!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;You startled me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not so much as I am yet to do,&rdquo; answered Diana, breathing excitement. She
+      threw back the wimple from her head, and pulling away her cloak, tossed it
+      on to the bed. &ldquo;Mr. Wilding is in Bridgwater,&rdquo; she announced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a faint rustle from the stiff satin of Ruth's gown. &ldquo;Then...&rdquo;
+       her voice shook slightly. &ldquo;Then... he is not dead,&rdquo; she said, more because
+      she felt that she must say something than because her words fitted the
+      occasion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet,&rdquo; said Diana grimly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He sups to-night at Mr. Newlington's,&rdquo; Miss Horton exclaimed in a voice
+      pregnant with meaning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; It was a cry from Ruth, sharp as if she had been stabbed. She sank
+      back to her seat by the window, smitten down by this sudden news.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a pause, which fretted Diana, who now craved knowledge of what
+      might be passing in her cousin's mind. She advanced towards Ruth and laid
+      a trembling hand on her shoulder, where the white gown met the ivory neck.
+      &ldquo;He must be warned,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But... but how?&rdquo; stammered Ruth. &ldquo;To warn him were to betray Sir
+      Rowland.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir Rowland?&rdquo; cried Diana in high scorn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And... and Richard,&rdquo; Ruth continued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, and Mr. Newlington, and all the other knaves that are engaged in
+      this murderous business. Well?&rdquo; she demanded. &ldquo;Will you do it, or must I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do it?&rdquo; Ruth's eyes sought her cousin's white, excited face in the
+      quasi-darkness. &ldquo;But have you thought of what it will mean? Have you
+      thought of the poor people that will perish unless the Duke is taken and
+      this rebellion brought to an end?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thought of it?&rdquo; repeated Diana witheringly. &ldquo;Not I. I have thought that
+      Mr. Wilding is here and like to have his throat cut before an hour is
+      past.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me, are you sure of this?&rdquo; asked Ruth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have it from your husband's own lips,&rdquo; Diana answered, and told her in
+      a few words of her meeting with Mr. Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth sat with hands folded in her lap, her eyes on the dim violet
+      after-glow in the west, and her mind wrestling with this problem that
+      Diana had brought her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Diana,&rdquo; she cried at last, &ldquo;what am I to do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do?&rdquo; echoed Diana. &ldquo;Is it not plain? Warn Mr. Wilding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Richard?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilding saved Richard's life...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know. I know. My duty is to warn him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then why hesitate?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My duty is also to keep faith with Richard, to think of those poor
+      misguided folk who are to be saved by this,&rdquo; cried Ruth in an agony. &ldquo;If
+      Mr. Wilding is warned, they will all be ruined.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana stamped her foot impatiently. &ldquo;Had I thought to find you in this
+      mind, I had warned him myself,&rdquo; said she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! Why did you not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That the chance of doing so might be yours. That you might thus repay him
+      the debt in which you stand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Diana, I can't!&rdquo; The words broke from her in a sob.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But whatever her interest in Mr. Wilding for her own sake, Diana's prime
+      intent was the thwarting of Sir Rowland Blake. If Wilding were warned of what
+      manner of feast was spread at Newlington's, Sir Rowland would be indeed
+      undone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You think of Richard,&rdquo; she exclaimed, &ldquo;and you know that Richard is to
+      have no active part in the affair&mdash;that he will run no risk. They
+      have assigned him but a sentry duty that he may warn Blake and his
+      followers if any danger threatens them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not of Richard's life I am thinking, but of his honour, of his
+      trust in me. To warn Mr. Wilding were... to commit an act of betrayal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And is Mr. Wilding to be slaughtered with his friends?&rdquo; Diana asked her.
+      &ldquo;Resolve me that. Time presses. In half an hour it will be too late.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That allusion to the shortness of the time brought Ruth an inspiration.
+      Suddenly she saw a way. Wilding should be saved, and yet she would not
+      break faith with Richard nor ruin those others. She would detain him, and
+      whilst warning him at the last moment, in time for him to save himself;
+      not do so until it must be too late for him to warn the others. Thus she
+      would do her duty by him, and yet keep faith with Richard and Sir Rowland.
+      She had resolved, she thought, the awful difficulty that had confronted
+      her. She rose suddenly, heartened by the thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me your cloak and wimple,&rdquo; she bade Diana, and Diana flew to do her
+      bidding. &ldquo;Where is Mr. Wilding lodged?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At the sign of The Ship&mdash;overlooking the Cross, with Mr. Trenchard.
+      Shall I come with you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; answered Ruth without hesitation. &ldquo;I will go alone.&rdquo; She drew the
+      wimple well over her head, so that in its shadows her face might lie
+      concealed, and hid her shimmering white dress under Diana's cloak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She hastened through the ill-lighted streets, never heeding the rough
+      cobbles that hurt her feet, shod in light indoor wear, never heeding the
+      crowds that thronged her way. All Bridgwater was astir with Monmouth's
+      presence; moreover, there had been great incursions from Taunton and the
+      surrounding country, the women-folk of the Duke-King's followers having
+      come that day to Bridgwater to say farewell to father and son, husband and
+      brother, before the army marched&mdash;as was still believed&mdash;to
+      Gloucester.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The half-hour was striking from Saint Mary's&mdash;the church in which she
+      had been married&mdash;as Ruth reached the door of the sign of The Ship.
+      She was about to knock, when suddenly it opened, and Mr. Wilding himself,
+      with Trenchard immediately behind him, stood confronting her. At sight of
+      him a momentary weakness took her. He had changed from his hard-used
+      riding-garments into a suit of roughly corded black silk, which threw into
+      relief the steely litheness of his spare figure. His dark brown hair was
+      carefully dressed, diamonds gleamed in the cravat of snowy lace at his
+      throat. He was uncovered, his hat under his arm, and he stood aside to
+      make way for her, imagining that she was some woman of the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; said she, her heart fluttering in her throat. &ldquo;May I... may
+      I speak with you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He leaned forward, seeking to pierce the shadows of her wimple; he had
+      thought he recognized the voice, as his sudden start had shown; and yet he
+      disbelieved his ears. She moved her head at that moment, and the light
+      streaming out from a lamp in the passage beat upon her white face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ruth!&rdquo; he cried, and came quickly forward. Trenchard, behind him, looked
+      on and scowled with sudden impatience. Mr. Wilding's philanderings with
+      this lady had never had the old rake's approval. Too much trouble already
+      had resulted from them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must speak with you at once. At once!&rdquo; she urged him, her tone fearful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you in need of me?&rdquo; he asked concernedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In very urgent need,&rdquo; said she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thank God,&rdquo; he answered without flippancy. &ldquo;You shall find me at your
+      service. Tell me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not here; not here,&rdquo; she answered him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where else?&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Shall we walk?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no.&rdquo; Her repetitions marked the deep excitement that possessed her.
+      &ldquo;I will go in with you.&rdquo; And she signed with her head towards the door
+      from which he was barely emerged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Twere scarce fitting,&rdquo; said he, for being confused and full of
+      speculation on the score of her need, he had for the moment almost
+      overlooked the relations in which they stood. In spite of the ceremony
+      through which they had gone together, Mr. Wilding still mostly thought of
+      her as of a mistress very difficult to woo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fitting?&rdquo; she echoed, and then after a pause, &ldquo;Am I not your wife?&rdquo; she
+      asked him in a low voice, her cheeks crimsoning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha! 'Pon honour, I had almost forgot,&rdquo; said he, and though the burden of
+      his words seemed mocking, their tone was sad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the passers-by that jostled them a couple had now paused to watch a
+      scene that had an element of the unusual in it. She pulled her wimple
+      closer to her face, took him by the arm, and drew him with her into the
+      house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Close the door,&rdquo; she bade him, and Trenchard, who had stood aside that
+      they might pass in, forestalled him in obeying her. &ldquo;Now lead me to your
+      room, said she, and Wilding in amaze turned to Trenchard as if asking his
+      consent, for the lodging, after all, was Trenchard's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll wait here,&rdquo; said Nick, and waved his hand towards an oak bench that
+      stood in the passage. &ldquo;You had best make haste,&rdquo; he urged his friend; &ldquo;you
+      are late already. That is, unless you are of a mind to set the lady's
+      affairs before King Monmouth's. And were I in your place, Anthony, faith
+      I'd not scruple to do it. For after all,&rdquo; he added under his breath,
+      &ldquo;there's little choice in rotten apples.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth waited for some answer from Wilding that might suggest he was
+      indifferent whether he went to Newlington's or not; but he spoke no word
+      as he turned to lead the way above-stairs to the indifferent parlour which
+      with the adjoining bedroom constituted Mr. Trenchard's lodging&mdash;and
+      his own, for the time being.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having assured herself that the curtains were closely drawn, she put by
+      her cloak and hood, and stood revealed to him in the light of the three
+      candles, burning in a branch upon the bare oak table, dazzlingly beautiful
+      in her gown of ivory-white.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stood apart, cogitating her with glowing eyes, the faintest smile
+      between question and pleasure hovering about his thin mouth. He had closed
+      the door, and stood in silence waiting for her to make known to him her
+      pleasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilding...&rdquo; she began, and straightway he interrupted her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But a moment since you did remind me that I have the honour to be your
+      husband,&rdquo; he said with grave humour. &ldquo;Why seek now to overcloud that fact?
+      I mind me that the last time we met you called me by another name. But it
+      may be,&rdquo; he added as an afterthought, &ldquo;you are of opinion that I have
+      broken faith with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Broken faith? As how?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So!&rdquo; he said, and sighed. &ldquo;My words were of so little account that they
+      have been, I see, forgotten. Yet, so that I remember them, that is what
+      chiefly matters. I promised then&mdash;or seemed to promise&mdash;that I
+      would make a widow of you, who had made a wife of you against your will.
+      It has not happened yet. Do not despair. This Monmouth quarrel is not yet
+      fought out. Hope on, my Ruth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him with eyes wide open&mdash;lustrous eyes of sapphire in a
+      face of ivory. A faint smile parted her lips, the reflection of the
+      thought in her mind that had she, indeed, been eager for his death she
+      would not be with him at this moment; had she desired it, how easy would
+      her course have been.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do me wrong to bid me hope for that,&rdquo; she answered him, her tones
+      level. &ldquo;I do not wish the death of any man, unless...&rdquo; She paused; her
+      truthfulness urged her too far.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Unless?&rdquo; said he, brows raised, polite interest on his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Unless it be His Grace of Monmouth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He considered her with suddenly narrowed eyes. &ldquo;You have not by chance
+      sought me to talk politics?&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Or...&rdquo; and he suddenly caught his
+      breath, his nostrils dilating with rage at the bare thought that leapt
+      into his mind. Had Monmouth, the notorious libertine, been to Lupton House
+      and persecuted her with his addresses? &ldquo;Is it that you are acquainted with
+      His Grace?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have never spoken to him!&rdquo; she answered, with no suspicion of what was
+      in his thoughts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In his relief he laughed, remembering now that Monmouth's affairs were too
+      absorbing just at present to leave him room for dalliance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you are standing,&rdquo; said he, and he advanced a chair. &ldquo;I deplore that
+      I have no better hospitality to offer you. I doubt if I ever shall again.
+      I am told that Albemarle did me the honour to stable his knackers in my
+      hall at Zoyland.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She took the chair he offered her, sinking to it like one physically
+      weary, a thing he was quick to notice. He watched her, his body eager, his
+      soul trammelling it with a steely restraint. &ldquo;Tell me, now,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;in
+      what you need me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was silent a moment, pondering, hesitation and confusion seeming to
+      envelop her. A pink flush rose to colour the beautiful pillar of neck and
+      overspread the delicate half-averted face. He watched it, wondering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How long,&rdquo; she asked him, her whole intent at present being to delay him
+      and gain time. &ldquo;How long have you been in Bridgwater?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two hours at most,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two hours! And yet you never came to... to me. I heard of your presence,
+      and I feared you might intend to abstain from seeking me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He almost held his breath while she spoke, caught in amazement. He was
+      standing close beside her chair, his right hand rested upon its tall back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you so intend?&rdquo; she asked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told you even now,&rdquo; he answered with hard-won calm, &ldquo;that I had made
+      you a sort of promise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I... I would not have you keep it,&rdquo; she murmured. She heard his sharply
+      indrawn breath, felt him leaning over her, and was filled with an
+      unaccountable fear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was it to tell me this you came?&rdquo; he asked her, his voice reduced to a
+      whisper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No... yes,&rdquo; she answered, an agony in her mind, which groped for some
+      means to keep him by her side until his danger should be overpast. That
+      much she owed him in honour if in nothing else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;yes?&rdquo; he echoed, and he had drawn himself erect again. &ldquo;What
+      is't you mean, Ruth?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean that it was that, yet not quite only that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; Disappointment vibrated faintly in his clamation. &ldquo;What else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would have you abandon Monmouth's following,&rdquo; she told him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stared a moment, moved away and round where he could confront her. The
+      flush had now faded from her face. This he observed and the heave of her
+      bosom in its low bodice. He knit his brows, perplexed. Here was surely
+      more than at first might seem.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why so?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For your own safety's sake,&rdquo; she answered him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are oddly concerned for that, Ruth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Concerned&mdash;not oddly.&rdquo; She paused an instant, swallowed hard, and
+      then continued. &ldquo;I am concerned too for your honour, and there is no
+      honour in following his banner. He has crowned himself King, and so proved
+      himself a self-seeker who came dissembled as the champion of a cause that
+      he might delude poor ignorant folk into flocking to his standard and
+      helping him to his ambitious ends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are wondrously well schooled,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Whose teachings do you
+      recite me? Sir Rowland Blake's?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At another time the sneer might have cut her. At the moment she was too
+      intent upon gaining time. The means to it mattered little. The more she
+      talked to no purpose, the more at random was their discourse, the better
+      would her ends be served.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir Rowland Blake?&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;What is he to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, what? Let me set you the question rather.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Less than nothing,&rdquo; she assured him, and for some moments afterwards it
+      was this Sir Rowland who served them as a topic for their odd interview.
+      On the overmantel the pulse of time beat on from a little wooden clock.
+      His eyes strayed to it; it marked the three-quarters. He bethought him
+      suddenly of his engagement. Trenchard, below-stairs, supremely indifferent
+      whether Wilding went to Newlington's or not, smoked on, entirely
+      unconcerned by the flight of time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mistress,&rdquo; said Wilding suddenly, &ldquo;you have not yet told me in what you
+      seek my service. Indeed, we seem to have talked to little purpose. My time
+      is very short.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are you going?&rdquo; she asked him, and fearfully she shot a sidelong
+      glance at the timepiece. It was still too soon, by at least five minutes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled, but his smile was singular. He began to suspect at last that
+      her only purpose&mdash;to what end he could not guess&mdash;was to detain
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis a singularly sudden interest in my doings, this,&rdquo; said he quietly.
+      &ldquo;What is't you seek of me?&rdquo; He reached for the hat he had cast upon the
+      table when they had entered. &ldquo;Tell me briefly. I may stay no longer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose, her agitation suddenly increasing, afraid that after all he
+      would escape her. &ldquo;Where are you going?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;Answer me that, and I
+      will tell you why I came.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am to sup at Mr. Newlington's in His Majesty's company.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His Majesty's?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;King Monmouth's,&rdquo; he explained impatiently. &ldquo;Come, Ruth. Already I am
+      late.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I were to ask you not to go,&rdquo; she said slowly, and she held out her
+      hands to him, her glance most piteous&mdash;and that was not acting&mdash;as
+      she raised it to meet his own, &ldquo;would you not stay to pleasure me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He considered her from under frowning eyes. &ldquo;Ruth,&rdquo; he said, and he took
+      her hands, &ldquo;there is here something that I do not understand. What is't
+      you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Promise me that you will not go to Newlington's, and I will tell you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what has Newlington to do with...? Nay, I am pledged already to go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She drew closer to him, her hands upon his shoulders. &ldquo;Yet if I ask you&mdash;I,
+      your wife?&rdquo; she pleaded, and almost won him to her will.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But suddenly he remembered another occasion on which, for purposes of her
+      own, she had so pleaded. He laughed softly, mockingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you woo me, Ruth, who, when I wooed you, would have none of me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She drew back from him, crimsoning. &ldquo;I think I had better go,&rdquo; said she.
+      &ldquo;You have nothing but mockery for me. It was ever so. Who knows?&rdquo; she
+      sighed as she took up her mantle. &ldquo;Had you but observed more gentle ways,
+      you... you...&rdquo; She paused, needing to say no more. &ldquo;Good-night!&rdquo; she
+      ended, and made shift to leave. He watched her, deeply mystified. She had
+      gained the door when suddenly he moved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait!&rdquo; he cried. She paused, and turned to look over her shoulder, her
+      hand apparently upon the latch. &ldquo;You shall not go until you have told me
+      why you besought me to keep away from Newlington's. What is it?&rdquo; he asked,
+      and paused suddenly, a flood of light breaking in upon his mind. &ldquo;Is there
+      some treachery afoot?&rdquo; he asked her, and his eye went wildly to the clock.
+      A harsh, grating sound rang through the room. &ldquo;What are you doing?&rdquo; he
+      cried. &ldquo;Why have you locked the door?&rdquo; She was tugging and fumbling
+      desperately to extract the key, her hands all clumsy in her nervous haste.
+      He leapt at her, but in that moment the key came away in her hand. She
+      wheeled round to face him, erect, defiant almost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here is some devilry!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Give me that key.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had no need for further questions. Here was a proof more eloquent than
+      words to his ready wit. Sir Rowland or Richard, or both, were in some plot
+      for the Duke's ruin&mdash;perhaps assassination. Had not her very words
+      shown that she herself was out of all sympathy with Monmouth? He was out
+      of sympathy himself. But not to the extent of standing by to see his
+      throat cut. She would have the plot succeed&mdash;whatever it might be and
+      yet that he himself be spared. There his thoughts paused; but only for a
+      moment. He saw suddenly in this, not a proof of concern born of love but
+      of duty towards him who had imperilled himself once&mdash;and for all
+      time, indeed&mdash;that he might save her brother and Sir Rowland.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He told her what had been so suddenly revealed to him, taxing her with it.
+      She acknowledged it, her wits battling to find some way by which she might
+      yet gain a few moments more. She would cling to the key, and though he
+      should offer her violence, she would not let it go without a struggle, and
+      that struggle must consume the little time yet wanting to make it too late
+      for him to save the Duke, and&mdash;what imported more&mdash;thus save
+      herself from betraying her brother's trust. Another fear leapt at her
+      suddenly. If through deed of hers Monmouth was spared that night, Blake,
+      in his despair and rage, might slake his vengeance upon Richard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me that key,&rdquo; he demanded, his voice cold and quiet, his face set.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; she cried, setting her hand behind her. &ldquo;You shall not go,
+      Anthony. You shall not go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must,&rdquo; he insisted, still cold, but oh! so determined. &ldquo;My honour's in
+      it now that I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll go to your death,&rdquo; she reminded him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sneered. &ldquo;What signifies a day or so? Give me the key.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I love you, Anthony!&rdquo; she cried, livid to the lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lies!&rdquo; he answered her contemptuously. &ldquo;The key!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she answered, and her firmness matched his own. &ldquo;I will not have you
+      slain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis not my purpose&mdash;not just yet. But I must save the others. God
+      forgive me if I offer violence to a woman,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;and lay rude hands
+      upon her. Do not compel me to it.&rdquo; He advanced upon her, but she, lithe
+      and quick, evaded him, and sprang for the middle of the room. He wheeled
+      about, his self-control all slipping from him now. Suddenly she darted to
+      the window, and with the hand that clenched the key she smote a pane with
+      all her might. There was a smash of shivering glass, followed an instant
+      later by a faint tinkle on the stones below, and the hand that she still
+      held out covered itself all with blood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O God!&rdquo; he cried, the key and all else forgotten. &ldquo;You are hurt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you are saved,&rdquo; she cried, overwrought, and staggered, laughing and
+      sobbing, to a chair, sinking her bleeding hand to her lap, and smearing
+      recklessly her spotless, shimmering gown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He caught up a chair by its legs, and at a single blow smashed down the
+      door&mdash;a frail barrier after all. &ldquo;Nick!&rdquo; he roared. &ldquo;Nick!&rdquo; He tossed
+      the chair from him and vanished into the adjoining room to reappear a
+      moment later carrying basin and ewer, and a shirt of Trenchard's&mdash;the
+      first piece of linen he could find.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was half fainting, and she let him have his swift, masterful way. He
+      bathed her hand, and was relieved to find that the injury was none so
+      great as the flow of blood had made him fear. He tore Trenchard's fine
+      cambric shirt to shreds&mdash;a matter on which Trenchard afterwards
+      commented in quotations from at least three famous Elizabethan dramatists.
+      He bound up her hand, just as Nick made his appearance at the splintered
+      door, his mouth open, his pipe, gone out, between his fingers. He was
+      followed by a startled serving-wench, the only other person in the house,
+      for every one was out of doors that night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Into the woman's care Wilding delivered his wife, and without a word to
+      her he left the room, dragging Trenchard with him. It was striking nine as
+      they went down the stairs, and the sound brought as much satisfaction to
+      Ruth above as dismay to Wilding below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIX. THE BANQUET
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It was striking nine. Therefore, Ruth thought that she had achieved her
+      object, Wilding imagined that all was lost. It needed the more tranquil
+      mind of Nicholas Trenchard to show him the fly in madam's ointment, after
+      Wilding, in half a dozen words, had made him acquainted with the
+      situation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you going to do?&rdquo; asked Trenchard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Run to Newlington's and warn the Duke&mdash;if still in time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And thereby precipitate the catastrophe? Oh, give it thought. It is all
+      it needs. You are taking it for granted that nine o'clock is the hour
+      appointed for King Monmouth's butchery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What else?&rdquo; asked Wilding, impatient to be off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were standing in the street under the sign of The Ship, by which
+      Jonathan Edney&mdash;Mr. Trenchard's landlord&mdash;distinguished his
+      premises and the chandler's trade he drove there. Trenchard set a
+      detaining hand on Mr. Wilding's arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nine o'clock is the hour appointed for supper. It is odds the Duke will
+      be a little late, and it is more than odds that when he does arrive, the
+      assassins will wait until the company is safely at table and lulled by
+      good eating and drinking. You had overlooked that, I see. It asks an old
+      head for wisdom, after all. Look you, Anthony. Speed to Colonel Wade as
+      fast as your legs can carry you, and get a score of men. Then find some
+      fellow to lead you to Newlington's orchard, and if only you do not arrive
+      too late you may take Sir Rowland and his cut-throats in the rear and
+      destroy them to a man before they realize themselves attacked. I'll
+      reconnoitre while you go, and keep an eye on the front of the house. Away
+      with you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ordinarily Wilding was a man of a certain dignity, but you had not thought
+      it had you seen him running in silk stockings and silver-buckled shoes at
+      a headlong pace through the narrow streets of Bridgwater, in the direction
+      of the Castle. He overset more than one, and oaths followed him from these
+      and from others whom he rudely jostled out of his path. Wade was gone with
+      Monmouth, but he came upon Captain Slape, who had a company of scythes and
+      musketeers incorporated in the Duke's own regiment, and to him Wilding
+      gasped out the news and his request for a score of men with what breath
+      was left him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Time was lost&mdash;and never was time more precious&mdash;in convincing
+      Slape that this was no old wife's tale. At last, however, he won his way
+      and twenty musketeers; but the quarter-past the hour had chimed ere they
+      left the Castle. He led them forth at a sharp run, with never a thought
+      for the circumstance that they would need their breath anon, perhaps for
+      fighting, and he bade the man who guided them take them by back streets
+      that they might attract as little attention as possible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Within a stone's-throw of the house he halted them, and sent one forward
+      to reconnoitre, following himself with the others as quietly and
+      noiselessly as possible. Mr. Newlington's house was all alight, but from
+      the absence of uproar&mdash;sounds there were in plenty from the main
+      street, where a dense throng had collected to see His Majesty go in&mdash;Mr.
+      Wilding inferred with supreme relief that they were still in time. But the
+      danger was not yet past. Already, perhaps, the assassins were penetrating&mdash;or
+      had penetrated&mdash;to the house; and at any moment such sounds might
+      greet them as would announce the execution of their murderous design.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Mr. Trenchard, having relighted his pipe, and set his hat
+      rakishly atop his golden wig, strolled up the High Street, swinging his
+      long cane very much like a gentleman taking the air in quest of an
+      appetite for supper. He strolled past the Cross and on until he came to
+      the handsome mansion&mdash;one of the few handsome houses in Bridgwater&mdash;where
+      opulent Mr. Newlington had his residence. A small crowd had congregated
+      about the doors, for word had gone forth that His Majesty was to sup
+      there. Trenchard moved slowly through the people, seemingly uninterested,
+      but, in fact, scanning closely every face he encountered. Suddenly, out of
+      the corner of his eye, he espied in the indifferent light Mr. Richard
+      Westmacott.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard passed him, jostling him as he went, and strolled on some few
+      paces, then turned, and came slowly back, and observed that Richard had
+      also turned and was now watching him as he approached. He was all but upon
+      the boy when suddenly his wrinkled face lighted with recognition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Westmacott!&rdquo; he cried, and there was surprise in his voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard, conscious that Trenchard must no doubt regard him as a
+      turn-tippet, flushed, and stood aside to give passage to the other. But
+      Mr. Trenchard was by no means minded to pass. He clapped a hand on
+      Richard's shoulder. &ldquo;Nay,&rdquo; he cried, between laughter and feigned
+      resentment. &ldquo;Do you bear me ill-will, lad?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard was somewhat taken aback. &ldquo;For what should I bear you ill-will,
+      Mr. Trenchard?&rdquo; quoth he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard laughed frankly, and so uproariously that his hat over-jauntily
+      cocked was all but shaken from his head. &ldquo;I mind me the last time we met,
+      I played you an unfair trick,&rdquo; said he. His tone bespoke the very highest
+      good-humour. He slipped his arm through Richard's. &ldquo;Never bear an old man
+      malice, lad,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I assure you that I bear you none,&rdquo; said Richard, relieved to find that
+      Trenchard apparently knew nothing of his defection, yet wishing that
+      Trenchard would go his ways, for Richard's task was to stand sentry there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll not believe you till you afford me proof,&rdquo; Trenchard replied. &ldquo;You
+      shall come and wash your resentment down in the best bottle of Canary the
+      White Cow can furnish us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not now, I thank you,&rdquo; answered Richard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are thinking of the last occasion on which I drank with you,&rdquo; said
+      Trenchard reproachfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not so. But... but I am not thirsty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not thirsty?&rdquo; echoed Trenchard. &ldquo;And is that a reason? Why, lad, it is
+      the beast that drinks only when he thirsts. And in that lies one of the
+      main differences between beast and man. Come on&rdquo;&mdash;and his arm
+      effected a gentle pressure upon Richard's, to move him thence. But at that
+      moment, down the street with a great rumble of wheels, cracking of whips
+      and clatter of hoofs, came a coach, bearing to Mr. Newlington's King
+      Monmouth escorted by his forty life-guards. Cheering broke from the crowd
+      as the carriage drew up, and the Duke-King as he alighted turned his
+      handsome face, on which shone the ruddy glow of torches, to acknowledge
+      these loyal acclamations. He passed up the steps, at the top of which Mr.
+      Newlington&mdash;fat and pale and monstrously overdressed&mdash;stood
+      bowing to welcome his royal visitor. Host and guest vanished, followed by
+      some six officers of Monmouth's, among whom were Grey and Wade. The
+      sight-seers flattened themselves against the walls as the great lumbering
+      coach put about and went off again the way it had come, the life-guards
+      following after.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard fancied that he caught a sigh of relief from Richard, but the
+      street was noisy at the time and he may well have been mistaken.
+    </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come,&rdquo; said he, renewing his invitation, &ldquo;we shall both be the better
+for a little milk of the White Cow.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+    <p>
+Richard wavered almost by instinct. The White Cow, he knew, was
+famous for its sack; on the other hand, he was pledged to Sir Rowland
+to stand guard in the narrow lane at the back where ran the wall of Mr.
+Newlington's garden. Under the gentle suasion of Trenchard's arm, he
+moved a few steps up the street; then halted, his duty battling with his
+inclination.
+</p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;If you will excuse me...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not I,&rdquo; said Trenchard, drawing from his hesitation a shrewd inference as
+      to Richard's business. &ldquo;To drink alone is an abomination I'll not be
+      guilty of.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But...&rdquo; began the irresolute Richard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shalt urge me no excuses, or we'll quarrel. Come,&rdquo; and he moved on,
+      dragging Richard with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few steps Richard took unwillingly under the other's soft compulsion;
+      then, having given the matter thought&mdash;he was always one to take the
+      line of least resistance&mdash;he assured himself that his sentryship was
+      entirely superfluous; the matter of Blake's affair was an entire secret,
+      shared only by those who had a hand in it. Blake was quite safe from all
+      surprises; Trenchard was insistent and it was difficult to deny him; and
+      the sack at the White Cow was no doubt the best in Somerset. He gave
+      himself up to the inevitable and fell into step alongside his companion
+      who babbled aimlessly of trivial matters. Trenchard felt the change from
+      unwilling to willing companionship, and approved it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They mounted the three steps and entered the common room of the inn. It
+      was well thronged at the time, but they found places at the end of a long
+      table, and there they sat and discussed the landlady's Canary for the best
+      part of a half-hour, until a sudden spatter of musketry, near at hand,
+      came to startle the whole room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a momentary stillness in the tavern, succeeded by an excited
+      clamouring, a dash for the windows and a storm of questions, to which none
+      could return any answer. Richard had risen with a sudden exclamation, very
+      pale and scared of aspect. Trenchard tugged at his sleeve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sit down,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Sit down. It will be nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing?&rdquo; echoed Richard, and his eyes were suddenly bent on Trenchard in
+      a look in which suspicion was now blent with terror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A second volley of musketry crackled forth at that moment, and the next
+      the whole street was in an uproar. Men were running and shots resounded on
+      every side, above all of which predominated the cry that His Majesty was
+      murdered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In an instant the common room of the White Cow was emptied of every
+      occupant save two&mdash;Trenchard and Westmacott. Neither of them felt the
+      need to go forth in quest of news. They knew how idle was the cry in the
+      streets. They knew what had taken place, and knowing it, Trenchard smoked
+      on placidly, satisfied that Wilding had been in time, whilst Richard stood
+      stricken and petrified by dismay at realizing, with even greater
+      certainty, that something had supervened to thwart, perhaps to destroy,
+      Sir Rowland. For he knew that Blake's party had gone forth armed with
+      pistols only, and intent not to use even these save in the last extremity;
+      to avoid noise they were to keep to steel. This knowledge gave Richard
+      positive assurance that the volleys they had heard must have been fired by
+      some party that had fallen upon Blake's men and taken them by surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And it was his fault! He was the traitor to whom perhaps a score of men
+      owed their deaths at that moment! He had failed to keep watch as he had
+      undertaken. His fault it was&mdash;No! not his, but this villain's who sat
+      there smugly taking his ease and pulling at his pipe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At a blow Richard dashed the thing from his companion's mouth and fingers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard looked up startled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What the devil...?&rdquo; he began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is your fault, your fault!&rdquo; cried Richard, his eyes blazing, his lips
+      livid. &ldquo;It was you who lured me hither.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard stared at him in bland surprise. &ldquo;Now, what a plague is't you're
+      saying?&rdquo; he asked, and brought Richard to his senses by awaking in him the
+      instinct of self-preservation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How could he explain his meaning without betraying himself?&mdash;and
+      surely that were a folly, now that the others were no doubt disposed of.
+      Let him, rather, bethink him of his own safety. Trenchard looked at him
+      keenly, with well-assumed intent to read what might be passing in his
+      mind, then rose, paid for the wine, and expressed his intention of going
+      forth to inquire into these strange matters that were happening in
+      Bridgwater.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, those volleys fired in Mr. Newlington's orchard had caused&mdash;as
+      well may be conceived&mdash;an agitated interruption of the superb feast
+      Mr. Newlington had spread for his noble and distinguished guests. The Duke
+      had for some days been going in fear of his life, for already he had been
+      fired at more than once by men anxious to earn the price at which his head
+      was valued; instantly he surmised that whatever that firing might mean, it
+      indicated some attempt to surprise him with the few gentlemen who attended
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The whole company came instantly to its feet, and Colonel Wade stepped to
+      a window that stood open&mdash;for the night was very warm. The Duke
+      turned for explanation to his host; the trader, however, professed himself
+      entirely unable to offer any. He was very pale and his limbs were visibly
+      trembling, but then his agitation was most natural. His wife and daughter
+      supervened at that moment, in their alarm entering the room
+      unceremoniously, in spite of the august presence, to inquire into the
+      meaning of this firing, and to reassure themselves that their father and
+      his illustrious guests were safe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the windows they could observe a stir in the gardens below. Black
+      shadows of men flitted to and fro, and a loud, rich voice was heard
+      calling to them to take cover, that they were betrayed. Then a sheet of
+      livid flame blazed along the summit of the low wall, and a second volley
+      of musketry rang out, succeeded by cries and screams from the assailed and
+      the shouts of the assailers who were now pouring into the garden through
+      the battered doorway and over the wall. For some moments steel rang on
+      steel, and pistol-shots cracked here and there to the accompaniment of
+      voices, raised some in anger, some in pain. But it was soon over, and a
+      comparative stillness succeeded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A voice called up from the darkness under the windows to know if His
+      Majesty was safe. There had been a plot to take him; but the ambuscaders
+      had been ambuscaded in their turn, and not a man of them remained&mdash;which
+      was hardly exact, for under a laurel bush, scarce daring to breathe, lay
+      Sir Rowland Blake, livid with fear and fury, and bleeding from a rapier
+      scratch in the cheek, but otherwise unhurt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the room above, Monmouth had sunk wearily into his chair upon hearing
+      of the design there had been against his life. A deep, bitter melancholy
+      enwrapped his spirit. Lord Grey's first thoughts flew to the man he most
+      disliked&mdash;the one man missing from those who had been bidden to
+      accompany His Majesty, whose absence had already formed the subject of
+      comment. Grey remembered this bearing before the council that same
+      evening, and his undisguised resentment of the reproaches levelled against
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is Mr. Wilding?&rdquo; he asked suddenly, his voice dominating the din of
+      talk that filled the room. &ldquo;Do we hold the explanation of his absence?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Monmouth looked up quickly, his beautiful eyes ineffably sad, his weak
+      mouth drooping at the corners. Wade turned to confront Grey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your lordship does not suggest that Mr. Wilding can have a hand in this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Appearances would seem to point in that direction,&rdquo; answered Grey, and in
+      his wicked heart he almost hoped it might be so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then appearances speak truth for once,&rdquo; came a bitter, ringing voice.
+      They turned, and there on the threshold stood Mr. Wilding. Unheard he had
+      come upon them. He was bareheaded and carried his drawn sword. There was
+      blood upon it, and there was blood on the lace that half concealed the
+      hand that held it; otherwise&mdash;and saving that his shoes and stockings
+      were sodden with the dew from the long grass in the orchard&mdash;he was
+      as spotless as when he had left Ruth in Trenchard's lodging; his face,
+      too, was calm, save for the mocking smile with which he eyed Lord Grey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monmouth rose on his appearance, and put his hand to his sword in alarm.
+      Grey whipped his own from the scabbard, and placed himself slightly in
+      front of his master as if to preserve him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mistake, sirs,&rdquo; said Wilding quietly. &ldquo;The hand I have had in this
+      affair has been to save Your Majesty from your enemies. At the moment I
+      should have joined you, word was brought me of the plot that was laid, of
+      the trap that was set for you. I hastened to the Castle and obtained a
+      score of musketeers of Slape's company. With those I surprised the
+      murderers lurking in the garden there, and made an end of them. I greatly
+      feared I should not come in time; but it is plain that Heaven preserves
+      Your Majesty for better days.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the revulsion of feeling, Monmouth's eyes shone moist. Grey sheathed
+      his sword with an awkward laugh, and a still more awkward word of apology
+      to Wilding. The Duke, moved by a sudden impulse to make amends for his
+      unworthy suspicions, for his perhaps unworthy reception of Wilding earlier
+      that evening in the council-room, drew the sword on which his hand still
+      rested. He advanced a step.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kneel, Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; he said in a voice stirred by emotion. But Wilding's
+      stern spirit scorned this all too sudden friendliness of Monmouth's as
+      much as he scorned the accolade at Monmouth's hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are more pressing matters to demand Your Majesty's attention,&rdquo; said
+      Mr. Wilding coldly, advancing to the table as he spoke, and taking up a
+      napkin to wipe his blade, &ldquo;than the reward of an unworthy servant.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Monmouth felt his sudden enthusiasm chilled by that tone and manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Newlington,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding, after the briefest of pauses, and the
+      fat, sinful merchant started forward in alarm. It was like a summons of
+      doom. &ldquo;His Majesty came hither, I am informed, to receive at your hands a
+      sum of money&mdash;twenty thousand pounds&mdash;towards the expenses of
+      the campaign. Have you the money at hand?&rdquo; And his eye, glittering between
+      cruelty and mockery, fixed itself upon the merchant's ashen face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It... it shall be forthcoming by morning,&rdquo; stammered Newlington.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By morning?&rdquo; cried Grey, who, with the others, watched Mr. Newlington
+      what time they all wondered at Mr. Wilding's question and the manner of
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You knew that I march to-night,&rdquo; Monmouth reproached the merchant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And it was to receive the money that you invited His Majesty to do you
+      the honours of supping with you here,&rdquo; put in Wade, frowning darkly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The merchant's wife and daughter stood beside him watching him, and
+      plainly uneasy. Before he could make any reply, Mr. Wilding spoke again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The circumstance that he has not the money by him is a little odd&mdash;or
+      would be were it not for what has happened. I would submit, Your Majesty,
+      that you receive from Mr. Newlington not twenty thousand pounds as he had
+      promised you, but thirty thousand, and that you receive it not as a loan
+      as was proposed, but as a fine imposed upon him in consequence of... his
+      lack of care in the matter of his orchard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Monmouth looked at the merchant very sternly. &ldquo;You have heard Mr.
+      Wilding's suggestion,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;You may thank the god of traitors it was
+      made, else we might have thought of a harsher course. You shall pay the
+      money by ten o'clock to-morrow to Mr. Wilding, whom I shall leave behind
+      for the sole purpose of collecting it.&rdquo; He turned from Newlington in plain
+      disgust. &ldquo;I think, sirs, that here is no more to be done. Are the streets
+      safe, Mr. Wilding?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not only safe, Your Majesty, but the twenty men of Slape's and your own
+      life-guards are waiting to escort you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then in God's name let us be going,&rdquo; said Monmouth, sheathing his sword
+      and moving towards the door. Not a second time did he offer to confer the
+      honour of knighthood upon his saviour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding turned and went out to marshal his men. The Duke and his
+      officers followed more leisurely. As they reached the door, a woman's cry
+      broke the silence behind them. Monmouth turned. Mr. Newlington, purple of
+      face and his eyes protruding horridly, was beating the air with his hands.
+      Suddenly he collapsed, and crashed forward with arms flung out amid the
+      glass and silver of the table all spread with the traitor's banquet to
+      which he had bidden his unsuspecting victim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His wife and daughter ran to him and called him by name, Monmouth pausing
+      a moment to watch them from the doorway with eyes unmoved. But Mr.
+      Newlington answered not their call, for he was dead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XX. THE RECKONING
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Ruth had sped home through the streets unattended, as she had come,
+      heedless of the rude jostlings and ruder greetings she met with from those
+      she passed; heedless, too, of the smarting of her injured hand, for the
+      agony of her soul was such that it whelmed all minor sufferings of the
+      flesh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the dining-room at Lupton House she came upon Diana and Lady Horton at
+      supper, and her appearance&mdash;her white and distraught face and
+      blood-smeared gown&mdash;brought both women to their feet in alarmed
+      inquiry, no less than it brought Jasper, the butler, to her side with
+      ready solicitude. Ruth answered him that there was no cause for fear, that
+      she was quite well&mdash;had scratched her hand, no more; and with that
+      dismissed him. When she was alone with her aunt and cousin, she sank into
+      a chair and told them what had passed 'twixt her husband and herself and
+      most of what she said was Greek to Lady Horton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilding has gone to warn the Duke,&rdquo; she ended, and the despair of her
+      tone was tragical. &ldquo;I sought to detain him until it should be too late&mdash;I
+      thought I had done so, but... but... Oh, I am afraid, Diana!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Afraid of what?&rdquo; asked Diana. &ldquo;Afraid of what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And she came to Ruth and set an arm in comfort about her shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Afraid that Mr. Wilding might reach the Duke in time to be destroyed with
+      him,&rdquo; her cousin answered. &ldquo;Such a warning could but hasten on the blow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Horton begged to be enlightened, and was filled with horror when&mdash;from
+      Diana&mdash;enlightenment was hers. Her sympathies were all with the
+      handsome Monmouth, for he was beautiful and should therefore be
+      triumphant; poor Lady Horton never got beyond externals. That her nephew
+      and Sir Rowland, whom she had esteemed, should be leagued in this
+      dastardly undertaking against that lovely person horrified her beyond
+      words. She withdrew soon afterwards, having warmly praised Ruth's action
+      in warning Mr. Wilding&mdash;unable to understand that it should be no
+      part of Ruth's design to save the Duke&mdash;and went to her room to pray
+      for the preservation of the late King's handsome son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Left alone with her cousin, Ruth gave expression to the fears for Richard
+      by which she was being tortured. Diana poured wine for her and urged her
+      to drink; she sought to comfort and reassure her. But as moments passed
+      and grew to hours and still Richard did not appear, Ruth's fears that he
+      had come to harm were changed to certainty. There was a moment when, but
+      for Diana's remonstrances, she had gone forth in quest of news. Bad news
+      were better than this horror of suspense. What if Wilding's warning should
+      have procured help, and Richard were slain in consequence? Oh, it was
+      unthinkable! Diana, white of face, listened to and shared her fears. Even
+      her shallow nature was stirred by the tragedy of Ruth's position, by dread
+      lest Richard should indeed have met his end that night. In these moments
+      of distress, she forgot her hopes of triumphing over Blake, of punishing
+      him for his indifference to herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, at something after midnight, there came a fevered rapping at the
+      outer door. Both women started up, and with arms about each other, in
+      their sudden panic, stood there waiting for the news that must be here at
+      last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The door of the dining-room was flung open; the women recoiled in their
+      dread of what might come; then Richard entered, Jasper's startled
+      countenance showing behind him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He closed the door, shutting out the wondering servant, and they saw that,
+      though his face was ashen and his limbs all a-tremble, he showed no sign
+      of any hurt or effort. His dress was as meticulous as when last they had
+      seen him. Ruth flew to him, flung her arms about his neck, and pressed him
+      to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Richard, Richard!&rdquo; she sobbed in the immensity of her relief. &ldquo;Thank
+      God! Thank God!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He wriggled peevishly in her embrace, disengaged her arms, and put her
+      from him almost roughly. &ldquo;Have done!&rdquo; he growled, and, lurching past her,
+      he reached the table, took up a bottle, and brimmed himself a measure. He
+      gulped the wine avidly, set down the cup, and shivered. &ldquo;Where is Blake?&rdquo;
+       he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Blake?&rdquo; echoed Ruth, her lips white. Diana sank into a chair, watchful,
+      fearful and silent, taking now no glory in the thing she had encompassed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard beat his hands together in a passion of dismay. &ldquo;Is he not here?&rdquo;
+       he asked, and groaned, &ldquo;O God!&rdquo; He flung himself all limp into a chair.
+      &ldquo;You have heard the news, I see,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not all of it,&rdquo; said Diana hoarsely, leaning forward. &ldquo;Tell us what
+      passed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He moistened his lips with his tongue. &ldquo;We were betrayed,&rdquo; he said in a
+      quivering voice. &ldquo;Betrayed! Did I but know by whom...&rdquo; He broke off with a
+      bitter laugh and shrugged, rubbing his hands together and shivering till
+      his shoulders shook. &ldquo;Blake's party was set upon by half a company of
+      musketeers. Their corpses are strewn about old Newlington's orchard. Not
+      one of them escaped. They say that Newlington himself is dead.&rdquo; He poured
+      himself more wine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth listened, her eyes burning, the rest of her as cold as ice.
+      &ldquo;But...but... oh, thank God that you at least are safe, Dick!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How did you escape?&rdquo; quoth Diana.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How?&rdquo; He started as if he had been stung. He laughed in a high, cracked
+      voice, his eyes wild and bloodshot. &ldquo;How? Perhaps it is just as well that
+      Blake has gone to his account. Perhaps...&rdquo; He checked on the word, and
+      started to his feet; Diana screamed in sheer affright. Behind her the
+      windows had been thrust open so violently that one of the panes was
+      shivered. Blake stood under the lintel, scarce recognizable, so smeared
+      was his face with the blood escaping from the wound his cheek had taken.
+      His clothes were muddied, soiled, torn, and disordered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Framed there against the black background of the night, he stood and
+      surveyed them for a moment, his aspect terrific. Then he leapt forward,
+      baring his sword as he came. An incoherent roar burst from his lips as he
+      bore straight down upon Richard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You damned, infernal traitor!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Draw, draw! Or die like the
+      muckworm that you are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Intrepid, her terror all vanished now that there was the need for courage,
+      Ruth confronted him, barring his passage, a buckler to her palsied
+      brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Out of my way, mistress, or I'll be doing you a mischief.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are mad, Sir Rowland,&rdquo; she told him in a voice that did something
+      towards restoring him to his senses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His fierce eyes considered her a moment, and he controlled himself to
+      offer an explanation. &ldquo;The twenty that were with me lie stark under the
+      stars in Newlington's garden,&rdquo; he told her, as Richard had told her
+      already. &ldquo;I escaped by a miracle, no less, but for what? Feversham will
+      demand of me a stern account of those lives, whilst if I am found in
+      Bridgwater there will be a short shrift for me at the rebel hands&mdash;for
+      my share in this affair is known, my name on every lip in the town. And
+      why?&rdquo; he asked with a sudden increase of fierceness. &ldquo;Why? Because that
+      craven villain there betrayed me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He did not,&rdquo; she answered in so assured a voice that not only did it give
+      him pause, but caused Richard, cowering behind her, to raise his head in
+      wonder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Rowland smiled his disbelief, and that smile, twisting his
+      blood-smeared countenance, was grotesque and horrible. &ldquo;I left him to
+      guard our backs and give me warning if any approached,&rdquo; he informed her.
+      &ldquo;I knew him for too great a coward to be trusted in the fight; so I gave
+      him a safe task, and yet in that he failed me-failed me because he had
+      betrayed and sold me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He had not. I tell you he had not,&rdquo; she insisted. &ldquo;I swear it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stared at her. &ldquo;There was no one else for it,&rdquo; he made answer, and bade
+      her harshly stand aside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana, huddled together, watched and waited in horror for the end of these
+      consequences of her work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake made a sudden movement to win past Ruth. Richard staggered to his
+      feet intent on defending himself; but he was swordless; retreat to the
+      door suggested itself, and he had half turned to attempt to gain it, when
+      Ruth's next words arrested him, petrified him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was some one else for it, Sir Rowland,&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;It was not
+      Richard who betrayed you. It... it was I.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You?&rdquo; The fierceness seemed all to drop away from him, whelmed in the
+      immensity of his astonishment. &ldquo;You?&rdquo; Then he laughed loud in scornful
+      disbelief. &ldquo;You think to save him,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Should I lie?&rdquo; she asked him, calm and brave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stared at her stupidly; he passed a hand across his brow, and looked at
+      Diana. &ldquo;Oh, it is impossible!&rdquo; he said at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall hear,&rdquo; she answered, and told him how at the last moment she
+      had learnt not only that her husband was in Bridgwater, but that he was to
+      sup at Newlington's with the Duke's party.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had no thought of betraying you or of saving the Duke,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I
+      knew how justifiable was what you intended. But I could not let Mr.
+      Wilding go to his death. I sought to detain him, warning him only when I
+      thought it would be too late for him to warn others. But you delayed
+      overlong, and...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A hoarse inarticulate cry from him came to interrupt her at that point.
+      One glimpse of his face she had and of the hand half raised with sword
+      pointing towards her, and she closed her eyes, thinking that her sands
+      were run. And, indeed, Blake's intention was just then to kill her. That
+      he should owe his betrayal to her was in itself cause enough to enrage
+      him, but that her motive should have been her desire to save Wilding&mdash;Wilding
+      of all men!&mdash;that was the last straw.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had he been forewarned that Wilding was to be one of Monmouth's party at
+      Mr. Newlington's, his pulses would have throbbed with joy, and he would
+      have flung himself into his murderous task with twice the zest he had
+      carried to it. And now he learnt that not only had she thwarted his
+      schemes against Monmouth, but had deprived him of the ardently sought
+      felicity of widowing her. He drew back his arm for the thrust; Diana
+      huddled into her chair too horror-stricken to speak or move: Richard&mdash;immediately
+      behind his sister&mdash;saw nothing of what was passing, and thought of
+      nothing but his own safety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Blake paused, stepped back, returned his sword to its scabbard, and
+      bending himself&mdash;but whether to bow or not was not quite plain&mdash;he
+      took some paces backwards, then turned and went out by the window as he
+      had come. But there was a sudden purposefulness in the way he did it that
+      might have warned them this withdrawal was not quite the retreat it
+      seemed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They watched him with many emotions, predominant among which was relief,
+      and when he was gone Diana rose and came to Ruth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come,&rdquo; she said, and sought to lead her from the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But there was Richard now to be reckoned with, Richard from whom the palsy
+      was of a sudden fallen, now that the cause of it had withdrawn. He had his
+      back to the door, and his weak mouth was pursed up into a semblance of
+      resolution, his pale eyes looked stern, his white eyebrows bent together
+      in a frown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait,&rdquo; he said. They looked at him, and the shadow of a smile almost
+      flitted across Diana's face. He stepped to the door, and, opening it, held
+      it wide. &ldquo;Go, Diana,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Ruth and I must understand each other.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana hesitated. &ldquo;You had better go, Diana,&rdquo; said her cousin, whereupon
+      Mistress Horton went.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hot and fierce came the recriminations from Richard's lips when he and his
+      sister were alone, and Ruth weathered the storm bravely until it was
+      stemmed again by fresh fear in Richard. For Blake had suddenly reappeared.
+      He came forward from his window; his manner composed and full of
+      resolution. Young Westmacott recoiled, the heat all frozen out of him. But
+      Blake scarce looked at him, his smouldering glance was all for Ruth, who
+      watched him with incipient fear, despite herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;'tis not to be supposed a mind holding so much thought
+      for a husband's safety could find room for any concern as to another's. I
+      will ask you, natheless, to consider what tale I am to bear Lord
+      Feversham.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What tale?&rdquo; said she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye&mdash;that will account for what has chanced; for my failure to
+      discharge the task entrusted me, and for the slaughter of an officer of
+      his and twenty men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why ask me this?&rdquo; she demanded half angrily; then suddenly bethinking her
+      of how she had ruined his enterprise, and of the position in which she had
+      placed him, she softened. Her clear mind held justice very dear. She
+      approached. &ldquo;Oh, I am sorry&mdash;sorry, Sir Rowland,&rdquo; she cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sneered. He had wiped some of the blood from his face, but still looked
+      terrible enough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sorry!&rdquo; said he, and laughed unpleasantly. &ldquo;You'll come with me to
+      Feversham and tell him what you did,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I?&rdquo; She recoiled in fear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At once&rdquo; he informed her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wha... what's that?&rdquo; faltered Richard, calling up his manhood, and coming
+      forward. &ldquo;What are you saying, Blake?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Rowland disdained to heed him. &ldquo;Come, mistress,&rdquo; he said, and putting
+      forward his hand he caught her wrist and pulled her roughly towards him.
+      She struggled to free herself, but he leered evilly upon her, no whit
+      discomposed by her endeavours. Though short of stature, he was a man of
+      considerable bodily strength, and she, though tall, was slight of frame.
+      He released her wrist, and before she realized what he was about he had
+      stooped, passed an arm behind her knees, another round her waist, and,
+      swinging her from her feet, took her up bodily in his arms. He turned
+      about, and a scream broke from her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hold!&rdquo; cried Richard. &ldquo;Hold, you madman!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Keep off, or I'll make an end of you before I go,&rdquo; roared Blake over his
+      shoulder, for already he had turned about and was making for the window,
+      apparently no more hindered by his burden than had she been a doll.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard sprang to the door. &ldquo;Jasper!&rdquo; he bawled. &ldquo;Jasper!&rdquo; He had no
+      weapons, as we have seen, else it may be that he had made an attempt to
+      use them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth got a hand free and caught at the windowframe as Blake was leaping
+      through. It checked their progress, but did not sensibly delay it. It was
+      unfortunately her wounded hand with which she had sought to cling, and
+      with an angry, brutal wrench Sir Rowland compelled her to unclose her
+      grasp. He sped down the lawn towards the orchard, where his horse was
+      tethered. And now she knew in a subconscious sort of way why he had
+      earlier withdrawn. He had gone to saddle for this purpose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She struggled now, thinking that he would be too hampered to compel her to
+      his will. He became angry, and set her down beside his horse, one arm
+      still holding her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look you, mistress,&rdquo; he told her fiercely, &ldquo;living or dead, you come with
+      me to Feversham. Choose now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His tone was such that she never doubted he would carry out his threat.
+      And so in dull despair she submitted, hoping that Feversham might be a
+      gentleman and would recognize and respect a lady. Half fainting, she
+      allowed him to swing her to the withers of his horse. Thus they threaded
+      their way in the dim starlit night through the trees towards the gate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It stood open, and they passed out into the lane. There Sir Rowland put
+      his horse to the trot, which he increased to a gallop when he was over the
+      bridge and clear of the town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXI. THE SENTENCE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding, as we know, was to remain at Bridgwater for the purpose of
+      collecting from Mr. Newlington the fine which had been imposed upon him.
+      It is by no means clear whether Monmouth realized the fullness of the
+      tragedy at the merchant's house, and whether he understood that, stricken
+      with apoplexy at the thought of parting with so considerable a portion of
+      his fortune, Mr. Newlington had not merely fainted, but had expired under
+      His Grace's eyes. If he did realize it he was cynically indifferent, and
+      lest we should be doing him an injustice by assuming this we had better
+      give him the benefit of the doubt, and take it that in the subsequent
+      bustle of departure, his mind filled with the prospect of the night attack
+      to be delivered upon his uncle's army at-Sedgemoor, he thought no more
+      either of Mr. Newlington or of Mr. Wilding. The latter, as we know, had no
+      place in the rebel army; although a man of his hands, he was not a trained
+      soldier, and notwithstanding that he may fully have intended to draw his
+      sword for Monmouth when the time came, yet circumstances had led to his
+      continuing after Monmouth's landing the more diplomatic work of
+      movement-man, in which he had been engaged for the months that had
+      preceded it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So it befell that when Monmouth's army marched out of Bridgwater at eleven
+      o'clock on that Sunday night, not to make for Gloucester and Cheshire, as
+      was generally believed, but to fall upon the encamped Feversham at
+      Sedgemoor and slaughter the royal army in their beds, Mr. Wilding was left
+      behind. Trenchard was gone, in command of his troop of horse, and Mr.
+      Wilding had for only company his thoughts touching the singular happenings
+      of that busy night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He went back to the sign of The Ship overlooking the Cross, and, kicking
+      off his sodden shoes, he supped quietly in the room of which shattered
+      door and broken window reminded him of his odd interview with Ruth, and of
+      the comedy of love she had enacted to detain him there. The thought of it
+      embittered him; the part she had played seemed to his retrospective mind
+      almost a wanton's part&mdash;for all that in name she was his wife. And
+      yet, underlying a certain irrepressible nausea, came the reflection that,
+      after all, her purpose had been to save his life. It would have been a
+      sweet thought, sweet enough to have overlaid that other bitterness, had he
+      not insisted upon setting it down entirely to her gratitude and her sense
+      of justice. She intended to repay the debt in which she had stood to him
+      since, at the risk of his own life and fortune, he had rescued her brother
+      from the clutches of the Lord-Lieutenant at Taunton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sighed heavily as he thought of the results that had attended his
+      compulsory wedding of her. In the intensity of his passion, in the
+      blindness of his vanity, which made him confident&mdash;gloriously
+      confident&mdash;that did he make himself her husband, she herself would
+      make of him her lover before long, he had committed an unworthiness of
+      which it seemed he might never cleanse himself in life. There was but one
+      amend, as he had told her. Let him make it, and perhaps she would&mdash;out
+      of gratitude, if out of no other feeling&mdash;come to think more kindly
+      of him; and that night it seemed to him as he sat alone in that mean
+      chamber that it were a better and a sweeter thing to earn some measure of
+      her esteem by death than to continue in a life that inspired her hatred
+      and resentment. From which it will be seen how utterly he disbelieved the
+      protestations she had uttered in seeking to detain him. They were&mdash;he
+      was assured&mdash;a part of a scheme, a trick, to lull him while Monmouth
+      and his officers were being butchered. And she had gone the length of
+      saying she loved him! He regretted that, being as he was convinced of its
+      untruth. What cause had she to love him? She hated him, and because she
+      hated him she did not scruple to lie to him&mdash;once with suggestions
+      and this time with actual expression of affection&mdash;that she might
+      gain her ends: ends that concerned her brother and Sir Rowland Blake. Sir
+      Rowland Blake! The name was a very goad to his passion and despair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He rose from the table and took a turn in the room, moving noiselessly in
+      his stockinged feet. He felt the need of air and action; the weariness of
+      his flesh incurred in his long ride from London was cast off or forgotten.
+      He must go forth. He picked up his fine shoes of Spanish leather, but as
+      luck would have it&mdash;little though he guessed the extent just then&mdash;he
+      found them hardening, though still damp from the dews of Mr. Newlington's
+      garden. He cast them aside, and, taking a key from his pocket, unlocked an
+      oak cupboard and withdrew the heavy muddy boots in which he had ridden
+      from town. He drew them on and, taking up his hat and sword, went down the
+      creaking stairs and out into the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bridgwater had fallen quiet by now; the army was gone and townsfolk were
+      in their beds. Moodily, unconsciously, yet as if guided by a sort of
+      instinct, he went down the High Street, and then turned off into the
+      narrower lane that led in the direction of Lupton House. By the gates of
+      this he paused, recalled out of his abstraction and rendered aware of
+      whither his steps had led him by the sight of the hall door standing open,
+      a black figure silhouetted against the light behind it. What was happening
+      here? Why were they not abed like all decent folk?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The figure called to him in a quavering voice. &ldquo;Mr. Wilding! Mr. Wilding!&rdquo;
+       for the light beating upon his face and figure from the open door had
+      revealed him. The form came swiftly forward, its steps pattering down the
+      walk, another slenderer figure surged in its place upon the threshold,
+      hovered there an instant, then plunged down into the darkness to come
+      after it. But the first was by now upon Mr. Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it, Jasper?&rdquo; he asked, recognizing the old servant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mistress Ruth!&rdquo; wailed the fellow, wringing his hands. &ldquo;She... she has
+      been... carried off.&rdquo; He got it out in gasps, winded by his short run and
+      by the excitement that possessed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No word said Wilding. He just stood and stared, scarcely understanding,
+      and in that moment they were joined by Richard. He seized Wilding by the
+      arm. &ldquo;Blake has carried her off,&rdquo; he cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Blake?&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding, and wondered with a sensation of nausea was it
+      an ordinary running away. But Richard's next words made it plain to him
+      that it was no amorous elopement, nor even amorous abduction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has carried her to Feversham... for her betrayal of his to-night's
+      plan to seize the Duke.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That stirred Mr. Wilding. He wasted no time in idle questions or idler
+      complainings. &ldquo;How long since?&rdquo; he asked, and it was he who clutched
+      Richard now, by the shoulder and with a hand that hurt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not ten minutes ago,&rdquo; was the quavering answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you were at hand when it befell?&rdquo; cried Wilding, the scorn in his
+      voice rising superior to his agitation and fears for Ruth. &ldquo;You were at
+      hand, and could neither prevent nor follow him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll go with you now, if you'll give chase,&rdquo; whimpered Richard, feeling
+      himself for once the craven that he was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If?&rdquo; echoed Wilding scornfully, and dragged him past the gate and up
+      towards the house even as he spoke. &ldquo;Is there room for a doubt of it? Have
+      you horses, at least?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To spare,&rdquo; said Richard as they hurried on. They skirted the house and
+      found the stable door open as Blake had left it. Old Jasper followed with
+      a lamp which burned steadily, so calm was the air of that July night. In
+      three minutes they had saddled a couple of nags; in five they were riding
+      for the bridge and the road to Weston Zoyland.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a miracle you remained in Bridgwater,&rdquo; said Richard as they rode.
+      &ldquo;How came you to be left behind?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had a task assigned me in the town against the Duke's return
+      to-morrow,&rdquo; Wilding explained, and he spoke almost mechanically, his mind
+      full of&mdash;anguished by&mdash;thoughts of Ruth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Against the Duke's return?&rdquo; cried Richard, first surprised and then
+      thinking that Wilding spoke at random. &ldquo;Against the Duke's return?&rdquo; he
+      repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is what I said?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the Duke is marching to Gloucester.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Duke is marching by circuitous ways to Sedgemoor,&rdquo; answered Wilding,
+      never dreaming that at this time of day there could be the slightest
+      imprudence in saying so much, indeed, taking little heed of what he said,
+      his mind obsessed by the other, to him, far weightier matter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To Sedgemoor?&rdquo; gasped Westmacott.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye&mdash;to take Feversham by surprise&mdash;to destroy King James's
+      soldiers in their beds. He should be near upon the attack by now. But
+      there! Spur on and save your breath if we are to overtake Sir Rowland.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They pounded on through the night at a breakneck pace which they never
+      slackened until, when within a quarter of a mile or so of Penzoy Pound,
+      where the army was encamped and slumbering by now, they caught sight of
+      the musketeers' matches glowing in the dark ahead of them. An outpost
+      barred their progress; but Richard had the watchword, and he spurred ahead
+      shouting &ldquo;Albemarle,&rdquo; and the soldiers fell back and gave them passage. On
+      they galloped, skirting Penzoy Pound and the army sleeping in utter
+      unconsciousness of the fate that was creeping stealthily upon it out of
+      the darkness and mists across the moors; they clattered on past Langmoor
+      Stone and dashed straight into the village, Richard never drawing rein
+      until he reached the door of the cottage where Feversham was lodged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had come not only at a headlong pace, but in a headlong manner,
+      without quite considering what awaited them at the end of their ride in
+      addition to their object of finding Ruth. It was only now, as he drew rein
+      before the lighted house and caught the sound of Blake's raised voice
+      pouring through an open window on the ground floor, that Richard fully
+      realized what manner of rashness he was committing. He was too late to
+      rescue Ruth from Blake. What more could he look to achieve? His hope had
+      been that with Wilding's help he might snatch her from Sir Rowland before
+      the latter reached his destination. But now&mdash;to enter Feversham's
+      presence and in association with so notorious a rebel as Mr. Wilding were
+      a piece of folly of the heroic kind that Richard did not savour. Indeed,
+      had it not been for Wilding's masterful presence, it is more than odds he
+      had turned tail, and ridden home again to bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Wilding, who had leapt nimbly to the ground, stood waiting for Richard
+      to dismount, impatient now that from the sound of Sir Rowland's voice he
+      had assurance that Richard had proved an able guide. The young man got
+      down, but might yet have hesitated had not Wilding caught him by the arm
+      and whirled him up the steps, through the open door, past the two soldiers
+      who kept it, and who were too surprised to stay him, straight into the
+      long, low-ceilinged chamber where Feversham, attended by a captain of
+      horse, was listening to Blake's angry narrative of that night's failure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding's entrance was decidedly sensational. He stepped quickly
+      forward, and, taking Blake who was still talking, all unconscious of those
+      behind him, by the collar of his coat, he interrupted him in the middle of
+      an impassioned period, wrenched him backwards off his feet, and dashed him
+      with a force almost incredible into a heap in a corner of the room. There
+      for some moments the baronet lay half dazed by the shock of his fall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A long table, which seemed to divide the chamber in two, stood between
+      Lord Feversham and his officer and Mr. Wilding and Ruth&mdash;by whose
+      side he had now come to stand in Blake's room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was an exclamation, half anger, half amazement, at Mr. Wilding's
+      outrage upon Sir Rowland, and the captain of horse sprang forward. But
+      Wilding raised his hand, his face so composed and calm that it was
+      impossible to think him conceiving any violence, as indeed he protested at
+      that moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be assured, gentlemen,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that I have no further rudeness to
+      offer any so that this lady is suffered to withdraw with me.&rdquo; And he took
+      in his own a hand that Ruth, amazed and unresisting, yielded up to him.
+      That touch of his seemed to drive out her fears and to restore her
+      confidence; the mortal terror in which she had been until his coming
+      dropped from her now. She was no longer alone and abandoned to the
+      vindictiveness of rude and violent men. She had beside her one in whom
+      experience had taught her to have faith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Louis Duras, Marquis de Blanquefort, and Earl of Feversham, coughed with
+      mock discreetness under cover of his hand. &ldquo;Ahem!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was a comely man with a long nose, good low-lidded eyes, a humorous
+      mouth, and a weak chin; at a glance he looked what he was, a weak,
+      good-natured sensualist. He was resplendent at the moment in a blue satin
+      dressing-gown stiff with gold lace, for he had been interrupted by Blake's
+      arrival in the very act of putting himself to bed, and his head&mdash;divested
+      of his wig&mdash;was bound up in a scarf of many colours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At his side, the red-coated captain, arrested by the general's sardonic
+      cough, stood, a red-faced, freckled boy, looking to his superior for
+      orders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I t'ink you 'ave 'urt Sare Rowland,&rdquo; said Feversham composedly in his bad
+      English. &ldquo;Who are you, sare?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This lady's husband,&rdquo; answered Wilding, whereupon the captain stared and
+      Feversham's brows went up in surprised amusement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So-ho! T'at true?&rdquo; quoth the latter in a tone suggesting that it
+      explained everything to him. &ldquo;T'is gif a differen' colour to your story,
+      Sare Rowlan'.&rdquo; Then he added in a chuckle, &ldquo;Ho, ho&mdash;l'amour!&rdquo; and
+      laughed outright.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake, gathering together his wits and his limbs at the same time, made
+      shift to rise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a plague does their relationship matter?&rdquo; he began. He would have
+      added more, but the Frenchman thought this question one that needed
+      answering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Parbleu!&rdquo; he swore, his amusement rising. &ldquo;It seem to matter somet'ing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damn me!&rdquo; swore Blake, red in the face from pale that he had been. &ldquo;Do
+      you conceive that if I had run away with his wife for her own sake I had
+      fetched her to you?&rdquo; He lurched forward as he spoke, but kept his distance
+      from Wilding, who stood between Ruth and him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham bowed sardonically. &ldquo;You are a such flatterer, Sare Rowlan',&rdquo;
+       said he, laughter bubbling in his words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake looked his scorn of this trivial Frenchman, who, upon scenting what
+      appeared to be the comedy of an outraged husband overtaking the man who
+      had carried off his wife, forgot the serious business, a part of which Sir
+      Rowland had already imparted to him. Captain Wentworth&mdash;a
+      time-serving gentleman&mdash;smiled with this French general of a British
+      army that he might win the great man's favour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have told your lordship,&rdquo; said Blake, froth on his lips, &ldquo;that the
+      twenty men I had from you, as well as Ensign Norris, are dead in
+      Bridgwater, and that my plan to carry off King Monmouth has come to ruin,
+      all because we were betrayed by this woman. It is now my further privilege
+      to point out to your lordship the man to whom she sold us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham misliked Sir Rowland's arrogant tone, misliked his angry,
+      scornful glance. His eyes narrowed, the laughter faded slowly from his
+      face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes, I remember,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;t'is lady, you have tole us, betray you.
+      Ver' well. But you have not tole us who betray you to t'is lady.&rdquo; And he
+      looked inquiringly at Blake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The baronet's jaw dropped; his face lost some of its high colour. He was
+      stunned by the question as the bird is stunned that flies headlong against
+      a pane of glass. He had crashed into an obstruction so transparent that he
+      had not seen it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So!&rdquo; said Feversham, and he stroked the cleft of his chin. &ldquo;Captain
+      Wentwort', be so kind as to call t'e guard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wentworth moved to obey, but before he had gone round the table, Blake had
+      looked behind him and espied Richard shrinking by the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By heaven!&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;I can more than answer your lordship's question.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wentworth stopped, looking at Feversham.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Voyons,&rdquo; said the General.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can place you in possession of the man who has wrought our ruin. He is
+      there,&rdquo; and he pointed theatrically to Richard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham looked at the limp figure in some bewilderment. Indeed, he was
+      having a most bewildering evening&mdash;or morning, rather, for it was
+      even then on the stroke of one o'clock. &ldquo;An' who are you, sare?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard came forward, nerving himself for what was to follow. It had just
+      occurred to him that he held a card which should trump any trick of Sir
+      Rowland's vindictiveness, and the prospect heartened and comforted him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am this lady's brother, my lord,&rdquo; he answered, and his voice was fairly
+      steady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tiens!&rdquo; said Feversham, and, smiling, he turned to Wentworth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite a family party, sir,&rdquo; said the captain, smiling back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! mais tout&mdash;fait,&rdquo; said the General, laughing outright, and then
+      Wilding created a diversion by leading Ruth to a chair that stood at the
+      far end of the table, and drawing it forward for her. &ldquo;Ah, yes,&rdquo; said
+      Feversham airily, &ldquo;let Madame sit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very good, sir,&rdquo; said Ruth, her voice brave and calm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But somewhat lacking in spontaneity,&rdquo; Wilding criticized, which set
+      Wentworth staring and the Frenchman scowling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I call the guard, my lord?&rdquo; asked Wentworth crisply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I t'ink yes,&rdquo; said Feversham, and the captain gained the door, and spoke
+      a word to one of the soldiers without.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, my lord,&rdquo; exclaimed Blake in a tone of protest, &ldquo;I vow you are too
+      ready to take this fellow's word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He 'as spoke so few,&rdquo; said Feversham.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know who he is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You 'af 'eard 'im say&mdash;t'e lady's 'usband.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye&mdash;but his name,&rdquo; cried Blake, quivering with anger. &ldquo;Do you know
+      that it is Wilding?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The name certainly made an impression that might have flattered the man to
+      whom it belonged. Feversham's whole manner changed; the trivial air of
+      persiflage that he had adopted hitherto was gone on the instant, and his
+      brow grew dark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;T'at true?&rdquo; he asked sharply. &ldquo;Are you Mistaire Wildin'&mdash;Mistaire
+      Antoine Wildin'?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your lordship's most devoted servant,&rdquo; said Wilding suavely, and made a
+      leg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wentworth in the background paused in the act of reclosing the door to
+      stare at this gentleman whose name Albemarle had rendered so excellently
+      well known.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you to dare come 'ere?&rdquo; thundered Feversham, thoroughly roused by the
+      other's airy indifference. &ldquo;You to dare come 'ere&mdash;into my ver'
+      presence?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding smiled conciliatingly. &ldquo;I came for my wife, my lord,&rdquo; he
+      reminded him. &ldquo;It grieves me to intrude upon your lordship at so late an
+      hour, and indeed it was far from my intent. I had hoped to overtake Sir
+      Rowland before he reached you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nom de Dieu!&rdquo; swore Feversham. &ldquo;Ho! A so great effrontery!&rdquo; He swung
+      round upon Blake again. &ldquo;Sare Rowlan',&rdquo; he bade him angrily, &ldquo;be so kind
+      to tell me what 'appen in Breechwater&mdash;everyt'ing!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake, his face purple, seemed to struggle for breath and words. Mr.
+      Wilding answered for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir Rowland is so choleric, my lord,&rdquo; he said in his pleasant, level
+      voice, &ldquo;that perhaps the tale would come more intelligibly from me.
+      Believe me that he has served you to the best of his ability.
+      Unfortunately for the success of your choice plan of murder, I had news of
+      it at the eleventh hour, and with a party of musketeers I was able to
+      surprise and destroy your cut-throats in Mr. Newlington's garden. You see,
+      my lord, I was to have been one of the victims myself, and I resented the
+      attentions that were intended me. I had no knowledge that Sir Rowland had
+      contrived to escape, and, frankly, it is a thing I deplore more than I can
+      say, for had that not happened much trouble might have been saved and your
+      lordship's rest had not been disturbed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But t'e woman?&rdquo; cried Feversham impatiently. &ldquo;How is she come into this
+      galare?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was she who warned him,&rdquo; Blake got out, &ldquo;as already I have had the
+      honour to inform your lordship.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And your lordship cannot blame her for that,&rdquo; said Wilding. &ldquo;The lady is
+      a most loyal subject of King James; but she is also, as you observe, a
+      dutiful wife. I will add that it was her intention to warn me only when
+      too late for interference. Sir Rowland, as it happened, was slow in...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Silence!&rdquo; blazed the Frenchman. &ldquo;Now t'at I know who you are, t'at make a
+      so great difference. Where is t'e guard, Wentwort'?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hear them,&rdquo; answered the captain, and from the street came the tramp of
+      their marching feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham turned again to Blake. &ldquo;T'e affaire 'as 'appen' so,&rdquo; he said,
+      between question and assertion, summing up the situation as he understood
+      it. &ldquo;T'is rogue,&rdquo; and he pointed to Richard, &ldquo;'ave betray your plan to 'is
+      sister, who betray it to 'er 'usband, who save t'e Duc de Monmoot'.
+      N'est-ce pas?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is so,&rdquo; said Blake, and Ruth scarcely thought it worth while to add
+      that she had heard of the plot not only from her brother, but from Blake
+      as well. After all, Blake's attitude in the matter, his action in bringing
+      her to Feversham for punishment, and to exculpate himself, must suffice to
+      cause any such statement of hers to be lightly received by the General.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She sat in an anguished silence, her eyes wide, her face pale, and waited
+      for the end of this strange business. In her heart she did permit herself
+      to think that it would be difficult to assemble a group of men less worthy
+      of respect. Choleric and vindictive Blake, foolish Feversham, stupid
+      Wentworth, and timid Richard&mdash;even Richard did not escape the
+      unfavourable criticism they were undergoing in her subconscious mind. Only
+      Wilding detached in that assembly&mdash;as he had detached in another that
+      she remembered&mdash;and stood out in sharp relief a very man, calm,
+      intrepid, self-possessed; and if she was afraid, she was more afraid for
+      him than for herself. This was something that, perhaps, she scarcely
+      realized just then; but she was to realize it soon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham was speaking again, asking Blake a fresh question. &ldquo;And who
+      betray you to t'is rogue?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To Westmacott?&rdquo; cried Blake. &ldquo;He was in the plot with me. He was left to
+      guard the rear, to see that we were not taken by surprise, and he deserted
+      his post. Had he not done that, there had been no disaster, in spite of
+      Mr. Wilding's intervention.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham's brow was dark, his eyes glittered as they rested on the
+      traitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;T'at true, sare?&rdquo; he asked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not quite,&rdquo; put in Mr. Wilding. &ldquo;Mr. Westmacott, I think, was constrained
+      away. He did not intend...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tais-toi!&rdquo; blazed Feversham. &ldquo;Did I interrogate you? It is for Mistaire
+      Westercott to answer.&rdquo; He set a hand on the table and leaned forward
+      towards Wilding, his face very malign. &ldquo;You shall to answer for yourself,
+      Mistaire Wildin'; I promise you you shall to answer for yourself.&rdquo; He
+      turned again to Richard. &ldquo;Eh, bien?&rdquo; he snapped. &ldquo;Will you speak?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard came forward a step; he was certainly nervous, and certainly pale;
+      but neither as pale nor as nervous as from our knowledge of Richard we
+      might have looked to see him at that moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is in a measure true,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But what Mr. Wilding has said is more
+      exact. I was induced away. I did not dream any could know of the plan, or
+      that my absence could cause this catastrophe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you went, eh, vaurien? You t'ought t'at be to do your duty, eh? And it
+      was you who tole your sistaire?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I may have told her, but not before she had the tale already from Blake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham sneered and shrugged. &ldquo;Natural you will not speak true. A
+      traitor I 'ave observe' is always liar.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard drew himself up; he seemed invested almost with a new dignity.
+      &ldquo;Your lordship is pleased to account me a traitor?&rdquo; he inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A dam' traitor,&rdquo; said his lordship, and at that moment the door opened,
+      and a sergeant, with six men following him, stood at the salute upon the
+      threshold. &ldquo;A la bonne heure!&rdquo; his lordship hailed them. &ldquo;Sergean', you
+      will arrest t'is rogue and t'is lady,&rdquo;&mdash;he waved his hand from
+      Richard to Ruth&mdash;&ldquo;and you will take t'em to lock..up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sergeant advanced towards Richard, who drew a step away from him. Ruth
+      rose to her feet in agitation. Mr. Wilding interposed himself between her
+      and the guard, his hand upon his sword.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;do they teach no better courtesy in France?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham scowled at him, smiling darkly. &ldquo;I shall talk wit' you soon,
+      sare,&rdquo; said he, his words a threat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, my lord...&rdquo; began Richard. &ldquo;I can make it very plain I am no
+      traitor...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In t'e mornin',&rdquo; said Feversham blandly, waving his hand, and the
+      sergeant took Richard by the shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Richard twisted from his grasp. &ldquo;In the morning will be too late,&rdquo; he
+      cried. &ldquo;I have it in my power to render you such a service as you little
+      dream of.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take 'im away,&rdquo; said Feversham wearily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can save you from destruction,&rdquo; bawled Richard, &ldquo;you and your army.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps even now Feversham had not heeded him but for Wilding's sudden
+      interference.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Silence, Richard!&rdquo; he cried to him. &ldquo;Would you betray...?&rdquo; He checked on
+      the word; more he dared not say; but he hoped faintly that he had said
+      enough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham, however, chanced to observe that this man who had shown himself
+      hitherto so calm looked suddenly most singularly perturbed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh?&rdquo; quoth the General. &ldquo;An instan', Sergean'. What is t'is, eh?&rdquo;&mdash;and
+      he looked from Wilding to Richard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your lordship shall learn at a price,&rdquo; cried Richard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Me, I not bargain wit' traitors,&rdquo; said his lordship stiffly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well, then,&rdquo; answered Richard, and he folded his arms dramatically.
+      &ldquo;But no matter what your lordship's life may be hereafter, you will never
+      regret anything more bitterly than you shall regret this by sunrise if
+      indeed you live to see it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham shifted uneasily on his feet. &ldquo;'What you say?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;What
+      you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall know at a price,&rdquo; said Richard again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding, realizing the hopelessness of interfering now, stood gloomily
+      apart, a great bitterness in his soul at the indiscretion he had committed
+      in telling Richard of the night attack that was afoot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your lordship shall hear my price, but you need not pay it me until you
+      have had an opportunity of verifying the information I have to give you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me,&rdquo; said Feversham after a brief pause, during which he scrutinized
+      the young man's face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If your lordship will promise liberty and safe-conduct to my sister and
+      myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me,&rdquo; Feversham repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When you have promised to grant me what I ask in return for my
+      information.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, if I t'ink your information is wort'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am content,&rdquo; said Richard. He inclined his head and loosed the quarrel
+      of his news. &ldquo;Your camp is slumbering, your officers are all abed with the
+      exception of the outpost on the road to Bridgwater. What should you say if
+      I told you that Monmouth and all his army are marching upon you at this
+      very moment, will probably fall upon you before another hour is past?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding uttered a groan, and his hands fell to his sides. Had Feversham
+      observed this he might have been less ready with his sneering answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A lie!&rdquo; he answered, and laughed. &ldquo;My fren', I 'ave myself been to-night,
+      at midnight, on t'e moore, and I 'ave 'eard t'e army of t'e Duc de
+      Monmoot' marching to Bristol on t'e road&mdash;what you call t'e road,
+      Wentwort'?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Eastern Causeway, my lord,&rdquo; answered the captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Voil!&rdquo; said Feversham, and spread his hands. &ldquo;What you say now, eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That that is part of Monmouth's plan to come at you across the moors, by
+      way of Chedzoy, avoiding your only outpost, and falling upon you in your
+      beds, all unawares. Lord! sir, do not take my word for it. Send out your
+      scouts, and I dare swear they'll not need go far before they come upon the
+      enemy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham looked at Wentworth. His lordship's face had undergone a change.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What you t'ink?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed, my lord, it sounds so likely,&rdquo; answered Wentworth, &ldquo;that...
+      that... I marvel we did not provide against such a contingency.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I 'ave provide'!&rdquo; cried this nephew of the great Turenne. &ldquo;Ogelt'orpe
+      is on t'e moor and Sare Francis Compton. If t'is is true, 'ow can t'ey
+      'ave miss Monmoot'? Send word to Milor' Churchill at once, Wentwort'. Let
+      t'e matter be investigate'&mdash;at once, Wentwort'&mdash;at once!&rdquo; The
+      General was dancing with excitement. Wentworth saluted and turned to leave
+      the room. &ldquo;If you 'ave tole me true,&rdquo; continued Feversham, turning now to
+      Richard, &ldquo;you shall 'ave t'e price you ask, and t'e t'anks of t'e King's
+      army. But if not...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, it's true enough,&rdquo; broke in Wilding, and his voice was like a groan,
+      his face over-charged with gloom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham looked at him; his sneering smile returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Me, I not remember,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that Mr. Westercott 'ave include you in
+      t'e bargain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing had been further from Wilding's thoughts than such a suggestion.
+      And he snorted his disdain. The sergeant had fallen back at Feversham's
+      words, and his men lined the wall of the chamber. The General bade Richard
+      be seated whilst he waited. Sir Rowland stood apart, leaning wearily
+      against the wainscot, waiting also, his dull wits not quite clear how
+      Richard might have come by so valuable a piece of information, his evil
+      spirit almost wishing it untrue, in his vindictiveness, to the end that
+      Richard might pay the price of having played him false and Ruth the price
+      of having scorned him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham meanwhile was seeking&mdash;with no great success&mdash;to
+      engage Mr. Wilding in talk of Monmouth, against whom Feversham harboured
+      in addition to his political enmity a very deadly personal hatred; for
+      Feversham had been a suitor to the hand of the Lady Henrietta Wentworth,
+      the woman for whom Monmouth&mdash;worthy son of his father&mdash;had
+      practically abandoned his own wife; the woman with whom he had run off, to
+      the great scandal of court and nation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Despairing of drawing any useful information from Wilding, his lordship
+      was on the point of turning to Blake, when quick steps and the rattle of a
+      scabbard sounded without; the door was thrust open without ceremony, and
+      Captain Wentworth reappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord,&rdquo; he cried, his manner excited beyond aught one could have
+      believed possible in so phlegmatic-seeming a person, &ldquo;it is true. We are
+      beset.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beset!&rdquo; echoed Feversham. &ldquo;Beset already?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We can hear them moving on the moor. They are crossing the Langmoor
+      Rhine. They will be upon us in ten minutes at the most. I have roused
+      Colonel Douglas, and Dunbarton's regiment is ready for them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham exploded. &ldquo;What else 'ave you done?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;Where is Milor'
+      Churchill?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord Churchill is mustering his men as quietly as may be that they may be
+      ready to surprise those who come to surprise us. By Heaven, sir, we owe a
+      great debt to Mr. Westmacott. Without his information we might have had
+      all our throats cut whilst we slept.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be so kind to call Belmont,&rdquo; said Feversham. &ldquo;Tell him to bring my
+      clot'es.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wentworth turned and went out again to execute the General's orders.
+      Feversham spoke to Richard. &ldquo;We are oblige', Mr. Westercott,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;We
+      are ver' much oblige'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly from a little distance came the roll of drums. Other sounds began
+      to stir in the night outside to tell of a waking army.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham stood listening. &ldquo;It is Dunbarton's,&rdquo; he murmured. Then, with
+      some show of heat, &ldquo;Ah, pardieu!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;But it was a dirty t'ing t'is
+      Monmoot' 'ave prepare'. It is murder; it is not t'e war.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And yet,&rdquo; said Wilding critically, &ldquo;it is a little more like war than the
+      Bridgwater affair to which your lordship gave your sanction.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham pursed his lips and considered the speaker. Wentworth reentered,
+      followed by the Earl's valet carrying an armful of garments. His lordship
+      threw off his dressing-gown and stood forth in shirt and breeches.
+    </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mais duche-toi, donc, Belmont!&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Nous nous battons! Ii faut
+que je m'habille.&rdquo; Belmont, a little wizened fellow who understood
+nothing of this topsy-turveydom, hastened forward, deposited his armful
+on the table, and selected a finely embroidered waistcoat, which he
+proceeded to hold for his master. Wriggling into it, Feversham rapped
+out his orders.
+</p>
+    <p>
+&ldquo;Captain Wentwort', you will go to your regimen at once. But
+first, ah&mdash;wait. Take t'ose six men and Mistaire Wilding. 'Ave 'im shot
+at once; you onderstan', eh? Good. Allons, Belmont! my cravat.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXII. THE EXECUTION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Captain Wentworth clicked his heels together and saluted. Blake, in the
+      background, drew a deep breath&mdash;unmistakably of satisfaction, and his
+      eyes glittered. A muffled cry broke from Ruth, who rose instantly from her
+      chair, her hand on her bosom. Richard stood with fallen jaw, amazed, a
+      trifle troubled even, whilst Mr. Wilding started more in surprise than
+      actual fear, and approached the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You heard, sir,&rdquo; said Captain Wentworth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I heard,&rdquo; answered Mr. Wilding quietly. &ldquo;But surely not aright. One
+      moment, sir,&rdquo; and he waved his hand so compellingly that, despite the
+      order he had received, the phlegmatic captain hesitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham, who had taken the cravat&mdash;a yard of priceless Dutch lace&mdash;from
+      the hands of his valet, and was standing with his back to the company at a
+      small and very faulty mirror that hung by the overmantel, looked peevishly
+      over his shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord,&rdquo; said Wilding, and Blake, for all his hatred of this man,
+      marvelled at a composure that did not forsake him even now, &ldquo;you are
+      surely not proposing to deal with me in this fashion&mdash;not seriously,
+      my lord?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, ca!&rdquo; said the Frenchman. &ldquo;T'ink it a jest if you please. What for you
+      come 'ere?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Assuredly not for the purpose of being shot,&rdquo; said Wilding, and actually
+      smiled. Then, in the tones of one discussing a matter that is grave but
+      not of surpassing gravity, he continued: &ldquo;It is not that I fail to
+      recognize that I may seem to have incurred the rigour of the law; but
+      these matters must be formally proved against me. I have affairs to set in
+      order against such a consummation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ta, ta!&rdquo; snapped Feversham. &ldquo;T'at not regard me Weutwort', you 'ave
+      'eard my order.&rdquo; And he returned to his mirror and the nice adjustment of
+      his neckwear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, my lord,&rdquo; insisted Wilding, &ldquo;you have not the right&mdash;you have
+      not the power so to proceed against me. A man of my quality is not to be
+      shot without a trial.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can 'ang if you prefer,&rdquo; said Feversham indifferently, drawing out
+      the ends of his cravat and smoothing them down upon his breast. He faced
+      about briskly. &ldquo;Give me t'at coat, Belmont. His Majesty 'ave empower me to
+      'ang or shoot any gentlemens of t'e partie of t'e Duc t'e Monmoot' on t'e
+      spot. I say t'at for your satisfaction. And look, I am desolate' to be so
+      quick wit' you, but please to consider t'e circumstance. T'e enemy go to
+      attack. Wentwort' must go to his regimen', and my ot'er officers are all
+      occupi'. You comprehen' I 'ave not t'e time to spare you&mdash;n'est-ce-pas?&rdquo;&mdash;Wentworth's
+      hand touched Wilding on the shoulder. He was standing with head slightly
+      bowed, his brows knit in thought. He looked round at the touch, sighed and
+      smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Belmont held the coat for his master, who slipped into it, and flung at
+      Wilding what was intended for a consolatory sop. &ldquo;It is fortune de guerre,
+      Mistaire Wilding. I am desolate'; but it is fortune of t'e war.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May it be less fortunate for your lordship, then,&rdquo; said Wilding dryly,
+      and was on the point of turning, when Ruth's voice came in a loud cry to
+      startle him and to quicken his pulses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord!&rdquo; It was a cry of utter anguish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham, settling his gold-laced coat comfortably to his figure, looked
+      at her. &ldquo;Madame?&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she had nothing to say. She stood, deathly white, slightly bent
+      forward, one hand wringing the other, her eyes almost wild, her bosom
+      heaving frantically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hum!&rdquo; said Feversham, and he loosened and removed the scarf from his
+      head. He shrugged slightly and looked at Wentworth. &ldquo;Finissons!&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The word and the look snapped the trammels that bound Ruth's speech.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Five minutes, my lord!&rdquo; she cried imploringly. &ldquo;Give him five minutes&mdash;and
+      me, my lord!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding, deeply shaken, trembled now as he awaited Feversham's reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Frenchman seemed to waver. &ldquo;Bien,&rdquo; he began, spreading his hands. And
+      in that moment a shot rang out in the night and startled the whole
+      company. Feversham threw back his head; the signs of yielding left his
+      face. &ldquo;Ha!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;T'ey are arrive.&rdquo; He snatched his wig from his
+      lacquey's hands, donned it, and turned again an instant to the mirror to
+      adjust the great curls. &ldquo;Quick, Wentwort'! T'ere is no more time now. Make
+      Mistaire Wilding be shot at once. T'en to your regimen'.&rdquo; He faced about
+      and took the sword his valet proffered. &ldquo;Au revoir, messieurs!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Serviteur, madame!&rdquo; And, buckling his sword-belt as he went, he swept
+      out, leaving the door wide open, Belmont following, Wentworth saluting and
+      the guards presenting arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, sir,&rdquo; said the captain in a subdued voice, his eyes avoiding Ruth's
+      face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am ready,&rdquo; answered Wilding firmly, and he turned to glance at his
+      wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was bending towards him, her hands held out, such a look on her face
+      as almost drove him mad with despair, reading it as he did. He made a
+      sound deep in his throat before he found words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me one minute, sir&mdash;one minute,&rdquo; he begged Wentworth. &ldquo;I ask no
+      more than that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wentworth was a gentleman and not ill-natured. But he was a soldier and
+      had received his orders. He hesitated between the instincts of the two
+      conditions. And what time he did so there came a clatter of hoofs without
+      to resolve him. It was Feversham departing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall have your minute, sir,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;More I dare not give you, as
+      you can see.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From my heart I thank you,&rdquo; answered Mr. Wilding, and from the gratitude
+      of his tone you might have inferred that it was his life Wentworth had
+      accorded him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The captain had already turned aside to address his men. &ldquo;Two of you
+      outside, guard that window,&rdquo; he ordered. &ldquo;The rest of you, in the passage.
+      Bestir there!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take your precautions, by all means, sir,&rdquo; said Wilding; &ldquo;but I give you
+      my word of honour I shall attempt no escape.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wentworth nodded without replying. His eye lighted on Blake&mdash;who had
+      been seemingly forgotten in the confusion&mdash;and on Richard. A
+      kindliness for the man who met his end so unflinchingly, a respect for so
+      worthy an enemy, actuated the red-faced captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You had better take yourself off, Sir Rowland,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;And you, Mr.
+      Westmacott&mdash;you can wait in the passage with my men.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They obeyed him promptly enough, but when outside Sir Rowland made bold to
+      remind the captain that he was failing in his duty, and that he should
+      make a point of informing the General of this anon. Wentworth bade him go
+      to the devil, and so was rid of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alone, inside that low-ceilinged chamber, stood Ruth and Wilding face to
+      face. He advanced towards her, and with a shuddering sob she flung herself
+      into his arms. Still, he mistrusted the emotion to which she was a prey&mdash;dreading
+      lest it should have its root in pity. He patted her shoulder soothingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, nay, little child,&rdquo; he whispered in her ear. &ldquo;Never weep for me that
+      have not a tear for myself. What better resolution of the difficulties my
+      folly has created?&rdquo; For only answer she clung closer, her hands locked
+      about his neck, her slender body shaken by her silent weeping. &ldquo;Don't pity
+      me,&rdquo; he besought her. &ldquo;I am content it should be so. It is the amend I
+      promised you. Waste no pity on me, Ruth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She raised her face, her eyes wild and blurred with tears, looked up to
+      his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not pity!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;I want you, Anthony! I love you, Anthony,
+      Anthony!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His face grew ashen. &ldquo;It is true, then!&rdquo; he asked her. &ldquo;And what you said
+      to-night was true! I thought you said it only to detain me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, it is true, it is true!&rdquo; she wailed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sighed; he disengaged a hand to stroke her face. &ldquo;I am happy,&rdquo; he said,
+      and strove to smile. &ldquo;Had I lived, who knows...?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no, no,&rdquo; she interrupted him passionately, her arms tightening about
+      his neck. He bent his head. Their lips met and clung. A knock fell upon
+      the door. They started, and Wilding raised his hands gently to disengage
+      her pinioning arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must go, sweet,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God help me!&rdquo; she moaned, and clung to him still. &ldquo;It is I who am killing
+      you&mdash;I and your love for me. For it was to save me you rode hither
+      to-night, never pausing to weigh your own deadly danger. Oh, I am punished
+      for having listened to every voice but the voice of my own heart where you
+      were concerned. Had I loved you earlier&mdash;had I owned it earlier...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It had still been too late,&rdquo; he said, more to comfort her than because he
+      knew it to be so. &ldquo;Be brave for my sake, Ruth. You can be brave, I know&mdash;so
+      well. Listen, sweet. Your words have made me happy. Mar not this happiness
+      of mine by sending me out in grief at your grief.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her response to his prayer was brave, indeed. Through her tears came a
+      faint smile to overspread her face so white and pitiful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall meet soon again,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye&mdash;think on that,&rdquo; he bade her, and pressed her to him. &ldquo;Good-bye,
+      sweet! God keep you till we meet!&rdquo; he added, his voice infinitely tender.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilding!&rdquo; Wentworth's voice called him, and the captain thrust the
+      door open a foot or so. &ldquo;Mr. Wilding!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am coming,&rdquo; he answered steadily. He kissed her again, and on that kiss
+      of his she sank against him, and he felt her turn all limp. He raised his
+      voice. &ldquo;Richard!&rdquo; he shouted wildly. &ldquo;Richard!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the note of alarm in his voice, Wentworth flung wide the door and
+      entered, Richard's ashen face showing over his shoulder. In her brother's
+      care Wilding delivered his mercifully unconscious wife. &ldquo;See to her,
+      Dick,&rdquo; he said, and turned to go, mistrusting himself now. But he paused
+      as he reached the door, Wentworth waxing more and more impatient at his
+      elbow. He turned again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dick,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;we might have been better friends. I would we had been.
+      Let us part so at least,&rdquo; and he held out his hand, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before so much gallantry Richard was conquered almost to the point of
+      worship; a weak man himself, there was no virtue he could more admire than
+      strength. He left Ruth in the high-backed chair in which Wilding's tender
+      hands had placed her, and sprang forward, tears in his eyes. He wrung
+      Wilding's hands in wordless passion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be good to her, Dick,&rdquo; said Wilding, and went out with Wentworth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was marched down the street in the centre of that small party of
+      musketeers of Dunbarton's regiment, his thoughts all behind him rather
+      than ahead, a smile on his lips. He had conquered at the last. He thought
+      of that other parting of theirs, nearly a month ago, on the road by
+      Walford. Now, as then, circumstance was the fire that had melted her. But
+      the crucible was no longer&mdash;as then of pity; it was the crucible of
+      love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And in that same crucible, too, Anthony Wilding's nature had undergone a
+      transmutation; his love for Ruth had been purified of that base alloy of
+      desire which had driven him into the unworthiness of making her his own at
+      all costs; there was no carnal grossness in his present passion; it was
+      pure as a religion&mdash;the love that takes no account of self, the love
+      that makes for joyous and grateful martyrdom. And a joyous and grateful
+      martyr would Anthony Wilding have been could he have thought that his
+      death would bring her happiness or peace. In such a faith as that he had
+      marched&mdash;or so he thought blithely to his end, and the smile on his
+      lips had been less wistful than it was. Thinking of the agony in which he
+      had left her, he almost came to wish&mdash;so pure was his love grown&mdash;that
+      he had not conquered. The joy that at first was his was now all dashed.
+      His death would cause her pain. His death! O God! It is an easy thing to
+      be a martyr; but this was not martyrdom; having done what he had done he
+      had not the right to die. The last vestige of the smile that he had worn
+      faded from his tight-pressed lips, tight-pressed as though to endure some
+      physical suffering. His face greyed, and deep lines furrowed his brow.
+      Thus he marched on, mechanically, amid his marching escort, through the
+      murky, fog-laden night, taking no heed of the stir about them, for all
+      Weston Zoyland was aroused by now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ahead of them, and over to the east, the firing blazed and crackled,
+      volley upon volley, to tell them that already battle had been joined in
+      earnest. Monmouth's surprise had aborted, and it passed through Wilding's
+      mind that to a great extent he was to blame for this. But it gave him
+      little care.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At least his indiscretion had served the purpose of rescuing Ruth from
+      Lord Feversham's unclean clutches. For the rest, knowing that Monmouth's
+      army by far outnumbered Feversham's, he had no doubt that the advantage
+      must still lie with the Duke, in spite of Feversham's having been warned
+      in the eleventh hour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Louder grew the sounds of battle. Above the din of firing a swelling
+      chorus rose upon the night, startling and weird in such a time and place.
+      Monmouth's pious infantry went into action singing hymns, and Wentworth,
+      impatient to be at his post, bade his men go faster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The night was by now growing faintly luminous, and the deathly grey light
+      of approaching dawn hung in the mists upon the moor. Objects grew visible
+      in bulk at least, if not in form and shape, by the time the little company
+      had reached the end of Weston village and come upon the deep mud dyke
+      which had been Wentworth's objective&mdash;a ditch that communicated with
+      the great rhine that served the King's forces so well on that night of
+      Sedgemoor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Within some twenty paces of this Wentworth called a halt, and would have
+      had Wilding's hands pinioned behind him, and his eyes blindfolded, but
+      that Wilding begged him this might not be done. Wentworth was, as we know,
+      impatient; and between impatience and kindliness, perhaps, he acceded to
+      Wilding's prayer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He even hesitated a moment at the last. It was in his mind to speak some
+      word of comfort to the doomed man. Then a sudden volley, more terrific
+      than any that had preceded it, followed by hoarse cheering away to
+      eastward, quickened his impatience. He bade the sergeant lead Mr. Wilding
+      forward and stand him on the edge of the ditch. His object was that thus
+      the man's body would be disposed of without waste of time. This Wilding
+      realized, his soul rebelling against this fate which had come upon him in
+      the very hour when he most desired to live. Mad thoughts of escape crossed
+      his mind&mdash;of a leap across the dyke, and a wild dash through the fog.
+      But the futility of it was too appalling. The musketeers were already
+      blowing their matches. He would suffer the ignominy of being shot in the
+      back, like a coward, if he made any such attempt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so, despairing but not resigned, he took his stand on the very edge of
+      the ditch. In an irony of obligingness he set half of his heels over the
+      void, so that he was nicely balanced upon the edge of the cutting, and
+      must go backwards and down into the mud when hit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was this position he had taken that gave him an inspiration in that
+      last moment. The sergeant had moved away out of the line of fire, and he
+      stood there alone, waiting, erect and with his head held high, his eyes
+      upon the grey mass of musketeers&mdash;blurred alike by mist and
+      semi-darkness&mdash;some twenty paces distant along the line of which
+      glowed eight red fuses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wentworth's voice rang out with the words of command.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Blow your matches!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Brighter gleamed the points of light, and under their steel pots the faces
+      of the musketeers, suffused by a dull red glow, sprang for a moment out of
+      the grey mass, to fade once more into the general greyness at the word,
+      &ldquo;Cock your matches!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Guard your pans!&rdquo; came a second later the captain's voice, and then:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Present!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a stir and rattle, and the dark, indistinct figure standing on
+      the lip of the ditch was covered by the eight muskets. To the eyes of the
+      firing-party he was no more than a blurred shadowy form, showing a little
+      darker than the encompassing dark grey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give fire!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On the word Mr. Wilding lost the delicate, precarious balance he had been
+      sustaining on the edge of the ditch, and went over backwards, at the
+      imminent risk&mdash;as he afterwards related&mdash;of breaking his neck.
+      At the same instant a jagged, eight-pointed line of flame slashed the
+      darkness, and the thunder of the volley pealed forth to lose itself in the
+      greater din of battle on Penzoy Pound, hard by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIII. MR. WILDING'S BOOTS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In the filth of the ditch, Mr. Wilding rolled over and lay prone. He threw
+      out his left arm, and rested his brow upon it to keep his face above the
+      mud. He strove to hold his breath, not that he might dissemble death, but
+      that he might avoid being poisoned by the foul gases that, disturbed by
+      his weight, bubbled up to choke him. His body half sank and settled in the
+      mud, and seen from above, as he was presently seen by Wentworth&mdash;who
+      ran forward with the sergeant's lanthorn to assure himself that the work
+      had been well done&mdash;he had all the air of being not only dead but
+      already half buried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now, for a second, Mr. Wilding was in his greatest danger, and this
+      from the very humaneness of the sergeant. The fellow advanced to the
+      captain's side, a pistol in his hand. Wentworth held the light aloft and
+      peered down into that six feet of blackness at the jacent figure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I give him an ounce of lead to make sure, Captain?&rdquo; quoth the
+      sergeant. But Wentworth, in his great haste, had already turned about, and
+      the light of his lanthorn no longer revealed the form of Mr. Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is not the need. The ditch will do what may remain to be done, if
+      anything does. Come on, man. We are wanted yonder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The light passed, steps retreated, the sergeant muttering, and then
+      Wentworth's voice was heard by Wilding some little distance off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bring up your muskets!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shoulder!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By the right&mdash;turn! March!&rdquo; And the tramp, tramp of feet receded
+      rapidly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding was already sitting up, endeavouring to get a breath of purer air.
+      He rose to his feet, sinking almost to the top of his boots in the oozy
+      slime. Foul gases were belched up to envelop him. He seized at
+      irregularities in the bank, and got his head above the level of the
+      ground. He thrust forward his chin and took great greedy breaths in a very
+      gluttony of air&mdash;and never came Muscadine sweeter to a drunkard's
+      lips. He laughed softly to himself. He was alone and safe. Wentworth and
+      his men had disappeared. Away in the direction of Penzoy Pound the sounds
+      of battle swelled ever to a greater volume. Cannons were booming now, and
+      all was uproar&mdash;flame and shouting, cheering and shrieking, the
+      thunder of hastening multitudes, the clash of steel, the pounding of
+      horses, all blent to make up the horrid din of carnage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding listened, and considered what to do. His first impulse was to
+      join the fray. But, bethinking him that there could be little place for
+      him in the confusion that must prevail by now, he reconsidered the matter,
+      and his thoughts returning to Ruth&mdash;the wife for whom he had been at
+      such pains to preserve himself on the very brink of death&mdash;he
+      resolved to endanger himself no further for that night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He dropped back into the ditch, and waded, ankle deep in slime, to the
+      other side. There he crawled out, and gaining the moor lay down awhile to
+      breathe his lungs. But not for long. The dawn was creeping pale and
+      ghostly across the solid earth, and a faint fresh breeze was stirring and
+      driving the mist in wispy shrouds before it. If he lingered there he might
+      yet be found by some party of Royalist soldiers, and that would be to undo
+      all that he had done. He rose, and struck out across the peaty ground.
+      None knew the moors better than did he, and had he been with Grey's horse
+      that night, it is possible things had fared differently, for he had proved
+      a surer guide than did Godfrey, the spy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first he thought of making for Bridgwater and Lupton House. By now
+      Richard would be on his way thither with Ruth, and Wilding was in haste
+      that she should be reassured that he had not fallen to the muskets of
+      Wentworth's firing-party. But Bridgwater was far, and he began to realize,
+      now that all excitement was past, that he was utterly exhausted. Next he
+      thought of Scoresby Hall and his cousin Lord Gervase. But he was by no
+      means sure that he might count upon a welcome. Gervase had shown no
+      sympathy for Monmouth or his partisans, and whilst he would hardly go so
+      far as to refuse Mr. Wilding shelter, still Wilding felt an aversion to
+      seeking what might be grudged him. At last he bethought him of home.
+      Zoyland Chase was near at hand; but he had not been there since his
+      wedding-day, and in the mean time he knew that it had been used as a
+      barrack for the militia, and had no doubt that it had been wrecked and
+      plundered. Still, it must have walls and a roof, and that, for the time,
+      was all he craved, that he might rest awhile and recuperate his wasted
+      forces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A half-hour later he dragged himself wearily up the avenue between the
+      elms&mdash;looking white as snow in the pale July dawn&mdash;to the
+      clearing in front of his house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Desertion was stamped upon the face of it. Shattered windows and hanging
+      shutters everywhere. How wantonly they had wrecked it! It might have been
+      a church, and the militia a regiment of Cromwell's iconoclastic Puritans.
+      The door was locked, but going round he found a window&mdash;one of the
+      door-windows of his library&mdash;hanging loose upon its hinges. He pushed
+      it wide, and entered with a heavy heart. Instantly something stirred in a
+      corner; a fierce growl was followed by a furious bark, and a lithe brown
+      body leapt from the greater into the lesser shadows to attack the
+      intruder. But at one word of his the hound checked suddenly, crouched an
+      instant, then with a queer, throaty sound bounded forward in a wild
+      delight that robbed it on the instant of its voice. It found it anon and
+      leapt about him, barking furious joy in spite of all his vain endeavours
+      to calm it. He grew afraid lest the dog should draw attention. He knew not
+      who&mdash;if any&mdash;might be in possession of his house. The library,
+      as he looked round, showed a scene of wreckage that excellently matched
+      the exterior. Not a picture on the walls, not an arras, but had been rent
+      to shreds. The great lustre that had hung from the centre of the ceiling
+      was gone. Disorder reigned along the bookshelves, and yet there and
+      elsewhere there was a certain orderliness, suggesting an attempt to
+      straighten up the place after the ravagers had departed. It was these
+      signs made him afraid the house might be tenanted by such as might prove
+      his enemies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Down, Jack,&rdquo; he said to the dog for the twentieth time, patting its sleek
+      head. &ldquo;Down, down!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But still the dog bounded about him, barking wildly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sh!&rdquo; he hissed suddenly. Steps sounded in the hall. It was as he feared.
+      The door was suddenly thrown open, and the grey morning light gleamed upon
+      the long barrel of a musket. After it, bearing it, entered a white-haired
+      old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused on the threshold, measuring the tall disordered stranger who
+      stood there, his figure a black silhouette against the window by which he
+      had entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What seek you here, sir, in this house of desolation?&rdquo; asked the voice of
+      Mr. Wilding's old servant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He answered but one word. &ldquo;Walters!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The musket dropped with a clatter from the old man's hands. He sank back
+      against the doorpost and leaned there an instant; then, whimpering and
+      laughing, he came tottering forward&mdash;his old legs failing him in this
+      excess of unexpected joy&mdash;and sank on his knees to kiss his master's
+      hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding patted the old head, as he had patted the dog's a little while
+      ago. He was oddly moved; there was a knot in his throat. No home-coming
+      could well have been more desolate. And yet, what home-coming could have
+      brought him such a torturing joy as was now his? Oh, it is good to be
+      loved, if it be by no more than a dog and an old servant!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a moment Walters was himself again. He was on his feet, scrutinizing
+      Wilding's haggard face and disordered, filthy clothes. He broke into
+      exclamations between dismay and reproach, but these Wilding interrupted to
+      ask the old man how it happened that he had remained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My son John was a sergeant in the troop that quartered itself here, sir,&rdquo;
+       Walters explained, &ldquo;and so they left me alone. But even had it not been
+      for that, I scarcely think they would have harmed an old man. They were
+      brave fellows for all the mischief they did here, and they seemed to have
+      little heart in the service of the Popish King. It was the officers drove
+      them on to all this damage, and once they'd started&mdash;well, there were
+      rogues amongst them saw a chance of plunder, and they took it. I have
+      sought to put the place to rights; but they did some woeful, wanton
+      mischief.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding sighed. &ldquo;It's little matter, perhaps, as the place is no longer
+      mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No... no longer yours, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm an attainted outlaw, Walters,&rdquo; he explained. &ldquo;They'll bestow it on
+      some Popish time-server, unless King Monmouth can follow up by greater
+      victories to-night's. Have you aught a man may eat or drink?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Meat and wine, fresh linen and fresh garments did old Walters find him;
+      and when he had washed, eaten, and drunk, Mr. Wilding wrapped himself in a
+      dressing-gown and laid himself down to sleep on a settle in the library,
+      his servant and his dog on guard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not above an hour, however, was he destined to enjoy his hard-earned rest.
+      The light had grown, meanwhile, and from grey it had turned golden, the
+      heralds of the sun being already in the east. In the distance the firing
+      had died down to a mere occasional boom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly old Walters raised his head to listen. The beat of hoofs was
+      drawing rapidly near, so near that presently he rose in alarm, for a
+      horseman was pounding up the avenue, had drawn rein at the main entrance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Walters knit his brows in perplexity, and glanced at his master who slept
+      on utterly worn out. A silent pause followed, lasting some minutes. Then
+      it was the dog that rose with a growl, his coat bristling, and an instant
+      later there came a sharp rapping at the hall door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sh! Down, Jack!&rdquo; whispered Walters, afraid of rousing Mr. Wilding. He
+      tiptoed softly across the room, picked up his musket, and, calling the
+      dog, went out, a great fear in his heart, but not for himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rapping continued, growing every instant more urgent, so urgent that
+      Walters was almost reassured. Here was no enemy, but surely some one in
+      need. Walters opened at last, and Mr. Trenchard, grimy of face and hands,
+      his hat shorn of its plumes, his clothes torn, staggered with an oath
+      across the threshold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Walters!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Thank God! I thought you'd be here, but I wasn't
+      certain. Down, Jack!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The hound was barking madly again, having recognized an old friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Plague on the dog!&rdquo; growled Walters. &ldquo;He'll wake Mr. Wilding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilding?&rdquo; said Trenchard, and checked midway across the hall. &ldquo;Mr.
+      Wilding?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He arrived here a couple of hours ago, sir...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wilding here? Oddsheart! I was more than well advised to come. Where is
+      he, man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sh, sir! He's asleep in the library. You'll wake him, you'll wake him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Trenchard never paused. He crossed the hall at a bound, and flung wide
+      the library door. &ldquo;Anthony!&rdquo; he shouted. &ldquo;Anthony!&rdquo; And in the background
+      Walters cursed him for a fool. Wilding leapt to his feet, awake and
+      startled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wha... Nick!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oons!&rdquo; roared Nick. &ldquo;You're choicely found. I came to send to Bridgwater
+      for you. We must away at once, man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How&mdash;away? I thought you were in the fight, Nick.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And don't I look as if I had been?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But then...
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The fight is fought and lost; there's an end to the garboil. Monmouth is
+      in full flight with what's left him of his horse. When I quitted the
+      field, he was riding hard for Polden Hill.&rdquo; He dropped into a chair, his
+      accents grim and despairing, his eyes haggard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lost?&rdquo; gasped Wilding, and his conscience pricked him for a moment,
+      remembering how much it had been his fault&mdash;however indirectly&mdash;that
+      Feversham had been forewarned. &ldquo;But how lost?&rdquo; he cried a moment later.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ask Grey,&rdquo; snapped Trenchard. &ldquo;Ask his craven, numskulled lordship. He
+      had as good a hand in losing it as any. Oh, it was all most infernally
+      mishandled, as has been everything in this ill-starred rising. Grey sent
+      back Godfrey, the guide, and attempted in the dark to find his own way
+      across the rhine. He missed the ford. What else could the fool have hoped?
+      And when he was discovered and Dunbarton's guns began to play on us&mdash;hell
+      and fire! we ran as if Sedgemoor had been a race-course.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The rest was but the natural sequel. The foot, seeing our confusion,
+      broke. They were rallied again; broke again; and again were rallied; but
+      all too late. The enemy was up, and with that damned ditch between us
+      there was no getting to close quarters with them. Had Grey ridden round,
+      and sought to turn their flank, things might have been&mdash;O God!&mdash;they
+      would have been entirely different. I did suggest it. But for my pains
+      Grey threatened to pistol me if I presumed to instruct him in his duty. I
+      would to Heaven I had pistolled him where he stood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Walters, at gaze in the doorway, listened to the bitter tirade. Wilding,
+      on the settle, sat silent a moment, his elbows on his knees, his chin in
+      his hands, his eyes set and grim as Trenchard's own. Then he mastered
+      himself, and waved a hand towards the table where stood food and wine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eat and drink, Nick,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and we'll discuss what's to be done.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It'll need little discussing,&rdquo; was Nick's savage answer as he rose and
+      went to pour himself a cup of wine. &ldquo;There's but one course open to us
+      &mdash;instant flight. I am for Minehead to join Hewling's horse, which
+      went there yesterday for guns. We might seize a ship somewhere on the
+      coast, and thus get out of this infernal country of mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They discussed the matter in spite of Trenchard's having said that there
+      was nothing to discuss, and in the end Wilding agreed to go with him. What
+      choice had he? But first he must go to Bridgwater to reassure his wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To Bridgwater?&rdquo; blazed Trenchard, in a passion at the folly of the
+      suggestion. &ldquo;You're clearly mad! All the King's forces will be there in an
+      hour or two.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No matter,&rdquo; said Wilding, &ldquo;I must go. I am dead already, as it happens.&rdquo;
+       And he related his singular adventure in Feversham's camp last night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard heard him in amazement. If any suspicion crossed his mind that
+      his friend's love affairs had had anything to do with rousing Feversham
+      prematurely, he showed no sign of it. But he shook his head at Wilding's
+      insistence that he must first go to Lupton House.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shalt send a message, Anthony. Walters will find some one to bear it. But
+      you must not go yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the end Mr. Trenchard prevailed upon him to adopt this course, however
+      reluctant he might be. Thereafter they proceeded to make their
+      preparations. There were still a couple of nags in the stables, in spite
+      of the visitation of the militia, and Walters was able to find fresh
+      clothes for Mr. Trenchard above-stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A half-hour later they were ready to set out on this forlorn hope of
+      escape; the horses were at the door, and Mr. Wilding was in the act of
+      drawing on the fresh pair of boots which Walters had fetched him. Suddenly
+      he paused, his foot in the leg of his right boot, and sat bemused a
+      moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard, watching him, waxed impatient. &ldquo;What ails you now?&rdquo; he croaked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without answering him, Wilding turned to Walters. &ldquo;Where are the boots I
+      wore last night?&rdquo; he asked, and his voice was sharp&mdash;oddly sharp,
+      considering how trivial the matter of his speech.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the kitchen,&rdquo; answered Walters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fetch me them.&rdquo; And he kicked off again the boot he had half drawn on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But they are all befouled with mud, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Clean them, Walters; clean them and let me have them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Still Walters hesitated, pointing out that the boots he had brought his
+      master were newer and sounder. Wilding interrupted him impatiently. &ldquo;Do as
+      I bid you, Walters.&rdquo; And the old man, understanding nothing, went off on
+      the errand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A pox on your boots!&rdquo; swore Trenchard. &ldquo;What does this mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding seemed suddenly to have undergone a transformation. His gloom had
+      fallen from him. He looked up at his old friend and, smiling, answered
+      him. &ldquo;It means, Nick, that whilst these excellent boots that Walters would
+      have me wear might be well enough for a ride to the coast such as you
+      propose, they are not at all suited to the journey I intend to make.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Maybe,&rdquo; said Nick with a sniff, &ldquo;you're intending to journey to Tower
+      Hill?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In that direction,&rdquo; answered Mr. Wilding suavely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am for London, Nick. And you shall come with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God save us! Do you keep a fool's egg under that nest of hair?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding explained, and by the time Walters returned with the boots
+      Trenchard was walking up and down the room in an odd agitation. &ldquo;Odds my
+      life, Tony!&rdquo; he cried at last. &ldquo;I believe it is the best thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The only thing, Nick.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And since all is lost, why...&rdquo; Trenchard blew out his cheeks and smacked
+      fist into palm. &ldquo;I am with you,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIV. JUSTICE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It has fallen to my lot in the course of this veridical chronicle of Mr.
+      Anthony Wilding's connection with the Rebellion in the West, and of his
+      wedding and post-nuptial winning of Ruth Westmacott, to relate certain
+      matters of incident and personality that may be accounted strange. But the
+      strangest yet remains to be related. For in spite of all that had passed
+      between Sir Rowland Blake and the Westmacotts on that memorable night of
+      Sunday to Monday, on which the battle of Sedgemoor was lost and won,
+      towards the end of that same month of July we find him not only back at
+      Lupton House, but once again the avowed suitor of Mr. Wilding's widow. For
+      effrontery this is a matter of which it is to be doubted whether history
+      furnishes a parallel. Indeed, until the circumstances are sifted it seems
+      wild and incredible. So let us consider these.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the morrow of Sedgemoor, the town of Bridgwater became invested&mdash;infested
+      were no whit too strong a word&mdash;by the King's forces under Feversham
+      and the odious Kirke, and there began a reign of terror for the town. The
+      prisons were choked with attainted and suspected rebels. From Bridgwater
+      to Weston Zoyland the road was become an avenue of gallows, each bearing
+      its repulsive grimace-laden burden; for the King's commands were
+      unequivocal, and hanging was the order of the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is not my desire at this stage to surfeit you with the horrors that
+      were perpetrated during that hideous week of July, when no man's life was
+      safe from the royal butchers. The awful campaign of Jeffries and his four
+      associates was yet to follow, but it is doubtful if it could compare in
+      ruthlessness with that of Feversham and Kirke. At least, when Jeffries
+      came, men were given a trial&mdash;or what looked like it&mdash;and there
+      remained them a chance, however slender, of acquittal, as many lived to
+      prove thereafter. With Feversham there was no such chance. And it was of
+      this circumstance that Sir Rowland Blake took the fullest and the
+      cowardliest advantage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There can be no doubt that Sir Rowland was a villain. It might be urged
+      for him that he was a creature of circumstance, and that had circumstances
+      been other it is possible he had been a credit to his name. But he was
+      weak in character, and out of that weakness he had developed a Herculean
+      strength in villainy. Failure had dogged him in everything he undertook.
+      Broken at the gaming-tables, hounded out of town by creditors, he was in
+      desperate straits to repair his fortunes and, as we have seen, he was not
+      nice in his endeavours to achieve that end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth Westmacott's fair inheritance had seemed an easy thing to conquer,
+      and to its conquest he had applied himself to suffer defeat as he had
+      suffered it in all things else. But Sir Rowland did not yet acknowledge
+      himself beaten, and the Bridgwater reign of terror dealt him a fresh hand&mdash;a
+      hand of trumps. With this he came boldly to renew the game.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was as smooth as oil at first, a very penitent, confessing himself mad
+      in what he had done on that Sunday night&mdash;mad with despair and rage
+      at having been defeated in the noble task to which he had turned his
+      hands. His penitence might have had little effect upon the Westmacotts had
+      he not known how to insinuate that it might be best for them to lend an
+      ear to it&mdash;and a forgiving one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will tell Mr. Westmacott, Jasper,&rdquo; he had said, when Jasper told him
+      that they could not receive him, &ldquo;that he would be unwise not to see me,
+      and the same to Mistress Wilding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And old Jasper had carried his message, and had told Richard of the wicked
+      smile that had been on Sir Rowland's lips when he had uttered it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now Richard was in many ways a changed man since that night at Weston
+      Zoyland. A transformation seemed to have been wrought in him as odd as it
+      was sudden, and it dated from the moment when with tears in his eyes he
+      had wrung Wilding's hand in farewell. Where precept had failed, Richard
+      found himself converted by example. He contrasted himself in that
+      stressful hour with great-souled Anthony Wilding, and saw himself as he
+      was, a weakling, strong only in vicious ways. Repentance claimed him;
+      repentance and a fine ambition to be worthier, to resemble as nearly as
+      his nature would allow him this Anthony Wilding whom he took for pattern.
+      He changed his ways, abandoned drink and gaming, and gained thereby a
+      healthier countenance. Then in his zeal he overshot his mark. He developed
+      a taste for Scripture-reading, bethought him of prayers, and even took to
+      saying grace to his meat. Indeed&mdash;for conversion, when it comes, is a
+      furious thing&mdash;the swing of his soul's pendulum threatened now to
+      carry him to extremes of virtue and piety. &ldquo;O Lord!&rdquo; he would cry a score
+      of times a day, &ldquo;Thou hast brought up my soul from the grave; Thou hast
+      kept me alive that I should not go down to the pit!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But underlying all this remained unfortunately the inherent weakness of
+      his nature&mdash;indeed, it was that very weakness and malleability made
+      this sudden and wholesale conversion possible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon hearing Sir Rowland's message his heart fainted, despite his good
+      intentions, and he urged that perhaps they had better hear what the
+      baronet might have to say.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was three days after Sedgemoor Fight, and poor Ruth was worn and
+      exhausted with her grief&mdash;believing Wilding dead, for he had sent no
+      message to inform her of his almost miraculous preservation. The thing he
+      went to do in London was fraught with such peril that he foresaw but the
+      slenderest chance of escaping with his life. Therefore, he had argued, why
+      console her now with news that he lived, when in a few days the headsman
+      might prove that his end had been but postponed? To do so might be to give
+      her cause to mourn him twice. Again he was haunted by the thought that, in
+      spite of all, it may have been pity that had so grievously moved her at
+      their last meeting. Better, then, to wait; better for both their sakes. If
+      he came safely through his ordeal it would be time enough to bear her news
+      of his preservation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In deepest mourning, very white, with dark stains beneath her eyes to tell
+      the tale of anguished vigils, she received Sir Rowland in the
+      withdrawing-room, her brother at her side. To his expressions of deep
+      penitence he found them cold; so he passed on to show them what disastrous
+      results might ensue upon a stubborn maintaining of this attitude of theirs
+      towards him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have come,&rdquo; he said, his eyes downcast, his face long-drawn, for he
+      could play the sorrowful with any hypocrite in England, &ldquo;to do something
+      more than speak of my grief and regret. I have come to offer proof of it
+      by service.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We ask no service of you, sir,&rdquo; said Ruth, her voice a sword of
+      sharpness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sighed, and turned to Richard. &ldquo;This were folly,&rdquo; he assured his whilom
+      friend. &ldquo;You know the influence I wield.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do I?&rdquo; quoth Richard, his tone implying doubt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You think that the bungled matter at Newlington's may have shaken it?&rdquo;
+       quoth Blake. &ldquo;With Feversham, perhaps. But Albemarle, remember, trusts me
+      very fully. There are ugly happenings in the town here. Men are being hung
+      like linen on a washing-day. Be not too sure that yourself are free from
+      all danger.&rdquo; Richard paled under the baronet's baleful, half-sneering
+      glance. &ldquo;Be not in too great haste to cast me aside, for you may find me
+      useful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you threaten, sir?&rdquo; cried Ruth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Threaten?&rdquo; quoth he. He turned up his eyes and showed the whites of them.
+      &ldquo;Is it to threaten to promise you my protection; to show you how I can
+      serve you?&mdash;than which I ask no sweeter boon of heaven. A word from
+      me, and Richard need fear nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He need fear nothing without that word,&rdquo; said Ruth disdainfully. &ldquo;Such
+      service as he did Lord Feversham the other night...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is soon forgotten,&rdquo; Blake cut in adroitly. &ldquo;Indeed, 'twill be most
+      convenient to his lordship to forget it. Think you he would care to have
+      it known that 'twas to such a chance he owes the preservation of his
+      army?&rdquo; He laughed, and added in a voice of much sly meaning, &ldquo;The times
+      are full of peril. There's Kirke and his lambs. And there's no saying how
+      Kirke might act did he chance to learn what Richard failed to do that
+      night when he was left to guard the rear at Newlington's!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you inform him of it?&rdquo; cried Richard, between anger and alarm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake thrust out his hands in a gesture of horrified repudiation.
+      &ldquo;Richard!&rdquo; he cried in deep reproof and again, &ldquo;Richard!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What other tongue has he to fear?&rdquo; asked Ruth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Am I the only one who knows of it?&rdquo; cried Blake. &ldquo;Oh, madam, why will you
+      ever do me such injustice? Richard has been my friend&mdash;my dearest
+      friend. I wish him so to continue, and I swear that he shall find me his,
+      as you shall find me yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a boon I could dispense with,&rdquo; she assured him, and rose. &ldquo;This
+      talk can profit little, Sir Rowland,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;You seek to bargain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall see how unjust you are,&rdquo; he cried with deep sorrow. &ldquo;It is but
+      fitting, perhaps, after what has passed. It is my punishment. But you
+      shall come to acknowledge that you have done me wrong. You shall see how I
+      shall befriend and protect him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That said, he took his leave and went, but he left behind him a shrewd
+      seed of fear in Richard's mind, and of the growth that sprang from it
+      Richard almost unconsciously transplanted something in the days that
+      followed into the heart of Ruth. As a result, to make sure that no harm
+      should come to her brother, the last of his name and race, she resolved to
+      receive Sir Rowland, resolved in spite of Diana's outspoken scorn, in
+      spite of Richard's protests&mdash;for though afraid, yet he would not have
+      it so&mdash;in spite even of her own deep repugnance of the man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Days passed and grew to weeks. Bridgwater was settling down to peace again&mdash;to
+      peace and mourning; the Royalist scourge had spread to Taunton, and Blake
+      lingered on at Lupton House, an unwelcome but an undeniable guest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His presence was as detestable to Richard now as it was to Ruth, for
+      Richard had to submit to the mockery with which the town rake lashed his
+      godly bearing and altered ways. More than once in gusts of sudden valour
+      the boy urged his sister to permit him to drive the baronet from the house
+      and let him do his worst. But Ruth, afraid for Richard, bade him wait
+      until the times were more settled. When the royal vengeance had slaked its
+      lust for blood it might matter little, perhaps, what tales Sir Rowland
+      might elect to carry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so Sir Rowland remained and waited. He assured himself that he knew
+      how to be patient, and congratulated himself upon that circumstance.
+      Wilding dead, a little time must now suffice to blunt the sharp edge of
+      his widow's grief; let him but await that time, and the rest should be
+      easy, the battle his. With Richard he did not so much as trouble himself
+      to reckon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus he determined, and thus no doubt he would have acted but for an
+      unforeseen contingency. A miserable, paltry creditor had smoked him out in
+      his Somerset retreat, and got a letter to him full of dark hints of a
+      debtor's gaol. The fellow's name was Swiney, and Sir Rowland knew him for
+      fierce and pertinacious where a defaulting creditor was concerned. One
+      only course remained him: to force matters with Wilding's widow. For days
+      he refrained, fearing that precipitancy might lose him all; it was his
+      wish to do the thing without too much coercion; some, he was not coxcomb
+      enough to think&mdash;coxcomb though he was&mdash;might be dispensed with.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last one Sunday evening he decided to be done with dallying, and to
+      bring Ruth between the hammer and the anvil of his will. It was the last
+      Sunday in July, exactly three weeks after Sedgemoor, and the odd
+      coincidence of his having chosen such a day and hour you shall appreciate
+      anon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were on the lawn taking the cool of the evening after an oppressively
+      hot day. By the stone seat, now occupied by Lady Horton and Diana, Richard
+      lay on the sward at their feet in talk with them, and their talk was of
+      Sir Rowland. Diana&mdash;gall in her soul to see the baronet by way of
+      gaining yet his ends&mdash;chid Richard in strong terms for his weakness
+      in submitting to Blake's constant presence at Lupton House. And Richard
+      meekly took her chiding and promised that, if Ruth would but sanction it,
+      things should be changed upon the morrow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Rowland, all unconscious&mdash;reckless, indeed&mdash;of this,
+      sauntered with Ruth some little distance from them, having contrived
+      adroitly to draw her aside. He broke a spell of silence with a dolorous
+      sigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ruth,&rdquo; said he pensively, &ldquo;I mind me of the last evening on which you and
+      I walked here alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She flashed him a glance of fear and aversion, and stood still. Under his
+      brow he watched the quick heave of her bosom, the sudden flow and abiding
+      ebb of blood in her face&mdash;grown now so thin and wistful&mdash;and he
+      realized that before him lay no easy task. He set his teeth for battle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you never have a kindness for me, Ruth?&rdquo; he sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned about, her intent to join the others, a dull anger in her soul.
+      He sat a hand upon her arm. &ldquo;Wait!&rdquo; said he, and the tone in which he
+      uttered that one word kept her beside him. His manner changed a little. &ldquo;I
+      am tired of this,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, so am I,&rdquo; she answered bitterly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Since we are agreed so far, let us agree to end it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is all I ask.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but&mdash;alas!&mdash;in a different way. Listen now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will not listen. Let me go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I were your enemy did I do so, for you would know hereafter a sorrow and
+      repentance for which nothing short of death could offer you escape.
+      Richard is under suspicion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you hark back to that?&rdquo; The scorn of her voice was deadly. Had it been
+      herself he desired, surely that tone had quenched all passion in him, or
+      else transformed it into hatred. But Blake was playing for a fortune, for
+      shelter from a debtor's prison.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It has become known,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;that Richard was one of the early
+      plotters who paved the way for Monmouth's coming. I think that that, in
+      conjunction with his betrayal of his trust that night at Newlington's,
+      thereby causing the death of some twenty gallant fellows of King James's,
+      will be enough to hang him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her hand clutched at her heart. &ldquo;What is't you seek?&rdquo; she cried. It was
+      almost a moan. &ldquo;What is't you want of me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yourself,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;I love you, Ruth,&rdquo; he added, and stepped close up to
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O God!&rdquo; she cried aloud. &ldquo;Had I a man at hand to kill you for that
+      insult!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then&mdash;miracle of miracles!&mdash;a voice from the shrubs by which
+      they stood bore to her ears the startling words that told her her prayer
+      was answered there and then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam, that man is here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stood frozen. Not more of a statue was Lot's wife in the moment of
+      looking behind her than she who dared not look behind. That voice! A voice
+      from the dead, a voice she had heard for the last time in the cottage that
+      was Feversham's lodging at Weston Zoyland. Her wild eyes fell upon Sir
+      Rowland's face. It showed livid; the nether-lip sucked in and caught in
+      the strong teeth, as if to prevent an outcry; the eyes wild with fright.
+      What did it mean? By an effort she wrenched herself round at last, and a
+      scream broke from her to rouse her aunt, her cousin, and her brother, and
+      bring them hastening towards her across the sweep of lawn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before her, on the edge of the shrubbery, a grey figure stood erect and
+      graceful, and the face, with its thin lips faintly smiling, its dark eyes
+      gleaming, was the face of Anthony Wilding. And as she stared he moved
+      forward, and she heard the fall of his foot upon the turf, the clink of
+      his spurs, the swish of his scabbard against the shrubs, and reason told
+      her that this was no ghost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She held out her arms to him. &ldquo;Anthony! Anthony!&rdquo; She staggered forward,
+      and he was no more than in time to catch her as she swayed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He held her fast against him and kissed her brow. &ldquo;Sweet,&rdquo; he said,
+      &ldquo;forgive me that I frightened you. I came by the orchard gate, and my
+      coming was so timely that I could not hold in my answer to your cry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her eyelids fluttered, she drew a long sighing breath, and nestled closer
+      to him. &ldquo;Anthony!&rdquo; she murmured again, and reached up a hand to stroke his
+      face, to feel that it was truly living flesh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Sir Rowland, realizing, too, by now that here was no ghost, recovered
+      his lost courage. He put a hand to his sword, then withdrew it, leaving
+      the weapon sheathed. Here was a hangman's job, not a swordsman's, he
+      opined&mdash;and wisely, for he had had earlier experience of Mr.
+      Wilding's play of steel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He advanced a step. &ldquo;O fool!&rdquo; he snarled. &ldquo;The hangman waits for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And a creditor for you, Sir Rowland,&rdquo; came the voice of Mr. Trenchard,
+      who now pushed forward through those same shrubs that had masked his
+      friend's approach. &ldquo;A Mr. Swiney. 'Twas I sent him from town. He's lodged
+      at the Bull, and bellows like one when he speaks of what you owe him.
+      There are three messengers with him, and they tell of a debtor's gaol for
+      you, sweetheart.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A spasm of fury crossed the face of Blake. &ldquo;They may have me, and welcome,
+      when I've told my tale,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Let me but tell of Anthony Wilding's
+      lurking here, and not only Anthony Wilding, but all the rest of you are
+      doomed for harbouring him. You know the law, I think,&rdquo; he mocked them, for
+      Lady Horton, Diana, and Richard, who had come up, stood now a pace or so
+      away in deepest wonder. &ldquo;You shall know it better before the night is out,
+      and better still before next Sunday's come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tush!&rdquo; said Trenchard, and quoted, &ldquo;'There's none but Anthony may conquer
+      Anthony.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis clear,&rdquo; said Wilding, &ldquo;you take me for a rebel. An odd mistake! For
+      it chances, Sir Rowland, that you behold in me an accredited servant of
+      the Secretary of State.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake stared, then fell a prey to ironic laughter. He would have spoken,
+      but Mr. Wilding plucked a paper from his pocket, and handed it to
+      Trenchard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Show it him,&rdquo; said he, and Blake's face grew white again as he read the
+      lines above Sunderland's signature and observed the seals of office. He
+      looked from the paper to the hated smiling face of Mr. Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You were a spy?&rdquo; he said, his tone making a question of the odious
+      statement. &ldquo;A dirty spy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your incredulity is flattering, at least,&rdquo; said Wilding pleasantly as he
+      repocketed the parchment, &ldquo;and it leads you in the right direction. I
+      neither was nor am a spy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That paper proves it!&rdquo; cried Blake contemptuously. Having been a spy
+      himself, he was a good judge of the vileness of the office.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;See to my wife, Nick,&rdquo; said Wilding sharply, and made as if to transfer
+      her to the care of his friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay,&rdquo; said Trenchard, &ldquo;'tis your own duty that. Let me discharge the
+      other for you.&rdquo; And he stepped up to Blake and tapped him briskly on the
+      shoulder. &ldquo;Sir Rowland,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;you're a knave.&rdquo; Sir Rowland stared at
+      him. &ldquo;You're a foul thing&mdash;a muckworm&mdash;Sir Rowland,&rdquo; added
+      Trenchard amiably, &ldquo;and you've been discourteous to a lady, for which may
+      Heaven forgive you&mdash;I can't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stand aside,&rdquo; Blake bade him, hoarse with passion, blind to all risks.
+      &ldquo;My affair is with Mr. Wilding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye,&rdquo; said Trenchard, &ldquo;but mine is with you. If you survive it, you can
+      settle what other affairs you please&mdash;including, belike, your
+      business with Mr. Swiney.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not so, Nick,&rdquo; said Wilding suddenly, and turned to Richard. &ldquo;Here,
+      Richard! Take her,&rdquo; he bade his brother-in-law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anthony, you damned shirk-duty, see to your wife. Leave me to my own
+      diversions. Sir Rowland,&rdquo; he reminded the baronet, &ldquo;I have called you a
+      knave and a foul thing, and faith! if you want it proven, you need but
+      step down the orchard with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He saw hesitation lingering in Sir Rowland's face, and he uncurled the
+      last of the whip he carried. &ldquo;I'd grieve to do a violent thing before the
+      ladies,&rdquo; he murmured deprecatingly. &ldquo;I'd never respect myself again if I
+      had to drive a gentleman of your quality to the ground of honour with a
+      horsewhip. But, as God's my life, if you don't go willingly this instant,
+      'tis what will happen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard's newborn righteousness prompted him to interfere, to seek to
+      avert this threatened bloodshed; his humanity urged him to let matters be,
+      and his humanity prevailed. Diana watched this foreshadowing of tragedy
+      with tight lips, pale cheeks. Justice was to be done at last, it seemed,
+      and as her frightened eye fell upon Sir Rowland she knew not whether to
+      exult or weep. Her mother&mdash;understanding nothing&mdash;plied her
+      meanwhile with whispered questions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for Sir Rowland, he looked into the old rake's eyes agleam with wicked
+      mirth, and rage welled up to choke him. He must kill this man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;I'll see to your fine friend Wilding afterwards.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excellent,&rdquo; said Trenchard, and led the way through the shrubbery to the
+      orchard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth, reviving, looked up. Her glance met Mr. Wilding's; it quickened into
+      understanding, and she stirred. &ldquo;Is it true? Is it really true?&rdquo; she
+      cried. &ldquo;I am being tortured by this dream again!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, sweet, it is true; it is true. I am here. Say, shall I stay?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She clung to him for answer. &ldquo;And you are in no danger?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In none, sweet. I am Mr. Wilding of Zoyland Chase, free to come and go as
+      best shall seem to me.&rdquo; He begged the others to leave them a little while,
+      and he led her to the stone seat by the river. He set her at his side
+      there and told her the story of his escape from the firing-party, and of
+      the inspiration that had come to him on the morrow to make use of the
+      letter in his boot which Sunderland had given him for Monmouth in the hour
+      of panic. Monmouth's cavalier treatment of him when he had arrived in
+      Bridgwater had precluded his delivering that letter at the council. There
+      was never another opportunity, nor did he again think of the package in
+      the stressful hours that followed. It was not until the following morning
+      that he suddenly remembered it lay undelivered, and bethought him that it
+      might prove a weapon to win him delivery from the dangers that encompassed
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was a slender chance,&rdquo; he told her, &ldquo;but I employed it. I waited in
+      London, in hiding, close upon a fortnight ere I had an opportunity of
+      seeing Sunderland. He laughed me to scorn at first, and threatened me with
+      the Tower. But I told him the letter was in safe hands and would remain
+      there in earnest of his good behaviour, and that did he have me arrested
+      it would instantly be laid before the King and bring his own head to the
+      block more surely even than my own. It frightened him; but it had scarcely
+      done so, sweet, had he known that that precious letter was still in my
+      boot, for my boot was on my leg, and my leg was in the room with the rest
+      of me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He surrendered at last, and gave me papers proving that Trenchard and I&mdash;for
+      I stipulated for old Nick's safety too&mdash;were His Majesty's accredited
+      agents in the West. I loathed the title. But...&rdquo;&mdash;he spread his hands
+      and smiled&mdash;&ldquo;it was that or widowing you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She took his face in her hands and stroked it fondly, and they sat thus
+      until a dry cough behind them roused them from their joyous silence. Mr.
+      Trenchard was sauntering towards them, his left eye tucked farther under
+      his hat than usual, his hands behind him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis a thirsty evening,&rdquo; he informed them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go, tell Richard so,&rdquo; said Wilding, who knew naught of Richard's altered
+      ways.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've thought of it; but haply he's sensitive on the score of drinking
+      with me again. He has done it twice to his undoing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He'll do it a third time, no doubt,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding curtly, and
+      Trenchard, taking the hint, turned with a shrug, and went up the lawn
+      towards the house. He found Richard in the porch, where he had lingered
+      fearfully, waiting for news. At sight of Mr. Trenchard's grim,
+      weather-beaten countenance he came forward suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How has it sped?&rdquo; he asked, his lips twitching on the words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yonder they sit,&rdquo; said Trenchard, pointing down the lawn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no. I mean... Sir Rowland.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Sir Rowland?&rdquo; cried the old sinner, as though Sir Rowland were some
+      matter long forgotten. He sighed. &ldquo;Alas, poor Swiney! I fear I've cheated
+      him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Art slow at inference, Dick. Sir Rowland has passed away in the odour of
+      villainy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard clasped nervous hands together and raised his colourless eyes to
+      heaven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May the Lord have mercy on his soul!&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May He, indeed!&rdquo; said Trenchard, when he had recovered from his surprise.
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; he added pessimistically, &ldquo;I doubt the rogue's in hell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard's eyes kindled suddenly, and he quoted from the thirtieth Psalm,
+      &ldquo;'I will extol thee, O Lord; for Thou hast lifted me up, and hast not made
+      my foes to rejoice over me.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dumbfounded, wondering, indeed, was Westmacott's mind unhinged, Trenchard
+      scanned him narrowly. Richard caught the glance and misinterpreted it for
+      one of reproof. He bethought him that his joy was unrighteous. He stifled
+      it, and forced his lips to sigh &ldquo;Poor Blake!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor, indeed!&rdquo; quoth Trenchard, and adapted a remembered line of his
+      play-acting days to suit the case. &ldquo;The tears live in an onion that shall
+      water his grave. Though, perhaps, I am forgetting Swiney.&rdquo; Then, in a
+      brisker tone, &ldquo;Come, Richard. What like is the muscadine you keep at
+      Lupton House?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have abjured all wine,&rdquo; said Richard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A plague you have!&rdquo; quoth Trenchard, understanding less and less. &ldquo;Have
+      you turned Mussulman, perchance?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; answered Richard sternly; &ldquo;Christian.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard hesitated, rubbing his nose thoughtfully. &ldquo;Hum,&rdquo; said he at
+      length. &ldquo;Peace be with you, then. I'll leave you here to bay the moon to
+      your heart's content. Perhaps Jasper will know where to find me a
+      brain-wash.&rdquo; And with a final suspicious, wondering look at the whilom
+      bibber, he passed into the house, much exercised on the score of the
+      sanity of this family into which his friend Anthony had married.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Outside, the twilight shadows were deepening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall we home, sweet?&rdquo; whispered Mr. Wilding. The shadows befriended her,
+      a veil for her sudden confusion. She breathed something that seemed no
+      more than a sigh, though more it seemed to Anthony Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 6em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+  <div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1457 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #1457 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1457)
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mistress Wilding, by Rafael Sabatini
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost
+no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use
+it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
+eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Mistress Wilding
+
+Author: Rafael Sabatini
+
+Release Date: September, 1998 [EBook #1457]
+Last Updated: March 10, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISTRESS WILDING ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+MISTRESS WILDING
+
+By Rafael Sabatini
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I -- POT-VALIANCE
+
+CHAPTER II -- SIR ROWLAND TO THE RESCUE
+
+CHAPTER III -- DIANA SCHEMES
+
+CHAPTER IV -- TERMS OF SURRENDER
+
+CHAPTER V -- THE ENCOUNTER
+
+CHAPTER VI -- THE CHAMPION
+
+CHAPTER VII -- THE NUPTIALS OF RUTH WESTMACOTT
+
+CHAPTER VIII -- BRIDE AND GROOM
+
+CHAPTER IX -- MR. TRENCHARD'S COUNTERSTROKE
+
+CHAPTER X -- THEIR OWN PETARD
+
+CHAPTER XI -- THE MARPLOT
+
+CHAPTER XII -- AT THE FORD
+
+CHAPTER XIII -- “PRO RELIGIONE ET LIBERTATE”
+
+CHAPTER XIV -- HIS GRACE' IN COUNSEL
+
+CHAPTER XV -- LYME OF THE KING
+
+CHAPTER XVI -- PLOTS AND PLOTTERS
+
+CHAPTER XVII -- MR. WILDING'S RETURN
+
+CHAPTER XVIII -- BETRAYAL
+
+CHAPTER XIX -- THE BANQUET
+
+CHAPTER XX -- THE RECKONING
+
+CHAPTER XXI -- THE SENTENCE
+
+CHAPTER XXII -- THE EXECUTION
+
+CHAPTER XXIII -- MR. WILDING'S BOOTS
+
+CHAPTER XXIV -- JUSTICE
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. POT-VALIANCE
+
+Then drink it thus, cried the rash young fool, and splashed the contents
+of his cup full into the face of Mr. Wilding even as that gentleman, on
+his feet, was proposing to drink to the eyes of the young fool's sister.
+
+The moments that followed were full of interest. A stillness, a
+brooding, expectant stillness, fell upon the company--and it numbered
+a round dozen--about Lord Gervase's richly appointed board. In the soft
+candlelight the oval table shone like a deep brown pool, in which were
+reflected the gleaming silver and sparkling crystal that seemed to float
+upon it.
+
+Blake sucked in his nether-lip, his florid face a thought less florid
+than its wont, his prominent blue eyes a thought more prominent. Under
+its golden periwig old Nick Trenchard's wizened countenance was darkened
+by a scowl, and his fingers, long, swarthy, and gnarled, drummed
+fretfully upon the table. Portly Lord Gervase Scoresby--their host, a
+benign and placid man of peace, detesting turbulence--turned crimson now
+in wordless rage. The others gaped and stared--some at young Westmacott,
+some at the man he had so grossly affronted--whilst in the shadows of
+the hall a couple of lacqueys looked on amazed, all teeth and eyes.
+
+Mr. Wilding stood, very still and outwardly impassive, the wine
+trickling from his long face, which, if pale, was no paler than its
+habit, a vestige of the smile with which he had proposed the toast still
+lingering on his thin lips, though departed from his eyes. An elegant
+gentleman was Mr. Wilding, tall, and seeming even taller by virtue of
+his exceeding slenderness. He had the courage to wear his own hair,
+which was of a dark brown and very luxuriant; dark brown too were his
+sombre eyes, low-lidded and set at a downward slant. From those odd eyes
+of his, his countenance gathered an air of superciliousness tempered by
+a gentle melancholy. For the rest, it was scored by lines that stamped
+it with the appearance of an age in excess of his thirty years.
+
+Thirty guineas' worth of Mechlin at his throat was drenched, empurpled
+and ruined beyond redemption, and on the breast of his blue satin coat a
+dark patch was spreading like a stain of blood.
+
+Richard Westmacott, short, sturdy, and fair-complexioned to the point
+of insipidity, watched him sullenly out of pale eyes, and waited. It
+was Lord Gervase who broke at last the silence--broke it with an oath, a
+thing unusual in one whose nature was almost woman-mild.
+
+“As God's my life!” he spluttered wrathfully, glowering at Richard. “To
+have this happen in my house! The young fool shall make apology!”
+
+“With his dying breath,” sneered Trenchard, and the old rake's words,
+his tone, and the malevolent look he bent upon the boy increased the
+company's malaise.
+
+“I think,” said Mr. Wilding, with a most singular and excessive
+sweetness, “that what Mr. Westmacott has done he has done because he
+apprehended me amiss.”
+
+“No doubt he'll say so,” opined Trenchard with a shrug, and had caution
+dug into his ribs by Blake's elbow, whilst Richard made haste to prove
+him wrong by saying the contrary.
+
+“I apprehended you exactly, sir,” he answered, defiance in his voice and
+wine-flushed face.
+
+“Ha!” clucked Trenchard, irrepressible. “He's bent on self-destruction.
+Let him have his way, in God's name.”
+
+But Wilding seemed intent upon showing how long-suffering he could
+be. He gently shook his head. “Nay, now,” said he. “You thought, Mr.
+Westmacott, that in mentioning your sister, I did so lightly. Is it not
+so?”
+
+“You mentioned her, and that is all that matters,” cried Westmacott.
+“I'll not have her name on your lips at any time or in any place--no,
+nor in any manner.” His speech was thick from too much wine.
+
+“You are drunk,” cried indignant Lord Gervase with finality.
+
+“Pot-valiant,” Trenchard elaborated.
+
+Mr. Wilding set down at last the glass which he had continued to
+hold until that moment. He rested his hands upon the table, knuckles
+downward, and leaning forward he spoke impressively, his face very
+grave; and those present--knowing him as they did--were one and all lost
+in wonder at his unusual patience.
+
+“Mr. Westmacott,” said he, “I do think you are wrong to persist in
+affronting me. You have done a thing that is beyond forgiveness, and
+yet, when I offer you this opportunity of honourably retrieving...” He
+shrugged his shoulders, leaving the sentence incomplete.
+
+The company might have spared its deep surprise at so much mildness.
+There was but the semblance of it. Wilding proceeded thus of purpose
+set, and under the calm mask of his long white face his mind worked
+wickedly and deliberately. The temerity of Westmacott, whose nature was
+notoriously timid, had surprised him for a moment. But anon, reading the
+boy's mind as readily as though it had been a scroll unfolded for his
+instruction, he saw that Westmacott, on the strength of his position
+as his sister's brother, conceived himself immune. Mr. Wilding's avowed
+courtship of the lady, the hopes he still entertained of winning her,
+despite the aversion she was at pains to show him, gave Westmacott
+assurance that Mr. Wilding would never elect to shatter his all too
+slender chances by embroiling himself in a quarrel with her brother.
+And--reading him, thus, aright--Mr. Wilding put on that mask of
+patience, luring the boy into greater conviction of the security of
+his position. And Richard, conceiving himself safe in his entrenchment
+behind the bulwarks of his brothership to Ruth Westmacott, and heartened
+further by the excess of wine he had consumed, persisted in insults he
+would never otherwise have dared to offer.
+
+“Who seeks to retrieve?” he crowed offensively, boldly looking up into
+the other's face. “It seems you are yourself reluctant.” And he laughed
+a trifle stridently, and looked about him for applause, but found none.
+
+“You are overrash,” Lord Gervase disapproved him harshly.
+
+“Not the first coward I've seen grow valiant at a table,” put in
+Trenchard by way of explanation, and might have come to words with Blake
+on that same score, but that in that moment Wilding spoke again.
+
+“Reluctant to do what?” he questioned amiably, looking Westmacott
+so straightly between the eyes that the boy shifted uneasily on his
+high-backed chair.
+
+Nevertheless, still full of confidence in the unassailability of his
+position, the mad youth answered, “To cleanse yourself of what I threw
+at you.”
+
+“Fan me, ye winds!” gasped Nick Trenchard, and looked with expectancy at
+his friend Wilding.
+
+Now there was one factor with which, in basing with such craven
+shrewdness his calculations upon Mr. Wilding's feelings for his sister,
+young Richard had not reckoned. He was not to know that Wilding,
+bruised and wounded by Miss Westmacott's scorn of him, had reached that
+borderland where love and hate are so merged that they are scarce to be
+distinguished. Embittered by the slights she had put upon him--slights
+which his sensitive, lover's fancy had magnified a hundredfold--Anthony
+Wilding's frame of mind was grown peculiar. Of his love she would have
+none; his kindness she seemingly despised. So be it; she should taste
+his cruelty. If she scorned his wooing and forbade him to pursue it, at
+least it was not hers to deny him the power to hurt; and in hurting
+her that would not be loved by him some measure of fierce and bitter
+consolation seemed to await him.
+
+He realized, perhaps, not quite all this--and to the unworthiness of it
+all he gave no thought. But he realized enough as he toyed, as cat with
+mouse, with Richard Westmacott, to know that in striking at her through
+the worthless person of this brother whom she cherished--and who
+persisted in affording him this opportunity--a wicked vengeance would be
+his.
+
+Peace-loving Lord Gervase had heaved himself suddenly to his feet at
+Westmacott's last words, still intent upon saving the situation.
+
+“In Heaven's name...” he began, when Mr. Wilding, ever calm and smiling,
+though now a trifle sinister, waved him gently into silence. But that
+persisting calm of Mr. Wilding's was too much for old Nick Trenchard. He
+rose abruptly, drawing all eyes upon himself. It was time, he thought,
+he took a hand in this.
+
+In addition to his affection for Wilding and his contempt for
+Westmacott, he was filled with a fear that the latter might become
+dangerous if not crushed at once. Gifted with a shrewd knowledge of
+men, acquired during a chequered life of much sour experience, old
+Nick instinctively mistrusted Richard. He had known him for a fool,
+a weakling, a babbler, and a bibber of wine. Out of such elements a
+villain is soon compounded, and Trenchard had cause to fear the form
+of villainy that lay ready to Richard's hand. For it chanced that Mr.
+Trenchard was second cousin to that famous John Trenchard, so lately
+tried for treason and acquitted to the great joy of the sectaries of the
+West, and still more lately--but yesterday, in fact--fled the country to
+escape the rearrest ordered in consequence of that excessive joy. Like
+his more famous cousin, Nick Trenchard was one of the Duke of Monmouth's
+most active agents; and Westmacott, like Wilding, Vallancey, and one
+or two others at that board, stood, too, committed to the cause of the
+Protestant Champion.
+
+Out of his knowledge of the boy Trenchard was led to fear that if he
+were leniently dealt with now, tomorrow, when, sober, he came to realize
+the grossness of the thing he had done and the unlikelihood of its being
+forgiven him, there was no saying but that to protect himself he might
+betray Wilding's share in the plot that was being hatched. That in
+itself would be bad enough; but there might be worse, for he could
+scarcely betray Wilding without betraying others and--what mattered
+most--the Cause itself. He must be dealt with out of hand, Trenchard
+opined, and dealt with ruthlessly.
+
+“I think, Anthony,” said he, “that we have had words enough. Shall you
+be disposing of Mr. Westmacott to-morrow, or must I be doing it for
+you?”
+
+With a gasp of dismay young Richard twisted in his chair to confront
+this fresh and unsuspected antagonist. What danger was this that he had
+overlooked? Then, even as he turned, Wilding's voice fell on his ear,
+and each word of the few he spoke was like a drop of icy water on
+Westmacott's overheated brain.
+
+“I protest you are vastly kind, Nick. But I intend, myself, to have the
+pleasure of killing Mr. Westmacott.” And his smile fell now in mockery
+upon the disillusioned lad.
+
+Crushed by that bolt from the blue, Richard sat as if stunned, the flush
+receding from his face until his very lips were livid. The shock had
+sobered him, and, sobered, he realized in terror what he had done. And
+yet even sober he was amazed to find that the staff upon which with such
+security he had leaned should have proved rotten. True he had put much
+strain upon it; but then he had counted that it would stand much strain.
+
+He would have spoken, but he lacked words, so stricken was he. And even
+had he done so it is odds none would have heard him, for the late calm
+was of a sudden turned to garboil. Every man of that company--with
+the sole exception of Richard himself--was on his feet, and all were
+speaking at once, in clamouring, excited chorus.
+
+Wilding alone--the butt of their expostulations--stood quietly smiling,
+and wiped his face at last with a kerchief of finest lawn. Dominating
+the others in the Babel rose the voice of Sir Rowland Blake--impecunious
+Blake; Blake lately of the Guards, who had sold his commission as the
+only thing remaining him upon which he could raise money; Blake, that
+other suitor for Miss Westmacott's hand, the suitor favoured by her
+brother.
+
+“You shall not do it, Mr. Wilding,” he shouted, his face crimson. “No,
+by God! You were shamed forever. He is but a lad, and drunk.”
+
+Trenchard eyed the short, powerfully built man beside him, and laughed
+unpleasantly. “You should get yourself bled one of these days, Sir
+Rowland,” he advised. “There may be no great danger yet; but a man can't
+be too careful when he wears a narrow neckcloth.”
+
+Blake--a short, powerfully built man--took no heed of him, but looked
+straight at Mr. Wilding, who, smiling ever, calmly returned the gaze of
+those prominent blue eyes.
+
+“You will suffer me, Sir Rowland,” said he sweetly, “to be the judge of
+whom I will and whom I will not meet.”
+
+Sir Rowland flushed under that mocking glance and caustic tone. “But he
+is drunk,” he repeated feebly.
+
+“I think,” said Trenchard, “that he is hearing something that will make
+him sober.”
+
+Lord Gervase took the lad by the shoulder, and shook him impatiently.
+“Well?” quoth he. “Have you nothing to say? You did a deal of prating
+just now. I make no doubt but that even at this late hour if you were to
+make apology...”
+
+“It would be idle,” came Wilding's icy voice to quench the gleam of hope
+kindling anew in Richard's breast. The lad saw that he was lost, and he
+is a poor thing, indeed, who cannot face the worst once that worst is
+shown to be irrevocable. He rose with some semblance of dignity.
+
+“It is as I would wish,” said he, but his livid face and staring eyes
+belied the valour of his words. He cleared his huskiness from his
+throat. “Sir Rowland,” said he, “will you act for me?”
+
+“Not I!” cried Blake with an oath. “I'll be no party to the butchery of
+a boy unfledged.”
+
+“Unfledged?” echoed Trenchard. “Body o' me! 'Tis a matter Wilding will
+amend to-morrow. He'll fledge him, never fear. He'll wing him on his
+flight to heaven.”
+
+Of set purpose did Trenchard add this fuel to the blazing fire. It was
+no part of his views that this encounter should be avoided. If Richard
+Westmacott were allowed to live after what had passed, there were too
+many tall fellows might go in peril of their lives.
+
+Richard, meanwhile, had turned to the man on his left--young Vallancey,
+a notorious partisan of the Duke of Monmouth's, a hair-brained gentleman
+who was his own worst enemy.
+
+“May I count on you, Ned?” he asked.
+
+“Aye--to the death,” said Vallancey magniloquently.
+
+“Mr. Vallancey,” said Trenchard with a wry twist of his sharp features,
+“you grow prophetic.”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. SIR ROWLAND TO THE RESCUE
+
+From Scoresby Hall, near Weston Zoyland, young Westmacott rode home that
+Saturday night to his sister's house in Bridgwater, a sobered man and an
+anguished. He had committed a folly which was like to cost him his life
+to-morrow. Other follies had he committed in his twenty-five years--for
+he was not quite the babe that Blake had represented him, although he
+certainly looked nothing like his age. But to-night he had contrived to
+set the crown to all. He had good cause to blame himself and to curse
+the miscalculation that had emboldened him to launch himself upon
+a course of insult against this Wilding, whom he hated with all the
+currish and resentful hatred of the worthless for the man of parts.
+
+But there was more than hate in the affront that he had offered;
+there was calculation--to an even greater extent than we have seen. It
+happened that through his own fault young Richard was all but penniless.
+The pious, nonconformist soul of Sir Geoffrey Lupton--the wealthy uncle
+from whom he had had great expectations--had been so stirred to anger by
+Richard's vicious and besotted ways that he had left every guinea that
+was his, every perch of land, and every brick of edifice to Richard's
+half-sister Ruth. At present things were not so bad for the worthless
+boy. Ruth worshipped him. He was a sacred charge to her from their dead
+father, who, knowing the stoutness of her soul and the feebleness of
+Richard's, had in dying imposed on her the care and guidance of her
+graceless brother. But Ruth, in all things strong, was weak with Richard
+out of her very fondness for him. To what she had he might help himself,
+and thus it was that things were not so bad with him at present. But
+when Richard's calculating mind came to give thought to the future he
+found that this occasioned him some care. Rich ladies, even when they
+do not happen to be equipped in addition with Ruth's winsome beauty and
+endearing nature, are not wont to go unmarried. It would have pleased
+Richard best to have had her remain a spinster. But he well knew that
+this was a matter in which she might have a voice of her own, and it
+behoved him betimes to take wise measures where possible husbands were
+concerned.
+
+The first that came in a suitor's obvious panoply was Anthony Wilding,
+of Zoyland Chase, and Richard watched his advent with foreboding.
+Wilding's was a personality to dazzle any woman, despite--perhaps even
+because of--the reputation for wildness that clung to him. That he was
+known as Wild Wilding to the countryside is true; but it were unfair--as
+Richard knew--to attach to this too much importance; for the adoption
+of so obvious an alliteration the rude country minds needed but a slight
+encouragement. From the first it looked as if Ruth might favour him, and
+Richard's fears assumed more definite shape. If Wilding married her--and
+he was a bold, masterful fellow who usually accomplished what he aimed
+at--her fortune and estate must cease to be a pleasant pasture land for
+bovine Richard. The boy thought at first of making terms with Wilding;
+the idea was old; it had come to him when first he had counted the
+chances of his sister's marrying. But he found himself hesitating to
+lay his proposal before Mr. Wilding. And whilst he hesitated Mr.
+Wilding made obvious headway. Still Richard dared not do it. There was
+a something in Wilding's eye that cried him danger. Thus, in the end,
+since he could not attempt a compromise with this fine fellow, the only
+course remaining was that of direct antagonism--that is to say, direct
+as Richard understood directness. Slander was the weapon he used in
+that secret duel; the countryside was well stocked with stories of Mr.
+Wilding's many indiscretions. I do not wish to suggest that these were
+unfounded. Still, the countryside, cajoled by its primitive sense of
+humour into that alliteration I have mentioned, found that having given
+this dog its bad name, it was under the obligation of keeping up his
+reputation. So it exaggerated. Richard, exaggerating those exaggerations
+in his turn, had some details, as interesting and unsavoury as they were
+in the main untrue, to lay before his sister.
+
+Now established love, it is well known, thrives wondrously on slander.
+The robust growth of a maid's feelings for her accepted suitor is but
+further strengthened by malign representations of his character. She
+seizes with joy the chance of affording proof of her great loyalty, and
+defies the world and its evil to convince her that the man to whom she
+has given her trust is not most worthy of it. Not so, however, with the
+first timid bud of incipient interest. Slander nips it like a frost; in
+deadliness it is second only to ridicule.
+
+Ruth Westmacott lent an ear to her brother's stories, incredulous only
+until she remembered vague hints she had caught from this person and
+from that, whose meaning was now made clear by what Richard told her,
+which, incidentally, they served to corroborate. Corroboration, too, did
+the tale of infamy receive from the friendship that prevailed between
+Mr. Wilding and Nick Trenchard, the old ne'er-dowell, who in his
+time--as everybody knew--had come so low, despite his gentle birth, as
+to have been one of a company of strolling players. Had Mr. Wilding
+been other than she now learnt he was, he would surely not cherish an
+attachment for a person so utterly unworthy. Clearly, they were birds of
+a plumage.
+
+And so, her maiden purity outraged at the thought that she had been in
+danger of lending a willing ear to the wooing of such a man, she
+had crushed this love which she blushed to think was on the point of
+throwing out roots to fasten on her soul, and was sedulous thereafter in
+manifesting the aversion which she accounted it her duty to foster for
+Mr. Wilding.
+
+Richard had watched and smiled in secret, taking pride in the cunning
+way he had wrought this change--that cunning which so often is given
+to the stupid by way of compensation for the intelligence that has been
+withheld them.
+
+And now what time discountenanced, Wilding fumed and fretted all in
+vain, Sir Rowland Blake, fresh from London and in full flight from his
+creditors, flashed like a comet into the Bridgwater heavens. He dazzled
+the eyes and might have had for the asking the heart and hand of Diana
+Horton--Ruth's cousin. Her heart, indeed, he had without the asking, for
+Diana fell straightway in love with him and showed it, just as he showed
+that he was not without response to her affection. There were some
+tender passages between them; but Blake, for all his fine exterior, was
+a beggar, and Diana far from rich, and so he rode his feelings with
+a hard grip upon the reins. And then, in an evil hour for poor Diana,
+young Westmacott had taken him to Lupton House, and Sir Rowland had his
+first glimpse of Ruth, his first knowledge of her fortune. He went down
+before Ruth's eyes like a man of heart; he went down more lowly still
+before her possessions like a man of greed; and poor Diana might console
+herself with whom she could.
+
+Her brother watched him, appraised him, and thought that in this broken
+gamester he had a man after his own heart; a man who would be ready
+enough for such a bargain as Richard had in mind; ready enough to
+sell what rags might be left him of his honour so that he came by the
+wherewithal to mend his broken fortunes.
+
+The twain made terms. They haggled like any pair of traders out of
+Jewry, but in the end it was settled--by a bond duly engrossed and
+sealed--that on the day that Sir Rowland married Ruth he should make
+over to her brother certain values that amounted to perhaps a quarter of
+her possessions. There was no cause to think that Ruth would be greatly
+opposed to this--not that that consideration would have weighed with
+Richard.
+
+But now that all essentials were so satisfactorily determined a vexation
+was offered Westmacott by the circumstance that his sister seemed nowise
+taken with Sir Rowland. She suffered him because he was her brother's
+friend; on that account she even honoured him with some measure of her
+own friendship; but to no greater intimacy did her manner promise to
+admit him. And meanwhile, Mr. Wilding persisted in the face of all
+rebuffs. Under his smiling mask he hid the smart of the wounds she dealt
+him, until it almost seemed to him that from loving her he had come to
+hate her.
+
+It had been well for Richard had he left things as they were and waited.
+Whether Blake prospered or not, leastways it was clear that Wilding
+would not prosper, and that, for the season, was all that need have
+mattered to young Richard.
+
+But in his cups that night he had thought in some dim way to precipitate
+matters by affronting Mr. Wilding, secure, as I have shown, in his
+belief that Wilding would perish sooner than raise a finger against
+Ruth's brother. And his drunken astuteness, it seemed, had been to
+his mind as a piece of bottle glass to the sight, distorting the image
+viewed through it.
+
+With some such bitter reflection rode he home to his sleepless couch.
+Some part of those dark hours he spent in bitter reviling of Wilding, of
+himself, and even of his sister, whom he blamed for this awful situation
+into which he had tumbled; at other times he wept from self-pity and
+sheer fright.
+
+Once, indeed, he imagined that he saw light, that he saw a way out
+of the peril that hemmed him in. His mind turned for a moment in the
+direction that Trenchard had feared it might. He bethought him of his
+association with the Monmouth Cause--into which he had been beguiled by
+the sordid hope of gain--and of Wilding's important share in that same
+business. He was even moved to rise and ride that very night for Exeter
+to betray to Albemarle the Cause itself, so that he might have Wilding
+laid by the heels. But if Trenchard had been right in having little
+faith in Richard's loyalty, he had, it seems, in fearing treachery
+made the mistake of giving Richard credit for more courage than was his
+endowment. For when, sitting up in bed, fired by his inspiration, young
+Westmacott came to consider the questions the Lord-Lieutenant of Devon
+would be likely to ask him, he reflected that the answers he must return
+would so incriminate himself that he would be risking his own neck in
+the betrayal. He flung himself down again with a curse and a groan, and
+thought no more of the salvation that might lie for him that way.
+
+The morning of that last day of May found him pale and limp and all
+a-tremble. He rose betimes and dressed, but stirred not from his chamber
+till in the garden under his window he heard his sister's voice, and
+that of Diana Horton, joined anon by a man's deeper tones, which he
+recognized with a start as Blake's. What did the baronet here so
+early? Assuredly it must concern the impending duel. Richard knew no
+mawkishness on the score of eavesdropping. He stole to his window and
+lent an ear, but the voices were receding, and to his vexation he caught
+nothing of what was said. He wondered how soon Vallancey would come, and
+for what hour the encounter had been appointed. Vallancey had remained
+behind at Scoresby Hall last night to make the necessary arrangements
+with Trenchard, who was to act for Mr. Wilding.
+
+Now it chanced that Trenchard and Wilding had business--business of
+Monmouth's--to transact in Taunton that morning; business which might
+not be delayed. There were odd rumours afloat in the West; persistent
+rumours which had come fast upon the heels of the news of Argyle's
+landing in Scotland; rumours which maintained that Monmouth himself was
+coming over from Holland. These tales Wilding and his associates had
+ignored. The Duke, they knew, was to spend the summer in retreat in
+Sweden, with (it was alleged) the Lady Henrietta Wentworth to bear him
+company, and in the mean time his trusted agents were to pave the way
+for his coming in the following spring. Of late the lack of direct news
+from the Duke had been a source of mystification to his friends in the
+West, and now, suddenly, the information went abroad--it was something
+more than rumour this time--that a letter of the greatest importance
+had been intercepted. From whom that letter proceeded or to whom it was
+addressed, could not yet be discovered. But it seemed clear that it
+was connected with the Monmouth Cause, and it behoved Mr. Wilding to
+discover what he could. With this intent he rode with Trenchard that
+Sunday morning to Taunton, hoping that at the Red Lion Inn--that
+meeting-place of dissenters--he might cull reliable information.
+
+It was in consequence of this that the meeting with Richard Westmacott
+was not to take place until the evening, and therefore Vallancey came
+not to Lupton House as early as Richard thought he should expect him.
+Blake, however--more no doubt out of a selfish fear of losing a valued
+ally in the winning of Ruth's hand than out of any excessive concern for
+Richard himself--had risen early and hastened to Lupton House, in the
+hope, which he recognized as all but forlorn, of yet being able to avert
+the disaster he foresaw for Richard.
+
+Peering over the orchard wall as he rode by, he caught a glimpse,
+through an opening between the trees, of Ruth herself and Diana on the
+lawn beyond. There was a wicket gate that stood unlatched, and availing
+himself of this Sir Rowland tethered his horse in the lane and threading
+his way briskly through the orchard came suddenly upon the girls.
+Their laughter reached him as he advanced, and told him they could know
+nothing yet of Richard's danger.
+
+On his abrupt and unexpected apparition, Diana paled and Ruth flushed
+slightly, whereupon Sir Rowland might have bethought him, had he been
+book-learned, of the axiom, “Amour qui rougit, fleurette; amour qui
+plit, drame du coeur.”
+
+He doffed his hat and bowed, his fair ringlets tumbling forward till
+they hid his face, which was exceeding grave.
+
+Ruth gave him good morning pleasantly. “You London folk are earlier
+risers than we are led to think,” she added.
+
+“'Twill be the change of air makes Sir Rowland matutinal,” said Diana,
+making a gallant recovery from her agitation.
+
+“I vow,” said he, “that I had grown matutinal earlier had I known what
+here awaited me.”
+
+“Awaited you?” quoth Diana, and tossed her head archly disdainful. “La!
+Sir Rowland, your modesty will be the death of you.” Archness became
+this lady of the sunny hair, tip-tilted nose, and complexion that
+outvied the apple-blossoms. She was shorter by a half-head than her
+darker cousin, and made up in sprightliness what she lacked of Ruth's
+gentle dignity. The pair were foils, each setting off the graces of the
+other.
+
+“I protest I am foolish,” answered Blake, a shade discomfited. “But I
+want not for excuse. I have it in the matter that brings me here.”
+ So solemn was his air, so sober his voice, that both girls felt a
+premonition of the untoward message that he bore. It was Ruth who asked
+him to explain himself.
+
+“Will you walk, ladies?” said Blake, and waved the hand that still held
+his hat riverwards, adown the sloping lawn. They moved away together,
+Sir Rowland pacing between his love of yesterday and his love of to-day,
+pressed with questions from both. He shaded his eyes to look at the
+river, dazzling in the morning sunlight that came over Polden Hill, and,
+standing thus, he unburdened himself at last.
+
+“My news concerns Richard and--Mr. Wilding.” They looked at him.
+Miss Westmacott's fine level brows were knit. He paused to ask, as if
+suddenly observing his absence, “Is Richard not yet risen?”
+
+“Not yet,” said Ruth, and waited for him to proceed.
+
+“It does credit to his courage that he should sleep late on such a day,”
+ said Blake, and was pleased with the adroitness wherewith he broke the
+news. “He quarrelled last night with Anthony Wilding.”
+
+Ruth's hand went to her bosom; fear stared at Blake from out her eyes,
+blue as the heavens overhead; a grey shade overcast the usual warm
+pallor of her face.
+
+“With Mr. Wilding?” she cried. “That man!” And though she said no more
+her eyes implored him to go on, and tell her what more there might be.
+He did so, and he spared not Wilding. The task, indeed, was one to which
+he applied himself with a certain zest; whatever might be the outcome
+of the affair, there was no denying that he was by way of reaping profit
+from it by the final overthrow of an acknowledged rival. And when he
+told her how Richard had flung his wine in Wilding's face when Wilding
+stood to toast her, a faint flush crept to her cheeks.
+
+“Richard did well,” said she. “I am proud of him.”
+
+The words pleased Sir Rowland vastly; but he reckoned without Diana.
+Miss Horton's mind was illumined by her knowledge of herself. In the
+light of that she saw precisely what capital this tale-bearer sought to
+make. The occasion might not be without its opportunities for her; and
+to begin with, it was no part of her intention that Wilding should be
+thus maligned and finally driven from the lists of rivalry with Blake.
+Upon Wilding, indeed, and his notorious masterfulness did she found what
+hopes she still entertained of winning back Sir Rowland.
+
+“Surely,” said she, “you are a little hard on Mr. Wilding. You speak as
+if he were the first gallant that ever toasted lady's eyes.”
+
+“I am no lady of his, Diana,” Ruth reminded her, with a faint show of
+heat.
+
+Diana shrugged her shoulders. “You may not love him, but you can't
+ordain that he shall not love you. You are very harsh, I think. To me it
+rather seems that Richard acted like a boor.”
+
+“But, mistress,” cried Sir Rowland, half out of countenance, and
+stifling his vexation, “in these matters it all depends upon the
+manner.”
+
+“Why, yes,” she agreed; “and whatever Mr. Wilding's manner, if I know
+him at all, it would be nothing but respectful to the last degree.”
+
+“My own conception of respect,” said he, “is not to bandy a lady's name
+about a company of revellers.”
+
+“Bethink you, though, you said just now, it all depended on the manner,”
+ she rejoined. Sir Rowland shrugged and turned half from her to her
+listening cousin. When all is said, poor Diana appears--despite her
+cunning--to have been short-sighted. Aiming at a defined advantage
+in the game she played, she either ignored or held too lightly the
+concomitant disadvantage of vexing Blake.
+
+“It were perhaps best to tell us the exact words he used, Sir Rowland,”
+ she suggested, “that for ourselves we may judge how far he lacked
+respect.”
+
+“What signify the words!” cried Blake, now almost out of temper.
+“I don't recall them. It is the air with which he pledged Mistress
+Westmacott.”
+
+“Ah yes--the manner,” quoth Diana irritatingly. “We'll let that be.
+Richard threw his wine in Mr. Wilding's face? What followed then? What
+said Mr. Wilding?”
+
+Sir Rowland remembered what Mr. Wilding had said, and bethought him
+that it were impolitic in him to repeat it. At the same time, not having
+looked for this cross-questioning, he was all unprepared with any likely
+answer. He hesitated, until Ruth echoed Diana's question.
+
+“Tell us, Sir Rowland,” she begged him, “what Mr. Wilding said.”
+
+Being forced to say something, and being by nature slow-witted and
+sluggish of invention, Sir Rowland was compelled, to his unspeakable
+chagrin, to fall back upon the truth.
+
+“Is not that proof?” cried Diana in triumph. “Mr. Wilding was reluctant
+to quarrel with Richard. He was even ready to swallow such an affront
+as that, thinking it might be offered him under a misconception of his
+meaning. He plainly professed the respect that filled him for Mistress
+Westmacott, and yet, and yet, Sir Rowland, you tell us that he lacked
+respect!”
+
+“Madam,” cried Blake, turning crimson, “that matters nothing. It was not
+the place or time to introduce your cousin's name.
+
+“You think, Sir Rowland,” put in Ruth, her air grave, judicial almost,
+“that Richard behaved well?”
+
+“As I would like to behave myself, as I would have a son of mine behave
+on the like occasion,” Blake protested. “But we waste words,” he cried.
+“I did not come to defend Richard, nor just to bear you this untoward
+news. I came to consult with you, in the hope that we might find some
+way to avert this peril from your brother.”
+
+“What way is possible?” asked Ruth, and sighed. “I would not... I would
+not have Richard a coward.”
+
+“Would you prefer him dead?” asked Blake, sadly grave.
+
+“Sooner than craven--yes,” Ruth answered him, very white.
+
+“There is no question of that,” was Blake's rejoinder. “The question
+is that Wilding said last night that he would kill the boy, and what
+Wilding says he does. Out of the affection that I bear Richard is born
+my anxiety to save him despite himself. It is in this that I come to
+seek your aid or offer mine. Allied we might accomplish what singly
+neither of us could.”
+
+He had at once the reward of his cunning speech. Ruth held out her
+hands. “You are a good friend, Sir Rowland,” she said, with a pale
+smile; and pale too was the smile with which Diana watched them. No more
+than Ruth did she suspect the sincerity of Blake's protestations.
+
+“I am proud you should account me that,” said the baronet, taking Ruth's
+hands and holding them a moment; “and I would that I could prove myself
+your friend in this to some good purpose. Believe me, if Wilding would
+consent that I might take your brother's place, I would gladly do so.”
+
+It was a safe boast, knowing as he did that Wilding would consent to
+no such thing; but it earned him a glance of greater kindliness from
+Ruth--who began to think that hitherto perhaps she had done him some
+injustice--and a look of greater admiration from Diana, who saw in him
+her beau-ideal of the gallant lover.
+
+“I would not have you endanger yourself so,” said Ruth.
+
+“It might,” said Blake, his blue eyes very fierce, “be no great danger,
+after all.” And then dismissing that part of the subject as if, like
+a brave man, the notion of being thought boastful were unpleasant, he
+passed on to the discussion of ways and means by which the coming duel
+might be averted. But when they came to grips with facts, it seemed that
+Sir Rowland had as little idea of what might be done as had the ladies.
+True, he began by making the obvious suggestion that Richard should
+tender Wilding a full apology. That, indeed, was the only door of
+escape, and Blake shrewdly suspected that what the boy had been
+unwilling to do last night--partly through wine, and partly through
+the fear of looking fearful in the eyes of Lord Gervase Scoresby's
+guests--he might be willing enough to do to-day, sober and upon
+reflection. For the rest Blake was as far from suspecting Mr. Wilding's
+peculiar frame of mind as had Richard been last night. This his words
+showed.
+
+“I am satisfied,” said he, “that if Richard were to go to-day to Wilding
+and express his regret for a thing done in the heat of wine, Wilding
+would be forced to accept it as satisfaction, and none would think that
+it did other than reflect credit upon Richard.”
+
+“Are you very sure of that?” asked Ruth, her tone dubious, her glance
+hopefully anxious.
+
+“What else is to be thought?”
+
+“But,” put in Diana shrewdly, “it were an admission of Richard's that he
+had done wrong.”
+
+“No less,” he agreed, and Ruth caught her breath in fresh dismay.
+
+“And yet you have said that he did as you would have a son of yours do,”
+ Diana reminded him.
+
+“And I maintain it,” answered Blake; his wits worked slowly ever. It was
+for Ruth to reveal the flaw to him.
+
+“Do you not understand, then,” she asked him sadly, “that such an
+admission on Richard's part would amount to a lie--a lie uttered to save
+himself from an encounter, the worst form of lie, a lie of cowardice?
+Surely, Sir Rowland, your kindly anxiety for his life outruns your
+anxiety for his honour.”
+
+Diana, having accomplished her task, hung her head in silence,
+pondering.
+
+Sir Rowland was routed utterly. He glanced from one to the other of his
+companions, and grew afraid that he--the town gallant--might come to
+look foolish in the eyes of these country ladies. He protested again
+his love for Richard, and increased Ruth's terror by his mention of
+Wilding's swordsmanship; but when all was said, he saw that he had best
+retreat ere he spoiled the good effect which he hoped his solicitude had
+created. And so he spoke of seeking counsel with Lord Gervase Scoresby,
+and took his leave, promising to return by noon.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. DIANA SCHEMES
+
+Notwithstanding the brave face Ruth Westmacott had kept during his
+presence, when he departed Sir Rowland left behind him a distress
+amounting almost to anguish in her mind. Yet though she might suffer,
+there was no weakness in Ruth's nature. She knew how to endure. Diana,
+bearing Richard not a tenth of the affection his sister consecrated to
+him, was alarmed for him. Besides, her own interests urged the averting
+of this encounter. And so she held in accents almost tearful that
+something must be done to save him.
+
+This, too, appeared to be Richard's own view, when presently--within a
+few minutes of Blake's departure--he came to join them. They watched
+his approach in silence, and both noted--though with different eyes and
+different feelings--the pallor of his fair face, the dark lines under
+his colourless eyes. His condition was abject, and his manners, never
+of the best--for there was much of the spoiled child about Richard--were
+clearly suffering from it.
+
+He stood before his sister and his cousin, moving his eyes shiftily from
+one to the other, rubbing his hands nervously together.
+
+“Your precious friend Sir Rowland has been here,” said he, and it was
+not clear from his manner which of them he addressed. “Not a doubt but
+he will have brought you the news.” He seemed to sneer.
+
+Ruth advanced towards him, her face grave, her sweet eyes full of
+pitying concern. She placed a hand upon his sleeve. “My poor Richard...”
+ she began, but he shook off her kindly touch, laughing angrily--a mere
+cackle of irritability.
+
+“Odso!” he interrupted her. “It is a thought late for this mock
+kindliness!”
+
+Diana, in the background, arched her brows, then with a shrug turned
+aside and seated herself on the stone seat by which they had been
+standing. Ruth shrank back as if her brother had struck her.
+
+“Richard!” she cried, and searched his livid face with her eyes.
+“Richard!”
+
+He read a question in the interjection, and he answered it. “Had you
+known any real care, any true concern for me, you had not given cause
+for this affair,” he chid her peevishly.
+
+“What are you saying?” she cried, and it occurred to her at last that
+Richard was afraid. He was a coward! She felt as she would faint.
+
+“I am saying,” said he, hunching his shoulders, and shivering as he
+spoke, yet, his glance unable to meet hers, “that it is your fault that
+I am like to get my throat cut before sunset.”
+
+“My fault?” she murmured. The slope of lawn seemed to wave and swim
+about her. “My fault?”
+
+“The fault of your wanton ways,” he accused her harshly. “You have so
+played fast and loose with this fellow Wilding that he makes free of
+your name in my very presence, and puts upon me the need to get myself
+killed by him to save the family honour.”
+
+He would have said more in this strain, but something in her glance gave
+him pause. There fell a silence. From the distance came the melodious
+pealing of church bells. High overhead a lark was pouring out its song;
+in the lane at the orchard end rang the beat of trotting hoofs. It
+was Diana who spoke presently. Just indignation stirred her, and, when
+stirred, she knew no pity, set no limits to her speech.
+
+“I think, indeed,” said she, her voice crisp and merciless, “that the
+family honour will best be saved if Mr. Wilding kills you. It is in
+danger while you live. You are a coward, Richard.”
+
+“Diana!” he thundered--he could be mighty brave with women--whilst Ruth
+clutched her arm to restrain her.
+
+But she continued, undeterred: “You are a coward--a pitiful coward,” she
+told him. “Consult your mirror. It will tell you what a palsied thing
+you are. That you should dare so speak to Ruth...”
+
+“Don't!” Ruth begged her, turning.
+
+“Aye,” growled Richard, “she had best be silent.”
+
+Diana rose, to battle, her cheeks crimson. “It asks a braver man than
+you to compel my obedience,” she told him. “La!” she fumed, “I'll swear
+that had Mr. Wilding overheard what you have said to your sister, you
+would have little to fear from his sword. A cane would be the weapon
+he'd use on you.”
+
+Richard's pale eyes flamed malevolently; a violent rage possessed him
+and flooded out his fear, for nothing can so goad a man as an offensive
+truth. Ruth approached him again; again she took him by the arm, seeking
+to soothe his over-troubled spirit; but again he shook her off. And then
+to save the situation came a servant from the house. So lost in anger
+was all Richard's sense of decency that the mere supervention of the
+man would not have been enough to have silenced him could he have found
+adequate words in which to answer Mistress Horton. But even as he racked
+his mind, the footman's voice broke the silence, and the words the
+fellow uttered did what his presence alone might not have sufficed to
+do.
+
+“Mr. Vallancey is asking for you, sir,” he announced.
+
+Richard started. Vallancey! He had come at last, and his coming was
+connected with the impending duel. The thought was paralyzing to young
+Westmacott. The flush of anger faded from his face; its leaden hue
+returned and he shivered as with cold. At last he mastered himself
+sufficiently to ask:
+
+“Where is he, Jasper?”
+
+“In the library, sir,” replied the servant. “Shall I bring him hither?”
+
+“Yes--no,” he answered. “I will come to him.” He turned his back upon
+the ladies, paused a moment, still irresolute. Then, as by an effort,
+he followed the servant across the lawn and vanished through the ivied
+porch.
+
+As he went Diana flew to her cousin. Her shallow nature was touched with
+transient pity. “My poor Ruth...” she murmured soothingly, and set her
+arm about the other's waist. There was a gleam of tears in the eyes Ruth
+turned upon her. Together they came to the granite seat and sank to it
+side by side, fronting the placid river. There Ruth, her elbows on her
+knees, cradled her chin in her hands, and with a sigh of misery stared
+straight before her.
+
+“It was untrue!” she said at last. “What Richard said of me was untrue.”
+
+“Why, yes,” Diana snapped, contemptuous. “The only truth is that Richard
+is afraid.”
+
+Ruth shivered. “Ah, no,” she pleaded--she knew how true was the
+impeachment. “Don't say it, Diana.”
+
+“It matters little that I say it,” snorted Diana impatiently. “It is a
+truth proclaimed by the first glance at him.”
+
+“He is in poor health, perhaps,” said Ruth, seeking miserably to excuse
+him.
+
+“Aye,” said Diana. “He's suffering from an ague--the result of a lack
+of courage. That he should so have spoken to you! Give me patience,
+Heaven!”
+
+Ruth crimsoned again at the memory of his words; a wave of indignation
+swept through her gentle soul, but was gone at once, leaving an
+ineffable sadness in its room. What was to be done? She turned to Diana
+for counsel. But Diana was still whipping up her scorn.
+
+“If he goes out to meet Mr. Wilding, he'll shame himself and every man
+and woman that bears the name of Westmacott,” said she, and struck a new
+fear with that into the heart of Ruth.
+
+“He must not go!” she answered passionately. “He must not meet him!”
+
+Diana flashed her a sidelong glance. “And if he doesn't, will things be
+mended?” she inquired. “Will it save his honour to have Mr. Wilding come
+and cane him?”
+
+“He'd not do that?” said Ruth.
+
+“Not if you asked him--no,” was Diana's sharp retort, and she caught her
+breath on the last word of it, for just then the Devil dropped the seed
+of a suggestion into the fertile soil of her lovesick soul.
+
+“Diana!” Ruth exclaimed in reproof, turning to confront her cousin. But
+Diana's mind started upon its scheming journey was now travelling fast.
+Out of that devil's seed there sprang with amazing rapidity a tree-like
+growth, throwing out branches, putting forth leaves, bearing already--in
+her fancy--bloom and fruit.
+
+“Why not?” quoth she after a breathing space, and her voice was gentle,
+her tone innocent beyond compare. “Why should you not ask him?” Ruth
+frowned, perplexed and thoughtful, and now Diana turned to her with
+the lively eye of one into whose mind has leapt a sudden inspiration.
+“Ruth!” she exclaimed. “Why, indeed, should you not ask him to forgo
+this duel?”
+
+“How, how could I?” faltered Ruth.
+
+“He'd not deny you; you know he'd not.”
+
+“I do not know it,” answered Ruth. “But if I did, how could I ask it?”
+
+“Were I Richard's sister, and had I his life and honour at heart as you
+have, I'd not ask how. If Richard goes to that encounter he loses both,
+remember--unless between this and then he undergoes some change. Were I
+in your place, I'd straight to Wilding.”
+
+“To him?” mused Ruth, sitting up. “How could I go to him?”
+
+“Go to him, yes,” Diana insisted. “Go to him at once--while there is yet
+time.”
+
+Ruth rose and moved away a step or two towards the water, deep in
+thought. Diana watched her furtively and slyly, the rapid rise and fall
+of her maiden breast betraying the agitation that filled her as she
+waited--like a gamester--for the turn of the card that would show her
+whether she had won or lost. For she saw clearly how Ruth might be so
+compromised that there was something more than a chance that Diana would
+no longer have cause to account her cousin a barrier between herself and
+Blake.
+
+“I could not go alone,” said Ruth, and her tone was that of one still
+battling with a notion that is repugnant.
+
+“Why, if that is all,” said Diana, “then I'll go with you.”
+
+“I can't! I can't! Consider the humiliation.”
+
+“Consider Richard rather,” the fair temptress made answer eagerly. “Be
+sure that Mr. Wilding will save you all humiliation. He'll not deny you.
+At a word from you, I know what answer he will make. He will refuse to
+push the matter forward--acknowledge himself in the wrong, do whatever
+you may ask him. He can do it. None will question his courage. It has
+been proved too often.” She rose and came to Ruth. She set her arm
+about her waist again, and poured shrewd persuasion over her cousin's
+indecision. “To-night you'll thank me for this thought,” she assured
+her. “Why do you pause? Are you so selfish as to think more of the
+little humiliation that may await you than of Richard's life and
+honour?”
+
+“No, no,” Ruth protested feebly.
+
+“What, then? Is Richard to go out and slay his honour by a show of fear
+before he is slain, himself, by the man he has insulted?”
+
+“I'll go,” said Ruth. Now that the resolve was taken, she was brisk,
+impatient. “Come, Diana. Let Jerry saddle for us. We'll ride to Zoyland
+Chase at once.”
+
+They went without a word to Richard who was still closeted with
+Vallancey, and riding forth they crossed the river and took the road
+that, skirting Sedgemoor, runs south to Weston Zoyland. They rode with
+little said until they came to the point where the road branches on the
+left, throwing out an arm across the moor towards Chedzoy, a mile or so
+short of Zoyland Chase. Here Diana reined in with a sharp gasp of pain.
+Ruth checked, and cried to know what ailed her.
+
+“It is the sun, I think,” muttered Diana, her hand to her brow. “I am
+sick and giddy.” And she slipped a thought heavily to the ground. In an
+instant Ruth had dismounted and was beside her. Diana was pale, which
+lent colour to her complaint, for Ruth was not to know that the pallor
+sprang from her agitation in wondering whether the ruse she attempted
+would succeed or not.
+
+A short stone's-throw from where they had halted stood a cottage back
+from the road in a little plot of ground, the property of a kindly old
+woman known to both. There Diana expressed the wish to rest awhile, and
+thither they took their way, Ruth leading both horses and supporting her
+faltering cousin. The dame was all solicitude. Diana was led into her
+parlour, and what could be done was done. Her corsage was loosened,
+water drawn from the well and brought her to drink and bathe her brow.
+
+She sat back languidly, her head lolling sideways against one of the
+wings of the great chair, and languidly assured them she would be better
+soon if she were but allowed to rest awhile. Ruth drew up a stool to
+sit beside her, for all that her soul fretted at this delay. What if in
+consequence she should reach Zoyland Chase too late--to find that Mr.
+Wilding had gone forth already? But even as she was about to sit, it
+seemed that the same thought had of a sudden come to Diana. The girl
+leaned forward, thrusting--as if by an effort--some of her faintness
+from her.
+
+“Do not wait for me, Ruth,” she begged.
+
+“I must, child.”
+
+“You must not;” the other insisted. “Think what it may mean--Richard's
+life, perhaps. No, no, Ruth, dear. Go on; go on to Zoyland. I'll follow
+you in a few minutes.”
+
+“I'll wait for you,” said Ruth with firmness.
+
+At that Diana rose, and in rising staggered. “Then we'll push on at
+once,” she gasped, as if speech itself were an excruciating effort.
+
+“But you are in no case to stand!” said Ruth. “Sit, Diana, sit.”
+
+“Either you go on alone or I go with you, but go at once you must. At
+any moment Mr. Wilding may go forth, and your chance is lost. I'll not
+have Richard's blood upon my head.”
+
+Ruth wrung her hands in her dismay, confronted by a parlous choice.
+Consent to Diana's accompanying her in this condition she could not;
+ride on alone to Mr. Wilding's house was hardly to be thought of, and
+yet if she delayed she was endangering Richard's life. By the very
+strength of her nature she was caught in the mesh of Diana's scheme.
+She saw that her hesitation was unworthy. This was no ordinary cause, no
+ordinary occasion. It was a time for heroic measures. She must ride on,
+nor could she consent to take Diana.
+
+And so in the end she went, having seen her cousin settled again in the
+high chair, and took with her Diana's feeble assurances that she would
+follow her in a few moments, as soon as her faintness passed.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. TERMS OF SURRENDER
+
+“MR. WILDING rode at dawn with Mr. Trenchard, madam,” announced old
+Walters, the butler at Zoyland Chase. Old and familiar servant though he
+was, he kept from his countenance all manifestation of the deep surprise
+occasioned him by the advent of Mistress Westmacott, unescorted.
+
+“He rode... at dawn?” faltered Ruth, and for a moment she stood
+irresolute, afraid and pondering in the shade of the great pillared
+porch. Then she took heart again. If he rode at dawn, it was not in
+quest of Richard that he went, since it had been near eleven o'clock
+when she had left Bridgwater. He must have gone on other business first,
+and, doubtless, before he went to the encounter he would be returning
+home. “Said he at what hour he would return?” she asked.
+
+“He bade us expect him by noon, madam.”
+
+This gave confirmation to her thoughts. It wanted more than half an hour
+to noon already. “Then he may return at any moment?” said she.
+
+“At any moment, madam,” was the grave reply.
+
+She took her resolve. “I will wait,” she announced, to the man's
+increasing if undisplayed astonishment. “Let my horse be seen to.”
+
+He bowed his obedience, and she followed him--a slender, graceful
+figure in her dove-coloured riding-habit laced with silver--across the
+stone-flagged vestibule, through the cool gloom of the great hall, into
+the spacious library of which he held the door.
+
+“Mistress Horton is following me,” she informed the butler. “Will you
+bring her to me when she comes?”
+
+Bowing again in silent acquiescence, the white-haired servant closed the
+door and left her. She stood in the centre of the great room, drawing
+off her riding-gloves, perturbed and frightened beyond all reason at
+finding herself for the first time under Mr. Wilding's roof. He was
+most handsomely housed. His grandfather, who had travelled in Italy,
+had built the Chase upon the severe and noble lines which there he had
+learnt to admire, and he had embellished its interior, too, with many
+treasures of art which with that intent he had there collected.
+
+She dropped her whip and gloves on to a table, and sank into a chair
+to wait, her heart fluttering in her throat. Time passed, and in the
+silence of the great house her anxiety was gradually quieted, until at
+last through the long window that stood open came faintly wafted to her
+on the soft breeze of that June morning the sound of a church clock at
+Weston Zoyland chiming twelve. She rose with a start, bethinking her
+suddenly of Diana, and wondering why she had not yet arrived. Was the
+child's indisposition graver than she had led Ruth to suppose? She
+crossed to the windows and stood there drumming impatiently upon the
+pane, her eyes straying idly over the sweep of elm-fringed lawns towards
+the river gleaming silvery here and there between the trees in the
+distance.
+
+Suddenly she caught a sound of hoofs. Was this Diana? She sped to the
+other window, the one that stood open, and now she heard the crunch of
+gravel and the champ of bits and the sound of more than two pairs of
+hoofs. She caught a glimpse of Mr. Wilding and Mr. Trenchard.
+
+She felt the colour flying from her cheeks; again her heart fluttered in
+her throat, and it was in vain that with her hand she sought to repress
+the heaving of her breast. She was afraid; her every instinct bade her
+slip through the window at which she stood and run from Zoyland Chase.
+And then she thought of Richard and his danger, and she seemed to gather
+courage from the reflection of her purpose in this house.
+
+Men's voices reached her--a laugh, the harsh cawing of Nick Trenchard.
+
+“A lady!” she heard him cry. “'Od's heart, Tony! Is this a time for
+trafficking with doxies?” She crimsoned an instant at the coarse word
+and set her teeth, only to pale again the next. The voices were
+lowered so that she heard not what was said; one sharp exclamation she
+recognized to be in Wilding's voice, but caught not the word he uttered.
+There followed a pause, and she stirred uneasily, waiting. Then
+came swift steps and jangling spurs across the hall, the door opened
+suddenly, and Mr. Wilding, in a scarlet riding-coat, his boots white
+with dust, stood bowing to her from the threshold.
+
+“Your servant, Mistress Westmacott,” she heard him murmur. “My house is
+deeply honoured.”
+
+She dropped him a half-curtsy, pale and tongue-tied. He turned to
+deliver hat and whip and gloves to Walters, who had followed him, then
+closed the door and came forward into the room.
+
+“You will forgive that I present myself thus before you,” he said,
+in apology for his dusty raiment. “But I bethought me you might be in
+haste, and Walters tells me that already have you waited nigh upon an
+hour. Will you not sit, madam?” And he advanced a chair. His long white
+face was set like a mask; but his dark, slanting eyes devoured her. He
+guessed the reason of her visit. She who had humbled him, who had driven
+him to the very borders of despair, was now to be humbled and to despair
+before him. Under the impassive face his soul exulted fiercely.
+
+She disregarded the chair he proffered. “My visit... has no doubt
+surprised you,” she began, tremulous and hesitating.
+
+“I' faith, no,” he answered quietly. “The cause, after all, is not very
+far to seek. You are come on Richard's behalf.”
+
+“Not on Richard's,” she answered. “On my own.” And now that the ice was
+broken, the suspense of waiting over, she found the tide of her courage
+flowing fast. “This encounter must not take place, Mr. Wilding,” she
+informed him.
+
+He raised his eyebrows--fine and level as her own--his thin lips smiled
+never so faintly. “It is, I think,” said he, “for Richard to prevent it.
+The chance was his last night. It shall be his again when we meet. If he
+will express regret...” He left his sentence there. In truth he mocked
+her, though she guessed it not.
+
+“You mean,” said she, “that if he makes apology...?”
+
+“What else? What other way remains?”
+
+She shook her head, and, if pale, her face was resolute, her glance
+steady.
+
+“That is impossible,” she told him. “Last night--as I have the story--he
+might have done it without shame. To-day it is too late. To tender his
+apology on the ground would be to proclaim himself a coward.”
+
+Mr. Wilding pursed his lips and shifted his position. “It is difficult,
+perhaps,” said he, “but not impossible.”
+
+“It is impossible,” she insisted firmly.
+
+“I'll not quarrel with you for a word,” he answered, mighty agreeable.
+“Call it impossible, if you will. Admit, however, that it is all I
+can suggest. You will do me the justice, I am sure, to see that in
+expressing my willingness to accept your brother's expressions of regret
+I am proving myself once more your very obedient servant. But that it is
+you who ask it--and whose desires are my commands--I should let no man
+go unpunished for an insult such as your brother put upon me.”
+
+She winced at his words, at the bow with which he had professed himself
+once more her servant.
+
+“It is no clemency that you offer him,” she said. “You leave him a
+choice between death and dishonour.”
+
+“He has,” Wilding reminded her, “the chance of combat.”
+
+She flung back her head impatiently. “I think you mock me,” said she.
+
+He looked at her keenly. “Will you tell me plainly, madam,” he begged,
+“what you would have me do?”
+
+She flushed under his gaze, and the flush told him what he sought to
+learn. There was, of course, another way, and she had thought of it;
+but she lacked--as well she might, all things considered--the courage
+to propose it. She had come to Mr. Wilding in the vague hope that he
+himself would choose the heroic part. And he, to punish for her scorn
+of him this woman whom he loved to hating-point, was resolved that she
+herself must beg it of him. Whether, having so far compelled her, he
+would grant her prayer or not was something he could not just then
+himself have told you. She bowed her head in silence, and Wilding, that
+faint smile, half friendliness, half mockery, hovering ever on his
+lips, turned aside and moved softly towards the window. Her eyes, veiled
+behind the long lashes of their drooping lids, followed him furtively.
+She felt that she hated him in very truth. She marked the upright
+elegance of his figure, the easy grace of his movements, the fine
+aristocratic mould of the aquiline face, which she beheld in profile;
+and she hated him the more for these outward favours that must commend
+him to no lack of women. He was too masterful. He made her realize too
+keenly her own weakness and that of Richard. She felt that just now he
+controlled the vice that held her fast--her affection for her brother.
+And because of that she hated him the more. “You see, Mistress
+Westmacott,” said he, his shoulder to her, his tone sweet to the point
+of sadness, “that there is nothing else.” She stood, her eyes following
+the pattern of the parquetry, her foot unconsciously tracing it; her
+courage ebbed, and she had no answer for him. After a pause he spoke
+again, still without turning. “If that was not enough to suit your
+ends”--and though he spoke in a tone of ever-increasing sadness, there
+glinted through it the faintest ray of mockery--“I marvel you should
+have come to Zoyland--to compromise yourself to so little purpose.”
+
+She raised a startled face. “Com... compromise myself?” she echoed.
+“Oh!” It was a cry of indignation.
+
+“What else?” quoth he, and turned abruptly to confront her.
+
+“Mistress Horton was... was with me,” she panted, her voice quivering as
+on the brink of tears.
+
+“'Tis unfortunate you should have separated,” he condoled.
+
+“But... but, Mr. Wilding, I... I trusted to your honour. I accounted you
+a gentleman. Surely... surely, sir, you will not let it be known that...
+I came to you? You will keep my secret?”
+
+“Secret!” said he, his eyebrows raised. “'Tis already the talk of the
+servants' hall. By to-morrow 'twill be the gossip of Bridgwater.”
+
+Air failed her. Her blue eyes fixed him in horror out of her stricken
+face. Not a word had she wherewith to answer him.
+
+The sight of her, thus, affected him oddly. His passion for her surged
+up, aroused by pity for her plight, and awakened in him a sense of his
+brutality. A faint flush stirred in his cheeks. He stepped quickly to
+her, and caught her hand. She let it lie, cold and inert, within his
+nervous grasp.
+
+“Ruth, Ruth!” he cried, and his voice was for once unsteady. “Give it no
+thought! I love you, Ruth. If you'll but heed that, no breath of scandal
+can hurt you.”
+
+She swallowed hard. “As how?” she asked mechanically.
+
+He bowed low over her hand--so low that his face was hidden from her.
+
+“If you will do me the honour to become my wife...” he began, but got no
+further, for she snatched away her hand, her cheeks crimsoning, her eyes
+aflame with indignation. He stepped back, crimsoning too. She had dashed
+the gentleness from his mood. He was angered now and tigerish.
+
+“Oh!” she panted. “It is to affront me! Is this the time or place...”
+
+He cropped her flow of indignant speech ere it was well begun. He caught
+her in his arms, and held her tight, and so sudden was the act, so firm
+his grip that she had not the thought or force to struggle.
+
+“All time is love's time, all places are love's place,” he told her,
+his face close to her own. “And of all time and places the present ever
+preferable to the wise--for life is uncertain and short at best. I bring
+you worship, and you answer me with scorn. But I shall prevail, and you
+shall come to love me in very spite of your own self.”
+
+She threw back her head, away from his as far as the bonds he had cast
+about her would allow. “Air! Air!” she panted feebly.
+
+“Oh, you shall have air enough anon,” he answered with a half-strangled
+laugh, his passion mounting ever. “Hark you, now--hark you, for
+Richard's sake, since you'll not listen for my own nor yours. There is
+another course by which I can save both Richard's life and honour.
+You know it, and you counted upon my generosity to suggest it. But you
+overlooked the thing on which you should have counted. You overlooked my
+love. Count upon that, my Ruth, and Richard shall have naught to fear.
+Count upon that, and when we meet this evening, Richard and I, it is
+I who will tender the apology, I who will admit that I was wrong to
+introduce your name into that company last night, and that what Richard
+did was a just and well-deserved punishment upon me. This will I do if
+you'll but count upon my love.”
+
+She looked up at him fearfully, yet with flutterings of hope. “What is't
+you mean?” she asked him faintly.
+
+“That if you'll promise to be my wife...”
+
+“Your wife!” she interrupted him. She struggled to free herself,
+released one arm and struck him in the face. “Let me go, you coward!”
+
+He was answered. His arms melted from her. He fell back a pace, very
+white and even trembling, the fire all gone from his eye, which was now
+turned dull and deadly.
+
+“So be it,” he said, and strode to the bell-rope. “I'll not offend
+again. I had not offended now”--he continued, in the voice of one
+offering an explanation cold and formal--“but that when first I came
+into your life you seemed to bid me welcome.” His fingers closed upon
+the crimson bell-cord. She guessed his purpose.
+
+“Wait!” she gasped, and put forth her hand. He paused, the rope in his,
+his eye kindling anew. “You... you mean to kill Richard now?” she asked
+him.
+
+A swift lifting of his brows was his only answer. He tugged the cord.
+From the distance the peal of the bell reached them faintly.
+
+“Oh, wait, wait!” she begged, her hands pressed against her cheeks. He
+stood impassible--hatefully impassible. “....... if I were to consent
+to... this... how... how soon...?” He understood the unfinished
+question. Interest warmed his face again. He took a step towards her,
+but by a gesture she seemed to beg him come no nearer.
+
+“If you will promise to marry me within the week, Richard shall have no
+cause to fear either for his life or his honour at my hands.”
+
+She seemed now to be recovering her calm. “Very well,” she said, her
+voice singularly steady. “Let that be a bargain between us. Spare
+Richard's life and honour--both, remember!--and on Sunday next...” For
+all her courage her voice quavered and faltered. She dared add no more,
+lest it should break altogether.
+
+Mr. Wilding drew a deep breath. Again he would have advanced. “Ruth!”
+ he cried, and some repentance smote him, some shame shook him in
+his purpose. At that moment it was in his mind to capitulate
+unconditionally; to tell her that Richard should have naught to fear
+from him, and yet that she should go free as the winds. Her gesture
+checked him. It was so eloquent of aversion. He paused in his advance,
+stifled his better feelings, and turned once more, relentless. The door
+opened and old Walters stood awaiting his commands.
+
+“Mistress Westmacott is leaving,” he informed his servant, and bowed
+low and formally in farewell before her. She passed out without another
+word, the old butler following, and presently through the door that
+remained open came Trenchard, in quest of Mr. Wilding who stood bemused.
+
+Nick sauntered in, his left eye almost hidden by the rakish cock of his
+hat, one hand tucked away under the skirts of his plum-coloured coat,
+the other supporting the stem of a long clay pipe, at which he was
+pulling thoughtfully. The pipe and he were all but inseparable; indeed,
+the year before in London he had given appalling scandal by appearing
+with it in the Mall, and had there remained him any character to lose,
+he must assuredly have lost it then.
+
+He observed his friend through narrowing eyes--he had small eyes, very
+blue and very bright, in which there usually abode a roguish gleam.
+
+“My sight, Anthony,” said he, “reminds me that I am growing old. I
+wonder did it mislead me on the score of your visitor?”
+
+“The lady who left,” said Wilding with a touch of severity, “will be
+Mistress Wilding by this day se'night.”
+
+Trenchard took the pipe from his lips, audibly blew out a cloud of smoke
+and stared at his friend. “Body o' me!” quoth he. “Is this a time for
+marrying?--with these rumours of Monmouth's coming over.”
+
+Wilding made an impatient gesture. “I thought to have convinced you they
+are idle,” said he, and flung himself into a chair at his writing-table.
+
+Nick came over and perched himself upon the table's edge, one leg
+swinging in the air. “And what of this matter of the intercepted letter
+from London to our Taunton friends?”
+
+“I can't tell you. But of this I am sure, His Grace is incapable of
+anything so rash. Certain is it that he'll not stir until Battiscomb
+returns to Holland, and Battiscomb is still in Cheshire sounding the
+Duke's friends.”
+
+“Yet were I you, I should not marry just at present.”
+
+Wilding smiled. “If you were me, you'd never marry at all.”
+
+“Faith, no!” said Trenchard. “I'd as soon play at 'hot-cockles,' or
+'Parson-has-lost-his-cloak.' 'Tis a mort more amusing and the sooner
+done with.”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE ENCOUNTER
+
+Ruth Wesmacott rode back like one in a dream, with vague and hazy
+notions of what she saw or did. So overwrought was she by the interview
+from which she came, her mind so obsessed by it, that never a thought
+had she for Diana and her indisposition until she arrived home to
+find her cousin there before her. Diana was in tears, called up by the
+reproaches of her mother, Lady Horton--the relict of that fine soldier
+Sir Cholmondeley Horton, of Taunton.
+
+The girl had arrived at Lupton House a half-hour ahead of Miss
+Westmacott, and upon her arrival she had expressed surprise, either
+feigned or real, at finding Ruth still absent. Detecting the alarm
+that Diana was careful to throw into her voice and manner, her mother
+questioned her, and elicited the story of her faintness and of Ruth's
+having ridden on alone to Mr. Wilding's. So outraged was Lady Horton
+that for once in a way this woman, usually so meek and ease-loving,
+was roused to an energy and anger with her daughter and her niece that
+threatened to remove Diana at once from the pernicious atmosphere of
+Lupton House and carry her home to Taunton. Ruth found her still at her
+remonstrances, arrived, indeed, in time for her share of them.
+
+“I have been sore mistaken in you, Ruth!” the dame reproached her. “I
+can scarce believe it of you. I have held you up as an example to Diana,
+for the discretion and wisdom of your conduct, and you do this! You go
+alone to Mr. Wilding's house--to Mr. Wilding's, of all men!”
+
+“It was no time for ordinary measures,” said Ruth, but she spoke without
+any of the heat of one who defends her conduct. She was, the slyly
+watchful Diana observed, very white and tired. “It was no time to think
+of nice conduct. There was Richard to be saved.”
+
+“And was it worth ruining yourself to do that?” quoth Lady Horton, her
+colour high.
+
+“Ruining myself?” echoed Ruth, and she smiled never so weary a smile. “I
+have, indeed, done that, though not in the way you mean.”
+
+Mother and daughter eyed her, mystified. “Your good name is blasted,”
+ said her aunt, “unless so be that Mr. Wilding is proposing to make you
+his wife.” It was a sneer the good woman could not, in her indignation,
+repress.
+
+“That is what Mr. Wilding has done me the honour to propose,” Ruth
+answered bitterly, and left them gaping. “We are to be married this day
+se'night.”
+
+A dead silence followed the calm announcement. Then Diana rose. At the
+misery, the anguish that could impress so strange and white a look
+on Ruth's winsome face, she was smitten with remorse, her incipient
+satisfaction dashed. This was her work; the fruit of her scheming. But
+it had gone further than she had foreseen; and for all that no result
+could better harmonize with her own ambitions and desires, for the
+moment--under the first shock of that announcement--she felt guilty and
+grew afraid.
+
+“Ruth!” she cried, her voice a whisper of stupefaction. “Oh, I wish I
+had come with you!”
+
+“But you couldn't; you were faint.” And then--recalling what had
+passed--her mind was filled with sudden concern for Diana, even amid her
+own sore troubles. “Are you quite yourself again, Diana?” she inquired.
+
+Diana answered almost fiercely, “I am quite well.” And then, with a
+change to wistfulness, she added, “Oh, I would I had come with you!”
+
+“Matters had been no different,” Ruth assured her. “It was a bargain
+Mr. Wilding drove. It was the price I had to pay for Richard's life and
+honour.” She swallowed hard, and let her hands fall limply to her sides.
+“Where is Richard?” she inquired.
+
+It was her aunt who answered her. “He went forth half an hour agone with
+Mr. Vallancey and Sir Rowland.”
+
+“Sir Rowland had returned, then?” She looked up quickly.
+
+“Yes,” answered Diana. “But he had achieved nothing by his visit to Lord
+Gervase. His lordship would not intervene; he swore he hoped the cub
+would be flayed alive by Wilding. Those were his lordship's words, as
+Sir Rowland repeated them. Sir Rowland is in sore distress for Richard.
+He has gone with them to the meeting.”
+
+“At least, he has no longer cause for his distress,” said Miss
+Westmacott with her bitter smile, and sank as one exhausted to a chair.
+Lady Horton moved to comfort her, her motherliness all aroused for this
+motherless girl, usually so wise and strong, and seemingly wiser and
+stronger than ever in this thing that Lady Horton had deemed a weakness
+and a folly.
+
+Meanwhile, Richard and his two friends were on their way to the moors
+across the river to the encounter with Mr. Wilding. But before they
+had got him to ride forth, Vallancey had had occasion to regret that he
+stood committed to a share in this quarrel, for he came to know Richard
+as he really was. He had found him in an abject state, white and
+trembling, his coward's fancy anticipating a hundred times a minute the
+death he was anon to die.
+
+Vallancey had hailed him cheerily.
+
+“The day is yours, Dick,” he had cried, when Richard entered the library
+where he awaited him. “Wild Wilding has ridden to Taunton this morning
+and is to be back by noon. Odsbud, Dick!--twenty miles and more in the
+saddle before coming on the ground. Heard you ever of the like madness?
+He'll be stiff as a broom-handle--an easy victim.”
+
+Richard listened, stared, and, finding Vallancey's eyes fixed steadily
+upon him, attempted a smile and achieved a horrible grimace.
+
+“What ails you, man?” cried his second, and caught him by the wrist. He
+felt the quiver of the other's limb. “Stab me!” quoth he, “you are in no
+case to fight. What the plague ails you?”
+
+“I am none so well this morning,” answered Richard feebly. “Lord
+Gervase's claret,” he added, passing a hand across his brow.
+
+“Lord Gervase's claret?” echoed Vallancey in horror, as at some
+outrageous blasphemy. “Frontignac at ten shillings the bottle!” he
+exclaimed.
+
+“Still, claret never does lie easy on my stomach,” Richard explained,
+intent upon blaming Lord Gervase s wine--since he could think of nothing
+else--for his condition.
+
+Vallancey looked at him shrewdly. “My cock,” said he, “if you're to
+fight we'll have to mend your temper.” He took it upon himself to ring
+the bell, and to order up two bottles of Canary and one of brandy. If he
+was to get his man to the ground at all--and young Vallancey had a due
+sense of his responsibilities in that connection--it would be well to
+supply Richard with something to replace the courage that had oozed
+out overnight. Young Richard, never loath to fortify himself, proved
+amenable enough to the stiffly laced Canary that his friend set before
+him. Then, to divert his mind, Vallancey, with that rash freedom that
+had made the whole of Somerset know him for a rebel, set himself to talk
+of the Protestant Duke and his right to the crown of England.
+
+He was still at his talk, Richard listening moodily what time he was
+slowly but surely befuddling himself, when Sir Rowland--returning from
+Scoresby Hall--came to bring the news of his lack of success. Richard
+hailed him noisily, and bade him ring for another glass, adding, with
+a burst of oaths, some appalling threats of how anon he should serve
+Anthony Wilding. His wits drowned in the stiff liquor Vallancey had
+pressed upon him, he seemed of a sudden to have grown as fierce and
+bloodthirsty as any scourer that ever terrorized the watch.
+
+Blake listened to him and grunted. “Body o' me!” swore the town gallant.
+“If that's the humour you're going out to fight in, I'll trouble you for
+the eight guineas I won from you at Primero yesterday before you start.”
+
+Richard reared himself, by the help of the table, and stood a thought
+unsteadily, his glance laboriously striving to engage Blake's.
+
+“Damn me!” quoth he. “Your want of faith dishgraces me--and 't 'shgraces
+you. Shalt ha' the guineas when we're back--and not before.”
+
+“Hum!” quoth Blake, to whom eight guineas were a consideration in these
+bankrupt days. “And if you don't come back at all upon whom am I to
+draw?”
+
+The suggestion sank through Dick's half-fuddled senses, and the scare it
+gave him was reflected on his face.
+
+“Damn you, Blake!” swore Vallancey between his teeth. “Is that a decent
+way to talk to a man who is going out? Never heed him, Dick! Let him
+wait for his dirty guineas till we return.”
+
+“Thirty guineas?” hiccoughed Richard. “It was only eight.
+Anyhow--wait'll I've sli' the gullet of's Mr. Wilding.” He checked on
+a thought that suddenly occurred to him. He turned to Vallancey with a
+ludicrous solemnity. “'Sbud!” he swore. “'S a scurvy trick I'm playing
+the Duke. 'S treason to him--treason no less.” And he smote the table
+with his open hand.
+
+“What's that?” quoth Blake so sharply, his eyes so suddenly alert that
+Vallancey made haste to cover up his fellow rebel's indiscretion.
+
+“It's the brandy-and-Canary makes him dream,” said he with a laugh, and
+rising as he spoke he announced that it was high time they should set
+out. Thus he brought about a bustle that drove the Duke's business from
+Richard's mind, and left Blake without a pretext to pursue his quest
+for information. But the mischief was done, and Blake's suspicions were
+awake. He bethought him now of dark hints that Richard had let fall
+to Vallancey in the past few days, and of hints less dark with which
+Vallancey--who was a careless fellow at ordinary times--had answered.
+And now this mention of the Duke and of treason to him--to what Duke
+could it refer but Monmouth?
+
+Blake was well aware of the wild tales that were going round, and he
+began to wonder now was aught really afoot, and was his good friend
+Westmacott in it?
+
+If there was, he bethought him that the knowledge might be of value,
+and it might help to float once more his shipwrecked fortunes. The haste
+with which Vallancey had proffered a frivolous explanation of Richard's
+words, the bustle with which upon the instant he swept Richard and Sir
+Rowland from the house to get to horse and ride out to Bridgwater were
+in themselves circumstances that went to heighten those suspicions of
+Sir Rowland's. But lacking all opportunity for investigation at the
+moment, he deemed it wisest to say no more just then lest he should
+betray his watchfulness.
+
+They were the first to arrive upon the ground--an open space on the
+borders of Sedgemoor, in the shelter of Polden Hill. But they had not
+long to wait before Wilding and Trenchard rode up, attended by a groom.
+Their arrival had an oddly sobering effect upon young Westmacott, for
+which Mr. Vallancey was thankful. For during their ride he had begun to
+fear that he had carried too far the business of equipping his principal
+with artificial valour.
+
+Trenchard came forward to offer Vallancey the courteous suggestion that
+Mr. Wilding's servant should charge himself with the care of the horses
+of Mr. Westmacott's party, if this would be a convenience to
+them. Vallancey thanked him and accepted the offer, and thus the
+groom--instructed by Trenchard--led the five horses some distance from
+the spot.
+
+It now became a matter of making preparation, and leaving Richard to
+divest himself of such garments as he might deem cumbrous, Vallancey
+went forward to consult with Trenchard upon the choice of ground. At
+that same moment Mr. Wilding lounged forward, flicking the grass with
+his whip in an absent manner.
+
+“Mr. Vallancey,” he began, when Trenchard turned to interrupt him.
+
+“You can leave it safely to me, Tony,” he growled. “But there is
+something I wish to say, Nick,” answered Mr. Wilding, his manner mild.
+“By your leave, then.” And he turned again to Valiancey. “Will you be so
+good as to call Mr. Westmacott hither?”
+
+Vallancey stared. “For what purpose, sir?” he asked.
+
+“For my purpose,” answered Mr. Wilding sweetly. “It is no longer my wish
+to engage with Mr. Westmacott.
+
+“Anthony!” cried Trenchard, and in his amazement forgot to swear.
+
+“I propose,” added Mr. Wilding, “to relieve Mr. Westmacott of the
+necessity of fighting.”
+
+Vallancey in his heart thought this might be pleasant news for his
+principal. Still, he did not quite see how the end was to be attained,
+and said so.
+
+“You shall be enlightened if you will do as I request,” Wilding
+insisted, and Vallancey, with a lift of the brows, a snort, and a shrug,
+turned away to comply.
+
+“Do you mean,” quoth Trenchard, bursting with indignation, “that you
+will let live a man who has struck you?”
+
+Wilding took his friend affectionately by the arm. “It is a whim of
+mine,” said he. “Do you think, Nick, that it is more than I can afford
+to indulge?”
+
+“I say not so,” was the ready answer; “but...”
+
+“I thought you'd not,” said Mr. Wilding, interrupting. “And if any
+does--why, I shall be glad to prove it upon him that he lies.” He
+laughed, and Trenchard, vexed though he was, was forced to laugh with
+him. Then Nick set himself to urge the thing that last night had plagued
+his mind: that this Richard might prove a danger to the Cause; that
+in the Duke's interest, if not to safeguard his own person from some
+vindictive betrayal, Wilding would be better advised in imposing a
+reliable silence upon him.
+
+“But why vindictive?” Mr. Wilding remonstrated. “Rather must he have
+cause for gratitude.”
+
+Mr. Trenchard laughed short and contemptuously. “There is,” said he, “no
+rancour more bitter than that of the mean man who has offended you and
+whom you have spared. I beg you'll ponder it.” He lowered his voice as
+he ended his admonition, for Vallancey and Westmacott were coming up,
+followed by Sir Rowland Blake.
+
+Richard, although his courage had been sinking lower and lower in a
+measure as he had grown more and more sober with the approach of the
+moment for engaging, came forward now with a firm step and an arrogant
+mien; for Vallancey had given him more than a hint of what was toward.
+His heart had leapt, not only at the deliverance that was promised him,
+but out of satisfaction at the reflection of how accurately last night
+he had gauged what Mr. Wilding would endure. It had dismayed him then,
+as we have seen, that this man who, he thought, must stomach any affront
+from him out of consideration for his sister, should have ended by
+calling him to account. He concluded now that upon reflection Wilding
+had seen his error, and was prepared to make amends that he might
+extricate himself from an impossible situation, and Richard blamed
+himself for having overlooked this inevitable solution and given way to
+idle panic.
+
+Vallancey and Blake watching him, and the sudden metamorphosis that was
+wrought in him, despised him heartily, and yet were glad--for the sake
+of their association with him--that things were as they were.
+
+“Mr. Westmacott,” said Wilding quietly, his eyes steadily set upon
+Richard's own arrogant gaze, his lips smiling a little, “I am here not
+to fight, but to apologize.”
+
+Richard's sneer was audible to all. Oh, he was gathering courage fast
+now that there no longer was the need for it. It urged him to lengths of
+daring possible only to a fool.
+
+“If you can take a blow, Mr. Wilding,” said he offensively, “that is
+your own affair.”
+
+And his friends gasped at his temerity and trembled for him, not knowing
+what grounds he had for counting himself unassailable.
+
+“Just so,” said Mr. Wilding, as meek and humble as a nun, and Trenchard,
+who had expected something very different from him, swore aloud and with
+some circumstance of oaths. “The fact is,” continued Mr. Wilding, “that
+what I did last night, I did in the heat of wine, and I am sorry for
+it. I recognize that this quarrel is of my provoking; that it was
+unwarrantable in me to introduce the name of Mistress Westmacott, no
+matter how respectfully; and that in doing so I gave Mr. Westmacott
+ample grounds for offence. For that I beg his pardon, and I venture to
+hope that this matter need go no further.”
+
+Vallancey and Blake were speechless in astonishment; Trenchard
+livid with fury. Westmacott moved a step or two forward, a swagger
+unmistakable in his gait, his nether-lip thrust out in a sneer.
+
+“Why,” said he, his voice mighty disdainful, “if Mr. Wilding apologizes,
+the matter hardly can go further.” He conveyed such a suggestion of
+regret at this that Trenchard bounded forward, stung to speech.
+
+“But if Mr. Westmacott's disappointment threatens to overwhelm him,” he
+snapped, very tartly, “I am his humble servant, and he may call upon me
+to see that he's not robbed of the exercise he came to take.”
+
+Mr. Wilding set a restraining hand upon Trenchard's arm.
+
+Westmacott turned to him, the sneer, however, gone from his face.
+
+“I have no quarrel with you, sir,” said he, with an uneasy assumption of
+dignity.
+
+“It's a want that may be soon supplied,” answered Trenchard briskly,
+and, as he afterwards confessed, had not Wilding checked him at that
+moment, he had thrown his hat in Richard's face.
+
+It was Vallancey who saved the situation, cursing in his heart the
+bearing of his principal.
+
+“Mr. Wilding,” said he, “this is very handsome in you. You are of the
+happy few who may tender such an apology without reflection upon your
+courage.”
+
+Mr. Wilding made him a leg very elegantly. “You are vastly kind, sir,”
+ said he.
+
+“You have given Mr. Westmacott the fullest satisfaction, and it is with
+an increased respect for you--if that were possible--that I acknowledge
+it on my friend's behalf.”
+
+“You are, sir, a very mirror of the elegancies,” said Mr. Wilding, and
+Vallancey wondered was he being laughed at. Whether he was or not, he
+conceived that he had done the only seemly thing. He had made handsome
+acknowledgment of a handsome apology, stung to it by the currishness of
+Richard.
+
+And there the matter ended, despite Trenchard's burning eagerness to
+carry it himself to a different consummation. Wilding prevailed upon
+him, and withdrew him from the field. But as they rode back to Zoyland
+Chase the old rake was bitter in his inveighings against Wilding's folly
+and weakness.
+
+“I pray Heaven,” he kept repeating, “that it may not come to cost you
+dear.”
+
+“Have done,” said Mr. Wilding, a trifle out of patience. “Could I wed
+the sister having slain the brother?”
+
+And Trenchard, understanding at last, accounted himself a numskull that
+he had not understood before. But he none the less deemed it a pity
+Richard had been spared.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. THE CHAMPION
+
+As vainglorious was Richard Westmacott's retreat from the field of
+unstricken battle as his advance upon it had been inglorious. He spoke
+with confidence now of the narrow escape that Wilding had had at
+his hands, of the things he would have done to Wilding had not that
+gentleman grown wise in time. Sir Rowland, who had seen little of
+Richard's earlier stricken condition, was in a measure imposed upon by
+his blustering tone and manner; not so Vallancey, who remembered the
+steps he had been forced to take to bolster up the young man's courage
+sufficiently to admit of his being brought to the encounter. Richard so
+disgusted him that he felt if he did not quit his company soon, he would
+be quarrelling with him himself. So, congratulating him, in a caustic
+manner that Richard did not relish, upon the happy termination of the
+affair, Vallancey took his leave of him and Blake at the cross-roads,
+pleading business with Lord Gervase, and left them to proceed without
+him to Bridgwater.
+
+Blake, whose suspicions of some secret matter to which Vallancey
+and Richard were wedded, had been earlier excited by Westmacott's
+indiscretions, was full of sly questions now touching the business which
+might be taking Vallancey to Scoresby. But Richard was too full of
+the subject of the fear he had instilled into Wilding to afford his
+companion much satisfaction on any other score. Thus they came to Lupton
+House, and as Richard swaggered down the lawn into the presence of the
+ladies--Ruth and her aunt were occupying the stone bench, Diana the
+circular seat about the great oak in the centre of the lawn--he was a
+very different person from the pale, limp creature they had beheld there
+some few hours earlier. Loud and offensive was he now in self-laudation,
+and so indifferent to all else that he left unobserved the little smile,
+half wistful, half scornful, that visited his sister's lips when he
+sneeringly told how Mr. Wilding had chosen that better part of valour
+which discretion is alleged to be.
+
+It needed Diana, who, blinded by no sisterly affection, saw him exactly
+as he was, and despised him accordingly, to enlighten him. It may also
+be that in doing so at once she had ends of her own to serve; for Sir
+Rowland was still of the company.
+
+“Mr. Wilding afraid?” she cried, her voice so charged with derision that
+it inclined to shrillness. “La! Richard, Mr. Wilding was never afraid of
+any man.”
+
+“Faith!” said Rowland, although his acquaintance with Mr. Wilding was
+slight and recent. “It is what I should think. He does not look like a
+man familiar with fear.”
+
+Richard struck something of an attitude, his fair face flushed, his pale
+eyes glittering. “He took a blow,” said he, and sneered.
+
+“There may have been reasons,” Diana suggested darkly, and Sir Rowland's
+eyes narrowed at the hint.
+
+Again he recalled the words Richard had let fall that afternoon. Wilding
+and he were fellow workers in some secret business, and Richard had said
+that the encounter was treason to that same business, whatever it might
+be. And of what it might be Sir Rowland had grounds upon which to found
+at least a guess. Had perhaps Wilding acted upon some similar feelings
+in avoiding the duel? He wondered; and when Richard dismissed Diana's
+challenge with a fatuous laugh, it was Blake who took it up.
+
+“You speak, ma'am,” said he, “as if you knew that there were reasons,
+and knew, too, what those reasons might be.”
+
+Diana looked at Ruth, as if for guidance before replying. But Ruth sat
+calm and seemingly impassive, looking straight before her. She was,
+indeed, indifferent how much Diana said, for in any case the matter
+could not remain a secret long. Lady Horton, silent too and listening,
+looked a question at her daughter.
+
+And so, after a pause: “I know both,” said Diana, her eyes straying
+again to Ruth; and a subtler man than Blake would have read that glance
+and understood that this same reason which he sought so diligently sat
+there before him.
+
+Richard, indeed, catching that sly look of his cousin's, checked his
+assurance, and stood frowning, cogitating. Then, quite suddenly, his
+voice harsh:
+
+“What do you mean, Diana?” he inquired.
+
+Diana shrugged and turned her shoulder to him. “You had best ask Ruth,”
+ said she, which was an answer more or less plain to both the men.
+
+They stood at gaze, Richard looking a thought foolish. Blake, frowning,
+his heavy lip caught in his strong, white teeth.
+
+Ruth turned to her brother with an almost piteous attempt at a smile.
+She sought to spare him pain by excluding from her manner all suggestion
+that things were other than she desired.
+
+“I am betrothed to Mr. Wilding,” said she.
+
+Sir Rowland made a sudden forward movement, drew a deep breath, and as
+suddenly stood still. Richard looked at his sister as she were mad and
+raving. Then he laughed, between unbelief and derision.
+
+“It is a jest,” said he, but his accents lacked conviction.
+
+“It is the truth,” Ruth assured him quietly.
+
+“The truth?” His brow darkened ominously--stupendously for one so fair.
+“The truth, you baggage...?” He began and stopped in very fury.
+
+She saw that she must tell him all.
+
+“I promised to wed Mr. Wilding this day se'night so that he saved your
+life and honour,” she told him calmly, and added, “It was a bargain that
+we drove.” Richard continued to stare at her. The thing she told him
+was too big to be swallowed at a mouthful; he was absorbing it by slow
+degrees.
+
+“So now,” said Diana, “you know the sacrifice your sister has made to
+save you, and when you speak of the apology Mr. Wilding tendered you,
+perhaps you'll speak of it in a tone less loud.”
+
+But the sarcasm was no longer needed. Already poor Richard was very
+humble, his make-believe spirit all snuffed out. He observed at last
+how pale and set was his sister's face, and he realized something of
+the sacrifice she had made. Never in all his life was Richard so near
+to lapsing from the love of himself; never so near to forgetting his
+own interests, and preferring those of Ruth. Lady Horton sat silent, her
+heart fluttering with dismay and perplexity. Heaven had not equipped her
+with a spirit capable of dealing with a situation such as this. Blake
+stood in make believe stolidity dissembling his infinite chagrin and
+the stormy emotions warring within him, for some signs of which Diana
+watched his countenance in vain.
+
+“You shall not do it!” cried Richard suddenly. He came forward and laid
+his hand on his sister's shoulder. His voice was almost gentle. “Ruth,
+you shall not do this for me. You must not.”
+
+“By Heaven, no!” snapped Blake before she could reply. “You are right,
+Richard. Mistress Westmacott must not be the scapegoat. She shall not
+play the part of Iphigenia.”
+
+But Ruth smiled wistfully as she answered him with a question, “Where is
+the help for it?”
+
+Richard knew where the help for it lay, and for once--for just a
+moment--he contemplated danger and even death with equanimity.
+
+“I can take up this quarrel again,” he announced. “I can compel Mr.
+Wilding to meet me.”
+
+Ruth's eyes, looking up at him, kindled with pride and admiration. It
+warmed her heart to hear him speak thus, to have this assurance that he
+was anything but the coward she had been so disloyal as to deem him; no
+doubt she had been right in saying that it was his health was the cause
+of the palsy he had displayed that morning; he was a little wild, she
+knew; inclined to sit over-late at the bottle; with advancing manhood,
+she had no doubt, he would overcome this boyish failing. Meanwhile
+it was this foolish habit--nothing more--that undermined the inherent
+firmness of his nature. And it comforted her generous soul to have this
+proof that he was full worthy of the sacrifice she was making for him.
+Diana watched him in some surprise, and never doubted but that his offer
+was impulsive, and that he would regret it when his ardour had had time
+to cool.
+
+“It were idle,” said Ruth at last--not that she quite believed it, but
+that it was all-important to her that Richard should not be imperilled.
+“Mr. Wilding will prefer the bargain he has made.”
+
+“No doubt,” growled Blake, “but he shall be forced to unmake it.” He
+advanced and bowed low before her. “Madam,” said he, “will you grant
+me leave to champion your cause and remove this troublesome Mr. Wilding
+from your path?”
+
+Diana's eyes narrowed; her cheeks paled, partly from fear for Blake,
+partly from vexation at the promptness of an offer that afforded a fresh
+and so eloquent proof of the trend of his affections.
+
+Ruth smiled at him in a very friendly manner, but gently shook her head.
+
+“I thank you, sir,” said she. “But it were more than I could permit.
+This has become a family affair.”
+
+There was in her tone something which, despite its friendliness,
+gave Sir Rowland his dismissal. He was not at best a man of keen
+sensibilities; yet even so, he could not mistake the request to
+withdraw that was implicit in her tone and manner. He took his leave,
+registering, however, in his heart a vow that he would have his way with
+Wilding. Thus must he--through her gratitude--assuredly come to have his
+way with Ruth.
+
+Diana rose and turned to her mother. “Come,” she said, “we'll speed Sir
+Rowland. Ruth and Richard would perhaps prefer to remain alone.”
+
+Ruth thanked her with her eyes. Richard, standing beside his sister with
+bent head and moody gaze, did not appear to have heard. Thus he remained
+until he and his half-sister were alone together, then he flung himself
+wearily into the seat beside her, and took her hand.
+
+“Ruth,” he faltered, “Ruth!”
+
+She stroked his hand, her honest, intelligent eyes bent upon him in
+a look of pity--and to indulge this pity for him, she forgot how much
+herself she needed pity.
+
+“Take it not so to heart,” she urged him, her voice low and crooning
+--as that of a mother to her babe. “Take it not so to heart, Richard.
+I should have married some day, and, after all, it may well be that Mr.
+Wilding will make me as good a husband as another. I do believe,” she
+added, her only intent to comfort Richard; “that he loves me; and if he
+loves me, surely he will prove kind.”
+
+He flung himself back with an exclamation of angry pain. He was white to
+the lips, his eyes bloodshot. “It must not be--it shall not be--I'll not
+endure it!” he cried hoarsely.
+
+“Richard, dear...” she began, recapturing the hand he had snatched from
+hers in his gust of emotion.
+
+He rose abruptly, interrupting her. “I'll go to Wilding now,” he cried,
+his voice resolute. “He shall cancel this bargain he had no right to
+make. He shall take up his quarrel with me where it stood before you
+went to him.”
+
+“No, no, Richard, you must not!” she urged him, frightened, rising too,
+and clinging to his arm.
+
+“I will,” he answered. “At the worst he can but kill me. But at least
+you shall not be sacrificed.”
+
+“Sit here, Richard,” she bade him. “There is something you have not
+considered. If you die, if Mr. Wilding kills you...” she paused.
+
+He looked at her, and at the repetition of the fate that would probably
+await him if he persevered in the course he threatened, his purely
+emotional courage again began to fail him. A look of fear crept
+gradually into his face to take the room of the resolution that had been
+stamped upon it but a moment since.
+
+He swallowed hard. “What then?” he asked, his voice harsh, and, obeying
+her command and the pressure on his hand, he resumed his seat beside
+her.
+
+She spoke now at length and very gravely, dwelling upon the circumstance
+that he was the head of the family, the last Westmacott of his line,
+pointing out to him the importance of his existence, the insignificance
+of her own. She was but a girl, a thing of small account where the
+perpetuation of a family was at issue. After all, she must marry
+somebody some day, she repeated, and perhaps she had been foolish in
+attaching too much importance to the tales she had heard of Mr.
+Wilding. Probably he was no worse than other men, and after all he was
+a gentleman of wealth and position, such a man as half the women in
+Somerset might be proud to own for husband.
+
+Her arguments and his weakness--his returning cowardice, which made him
+lend an ear to those same arguments--prevailed with him; at least they
+convinced him that he was far too important a person to risk his life in
+this quarrel upon which he had so rashly entered. He did not say that
+he was convinced; but he said that he would give the matter thought,
+hinting that perhaps some other way might present itself of cancelling
+the bargain she had made. They had a week before them, and in any case
+he promised readily in answer to her entreaties--for her faith in
+him was a thing unquenchable--that he would do nothing without taking
+counsel with her.
+
+Meanwhile Diana had escorted Sir Rowland to the main gates of Lupton
+House, in front of which Miss Westmacott's groom was walking his horse,
+awaiting him.
+
+“Sir Rowland,” said she at parting, “your chivalry makes you take this
+matter too deeply to heart. You overlook the possibility that my cousin
+may have good reason for not desiring your interference.”
+
+He looked keenly at this little lady to whom a month ago he had been
+on the point of offering marriage. His coxcombry might readily have
+suggested to him that she was in love with him, but that his conscience
+and inclinations urged him to assure himself that this was not the case.
+
+“What shall that mean, madam?” he asked her.
+
+Diana hesitated. “What I have said is plain,” she answered, and it was
+clear that she held something back.
+
+Sir Rowland flattered himself upon the shrewdness with which he read
+her, never dreaming that he had but read just what she intended he
+should.
+
+He stood squarely before her, shaking his great head. “Not plain enough
+for me,” he said. Then his tone softened to one of prayer. “Tell me,” he
+besought her.
+
+“I can't! I can't!” she cried in feigned distress. “It were too
+disloyal.”
+
+He frowned. He caught her arm and pressed it, his heart sick with
+jealous alarm. “What do you mean? Tell me, tell me, Mistress Horton.”
+
+Diana lowered her eyes. “You'll not betray me?” she stipulated.
+
+“Why, no. Tell me.”
+
+She flushed delicately. “I am disloyal to Ruth,” she said, “and yet I am
+loath to see you cozened.”
+
+“Cozened?” quoth he hoarsely, his egregious vanity in arms. “Cozened?”
+
+Diana explained. “Ruth was at his house to-day,” said she, “closeted
+alone with him for an hour or more.”
+
+“Impossible!” he cried.
+
+“Where else was the bargain made?” she asked, and shattered his last
+doubt. “You know that Mr. Wilding has not been here.”
+
+Yet Blake struggled heroically against conviction.
+
+“She went to intercede for Richard,” he protested. Miss Horton looked
+up at him, and under her glance Sir Rowland felt that he was a man of
+unfathomable ignorance. Then she turned aside her eyes and shrugged her
+shoulders very eloquently. “You are a man of the world, Sir Rowland. You
+cannot seriously suppose that any maid would so imperil her good name in
+any cause?”
+
+Darker grew his florid countenance; his bulging eyes looked troubled and
+perplexed.
+
+“You mean that she loves him?” he said, between question and assertion.
+
+Diana pursed her lips. “You shall draw your own inference,” quoth she.
+
+He breathed heavily, and squared his broad shoulders, as one who braces
+himself for battle against an element stronger than himself.
+
+“But her talk of sacrifice?” he cried.
+
+Diana laughed, and again he was stung by her contempt of his
+perceptions. “Her brother is set against her marrying him,” said she.
+“Here was her chance. Is it not very plain?”
+
+Doubt stared from his eyes. “Why do you tell me this?”
+
+“Because I esteem you, Sir Rowland,” she answered very gently. “I would
+not have you meddle in a matter you cannot mend.”
+
+“Which I am not desired to mend, say rather,” he replied with heavy
+sarcasm. “She would not have my interference!” He laughed angrily. “I
+think you are right, Mistress Diana,” he said, “and I think that more
+than ever is there the need to kill this Mr. Wilding.”
+
+He took his departure abruptly, leaving her scared at the mischief she
+had made for him in seeking to save him from it, and that very night he
+sought out Wilding.
+
+But Wilding was from home again. Under its placid surface the West
+Country was in a ferment. And if hitherto Mr. Wilding had disdained the
+insistent rumours of Monmouth's coming, his assurance was shaken now by
+proof that the Government, itself, was stirring; for four companies of
+foot and a troop of horse had been that day ordered to Taunton by the
+Deputy-Lieutenant. Wilding was gone with Trenchard to White Lackington
+in a vain hope that there he might find news to confirm his persisting
+unbelief in any such rashness as was alleged on Monmouth's part.
+
+So Blake was forced to wait, but his purpose suffered nothing by delay.
+
+Returning on the morrow, he found Mr. Wilding at table with Nick
+Trenchard, and he cut short the greetings of both men. He flung his
+hat--a black castor trimmed with a black feather--rudely among the
+dishes on the board.
+
+“I have come to ask you, Mr. Wilding,” said he, “to be so good as to
+tell me the colour of that hat.”
+
+Mr. Wilding raised one eyebrow and looked aslant at Trenchard, whose
+weather-beaten face was suddenly agrin with stupefaction.
+
+“I could not,” said Mr. Wilding, “deny an answer to a question set so
+courteously.” He looked up into Blake's flushed and scowling face with
+the sweetest and most innocent of smiles. “You'll no doubt disagree with
+me,” said he, “but I love to meet a man halfway. Your hat, sir, is as
+white as virgin snow.”
+
+Blake's slow wits were disconcerted for a moment. Then he smiled
+viciously. “You mistake, Mr. Wilding,” said he. “My hat is black.”
+
+Mr. Wilding looked more attentively at the object in dispute. He was in
+a trifling mood, and the stupidity of this runagate debtor afforded him
+opportunities to indulge it. “Why, true,” said he, “now that I come to
+look, I perceive that it is indeed black.”
+
+And again was Sir Rowland disconcerted. Still he pursued the lesson he
+had taught himself.
+
+“You are mistaken again,” said he, “that hat is green.”
+
+“Indeed?” quoth Mr. Wilding, like one surprised and he turned to
+Trenchard, who was enjoying himself. “What is your own opinion of it,
+Nick?”
+
+Thus appealed to, Trenchard's reply was prompt. “Why, since you ask
+me,” said he, “my opinion is that it's a noisome thing not meet for a
+gentleman's table.” And he took it up, and threw it through the window.
+
+Sir Rowland was entirely put out of countenance. Here was a deliberate
+shifting of the quarrel he had come to pick, which left him all at sea.
+It was his duty to himself to take offence at Mr. Trenchard's action.
+But that was not the business on which he had come. He became angry.
+
+“Blister me!” he cried. “Must I sweep the cloth from the table before
+you'll understand me?”
+
+“If you were to do anything so unmannerly I should have you flung out
+of the house,” said Mr. Wilding, “and it would distress me so to treat
+a person of your station and quality. The hat shall serve your purpose,
+although Mr. Trenchard's concern for my table has removed it. Our
+memories will supply its absence. What colour did you say it was?”
+
+“I said it was green,” answered Blake, quite ready to keep to the point.
+
+“Nay, I am sure you were wrong,” said Wilding with a grave air.
+“Although I admit that since it is your own hat, you should be the best
+judge of its colour, I am, nevertheless, of opinion that it is black.”
+
+“And if I were to say that it is white?” asked Blake, feeling mighty
+ridiculous.
+
+“Why, in that case you would be confirming my first impression of it,”
+ answered Wilding, and Trenchard let fly a burst of laughter at sight
+of the baronet's furious and bewildered countenance. “And since we are
+agreed on that,” continued Mr. Wilding, imperturbable, “I hope you'll
+join us at supper.”
+
+“I'll be damned,” roared Blake, “if ever I sit at table of yours, sir.”
+
+“Ah!” said Mr. Wilding regretfully. “Now you become offensive.”
+
+“I mean to be,” said Blake.
+
+“You astonish me!”
+
+“You lie! I don't,” Sir Rowland answered him in triumph. He had got it
+out at last.
+
+Mr. Wilding sat back in his chair, and looked at him, his face
+inexpressibly shocked.
+
+“Will you of your own accord deprive us of your company, Sir Rowland,”
+ he wondered, “or shall Mr. Trenchard throw you after your hat?”
+
+“Do you mean...” gasped the other, “that you'll ask no satisfaction of
+me?”
+
+“Not so. Mr. Trenchard shall wait upon your friends to-morrow, and I
+hope you'll afford us then as felicitous entertainment as you do now.”
+
+Sir Rowland snorted, and, turning on his heel, made for the door.
+
+“Give you a good night, Sir Rowland,” Mr. Wilding called after him.
+“Walters, you rascal, light Sir Rowland to the door.”
+
+Poor Blake went home deeply vexed; but it was no more than the beginning
+of his humiliation at Mr. Wilding's hands--for what can be more
+humiliating to a quarrel--seeking man than to have his enemy refuse to
+treat him seriously? He and Mr. Wilding met next morning, and before
+noon the tale of it had run through Bridgwater that Wild Wilding was at
+his tricks again. It made a pretty story how twice he had disarmed and
+each time spared the London beau, who still insisted--each time more
+furiously--upon renewing the encounter, till Mr. Wilding had been forced
+to run him through the sword-arm and thus put him out of all case of
+continuing. It was a story that heaped ridicule upon Sir Rowland and did
+credit to Mr. Wilding.
+
+Richard heard it, and trembled, enraged and impotent. Ruth heard it, and
+was stirred despite herself to a feeling of gratitude towards Wilding
+for the patience and toleration he had displayed.
+
+There for a while the matter rested, and the days passed slowly. But Sir
+Rowland's nature--mean at bottom--was spurred to find him some other
+way of wiping out the score that lay 'twixt him and Mr. Wilding, a score
+mightily increased by the shame that Mr. Wilding had put upon him in
+that encounter from which--whatever the issue--he had looked to cull
+great credit in Ruth's eyes.
+
+He had been thinking constantly of the incautious words that Richard
+had let fall, thinking of them in conjunction with the startling rumours
+that were now the talk of the whole countryside. He laid two and two
+together, and the four he found them make afforded him some hope. Then
+he realized--as he might have realized before had he been shrewder--that
+Richard's mood was one that made him ripe for any villainy. He thought
+that he was much in error if a treachery existed so black that Richard
+would quail before it, if it but afforded him the means of ridding
+himself and the world of Mr. Wilding. He was considering how best to
+approach the subject, when it happened that one night when Richard sat
+at play with him in his own lodging, the boy grew talkative through
+excess of wine. It happened naturally enough that Richard sought an
+ally in Blake, just as Blake sought an ally in Richard. Indeed, their
+fortunes--so far as Ruth was concerned--were bound up together. The
+baronet saw that Richard, half-fuddled, was ripe for any confidences
+that might aim at the destruction of his enemy. He questioned him
+adroitly, and drew from him the story of the rising that was being
+planned, and of the share that Mr. Wilding--one of the Duke of
+Monmouth's chief movement-men--bore in the business that was toward.
+
+When, towards midnight, Richard Westmacott went home, he left in Sir
+Rowland's hands an instrument which the latter accounted potential not
+only for the destruction of Anthony Wilding, but perhaps also for laying
+the foundations to the building of his own fortunes anew.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. THE NUPTIALS OF RUTH WESTMACOTT
+
+Here was Sir Rowland Blake in high fettle at knowing himself armed with
+a portentous weapon for the destruction of Anthony Wilding. Upon closer
+inspection of it, however, he came to realize--as Richard had realized
+earlier--that it was double-edged, and that the wielding of it must be
+fraught with as much danger for Richard as for their common enemy. For
+to betray Mr. Wilding and the plot would scarce be possible without
+betraying young Westmacott, and that was unthinkable, since to ruin
+Richard--a thing he would have done with a light heart so far as Richard
+was himself concerned--would be to ruin his own hopes of winning Ruth.
+
+Therefore, during the days that followed, Sir Rowland was forced to
+fret in idleness what time his wound was healing; but if his arm was
+invalided, his eyes and ears were sound, and he remained watchful for an
+opportunity to apply the knowledge he had gained. Richard mentioned the
+subject no more, so that Blake almost came to wonder whether the boy
+remembered what in his cups he had betrayed.
+
+Meanwhile Mr. Wilding moved serene and smiling on his way. Daily there
+were great armfuls of flowers deposited at Lupton House--his lover's
+offering to his mistress--and no day went by but that some richer gift
+accompanied them. Now it was a collar of brilliants, anon a rope of
+pearls, again a priceless ring that had been Mr. Wilding's mother's.
+Ruth received with reluctance these pledges of his undesired affection.
+It were idle to reject them, considering that she was to marry him; yet
+it hurt her sorely to retain them. On her side she made no dispositions
+for the marriage, but went about her daily tasks as though she were to
+remain a maid at Lupton House for a time as yet indefinite.
+
+In Diana, Wilding had--though he was far from guessing it--an entirely
+exceptional ally. Lady Horton, too, was favourably disposed towards him.
+A foolish, worldly woman, who never probed beneath life's surface, nor
+indeed dreamed that anything existed in life beyond that to which her
+five senses testified, she was content placidly to contemplate the
+advantages that must accrue to her niece from this alliance.
+
+And so mother and daughter in Mr. Wilding's absence pleaded his cause
+with his refractory bride-elect. But they pleaded it to little real
+purpose. Something perhaps they achieved in that Ruth grew more or
+less resigned to the fate that awaited her. By repeating to herself the
+arguments she had employed to Richard--that she must wed some day, and
+that Mr. Wilding would prove no doubt as good a husband as another--she
+came in a measure to believe them.
+
+Richard meanwhile appeared to avoid her. Lacking the courage to adopt
+the heroic measures which at first he had promised, yet had he grace
+enough to take shame at his inaction. But if he was idle so far as
+Mr. Wilding was concerned, there was no lack of work for him in other
+connections. The clouds of war were gathering in that summer sky, and
+about to loose the storm gestating in them upon that fair country of
+the West, and young Westmacott, committed as he stood to the Duke of
+Monmouth's party, was forced to take his share in the surreptitious
+bustle that was toward. He was away two days in that week, having been
+summoned to a meeting of the leading gentlemen of the party at White
+Lackington, where he was forced into the unwelcome company of his future
+brother-in-law, to meet with courteous, deferential treatment from that
+imperturbable gentleman.
+
+Wilding, indeed, seemed to have forgotten that any quarrel had ever
+existed between them. For the rest, he came and went, supremely calm, as
+if he were, and knew himself to be, most welcome at Lupton House. Thrice
+in the course of that week of waiting he rode over from Zoyland Chase
+to pay his duty to Mistress Westmacott, and Ruth was persuaded on each
+occasion by her aunt and cousin to receive him. Indeed, how could she
+well refuse?
+
+His manner was ever all that could be desired. Gallant, affectionate,
+deferential. He was in word and look and tone Ruth's most obedient
+servant. Had she been less prejudiced she must have admired the
+admirable restraint with which he kept all exultation from his manner,
+for, after all, it is difficult to force a victory as he had forced his,
+and not to triumph.
+
+It is to be feared that during that week he neglected a good deal of his
+duty to the Duke, leaving Trenchard to supply his place and undertake
+tasks of a seditious nature that should have been his own.
+
+At heart, however, in spite of the stories current and the militia at
+Taunton, Wilding remained convinced--as did most of the other leading
+partisans of the Protestant Cause--that no such madness as this
+premature landing could be in contemplation by the Duke. Besides, were
+it so, they must unfailingly have definite word of it; and they had
+none.
+
+Trenchard was less assured, but Wilding laughed at the old rake's
+forebodings, and serenely went about the business of his marriage.
+
+On the eve of the wedding he paid Ruth his last visit in the quality
+of a lover, and was received by her in the garden. He found her looking
+paler than her wont, and there was a cloud of sadness on her brow, a
+haunting sadness in her eyes. It touched him to the soul, and for a
+moment he wavered in his purpose. He stood beside her--she seated on
+the old lichened seat--and a silence fell between them, during which
+Mr. Wilding's conscience wrestled with his stronger passion. It was his
+habit to be glib, talking incessantly what time he was in her company,
+and seeing to it that his talk was shallow and touched at nothing
+belonging to the deeps of human life. Thus was it, perhaps, that this
+sudden and enduring silence affected her most oddly; it was as if she
+had absorbed some notion of what was passing in his mind. She looked up
+suddenly into his face, so white and so composed. Their eyes met, and he
+stooped to her suddenly, his long brown ringlets tumbling forward. She
+feared his kiss, yet never moved, staring up with fixed, dilated eyes as
+if fascinated by his dark, brooding gaze. He paused, hovering above her
+upturned face as hovers the hawk above the dove.
+
+“Child,” he said at last, and his voice was soft and winning from very
+sadness, “child, why do you fear me?”
+
+The truth of it went home to her. She feared him; she feared the
+strength that lay behind that calm; she feared the masterfulness of his
+wild but inscrutably hidden nature; she was afraid to surrender to
+such a man as this, afraid that in the hot crucible of his love her own
+nature would be dissolved, transmuted, and rendered part of his. Yet,
+though the truth was now made plain to her, she thrust it from her.
+
+“I do not fear you,” said she, and her voice at least rang fearlessly.
+
+“Do you hate me, then?” he asked. Her glance grew troubled and fell
+away from his; it sought the calm of the river, gleaming golden in the
+sunset. There was a pause. Wilding sighed heavily, and straightened
+himself from his bending posture.
+
+“You should not have sought thus to compel me, she said presently.
+
+“I own it,” he answered a thought bitterly. “I own it. Yet what hope had
+I but in compulsion?” She returned him no answer. “You see,” he said,
+with increasing bitterness, “you see, that had I not seized the chance
+that was mine to win you by compulsion I had not won you at all.”
+
+“It might,” said she, “have been better so for both of us.”
+
+“Better for neither,” he replied. “Ah, think it not! In time, I swear,
+you shall not think it. For you shall come to love me, Ruth,” he added
+with a note of such assurance that she turned to meet again his gaze.
+He answered the wordless question of her eyes. “There is,” said he, “no
+love of man for woman, so that the man be not wholly unworthy, so that
+his passion be sincere and strong, that can fail in time to arouse
+response.” She smiled a little pitiful smile of unbelief. “Were I a
+boy,” he rejoined, his earnestness vibrating now in a voice that was
+usually so calm and level, “offering you protestations of a callow
+worship, you might have cause to doubt me. But I am a man, Ruth--a
+tried, and haply a sinful man, alas!--a man who needs you, and who will
+have you at all costs.”
+
+“At all costs?” she echoed, and her lip took on a curl. “And you call
+this egotism by the name of love! No doubt you are right,” she continued
+with an irony that stung him, “for love it is--love of yourself.”
+
+“And is not all love of another founded upon the love of self?” he asked
+her, startling her with a question that revealed to her clear-sighted
+mind a truth undreamed of. “When some day--please Heaven--I come to find
+favour in your eyes, and you come to love me, what will it mean but that
+you have come to find me necessary to yourself and to your happiness?
+Would you deny me now your love if you felt that you had need of mine?
+I love you because I love myself, you say. I grant it you. But you'll
+confess that if you do not love me yet, it is for the same reason, and
+that when you do come to love me the reason will be still the same.”
+
+“You are very sure that I shall come to love you,” said she, shifting
+woman-like the ground of argument now that she found insecure the place
+on which at first she had taken her stand.
+
+“Were I not, think you I should compel you to the church to-morrow?”
+
+She trembled at his calm assurance. It was as if she almost feared that
+what he said might come to pass.
+
+“Since you bear such faith in your heart,” said she, “were it not
+nobler, more generous, that you should set yourself to win me first and
+wed me afterwards?”
+
+“It is the course I should, myself, prefer,” he answered quietly. “But
+it is a course denied me. I was viewed here with disfavour, almost
+denied your house. What chance had I whilst I might not come near you,
+whilst your mind was poisoned against me by the idle, vicious prattle
+that goes round and round the countryside, increasing ever in bulk from
+constant repetition?”
+
+“Do you say that these tales are groundless?” she asked, with a sudden
+lifting of the eyes, a sudden keen eagerness that did not escape him.
+
+“I would to God I could,” he cried, “since from your manner I see that
+would improve me in your sight. But there is just sufficient truth in
+them to forbid me, as I am, I hope, a gentleman, from giving them a full
+denial. Yet in what am I worse than my fellows? Are you of those who
+think a husband should come to them as one whose youth has been the
+youth of cloistered nun? Heaven knows, I am not one to draw parallels
+'twixt myself and any other, yet you compel me. Whilst you deny me, you
+receive this fellow Blake--a London night-scourer, a broken gamester
+who has given his creditors leg-bail, and who woos you that with your
+fortune he may close the doors of the debtor's gaol that's open to
+receive him.”
+
+“This is unworthy in you,” she exclaimed, her tone indignant--so
+indignant that he experienced his first pang of jealousy.
+
+“It would be were I his rival,” he answered quietly. “But I am not. I
+have saved you from becoming the prey of such as he by forcing you to
+marry me.”
+
+“That I may become the prey of such as you, instead,” was her retort.
+
+He looked at her a moment, smiling sadly. Then, with pardonable
+self-esteem when we think of what manner of man it was with whom he now
+compared himself, “Surely,” said he, “it is better to become the prey of
+the lion than the jackal.”
+
+“To the victim it can matter little,” she answered, and he saw the tears
+gathering in her eyes.
+
+Compassion moved him. It rose in arms to batter down his will, and in a
+weaker man had triumphed. Mr. Wilding bent his knee and went down beside
+her.
+
+“I swear,” he said impassionedly, “that as my wife you shall never count
+yourself a victim. You shall be honoured by all men, but by none more
+deeply than by him who will ever strive to be worthy of the proud title
+of your husband.” He took her hand and kissed it reverentially. He rose
+and looked at her. “To-morrow,” he said, and bowing low before her went
+his way, leaving her with emotions that found their vent in tears, but
+defied her maiden mind to understand them.
+
+The morrow came her wedding-day--a sunny day of early June, and
+Ruth--assisted by Diana and Lady Horton--made preparation for her
+marriage as spirited women have made preparation for the scaffold,
+determined to show the world a brave, serene exterior. The sacrifice was
+necessary for Richard's sake. That was a thing long since determined.
+Yet it would have been some comfort to her to have had Richard at her
+side; it would have lent her strength to have had his kiss of thanks
+for the holocaust which for him she was making of all that a woman holds
+most dear and sacred. But Richard was away--he had been absent since
+yesterday, and none could tell her where he tarried.
+
+With Lady Horton and Diana she took her way to Saint Mary's Church at
+noon, and there she found Mr. Wilding--very fine in a suit of sky-blue
+satin, laced with silver--awaiting her. And with him was old Lord
+Gervase Scoresby, his friend and cousin, the very incarnation of
+benignity and ruddy health.
+
+For a wonder Nick Trenchard was not at Mr. Wilding's side. But Nick
+had definitely refused to be of the party, emphasizing his refusal by
+certain choice reflections wholly unflattering to the married state.
+
+Some idlers of the town were the only witnesses--and little did they
+guess the extent of the tragedy they were witnessing. There was no
+music, and the ceremony was brief and soon at an end. The only touch of
+joy, of festiveness, was that afforded by the choice blooms with which
+Mr. Wilding had smothered nave and choir and altar-rails. Their perfume
+hung heavy as incense in the temple.
+
+“Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?” droned the parson's
+voice, and Wilding smiled defiantly a smile which seemed to answer him,
+“No man. I have taken her for myself.”
+
+Lord Gervase stood forward as her sponsor, and as in a dream Ruth felt
+her hand lying in Mr. Wilding's cool, firm grasp.
+
+The ecclesiastic's voice droned on, his voice hanging like the hum of
+some great Insect upon the scented air. It was accomplished, and they
+were welded each to the other until death should part them.
+
+Down the festooned nave she came on his arm, her step unfaltering,
+her face calm; black misery in her heart. Behind followed her aunt and
+cousin and Lord Gervase. On Mr. Wilding's aquiline face a pale smile
+glimmered, like a beam of moonlight upon tranquil waters, and it abode
+there until they reached the porch and were suddenly confronted by Nick
+Trenchard, red of face for once, perspiring, excited, and dust-stained
+from head to foot.
+
+He had arrived that very instant; and, urged by the fearful news that
+brought him, he had come resolved to pluck Wilding from the altar be the
+ceremony done or not. But in that he reckoned without Mr. Wilding--for
+he should have known him better than to have hoped to succeed. He
+stepped forward now, and gripped him with his dusty glove by the
+sleeve of his shimmering bridegroom's coat. His voice came harsh with
+excitement and smouldering rage.
+
+“A word with you, Anthony!”
+
+Mr. Wilding turned placidly to regard him. “What now?” he asked, his
+bride's hand retained in the crook of his elbow.
+
+“Treachery!” snapped Trenchard in a whisper. “Hell and damnation! Step
+aside, man.”
+
+Mr. Wilding turned to Lord Gervase, and begged of him to take charge of
+Mistress Wilding. “I deplore this interruption,” he told her, no whit
+ruffled by what he had heard. “But I shall rejoin you soon. Meanwhile,
+his lordship will do the honours for me.” This last he said with his
+eyes moving to Lady Horton and her daughter.
+
+Lord Gervase, in some surprise, but overruled by his cousin's calm,
+took the bride on his arm and led her from the churchyard to the waiting
+carriage. To this he handed her, and after her her aunt and cousin.
+Then, mounting himself, they drove away, leaving Wilding and Trenchard
+among the tombstones, whither the messenger of evil had meanwhile led
+his friend. Trenchard rapped out his story briefly.
+
+“Shenke,” said he, “who was riding from Lyme with letters for you from
+the Duke, was robbed of his dispatches late last night a mile or so this
+side Taunton.”
+
+“Highwaymen?” inquired Mr. Wilding, his tone calm, though his glance had
+hardened.
+
+“Highwaymen? No! Government agents belike. There were two of them, he
+says--for I have the tale from himself--and they met him at the Hare and
+Hounds at Taunton, where he stayed to sup last night. One of them gave
+him the password, and he conceived him to be a friend. But afterwards,
+growing suspicious, he refused to tell them too much. They followed
+him, it appears, and on the road they overtook and fell upon him; they
+knocked him from his horse, possessed themselves of the contents of his
+wallet, and left him for dead--with his head broken.”
+
+Mr. Wilding drew a sharp breath. His wits worked quickly. He was, he
+realized, in deadly peril. One thought he gave to Ruth. If the worst
+came to pass here was one who would rejoice in her freedom. The
+reflection cut through him like a sword. He would be loath to die
+until he had taught her to regret him. Then his mind returned to what
+Trenchard had told him.
+
+“You said a Government agent,” he mused slowly. “How would a Government
+agent know the password?”
+
+Trenchard's mouth fell open. “I had not thought...” he began. Then ended
+with an oath. “'Tis a traitor from inside.”
+
+Wilding nodded. “It must be one of those who met at White Lackington
+three nights ago,” he answered.
+
+Idlers--the witnesses of the wedding--were watching them with interest
+from the path, and others from over the low wall of the churchyard,
+as well they might, for Mr. Wilding's behaviour was, for a bridegroom,
+extraordinary. Trenchard did not relish the audience.
+
+“We had best away,” said he. “Indeed,” he added, “we had best out
+of England altogether before the hue and cry is raised. The bubble's
+pricked.”
+
+Wilding's hand fell on his arm, and its grasp was steady. Wilding's eyes
+met his, and their gaze was calm.
+
+“Where have you bestowed this messenger?” quoth he.
+
+“He is here in Bridgwater, in bed, at the Bell Inn, whence he sent for
+you to Zoyland Chase. Suspecting trouble, I rode to him at once myself.”
+
+“Come, then,” said Wilding. “We'll go talk with him. This matter needs
+probing ere we decide on flight. You do not seem to have sought to
+discover who were the thieves, nor other matters that it may be of use
+to know.”
+
+“Rat me!” swore Trenchard. “I was in haste to bring you news of
+it. Besides, there were other things to talk of. There is news that
+Albemarle has gone to Exeter, and that Sir Edward Phelips and Colonel
+Luttrell have been ordered to Taunton by the King.”
+
+Mr. Wilding stared at him with sudden dismay.
+
+“Odso!” he exclaimed. “Is King James taking fright at last?” Then
+he shrugged his shoulders and laughed; “Pshaw!” he cried. “They are
+starting at a shadow.”
+
+“Heaven send,” prayed Trenchard, “that the shadow does not prove to have
+a substance immediately behind it.”
+
+“Folly!” said Wilding. “When Monmouth comes, indeed, we shall not lack
+forewarning. Come,” he added briskly. “We'll see this messenger and
+endeavour to discover who were these fellows that beset him.” And he
+drew Trenchard from among the tombstones to the open path, and thus from
+the churchyard and the eyes of the gaping onlookers.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. BRIDE AND GROOM
+
+And so the bridegroom, in all his wedding finery, made his way with
+Trenchard to the Bell Inn, in the High Street, whilst his bride,
+escorted by Lord Gervase, was being driven to Zoyland Chase, of which
+she was now the mistress.
+
+But she was not destined just yet to cross its threshold. For scarcely
+were they over the river when a horseman barred their way, and called
+upon the driver to pull up. Lady Horton, in a panic, huddled herself
+in the great coach and spoke of tobymen, whilst Lord Gervase thrust
+his head from the window to discover that the rider who stayed their
+progress was Richard Westmacott. His lordship hailed the boy, who,
+thereupon, walked his horse to the carriage door.
+
+“Lord Gervase,” said he, “will you bid the coachman put about and drive
+to Lupton House?”
+
+Lord Gervase stared at him in hopeless bewilderment. “Drive to Lupton
+House?” he echoed. The more he saw of this odd wedding, the less he
+understood of it. It seemed to the placid old gentleman that he was
+fallen among a parcel of Bedlamites. “Surely, sir, it is for Mistress
+Wilding to say whither she will be driven,” and he drew in his head and
+turned to Ruth for her commands. But, bewildered herself, she had none
+to give him. It was her turn to lean from the carriage window to ask her
+brother what he meant.
+
+“I mean you are to drive home again,” said he. “There is something
+I must tell you. When you have heard me it shall be yours to decide
+whether you will proceed or not to Zoyland Chase.”
+
+Hers to decide? How was that possible? What could he mean? She pressed
+him with some such questions.
+
+“It means, in short,” he answered impatiently, “that I hold your
+salvation in my hands. For the rest, this is not the time or place to
+tell you more. Bid the fellow put about.”
+
+Ruth sat back and looked once more at her companions. But from none did
+she receive the least helpful suggestion. Lady Horton made great prattle
+to little purpose; Lord Gervase followed her example, whilst Diana,
+whose alert if trivial mind was the one that might have offered
+assistance, sat silent. Ruth pondered. She bethought her of Trenchard's
+sudden arrival at Saint Mary's, his dust-stained person and excited
+manner, and of how he had drawn Mr. Wilding aside with news that seemed
+of moment. And now her brother spoke of saving her; it was a little late
+for that, she thought. Outside the coach his voice still urged her, and
+it grew peevish and angry, as was usual when he was crossed. In the end
+she consented to do his will. If she were to fathom this mystery that
+was thickening about her there seemed to be no other course. She turned
+to Lord Gervase.
+
+“Will you do as Richard says?” she begged him.
+
+His lordship blew out his chubby cheeks in his astonishment; he
+hesitated a moment, thinking of his cousin Wilding; then, with a shrug,
+he leaned from the window and gave the order she desired. The carriage
+turned about, and with Richard following lumbered back across the bridge
+and through the town to Lupton House. At the door Lord Gervase took his
+leave of them. He had acted as Ruth had bidden him; but he had no wish
+to be further involved in this affair, whatever it might portend. Rather
+was it his duty at once to go acquaint Mr. Wilding--if he could find
+him--with what was taking place, and leave it to Mr. Wilding to take
+what measures might seem best to him. He told them so, and having told
+them, left them.
+
+Richard begged to be alone with his sister, and alone they passed
+together into the library. His manner was restless; he trembled with
+excitement, and his eyes glittered almost feverishly.
+
+“You may have thought, Ruth, that I was resigned to your marriage with
+this fellow Wilding,” he began; “or that for other reasons I thought it
+wiser not to interfere. If you thought that you wronged me. I--Blake and
+I--have been at work for you during these last days, and I rejoice
+to say our labours have not been idle.” His manner grew assertive,
+boastful, as he proceeded.
+
+“You know, of course,” said she, “that I am married.”
+
+He made a gesture of disdain. “No matter,” said he exultantly.
+
+“It matters something, I think,” she answered. “O Richard, Richard, why
+did you not come to me sooner if you possessed the means of sparing me
+this thing?”
+
+He shrugged impatiently; her remonstrance seemed to throw him out of
+temper. “Oons!” he cried; “I came as soon as was ever possible, and,
+depend upon it, I am not come too late. Indeed, I think I am come in the
+very nick of time.” He drew a sheet of paper from an inside pocket of
+his coat and slapped it down upon the table. “There is the wherewithal
+to hang your fine husband,” he announced in triumph.
+
+She recoiled. “To hang him?” she echoed. With all her aversion to Mr.
+Wilding it was plain she did not wish him hanged.
+
+“Aye, to hang him,” Richard repeated, and drew himself to the full
+height of his short stature in pride at the thing he had achieved. “Read
+it.”
+
+She took the paper almost mechanically, and for some moments she studied
+the crabbed signature before realizing whose it was. Then she started.
+
+“From the Duke of Monmouth!” she exclaimed.
+
+He laughed. “Read it,” he bade her again, though there was no need for
+the injunction, for already she was deciphering the crabbed hand and
+the atrocious spelling--for His Grace of Monmouth's education had been
+notoriously neglected. The letter, which was dated from The Hague, was
+addressed “To my good friend W., at Bridgwater.” It began, “Sir,” spoke
+of the imminent arrival of His Grace in the West, and gave certain
+instructions for the collection of arms and the work of preparing men
+for enlistment in his Cause, ending with protestations of His Grace's
+friendship and esteem.
+
+Ruth read the epistle twice before its treasonable nature was made clear
+to her; before she understood the thing that was foreshadowed. Then
+she raised troubled eyes to her brother's face, and in answer to the
+question of her glance he made clear to her the shrewd means by which
+they had become possessed of this weapon that should destroy their enemy
+Mr. Wilding.
+
+Blake and he, forewarned--he said not how--of the coming of this
+messenger, had lain in wait for him at the Hare and Hounds, at Taunton.
+They had sought at first to become possessed of the letter without
+violence. But, having failed in this through having aroused the
+messenger's suspicions, they had been forced to follow and attack him on
+a lonely stretch of road, where they had robbed him of the contents of
+his wallet. Richard added that the letter was, no doubt, one of several
+sent over by Monmouth to some friend at Lyme for distribution among his
+principal agents in the West. It was regrettable that they should
+have endeavoured to take gentle measures with the courier, as this had
+forewarned him, and he had apparently been led to remove the
+letter's outer wrapper--which, no doubt, bore Wilding's full name and
+address--against the chance of such an attack as they had made upon him.
+Nevertheless, as it was, that letter “to my good friend W.,” backed by
+Richard's and Blake's evidence of the destination intended for it, would
+be more than enough to lay Mr. Wilding safely by the heels.
+
+“I would to Heaven,” he repeated in conclusion, “I could have come in
+time to save you from becoming his wife. But at least it is in my power
+to make you very speedily his widow.”
+
+“That,” said Ruth, still retaining the letter, “is what you propose to
+do?”
+
+“What else?”
+
+She shook her head. “It must not be, Richard,” she said. “I'll not
+consent to it.”
+
+Taken aback, he stared at her; then laughed unpleasantly. “Odds my life!
+Are you in love with the man? Have you been fooling us?”
+
+“No,” she answered. “But I'll be no party to his murder.”
+
+“Murder, quotha! Who talks of murder?” Her shrewd eyes searched his
+face. “How came you by your knowledge that this courier rode to Mr.
+Wilding?” she asked him suddenly, and the swift change that overspread
+his countenance showed her that she had touched him in a tender spot,
+assured her of the thing she had suddenly come to suspect--a suspicion
+which at the same time started from and explained much that had been
+mysterious in Richard's ways of late. “You had knowledge of this
+conspiracy,” she pursued, answering her own question before he had time
+to speak, “because you were one of the conspirators.”
+
+“At least I am so no longer,” he blurted out.
+
+“I thank Heaven for that, Richard; for your life is very dear to me. But
+it would ill become you to make such use as this of the knowledge
+you came by in that manner. It were a Judas's act.” He would have
+interrupted her, but her manner dominated him. “You will leave this
+letter with me, Richard,” she continued.
+
+“Damn me! no...” he began.
+
+“Ah, yes, Richard,” she insisted. “You will give it to me, and I shall
+thank you for the gift. It shall prove a weapon for my salvation, never
+fear.”
+
+“It shall, indeed,” he cried, with an ugly laugh; “when I have ridden to
+Exeter to lay it before Albemarle.”
+
+“Not so,” she answered him. “It shall be a weapon of defence--not of
+offence. It shall stand as a buckler between me and Mr. Wilding. Trust
+me, I shall know how to use it.”
+
+“But there is Blake to consider,” he expostulated, growing angry. “I am
+pledged to him.”
+
+“Your first duty is to me...”
+
+“Tut!” he interrupted. “Blake feels that he owes it to his loyalty to
+lay this letter before the Lord-Lieutenant, and, for that matter, so do
+I.”
+
+“Sir Rowland would not cross my wishes in this,” she answered him.
+
+“Folly!” he cried, now thoroughly aroused. “Give me that letter.”
+
+“Nay, Richard,” she answered, and waved him back.
+
+But he advanced nevertheless.
+
+“Give it me,” he bade her, waxing fierce. “Gad! It was folly to have
+told you of it. I had not done so but that I never thought you such a
+fool as to oppose yourself to the thing we intend.”
+
+“Listen, Richard...” she besought him.
+
+But he was grown insensible to pleadings.
+
+“Give me that letter,” he insisted, and caught her wrist. Her other
+hand, however--the one that held the sheet--was already behind her back.
+
+The door was suddenly thrust open, and Diana appeared. “Ruth,” she
+announced, “Mr. Wilding is here.”
+
+At the mention of that name, Richard let her free. “Wilding!” he
+ejaculated, his fierceness all blown out of him. He had imagined that
+already Mr. Wilding would be in full flight. Was the fellow mad?
+
+“He is following me,” said Diana, and, indeed, a step could be heard in
+the passage.
+
+“The letter!” growled Richard in a frenzy, between fear and anger now.
+“Give it me! Give it me, do you hear?”
+
+“Sh! You'll betray yourself,” she cried. “He is here.”
+
+And at that same moment Mr. Wilding's tall figure, still arrayed in his
+bridegroom's finery of sky-blue satin, loomed in the doorway. He was
+serene and calm as ever. Neither the discovery of the plot by the
+abstraction of the messenger's letter, nor Ruth's strange conduct--of
+which he had heard from Lord Gervase--had sufficed to ruffle, outwardly
+at least, the inscrutable serenity of his air and manner. He paused
+to make his bow, then advanced into the room, with a passing glance at
+Richard still spurred and booted and all dust-stained.
+
+“You appear to have ridden far, Dick,” said he, smiling, and Richard
+shivered in spite of himself at the mocking note that seemed to ring
+faintly at the words. “I saw your friend, Sir Rowland, in the garden,”
+ he added. “I think he waits for you.”
+
+Though Richard could not fail to apprehend the implied dismissal, he
+was minded at first to disregard it. But Mr. Wilding, turning, held the
+door, addressing Diana.
+
+“Mistress Horton,” said he, “will you give us leave?”
+
+Diana curtsied and passed out, and Mr. Wilding's eye falling upon the
+lingering Richard at that moment, Richard thought it best to follow her
+example. But he went with rage in his heart at being forced to leave
+that precious document behind him.
+
+As Mr. Wilding, his back to her a moment, closed the door, Ruth slipped
+the paper hurriedly into the bosom of her low-necked gown. He turned to
+her, calm but very grave, and his dark eyes seemed to reproach her.
+
+“This is ill done, Ruth,” said he.
+
+“Ill done, or well done,” she answered him, “done it is, and shall so
+remain.”
+
+He raised his brows. “Ah,” said he, “I appear, then, to have
+misapprehended the situation. From what Gervase told me, I understood it
+was your brother forced you to return.”
+
+“Not forced, sir,” she answered him.
+
+“Induced, then,” said he. “It but remains me to induce you to repair
+what I think was a mistake.”
+
+She shook her head. “I have returned home for good,” said she.
+
+“You'll pardon me,” said he, “that I am so egotistical as to prefer
+Zoyland Chase to Lupton House. Despite the manifold attractions of the
+latter, I do not intend to take up my abode here.”
+
+“You are not asked to.”
+
+“What, then?”
+
+She hated him for the smile, for his masterful air, which seemed to
+imply that he humoured her because he scorned to use authority, but that
+when he did use it, hers must it be to obey him. Again she felt that
+everlasting calm, arguing such latent forces, was the thing she hated
+most in him.
+
+“I think I had best be plain with you,” said she. “I have fulfilled my
+part of the bargain that we made. I intend to do no more. I promised
+that if you spared my brother, I would go to the altar with you to-day.
+I have carried out my contract to the letter. It is at an end.”
+
+“Indeed,” said he; “I think it has not yet begun.” He advanced towards
+her, and took her hand. She yielded it, unwilling though she was. “This
+is unworthy of you, madam,” said he, his tone grave and deferential.
+“You think to escape fulfilling the spirit of your bargain by adhering
+to the letter of it. Not so,” he ended, and shook his head, smiling
+gently. “The carriage is still at your door. You return with me to
+Zoyland Chase to take possession of your home.”
+
+“You mistake,” said she, and tore her hand from his. “You say that what
+I have done is unworthy. I admit it; but it is with unworthiness that we
+must combat unworthiness. Was your attitude towards me less unworthy?”
+
+“I'll make amends for it if you'll come home,” said he.
+
+“My home is here. You cannot compel me.”
+
+“I should be loath to,” he admitted, sighing.
+
+“You cannot,” she insisted.
+
+“I think I can,” said he. “There is a law..”
+
+“A law that will hang you if you invoke it,” she cut in quickly. “This
+much can I safely promise you.”
+
+She had need to say no more to tell him everything. At all times half a
+word was as much to Mr. Wilding as a whole sentence to another. She saw
+the tightening of his lips, the hardening of his eyes, beyond which he
+gave no other sign that she had hit him.
+
+“I see,” said he. “It is another bargain that you make. I do suspect
+there is some trader's blood in the Westmacott veins. Let us be clear.
+You hold the wherewithal to ruin me, and you will use it if I insist
+upon my husband's rights. Is it not so?”
+
+She nodded in silence, surprised at the rapidity with which he had read
+the situation.
+
+“I admit,” said he, “that you have me between sword and wall.” He
+laughed shortly. “Let me know more,” he begged her. “Am I to understand
+that so long as I leave you in peace--so long as I do not insist upon
+your becoming my wife in more than name--you will not wield the weapon
+that you hold?”
+
+“You are to understand so,” she answered.
+
+He took a turn in the room, very thoughtful. Not of himself was he
+thinking now, but of the Duke of Monmouth. Trenchard had told him some
+ugly truths that morning of how in his love-making he appeared to have
+shipwrecked the Cause ere it was well launched. If this letter got
+to Whitehall there was no gauging--ignorant as he was of what was in
+it--the ruin that might follow; but they had reason to fear the worst.
+He saw his duty to the Duke most clearly, and he breathed a prayer of
+thanks that Richard had chosen to put that letter to such a use as this.
+He knew himself checkmated; but he was a man who knew how to bear defeat
+in a becoming manner. He turned suddenly.
+
+“The letter is in your hands?” he inquired.
+
+“It is,” she answered.
+
+“May I see it?” he asked.
+
+She shook her head--not daring to show it or betray its whereabouts lest
+he should use force to become possessed of it--a thing, indeed, that was
+very far from his purpose.
+
+He considered a moment, his mind intent now rather upon the Duke's
+interest than his own.
+
+“You know,” quoth he, “the desperate enterprise to which I stand
+committed. But it is a bargain between us that you do not betray me nor
+that enterprise so long as I leave you rid of my presence.”
+
+“That is the bargain I propose,” said she.
+
+He looked at her a moment with hungry eyes, and she found his glance
+almost more than she could bear, so strong was its appeal. Besides,
+it may be that she was a thought beglamoured by the danger in which he
+stood, which seemed to invest him with a certain heroic dignity.
+
+“Ruth,” he said at length, “it may well be that that which you desire
+may speedily come to pass; it may well be that in the course of this
+rebellion that is hatching you may be widowed. But at least I know that
+if my head falls it will not be my wife who has betrayed me to the axe.
+For that much, believe me, I am supremely grateful.”
+
+He advanced. He took her unresisting hand again and bore it to his lips,
+bowing low before her. Then erect and graceful he turned on his heel and
+left her.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. MR. TRENCHARD'S COUNTERSTROKE
+
+Now, however much it might satisfy Mr. Wilding to have Ruth's word for
+it that so long as he left her in peace neither he nor the Cause had any
+betrayal to fear from her, Mr. Trenchard was of a very different mind.
+
+He fumed and swore and worked himself into a very passion. “Zoons,
+man!” he cried, “it would mean utter ruin to you if that letter reached
+Whitehall.”
+
+“I realize it; but my mind is easy. I have her promise.”
+
+“A woman's promise!” snorted Trenchard, and proceeded with great
+circumstance of expletives to damn “everything that daggled a
+petticoat.”
+
+“Your fears are idle,” Wilding assured him. “What she says, she will
+do.”
+
+“And her brother?” quoth Trenchard. “Have you bethought you of that
+canary-bird? He'll know the letter's whereabouts. He has cause to fear
+you more than ever now. Are you sure he'll not be making use of it to
+lay you by the heels?”
+
+Mr. Wilding smiled upon the fury provoked by Trenchard's concern and
+love for him. “She has promised,” he said with an insistent faith that
+was fuel to Trenchard's anger, “and I can depend her word.”
+
+“So cannot I,” snapped his friend.
+
+“The thing that plagues me most,” said Wilding, ignoring the remark, “is
+that we are kept in ignorance of the letter's contents at a time when we
+most long for news. Not a doubt but it would have enabled us to set our
+minds at ease on the score of these foolish rumours.”
+
+“Aye--or else confirmed them,” said pessimistic Trenchard. He wagged his
+head. “They say the Duke has put to sea already.”
+
+“Folly!” Wilding protested.
+
+“Whitehall thinks otherwise. What of the troops at Taunton?”
+
+“More folly.”
+
+“Well-I would you had that letter.”
+
+“At least,” said Wilding, “I have the superscription, and we know from
+Shenke that no name was mentioned in the letter itself.”
+
+“There's evidence enough without it,” Trenchard reminded him, and fell
+soon after into abstraction, turning over in his mind a notion with
+which he had suddenly been inspired. That notion kept Trenchard secretly
+occupied for a couple of days; but in the end he succeeded in perfecting
+it.
+
+Now it befell that towards dusk one evening early in the week Richard
+Westmacott went abroad alone, as was commonly his habit, his goal being
+the Saracen's Head, where he and Sir Rowland spent many a night over
+wine and cards--to Sir Rowland's moderate profit, for he had not played
+the pigeon in town so long without having acquired sufficient knowledge
+to enable him to play the rook in the country. As Westmacott was passing
+up the High Street, a black shadow fell athwart the light that streamed
+from the door of the Bell Inn, and out through the doorway lurched Mr.
+Trenchard a thought unsteadily to hurtle so violently against Richard
+that he broke the long stem of the white clay pipe he was carrying. Now
+Richard was not to know that Mr. Trenchard--having informed himself of
+Mr. Westmacott's evening habits--had been waiting for the past half-hour
+in that doorway hoping that Mr. Westmacott would not depart this evening
+from his usual custom. Another thing that Mr. Westmacott was not to
+know--considering his youth--was the singular histrionic ability which
+this old rake had displayed in those younger days of his when he had
+been a player, and the further circumstance that he had excelled in
+those parts in which ebriety was to be counterfeited. Indeed, we have it
+on the word of no less an authority on theatrical matters than Mr. Pepys
+that Mr. Nicholas Trenchard's appearance as Pistol in “Henry IV” in the
+year of the blessed Restoration was the talk alike of town and court.
+
+Mr. Trenchard steadied himself from the impact, and, swearing a round
+and awful Elizabethan oath, accused the other of being drunk, then
+struck an attitude to demand with truculence, “Would ye take the wall o'
+me, sir?”
+
+Richard hastened to make himself known to this turbulent roysterer, who
+straightway forgot his grievance to take Westmacott affectionately by
+the hand and overwhelm him with apologies. And that done, Trenchard--who
+affected the condition known as maudlin drunk--must needs protest almost
+in tears how profound was his love for Richard, and insist that the boy
+return with him to the Bell Inn, that they might pledge each other.
+
+Richard, himself sober, was contemptuous of Trenchard so obviously
+obfuscated. At first it was his impulse to excuse himself, as possibly
+Blake might be already waiting for him; but on second thoughts,
+remembering that Trenchard was Mr. Wilding's most intimate famulus, it
+occurred to him that by a little crafty questioning he might succeed in
+smoking Mr. Wilding's intentions in the matter of that letter--for from
+his sister he had failed to get satisfaction. So he permitted himself to
+be led indoors to a table by the window which stood vacant. There were
+at the time a dozen guests or so in the common-room. Trenchard bawled
+for wine and brandy, and for all that he babbled in an irresponsible,
+foolish manner of all things that were of no matter, yet not the most
+adroit of pumping could elicit from him any such information as Richard
+sought. Perforce young Westmacott must remain, plying him with more and
+more drink--and being plied in his turn--to the end that he might not
+waste the occasion.
+
+An hour later found Richard much the worse for wear, and Trenchard
+certainly no better. Richard forgot his purpose, forgot that Blake
+waited for him at the Saracen's Head. And now Trenchard seemed to be
+pulling himself together.
+
+“I want to talk to you, Richard,” said he, and although thick, there was
+in his voice a certain impressive quality that had been absent hitherto.
+“'S a rumour current.” He lowered his voice to a whisper almost, and,
+leaning across, took his companion by the arm. He hiccoughed noisily,
+then began again. “'S a rumour current, sweetheart, that you're
+disaffected.”
+
+Richard started, and his mind flapped and struggled like a trapped bird
+to escape the meshes of the wine, to the end that he might convincingly
+defend himself from such an imputation--so dangerously true.
+
+“'S a lie!” he gasped.
+
+Trenchard shut one eye and owlishly surveyed his companion with the
+other. “They say,” he added, “that you're for forsaking 'Duke's party.”
+
+“Villainous!” Richard protested. “I'll sli' throat of any man 't says
+so.” And draining the pewter at his elbow, he smashed it down on the
+table to emphasize his seriousness.
+
+Trenchard replenished it with the utmost promptness, then sat back in
+his tall chair and pulled a moment at the fresh pipe with which he had
+equipped himself.
+
+“I think I espy,”' he quoted presently, “'virtue and valour crouched
+in thine eye.' And yet... and yet... if I had cause to think it
+true, I'd... I'd run you through the vitals--jus' so,” and he prodded
+Richard's waistcoat with the point of his pipe-stem. His swarthy face
+darkened, his eyes glittered fiercely. “Are ye sure ye're norrer foul
+traitor?” he demanded suddenly. “Are y' sure, for if ye're not...”
+
+He left the terrible menace unuttered, but it was none the less
+understood. It penetrated the vinous fog that beset the brain of
+Richard, and startled him.
+
+“'Swear I'm not!” he cried. “'Swear mos' solemnly I'm not.”
+
+“Swear?” echoed Trenchard, and his scowl grew darker still. “Swear? A
+man may swear and yet lie--'a man may smile and smile and be a villain.'
+I'll have proof of your loyalty to us. I'll have proof, or as there's a
+heaven above and a hell below, I'll rip you up.”
+
+His mien was terrific, and his voice the more threatening in that it was
+not raised above a whisper.
+
+Richard sat back appalled, afraid.
+
+“Wha'... what proof'll satisfy you?” he asked.
+
+Trenchard considered it, pulling at his pipe again. “Pledge me the
+Duke,” said he at length. “Ther's truth 'n wine. Pledge me the Duke and
+confusion to His Majesty the goldfinch.” Richard reached for his pewter,
+glad that the test was to be so light. “Up on your feet, man,” grumbled
+Trenchard. “On your feet, and see that your words have a ring of truth
+in them.”
+
+Richard did as he was bidden, the little reason left him being
+concentrated wholly on the convincing of his fellow tippler. He rose to
+his feet, so unsteadily that his chair fell over with a bang. He never
+heeded it, but others in the room turned at the sound, and a hush fell
+in the chamber. Dominating this came Richard's voice, strident with
+intensity, if thick of utterance.
+
+“Down with Popery, and God save the Protestant Duke!” he cried. “Down
+with Popery!” And he looked at Trenchard for applause, and assurance
+that Trenchard no longer thought there was cause to quarrel with him.
+
+Behind him there was a stir in the room that went unheeded by the boy.
+Men nudged their neighbours; some looked frightened and some grinned at
+the treasonable words.
+
+A swift change came over Trenchard. His drunkenness fell from him like
+a discarded mantle. He sat like a man amazed. Then he heaved himself to
+his feet in a fury, and smashed down his pipestem on the wooden table,
+sending its fragments flying.
+
+“Damn me!” he roared. “Have I sat at table with a traitor?” And he
+thrust at Richard with his open palm, lightly yet with sufficient force
+to throw Richard off his precarious balance and send him sprawling on
+the sanded floor. Men rose from the tables about and approached them,
+some few amused, but the majority very grave. Dodsley, the landlord,
+came hurrying to assist Richard to his feet.
+
+“Mr. Westmacott,” he whispered in the rash fool's ear, “you were best
+away.”
+
+Richard stood up, leaning his full weight upon the arm the landlord had
+about his waist. He passed a hand over his brow, as if to brush aside
+the veil that obscured his wits. What had happened? What had he said?
+What had Trenchard done? Why did these fellows stand and gape at him? He
+heard his companion's voice, raised to address the company.
+
+“Gentlemen,” he heard him say, “I trust there is none present will
+impute to me any share in such treasonable sentiments as Mr. Westmacott
+has expressed. But if there is any who questions my loyalty, I have
+a convincing argument for him--in my scabbard.” And he struck his
+sword-hilt with his fist.
+
+Then he clapped on his hat, aslant over the locks of his golden wig,
+and, taking up his whip, he moved with leisurely dignity towards the
+door. He looked back with a sardonic smile at the ado he was leaving
+behind him, listened a moment to the voices that already were being
+raised in excitement, then closed the door and made his way briskly
+to the stable-yard, where he called for his horse. He rode out of
+Bridgwater ten minutes later, and took the road to Taunton as the moon
+was rising big and yellow over the hills on his left. He reached Taunton
+towards ten o'clock that night, having ridden hell-to-leather. His
+first visit was to the Hare and Hounds, where Blake and Westmacott had
+overtaken the courier. His next to the house where Sir Edward Phelips
+and Colonel Luttrell--the gentlemen lately ordered to Taunton by His
+Majesty--had their lodging.
+
+The fruits of Mr. Trenchard's extraordinary behaviour that night were
+to be seen at an early hour on the following day, when a constable and
+three tything-men came with a Lord-Lieutenant's warrant to arrest Mr.
+Richard Westmacott on a charge of high treason. They found the young man
+still abed, and most guilty was his panic when they bade him rise and
+dress himself--though little did he dream of the full extent to which
+Mr. Trenchard had enmeshed him, or indeed that Mr. Trenchard had any
+hand at all in this affair. What time he was getting into his clothes
+with a tything-man outside his door and another on guard under his
+window, the constable and his third myrmidon made an exhaustive search
+of the house. All they found of interest was a letter signed “Monmouth,”
+ which they took from the secret drawer of a secretary in the library;
+but that, it seemed, was all they sought, for having found it, they
+proceeded no further with their reckless and destructive ransacking.
+
+With that letter and the person of Richard Westmacott, the constable and
+his men took their departure, and rode back to Taunton, leaving alarm
+and sore distress at Lupton House. In her despair poor Ruth was all for
+following her brother, in the hope that at least by giving evidence
+of how that letter came into his possession she might do something to
+assist him. But knowing, as she did, that he had had his share in the
+treason that was hatching, she had cause to fear that his guilt would
+not lack for other proofs. It was Diana who urged her to repair instead
+to the only man upon whose resource she might depend, provided he were
+willing to exert it. That man was Anthony Wilding, and whether Diana
+urged it from motives of her own or out of concern for Richard, it would
+be difficult to say with certainty.
+
+The very thought of going to him for aid, after all that had passed, was
+repugnant to Ruth. And yet what choice had she? Convinced by her cousin
+and urged by her affection and duty to Richard, she repressed her
+aversion, and, calling for a horse, rode out to Zoyland Chase, attended
+by a groom. Wilding by good fortune was at home, hard at work upon a
+mass of documents in that same library where she had talked with him on
+the occasion of her first visit to his home--to the home of which she
+remembered that she was now, herself, the mistress. He was preparing
+for circulation in the West a mass of libels and incendiary pamphlets
+calculated to forward the cause of the Protestant Duke.
+
+Dissembling his surprise, he bade old Walters--who left her waiting in
+the hall whilst he went to announce her--to admit her instantly, and he
+advanced to the door to receive and welcome her.
+
+“Ruth,” said he, and his face was oddly alight, “you have come at last.”
+
+She smiled a wan smile of self-pity. “I have been constrained,” said
+she, and told him what had happened; that her brother had been arrested
+for high treason, and that the constable in searching the house had come
+upon the Monmouth letter she had locked away in her desk.
+
+“And not a doubt,” she ended, “but it will be believed that it was to
+Richard the letter was indited by the Duke. You will remember that
+its only address was 'to my good friend, W.,' and that will stand for
+Westmacott as well as Wilding.”
+
+Mr. Wilding was fain to laugh at the irony of this surprising turn of
+things of which she brought him news; for he had neither knowledge nor
+suspicion of the machinations of his friend Trenchard, to which these
+events were due. But noting and respecting her anxiety for her brother,
+he curbed his natural amusement.
+
+“It is a judgment upon you,” said he, nevertheless.
+
+“Do you exult?” she asked indignantly.
+
+“No; but I cannot repress my admiration for the ways of Divine Justice.
+If you are come to me for advice, I can but suggest that you should
+follow your brother's captors to Taunton, and inform the lieutenants of
+how the letter came into your power.”
+
+She looked at him in anger almost at what seemed a callousness. “Would
+he believe me, think you?”
+
+“Belike he would not,” said Mr. Wilding. “You can but try.”
+
+“If I told them it was addressed to you,” she said, eyeing him sternly,
+“does it not occur to you that they would send for you to question you,
+and that if they did so, as you are a gentleman you could not lie away
+my brother's life.”
+
+“Why, yes,” said he quite calmly, “it does occur to me. But does it not
+occur to you that by the time they came here they would find me gone?”
+ He laughed at her dismay. “I thank you, madam, for this warning,” he
+added. “I think I'll bid them saddle for me without delay. Too long
+already have I tarried.”
+
+“And must Richard hang?” she asked him fiercely.
+
+Mr. Wilding produced a snuffbox of tortoise shell and gold. He opened it
+deliberately. “If he does, you'll admit that he will hang on the gallows
+that he has built himself--although intended for another. I'faith! He's
+not the first booby to be caught in his own springe. There is in this a
+measure of poetic justice. Poetry and justice! Do you know, Ruth,
+they are two things I have ever loved?” And he took a pinch of choice
+Bergamot.
+
+“Will you be serious?” she demanded.
+
+“Trenchard would tell you that it were to make an exception from the
+rule of my life,” he assured her, smiling. “Yet even that might I do at
+your bidding.”
+
+“But this is a serious matter,” she told him angrily.
+
+“For Richard,” he acknowledged, closing his snuffbox with a snap. “Tell
+me, what would you have me do?”
+
+Since he asked her thus, she answered him in two words. “Save him.”
+
+“At the cost of my own neck?” quoth he. “The price is high,” he reminded
+her. “Do you think that Richard is quite worth it?”
+
+“And are you to save yourself at the cost of his?” she
+counter-questioned. “Are you capable of such a baseness?”
+
+He looked at her thoughtfully a moment. “You have not reflected,” said
+he slowly, “that in this affair is involved more than mine or Richard's
+life. There is a great cause weighing in the balance against all
+personal considerations. If I accounted Richard of more value to
+Monmouth than I am myself, I should not hesitate in riding to set
+him free by taking his place. As it is, however, I think I am of the
+greatest conceivable importance to His Grace, whilst if twenty Richards
+perished--frankly--their loss would be something of a gain, for Richard
+has played a traitor's part already. That is with me the first of all
+considerations.”
+
+“Am I of no consideration to you?” she asked him. And in an agony of
+terror for her brother she now approached him, and, obeying a sudden
+impulse, cast herself upon her knees before him. “Listen!” she cried.
+
+“Not thus,” said he, a frown between his eyes. He took her by the elbows
+and gently but very firmly brought her to her feet again. “It is not
+fitting you should kneel save at your prayers.”
+
+She was standing now, and very close to him, his hands still held her
+elbows, though their touch was so light that she scarce felt it.
+To release them was easy, and the next second her hands were on his
+shoulders, her brave eyes raised to him.
+
+“Mr. Wilding,” she implored him, “you'll not let Richard be destroyed?”
+
+He looked down at her with kindling glance, his arms slipped round her
+lissom waist. “It is hard to deny you, Ruth,” said he. “Yet not my love
+of my own life compels me; but my duty, my loyalty to the cause to which
+I am pledged. I were a traitor were I now to place myself in peril.”
+
+She pressed against him, her face so close to his that her breath fanned
+his cheek, whither a faint colour crept in quick response. Despite
+herself almost, instinctively, unconsciously, she exerted the weapons of
+her sex to bend him to her will.
+
+“You say you love me,” she whispered. “Prove it me now, and I will
+believe you.
+
+“Ah!” he sighed. “And believing me? What then?”
+
+He had himself grimly in hand, yet feared he should not prove strong
+enough to hold himself for long.
+
+“You... you shall find me your... dutiful wife,” she faltered,
+crimsoning.
+
+His arms tightened about her; he crushed her to him, he bent his head to
+hers and his lips burnt the lips she yielded to him as though they had
+been living fire.
+
+Anon, she was to weep in shame--in shame and in astonishment--at that
+instant of surrender, but for the moment she had no thought save for her
+brother. Exultation filled her. She accounted that she had conquered,
+and she gloried in the power her beauty gave her, a power that had
+sufficed to melt to water the hard-frozen purposes of this self-willed
+man. The next instant, however, she was cold again with dismay and
+newborn terror. He unclasped her arms, he drew back, shaking off the
+hands she had rested upon his shoulders. His white face--the flush had
+faded from it again--smiled a thought disdainfully.
+
+“You bargain with me,” he said. “But I have some knowledge of your ways
+of trading. They are overshrewd for an honest gentleman.”
+
+“You mean,” she gasped, her hand pressed to her heart, her face a
+deathly white, “you mean that you'll not save him?”
+
+“I mean,” said he, “that I will have no further bargains with you.”
+
+There was such hard finality in his tone that she recoiled, beaten and
+without power, to return to the assault. She had played and lost. She
+had yielded her lips to his kisses, and--husband though he might be in
+name--shame was her only guerdon.
+
+One look she gave him from out of that face so white and pitiful, then
+with a shudder turned from him and fled his presence. He sprang after
+her as the door closed, then checked and stood in thought, very grim for
+one who professed to bestow no seriousness on the affairs of life. Then
+he returned slowly to his writing-table, and rummaged there among the
+papers with which it was encumbered, seeking something of which he now
+had need. Through the open window he heard the retreating beat of her
+horse's hoofs. He sighed and sat down heavily, to take his long square
+chin in his hand and stare before him at the sunlight on the lawn
+outside.
+
+And whilst he sat thus, Ruth made all haste back to Lupton House to tell
+of the failure that had attended her. There was nothing left her now
+but to embark upon the forlorn hope of following Richard to Taunton, to
+offer her evidence of how the incriminating letter had come to be locked
+in the drawer in which the constable had discovered it. Diana met her
+with a face as white as her own and infinitely more startled. She had
+just learnt that Sir Rowland Blake had been arrested also and that
+he had been carried to Taunton together with Richard, and, as a
+consequence, she was as eager now that Ruth should repair to Albemarle
+as she had erstwhile been earnest in urging her to seek out Mr. Wilding;
+indeed, Diana went so far as to offer to accompany her, an offer that
+Ruth gladly, gratefully accepted.
+
+Within an hour Ruth and Diana--in spite of all that poor, docile Lady
+Horton had said to stay them--were riding to Taunton, attended by the
+same groom who had so lately accompanied his mistress to Zoyland Chase.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. THEIR OWN PETARD
+
+In a lofty, spacious room of the town hall at Taunton sat Sir Edward
+Phelips and Colonel Luttrell to dispense justice, and with them, flanked
+by one of them on either side of him, sat Christopher Monk, Duke of
+Albemarle, Lord-Lieutenant of Devonshire, who had been summoned in
+all haste from Exeter that he might be present at an examination which
+promised to be of so vast importance. The three sat at a long table at
+the room's end, attended by two secretaries.
+
+Before them, guarded by constable and tything-men, weaponless, their
+hands pinioned behind them--Blake's arm was healed by now--stood Mr.
+Westmacott and his friend Sir Rowland to answer this grave charge.
+
+Richard, not knowing who might have betrayed him and to what extent, was
+very fearful--having through his connection with the Cause every reason
+so to be. Blake, on the other hand, conscious of his innocence of any
+plotting, was impatient of his position, and a thought contemptuous.
+It was he who, upon being ushered by the constable and his men into the
+august presence of the Lord-Lieutenant, clamoured to know precisely of
+what he was accused that he might straightway clear himself.
+
+Albemarle reared his great massive head, smothered in a mighty black
+peruke, and scowled upon the florid London beau. A black-visaged
+gentleman was Christopher Monk. His pendulous cheeks, it is true, were
+of a sallow pallor, but what with his black wig, black eyebrows, dark
+eyes, and the blue-black tint of shaven beard on his great jaw and upper
+lip, he presented an appearance sombrely sinister. His netherlip was
+thick and very prominent; deep creases ran from the corners of his mouth
+adown his heavy chin; his eyes were dull and lack-lustre, with great
+pouches under them. In the main, the air of this son of the great
+Parliamentarian general was stupid, dull, unprepossessing.
+
+The creases of his mouth deepened as Blake protested against what he
+termed this outrage that had been done him; he sneered ponderously,
+thrusting further forward his heavily undershot jowl.
+
+“We are informed, sir, of your antecedents,” he staggered Blake by
+answering. “We have learnt the reason why you left London and your
+creditors, and in all my life, sir, I have never known a man more ready
+to turn his hand to treason than a broken gamester. Your kind turns by
+instinct to such work as this, as a last resource for the mending of
+battered fortunes.”
+
+Blake crimsoned from chin to brow. “I'm forejudged, it, seems,” he made
+answer haughtily, tossing his fair locks, his blue eyes glaring upon his
+judges. “May I, at least, know the name of my accuser?”
+
+“You shall receive impartial justice at our hands,” put in Phelips,
+whose manner was of a dangerous mildness. “Depend on that. Not only
+shall you know the name of your accuser, but you shall be confronted by
+him. Meanwhile, sirs”--and his glance strayed from Blake's flushed and
+angry countenance to Richard's, pale and timid--“meanwhile, are we to
+understand that you deny the charge?”
+
+“I have heard none as yet,” said Sir Rowland insolently.
+
+Albemarle turned to one of the secretaries. “Read them the indictment,”
+ said he, and sank back in his chair, his dull glance upon the prisoners,
+whilst the clerk in a droning voice read from a document which he took
+up. It impeached Sir Rowland Blake and Mr. Richard Westmacott of holding
+treasonable communication with James Scott, Duke of Monmouth, and of
+plotting against His Majesty's life and throne and the peace of His
+Majesty's realms.
+
+Blake listened with unconcealed impatience to the farrago of legal
+phrases, and snorted contemptuously when the reading came to an end.
+
+Albemarle looked at him darkly. “I do thank God,” said he, “that through
+Mr. Westmacott's folly has this hideous plot, this black and damnable
+treason, been brought to light in time to enable us to stamp out this
+fire ere it is well kindled. Have you aught to say, sir?”
+
+“I have to say that the whole charge a foul and unfounded lie,” said Sir
+Rowland bluntly: “I never plotted in my life against anything but my own
+prosperity, nor against any man but myself.”
+
+Albemarle smiled coldly at his colleagues, then turned to Westmacott.
+“And you, sir?” he said. “Are you as stubborn as your friend?”
+
+“I incontinently deny the charge,” said Richard, and he contrived that
+his voice should ring bold and resolute.
+
+“A charge built on air,” sneered Blake, “which the first breath of truth
+should utterly dispel. We have heard the impeachment. Will Your Grace
+with the same consideration permit us to see the proofs that we may lay
+bare their falseness? It should not be difficult.”
+
+“Do you say there is no such plot as is here alleged?” quoth the Duke,
+and smote a paper sharply.
+
+Blake shrugged his shoulders. “How should I know?” he asked. “I say I
+have no share in any, that I am acquainted with none.”
+
+“Call Mr. Trenchard,” said the Duke quietly, and an usher who had stood
+tamely by the door at the far end of the room departed on the errand.
+
+Richard started at the mention of that name. He had a singular dread of
+Mr. Trenchard.
+
+Colonel Luttrell--lean and wiry--now addressed the prisoners, Blake more
+particularly. “Still,” said he, “you will admit that such a plot may,
+indeed, exist?”
+
+“It may, indeed, for aught I know--or care,” he added incautiously.
+
+Albemarle smote the table with a heavy hand. “By God!” he cried in that
+deep booming voice of his, “there spoke a traitor! You do not care, you
+say, what plots may be hatched against His Majesty's life and crown! Yet
+you ask me to believe you a true and loyal subject.”
+
+Blake was angered; he was at best a short-tempered man. Deliberately he
+floundered further into the mire.
+
+“I have not asked Your Grace to believe me anything,” he answered hotly.
+“It is all one to me what Your Grace believes me. I take it I have not
+been fetched hither to be confronted with what Your Grace believes. You
+have preferred a lying charge against me; I ask for proofs, not Your
+Grace's beliefs and opinions.”
+
+“By God, sir, you are a daring rogue!” cried Albemarle.
+
+Sir Rowland's eyes blazed. “Anon, Your Grace, when, having failed of
+your proofs, you shall be constrained to restore me to liberty, I shall
+ask Your Grace to unsay that word.”
+
+Albemarle stared, confounded, and in that moment the door opened, and
+Trenchard sauntered in, cane in hand, his hat under his arm, a wicked
+smile on his wizened face.
+
+Leaving Blake's veiled threat unanswered, the Duke turned to the old
+rake. “These rogues,” said he, pointing to the prisoners, “demand proofs
+ere they will admit the truth of the impeachment.”
+
+“Those proofs,” said Trenchard, “are already in Your Grace's hands.”
+
+“Aye, but they have asked to be confronted with their accuser.”
+
+Trenchard bowed. “Is it your wish, then, that I recite for them the
+counts on which I have based the accusation I laid before Your Grace?”
+
+“If you will condescend so far,” said Albemarle.
+
+“Blister me...!” roared Blake, when the Duke interrupted him.
+
+“By God, sir!” he cried, “I'll have no such disrespectful language here.
+You'll observe the decency of speech and forbear from profanities, you
+damned rogue, or by God! I'll commit you forthwith.”
+
+“I will endeavour,” said Blake, with a sarcasm lost on Albemarle, “to
+follow Your Grace's lofty example.”
+
+“You will do well, sir,” said the Duke, and was shocked that Trenchard
+should laugh at such a moment.
+
+“I was about to protest, sir,” said Blake, “that it is monstrous
+I should be accused by Mr. Trenchard. He has but the slightest
+acquaintance with me.”
+
+Trenchard bowed to him across the chamber. “Admitted, sir,” said
+he. “What should I be doing in bad company?” An answer this that set
+Albemarle bawling with laughter. Trenchard turned to the Duke. “I will
+begin, an it please Your Grace, with the expressions used last night in
+my presence at the Bell Inn at Bridgwater by Mr. Richard Westmacott, and
+I will confine myself strictly to those matters on which my testimony
+can be corroborated by that of other witnesses.”
+
+Colonel Luttrell interrupted him to turn to Richard. “Do you recall
+those expressions, sir?” he asked him.
+
+Richard winced under the question. Nevertheless, he braced himself to
+make the best defence he could. “I have not yet heard,” said he, “what
+those expressions were; nor when I hear them must it follow that I
+recognize them as my own. I must admit to having taken more wine,
+perhaps, than... than...” Whilst he sought the expression that he needed
+Trenchard cut in with a laugh. “In vino veritas, gentlemen,” and
+His Grace and Sir Edward nodded sagely; Luttrell preserved a stolid
+exterior. He seemed less prone than his colleagues to forejudging.
+
+“Will you repeat the expressions used by Mr. Westmacott?” Sir Edward
+begged.
+
+“I will repeat the one that, to my mind, matters most.” Mr. Westmacott,
+getting to his feet and in a loud voice, exclaimed, “God save the
+Protestant Duke!”
+
+“Do you admit it, sir?” thundered Albemarle, his eyes glowering upon
+Richard hesitated a moment, pale and trembling.
+
+“You will waste breath in denying it,” said Trenchard suavely, “for I
+have a drawer from the Bell Inn, and two gentlemen who overheard you
+waiting outside.”
+
+“I'faith, sir,” cried Blake, “what treason was therein that? If he...”
+
+“Silence!” thundered Albemarle. “Let Mr. Westmacott speak for himself.”
+
+Richard, inspired by the defence Blake had begun, took the same line of
+argument. “I admit that in the heat of wine I may have used such words,”
+ said he. “But I deny their intent to be treasonable. There are many men
+who drink to the prosperity of the late Kings's son...”
+
+“Natural son, sir; natural son,” Albemarle amended. “It is treason to
+speak of him otherwise.”
+
+“It will be a treason presently to draw breath,” sneered Blake.
+
+“If it be,” said Trenchard, “it is a treason you'll not be long
+committing.”
+
+“Faith, you are right, Mr. Trenchard,” said the Duke with a laugh.
+Indeed, he found Mr. Trenchard a most pleasant and facetious gentleman.
+
+“Still,” insisted Richard, endeavouring in spite of these irrelevancies
+to make good his point, “there be many men who drink daily to the
+prosperity of the late King's natural son.”
+
+“Aye, sir,” answered Albemarle; “but not his prosperity in horrid plots
+against the life of our beloved sovereign.”
+
+“True, Your Grace; very true,” purred Sir Edward. “It was not so I meant
+to toast him,” cried Richard. Albemarle made an impatient gesture,
+and took up a sheet of paper. “How, then,” he asked, “comes this
+letter--this letter which makes plain the treason upon which the Duke
+of Monmouth is embarked, just as it makes plain your participation in
+it--how comes this letter to be found in your possession?” And he waved
+the letter in the air.
+
+Richard went the colour of ashes. He faltered a moment, then took refuge
+in the truth, for all that he knew beforehand that the truth was bound
+to ring more false than any lie he could invent.
+
+“That letter was not addressed to me,” he stammered.
+
+Albemarle read the subscription, “To my good friend W., at Bridgwater.”
+ He looked up, a heavy sneer thrusting his heavy lip still further out.
+“What do you say to that? Does not 'W' stand for Westmacott?”
+
+“It does not.”
+
+“Of course not,” said Albemarle with heavy sarcasm. “It stands for
+Wilkins, or Williams, or... or... What-not.”
+
+“Indeed, I can bear witness that it does not,” exclaimed Sir Rowland.
+
+“Be silent, sir, I tell you!” bawled the Duke at him again. “You shall
+bear witness soon enough, I promise you. To whom, then,” he resumed,
+turning again to Richard, “do you say that this letter was addressed?”
+
+“To Mr. Wilding--Mr. Anthony Wilding,” Richard answered.
+
+“I would have Your Grace to observe,” put in Trench ard quietly, “that
+Mr. Wilding, properly speaking, does not reside in Bridgwater.”
+
+“Tush!” cried Albemarle; “the rogue but mentions the first name with a
+'W' that occurs to him. He's not even an ingenious liar. And how, sir,”
+ he asked Richard, “does it come to be in your possession, having been
+addressed, as you say, to Mr. Wilding?”
+
+“Aye, sir,” said Sir Edward, blinking his weak eyes. “Tell us that.”
+
+Richard hesitated again, and looked at Blake. Blake, who by now had
+come to realize that his friend's affairs were not mended by his
+interruptions, moodily shrugged his shoulders, scowling.
+
+“Come, sir,” said Colonel Luttrell, engagingly, “answer the question.”
+
+“Aye,” roared Albemarle; “let your invention have free rein.”
+
+Again poor Richard sought refuge in the truth. “We--Sir Rowland here and
+I--had reason to suspect that he was awaiting such a letter.”
+
+“Tell us your reasons, sir, if we are to credit you,” said the Duke, and
+it was plain he mocked the prisoner. It was, moreover, a request that
+staggered Richard. Still, he sought to find a reason that should sound
+plausible.
+
+“We inferred it from certain remarks that Mr. Wilding let fall in our
+presence.”
+
+“Tell us the remarks, sir,” the Duke insisted.
+
+“Indeed, I do not call his precise words to mind, Your Grace. But they
+were such that we suspicioned him.”
+
+“And you would have me believe that hearing words which awoke in you
+such grave suspicions, you kept your suspicions and straightway forgot
+the words. You're but an indifferent liar.”
+
+Trenchard, who was standing by the long table, leaned forward now.
+
+“It might be well, an it please Your Grace,” said he, “to waive the
+point, and let us come to those matters which are of greater moment. Let
+him tell Your Grace how he came by the letter.”
+
+“Aye,” said Albemarle. “We do but waste time. Tell us, then, how came
+the letter into your hands?”
+
+“With Sir Rowland, here, I robbed the courier as he was riding from
+Taunton to Bridgwater.”
+
+Albemarle laughed, and Sir Edward smiled. “You robbed him, eh?” said His
+Grace. “Very well. But how did it happen that you knew he had the letter
+upon him, or was it that you were playing the hightobymen, and that in
+robbing him you hoped to find other matters?”
+
+“Not so, sir,” answered Richard. “I sought but the letter.”
+
+“And how knew you that he carried it? Did you learn that, too, from Mr.
+Wilding's indiscretion?”
+
+“Your Grace has said it.”
+
+“'Slife! What an impudent rogue have we here!” cried the angry Duke,
+who conceived that Richard was purposely dealing in effrontery. “Mr.
+Trenchard, I do think we are wasting time. Be so good as to confound
+them both with the truth of this matter.”
+
+“That letter,” said Trenchard, “was delivered to them at the Hare and
+Hounds, here at Taunton, by a gentleman who put up at the inn, and was
+there joined by Mr. Westmacott and Sir Rowland Blake. They opened
+the conversation with certain cant phrases very clearly intended as
+passwords. Thus: the prisoners said to the messenger, as they seated
+themselves at the table he occupied, 'You have the air, sir, of being
+from overseas,' to which the courier answered, 'Indeed, yes. I am from
+Holland. 'From the land of Orange,' says one of the prisoners. 'Aye, and
+other things,' replies the messenger. 'There is a fair wind blowing,' he
+adds; to which one of the prisoners, I believe it was Sir Rowland, makes
+answer, 'Mayit prosper the Protestant Duke and blow Popery to hell.'
+Thereupon the landlord caught some mention of a letter, but these
+plotters, perceiving that they were perhaps being overheard, sent him
+away to fetch them wine. A half-hour later the messenger took his leave,
+and the prisoners followed a very few minutes afterwards.”
+
+Albemarle turned to the prisoners. “You have heard Mr. Trenchard's
+story. How do you say--is it true or untrue?”
+
+“You will waste breath in denying it,” Trenchard took it again upon
+himself to admonish them. “For I have with me the landlord of the Hare
+and Hounds, who will corroborate, upon oath, what I have said.”
+
+“We do not deny it,” put in Blake. “But we submit that the matter is
+susceptible to explanation.”
+
+“You can keep your explanations till your trial, then,” snapped
+Albemarle. “I have heard more than enough to commit the pair of you to
+gaol.”
+
+“But, Your Grace,” cried Sir Rowland, so fiercely that one of the
+tything-men set a restraining hand upon his shoulder, “I am ready to
+swear that what I did, and what my friend Mr. Westmacott did, was done
+in the interests of His Majesty. We were working to discover this plot.”
+
+“Which, no doubt,” put in Trenchard slyly, “is the reason why, having
+got the letter, your friend Mr. Westmacott locked it in a desk, and you
+kept silence on the matter.”
+
+“You see,” exclaimed Albemarle, “how your lies do but serve further to
+bind you in the toils. It is ever thus with traitors.”
+
+“I do think you are a damned traitor, Trenchard,” began Blake; “a
+foul...”
+
+But what more he would have said was checked by Albemarle, who thundered
+forth an order for their removal, and then, scarce were the words
+uttered than the door at the far end of the hall was opened, and through
+it came a sound of women's voices. Richard started, for one was the
+voice of Ruth.
+
+An usher advanced. “May it please Your Grace, there are two ladies here
+beg that you will hear their evidence in the matter of Mr. Westmacott
+and Sir Rowland Blake.”
+
+Albemarle considered a moment. Trenchard stood very thoughtful.
+
+“Indeed,” said the Duke, at last, “I have heard as much as I need hear,”
+ and Sir Phelips nodded in token of concurrence.
+
+Not so, however, Colonel Luttrell. “Still,” said he, “in the interests
+of His Majesty, perhaps, we should be doing well to receive them.”
+
+Albemarle blew out his cheeks like a man wearied, and stared an instant
+at Luttrell. Then he shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“Admit them, then,” he commanded almost peevishly, and Ruth and Diana
+were ushered into the hall. Both were pale, but whilst Diana was
+fluttered with excitement, Ruth was calm and cool, and it was she who
+spoke in answer to the Duke's invitation. The burden of her speech was
+a clear, succinct recitation--in which she spared neither Wilding
+nor herself--of how the letter came to have remained in her hands and
+silence to have been preserved regarding it. Albemarle heard her very
+patiently.
+
+“If what you say is true, mistress,” said he, “and God forbid that
+I should be so ungallant as to throw doubt upon a lady's word, it
+certainly explains--although most strangely--how the letter was not
+brought to us at once by your brother and his friend Sir Rowland. You
+are prepared to swear that this letter was intended for Mr. Wilding?”
+
+“I am prepared to swear it,” she replied.
+
+“This is very serious,” said the Duke.
+
+“Very serious,” assented Sir Edward Phelips.
+
+Albemarle, a little flustered, turned to his colleagues. “What do you
+say to this? Were it perhaps well to order Mr. Wilding's apprehension,
+and to have him brought hither?”
+
+“It were to give yourselves useless trouble, gentlemen,” said Trenchard,
+with so much assurance that it was plain Albemarle hesitated.
+
+“Beware of Mr. Trenchard, Your Grace,” cried Ruth. “He is Mr. Wilding's
+friend, and if there is a plot he is sure to be in it.”
+
+Albemarle, startled, looked at Trenchard. Had the accusation come from
+either of the men the Duke would have silenced him and abused him;
+but coming from a woman, and so comely a woman, it seemed to His Grace
+worthy at least of consideration. But nimble Mr. Trenchard was easily
+master of the situation.
+
+“Which, of course,” he answered, with fine sarcasm, “is the reason why
+I have been at work for the past four-and-twenty hours to lay proofs of
+this plot before Your Grace.”
+
+Albemarle was ashamed of his momentary hesitation.
+
+“For the rest,” said Trenchard, “it is perfectly true that I am Mr.
+Wilding's friend. But the lady is even more intimately connected with
+him. It happens that she is his wife.”
+
+“His... his wife!” gasped the Duke, whilst Phelips chuckled, and Colonel
+Luttrell's face grew dark.
+
+Trenchard's wicked smile flickered upon his mobile features. “There are
+rumours current of court paid her by Sir Rowland, there. Who knows?” he
+questioned most suggestively, arching his brows and tightening his lips.
+“Wives are strange kittle-kattle, and husbands have been known before to
+grow inconvenient. Upon reflection, Your Grace will no doubt discern the
+precise degree of faith to attach to what this lady may tell you against
+Mr. Wilding.”
+
+“Oh!” exclaimed Ruth, her cheeks flaming crimson. “But this is
+monstrous!”
+
+“Tis how I should myself describe it,” answered Trenchard without shame.
+
+Spurred to it thus, Ruth poured out the entire story of her marriage,
+and so clear and lucid was her statement that it threw upon the affair a
+flood of light, whilst so frank and truthful was her tone, her narrative
+hung so well together, that the Bench began to recover from the shock to
+its faith, and was again in danger of believing her. Trenchard saw this
+and trembled. To save Wilding for the Cause he had resorted to this
+desperate expedient of betraying that Cause. It must be observed,
+however, that he had not done so save under the conviction that betrayed
+it was bound to be, and that since that was inevitable the thing had
+better come from him--for Wilding's sake--than from Richard Westmacott.
+He had taken the bull by the horns in a most desperate fashion when he
+had determined to hoist Richard and Blake with their own petard, hoping
+that, after all, the harm would reach no further than the destruction of
+these two--a purely defensive measure. But now this girl threatened
+to wreck his scheme just as it was being safely steered to harbour.
+Suddenly he swung round, interrupting her.
+
+“Lies, lies, lies!” he clamoured, and his interruption coming at such a
+time served to impress the Duke most unfavourably--as well it might.
+
+“It is our wish to hear this lady out, Mr. Trenchard,” the Duke reproved
+him.
+
+But Mr. Trenchard was undismayed. Indeed, he had just discovered a
+hitherto neglected card, which should put an end to this dangerous game.
+
+“I do abhor to hear Your Grace's patience thus abused,” he exclaimed
+with some show of heat. “This lady makes a mock of you. If you'll allow
+me to ask two questions--or perhaps three--I'll promise finally to prick
+this bubble for you. Have I Your Grace's leave?”
+
+“Well, well,” said Albemarle. “Let us hear your questions.” And his
+colleagues nodded.
+
+Trenchard turned airily to Ruth. Behind her Diana sat--an attendant had
+fetched a chair for her--in fear and wonder at what she saw and heard,
+her eyes ever and anon straying to Sir Rowland's back, which was towards
+her.
+
+“This letter, madam,” said he, “for the possession of which you have
+accounted in so... so... picturesque a manner, was intended for and
+addressed to Mr. Wilding, you say. And you are prepared to swear to it?”
+
+Ruth turned indignantly to the Bench. “Must I answer this man's
+questions?” she demanded.
+
+“I think, perhaps, it were best you did,” said the Duke, still showing
+her all deference.
+
+She turned to Trenchard, her head high, her eyes full upon his wrinkled,
+cynical face. “I swear, then...” she began, but he--consummate actor
+that he was and versed in tricks that impress an audience--interrupted
+her, raising one of his gnarled, yellow hands.
+
+“Nay, nay,” said he. “I would not have perjury proved against you. I do
+not ask you to swear. It will be sufficient if you pronounce yourself
+prepared to swear.”
+
+She pouted her lip a trifle, her whole expression manifesting her
+contempt of him. “I am in no fear of perjuring myself,” she answered
+fearlessly. “And I swear that the letter in question was addressed to
+Mr. Wilding.”
+
+“As you will,” said Trenchard, and was careful not to ask her how she
+came by her knowledge. “The letter, no doubt, was in an outer wrapper,
+on which there would be a superscription--the name of the person to whom
+the letter was addressed?” he half questioned, and Luttrell, who saw the
+drift of the question, nodded gravely.
+
+“No doubt,” said Ruth.
+
+“Now you will acknowledge, I am sure, madam, that such a wrapper would
+be a document of the greatest importance, as important, indeed, as the
+letter itself, since we could depend upon it finally to clear up this
+point on which we differ. You will admit so much, I think?”
+
+“Why, yes,” she answered, but her voice faltered a little, and her
+glance was not quite so fearless. She, too, saw at last the pit he had
+dug for her. He leaned forward, smiling quietly, his voice impressively
+subdued, and launched the bolt that was to annihilate the credibility of
+the story she had told.
+
+“Can you, then, explain how it comes that that wrapper has been
+suppressed? Can you tell us how--the matter being as you state it--in
+very self-defence against the dangers of keeping such a letter, your
+brother did not also keep that wrapper?”
+
+Her eyes fell away from his face, they turned to Albemarle, who sat
+scowling again, and from him they flickered unsteadily to Phelips and
+Luttrell, and lastly, to Richard, who, very white and with set teeth,
+stood listening to the working of his ruin.
+
+“I... I do not know,” she faltered at last.
+
+“Ah!” said Trenchard, drawing a deep breath. He turned to the Bench.
+“Need I suggest what was the need--the urgent need--for suppressing that
+wrapper?” quoth he. “Need I say what name was inscribed upon it? I think
+not. Your Grace's keen insight, and yours, gentlemen, will determine
+what was probable.”
+
+Sir Rowland now stood forward, addressing Albemarle. “Will Your Grace
+permit me to offer my explanation of this?”
+
+Albemarle banged the table. His patience was at an end, since he came
+now to believe--as Trenchard had earlier suggested--that he had been
+played upon by Ruth.
+
+“Too many explanations have I heard already, sir,” he answered. He
+turned to one of his secretaries. In his sudden excess of choler he
+forgot his colleagues altogether. “The prisoners are committed for
+trial,” said he harshly, and Trenchard breathed freely at last. But the
+next instant he caught his breath again, for a ringing voice was heard
+without demanding to see His Grace of Albemarle at once, and the voice
+was the voice of Anthony Wilding.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. THE MARPLOT
+
+Mr. Wilding's appearance produced as many different emotions as there
+were individuals present. He made the company a sweeping bow on his
+admission by Albemarle's orders, a bow which was returned by a stare
+from one and all. Diana eyed him in amazement, Ruth in hope; Richard
+averted his glance from that of his brother-in-law, whilst Sir Rowland
+met it with a scowl of enmity--they had not come face to face since the
+occasion of that encounter in which Sir Rowland's self-love had been so
+rudely handled. Albemarle's face expressed a sort of satisfaction,
+which was reflected on the countenances of Phelips and Luttrell; whilst
+Trenchard never thought of attempting to dissemble his profound dismay.
+And this dismay was shared, though not in so deep a measure, by Wilding
+himself. Trenchard's presence gave him pause; for he had been far,
+indeed, from dreaming that his friend had a hand in this affair. At
+sight of him all was made clear to Mr. Wilding. At once he saw the role
+which Trenchard had assumed on this occasion, saw to the bottom of the
+motives that had inspired him to take the bull by the horns and level
+against Richard and Blake this accusation before they had leisure to
+level it against himself.
+
+His quick wits having fathomed Trenchard's motive, Mr. Wilding was
+deeply touched by this proof of friendship, and for a second, as deeply
+nonplussed, at loss now how to discharge the task on which he came.
+
+“You are very choicely come, Mr. Wilding,” said Albemarle. “You will be
+able to resolve me certain doubts which have been set on foot by these
+traitors.”
+
+“That,” said Mr. Wilding, “is the purpose for which I am here. News
+reached me of the arrest that had been made. May I beg that Your Grace
+will place me in possession of the facts that have so far transpired.”
+
+It was one of his secretaries who, at Albemarle's bidding, gave Wilding
+the information that he craved. He listened gravely; then, before
+Albemarle had time to question him on the score of the name that might
+have been upon the enfolding wrapper of the letter, he begged that he
+might confer apart a moment with Mr. Trenchard.
+
+“But Mr. Wilding,” said Colonel Luttrell, surprised not to hear the
+immediate denial of the imputation they had expected, “we should first
+like to hear...”
+
+“By your leave, sirs,” Wilding interrupted, “I should prefer that
+you ask me nothing until I have consulted with Mr. Trenchard.” He saw
+Luttrell's frown, observed Sir Edward shift his wig to scratch his head
+in sheer perplexity, and caught the fore-shadowing of denial on the
+Duke's face. So, without giving any of them time to say him nay, he
+added quickly and very seriously, “I am begging this in the interests of
+justice. Your Grace has told me that some lingering doubt still haunts
+your mind upon the subject of this letter--the other charges can matter
+little, apart from that treasonable document. It lies within my power to
+resolve such doubts most clearly and finally. But I warn you, sirs, that
+not one word will I utter in this connection until I have had speech
+with Mr. Trenchard.”
+
+There was about his mien and voice a firmness that forewarned Albemarle
+that to insist would be worse than idle. A slight pause followed his
+words, and Luttrell leaned across to whisper in His Grace's ear; from
+the Duke's other side Sir Edward bent his head forward till it almost
+touched those of his companions. Blake watched, and was most foolishly
+impatient.
+
+“Your Grace will never allow this!” he cried.
+
+“Eh?” said Albemarle, scowling at him.
+
+“If you allow those two villains to consort together we are all undone,”
+ the baronet protested, and ruined what chance there was of Albemarle's
+not consenting.
+
+It was the one thing needed to determine Albemarle. Like the stubborn
+man he was, there was naught he detested so much as to have his course
+dictated to him. More than that, in Sir Rowland's anxiety that Wilding
+and Trenchard should not be allowed to confer apart, he smoked a fear
+on Sir Rowland's part, based upon the baronet's consciousness of his own
+guilt. He turned from him with a sneering smile, and without so much
+as consulting his associates he glanced at Wilding and waved his hand
+towards the door.
+
+“Pray do as you suggest, Mr. Wilding,” said he. “But I depend upon you
+not to tax our patience.”
+
+“I shall not keep Mr. Trenchard a moment longer than is necessary,” said
+Wilding, giving no hint of the second meaning in his words.
+
+He stepped to the door, opened it himself, and signed to Trenchard to
+pass out. The old player obeyed him readily, if in silence. An usher
+closed the door after them, and in silence they walked together to the
+end of the passage.
+
+“Where is your horse, Nick?” quoth Wilding abruptly.
+
+“What a plague do you mean, where is my horse?” flashed Trenchard. “What
+midsummer frenzy is this? Damn you for a marplot, Anthony! What a pox
+are you thinking of to thrust yourself in here at such a time?”
+
+“I had no knowledge you were in the affair,” said Wilding. “You should
+have told me.” His manner was brisk to the point of dryness. “However,
+there is still time to get you out of it. Where is your horse?”
+
+“Damn my horse!” answered Trenchard in a passion. “You have spoiled
+everything!”
+
+“On the contrary,” said Mr. Wilding tartly, “it seems you had done that
+very thoroughly before I arrived. Whilst I am touched by the regard for
+me which has misled you into turning the tables on Blake and Westmacott,
+yet I do blame you for this betrayal of the Cause.”
+
+“There was no help for it.”
+
+“Why, no; and that is why you should have left matters where they
+stood.”
+
+Trenchard stamped his foot; indeed, he almost danced in the excess of
+his vexation. “Left them where they stood!” he echoed. “Body o' me!
+Where are your wits? Left them where they stood! And at any moment you
+might have been taken unawares as a consequence of this accusation being
+lodged against you by Richard or by Blake. Then the Cause would have
+been betrayed, indeed.”
+
+“Not more so than it is now.”
+
+“Not less, at least,” snapped the player. “You give me credit for no
+more wit than yourself. Do you think that I am the man to do things by
+halves? I have betrayed the plot to Albemarle; but do you imagine I have
+made no provision for what must follow?”
+
+“Provision?” echoed Wilding, staring.
+
+“Aye, provision. God lack! What do you suppose Albemarle will do?”
+
+“Dispatch a messenger to Whitehall with the letter within an hour.”
+
+“You perceive it, do you? And where the plague do you think Nick
+Trenchard'll be what time that messenger rides?”
+
+Mr. Wilding understood. “Aye, you may stare,” sneered Trenchard. “A
+letter that has once been stolen may be stolen again. The courier must
+go by way of Walford. I had in my mind arranged the spot, close by the
+ford, where I should fall upon him, rob him of his dispatches, and take
+him--bound hand and foot if necessary--to Vallancey's, who lives close
+by; and there I'd leave him until word came that the Duke had landed.”
+
+“That the Duke had landed?” cried Wilding. “You talk as though the thing
+were imminent.”
+
+“And imminent it is. For aught we know he may be in England already.”
+
+Mr. Wilding laughed impatiently. “You must forever be building on these
+crack-brained rumours, Nick,” said he.
+
+“Rumours!” roared the other. “Rumours? Ha!” He checked his wild scorn,
+and proceeded in a different key. “I was forgetting. You do not know the
+Contents of that stolen letter.”
+
+Wilding started. Underlying his disbelief in the talk of the
+countryside, and even in the military measures which by the King's
+orders were being taken in the West, was an uneasy dread lest they
+should prove to be well founded, lest Argyle's operations in Scotland
+should be but the forerunner of a rash and premature invasion by
+Monmouth. He knew the Duke was surrounded by such reckless, foolhardy
+counsellors as Grey and Ferguson--and yet he could not think the Duke
+would ruin all by coming before he had definite word that his friends
+were ready. He looked at Trenchard now with anxious eyes.
+
+“Have you seen the letter, Nick?” he asked, and almost dreaded the
+reply.
+
+“Albemarle showed it me an hour ago,” said Trenchard.
+
+“And it contains?”
+
+“The news we fear. It is in the Duke's own hand, and intimates that he
+will follow it in a few days--in a few days, man in person.”
+
+Mr. Wilding clenched teeth and hands. “God help us all, then!” he
+muttered grimly.
+
+“Meanwhile,” quoth Trenchard, bringing him back to the point, “there is
+this precious business here. I had as choice a plan as could have been
+devised, and it must have succeeded, had you not come blundering into it
+to mar it all at the last moment. That fat fool Albemarle had swallowed
+my impeachment like a draught of muscadine. Do you hear me?” he ended
+sharply, for Mr. Wilding stood bemused, his thoughts plainly wandering.
+
+He let his hand fall upon Trenchard's shoulder. “No,” said he, “I wasn't
+listening. No matter; for even had I known the full extent of your
+scheme I still must have interfered.”
+
+“For the sake of Mistress Westmacott's blue eyes, no doubt,” sneered
+Trenchard. “Pah! Wherever there's a woman there's the loss of a man.”
+
+“For the sake of Mistress Wilding's blue eyes,” his friend corrected
+him. “I'll allow no brother of hers to hang in my place.”
+
+“It will be interesting to see how you will rescue him.”
+
+“By telling the truth to Albemarle.”
+
+“He'll not believe it.”
+
+“I shall prove it,” said Wilding quietly. Trenchard swung round upon him
+in mingled anger and alarm for him. “You shall not do it!” he snarled.
+“It is nothing short of treason to the Duke to get yourself laid by the
+heels at such a time as this.”
+
+“I hope to avoid it,” answered Wilding confidently.
+
+“Avoid it? How?”
+
+“Not by staying longer here in talk. That will ruin all. Away with you,
+Trenchard!”
+
+“By my soul, no!” answered Trenchard. “I'll not leave you. If I have got
+you into this, I'll help to get you out again, or stay in it with you.”
+
+“Bethink you of Monmouth?” Wilding admonished him.
+
+“Damn Monmouth!” was the vicious answer. “I am here, and here I stay.”
+
+“Get to horse, you fool, and ride to Walford as you proposed, there to
+ambush the messenger. The letter will go to Whitehall none the less in
+spite of what I shall tell Albemarle. If things go well with me, I shall
+join you at Vallancey's before long.”
+
+“Why, if that is your intention,” said Trenchard, “I had better stay,
+and we can ride together. It will make it less uncertain for you.”
+
+“But less certain for you.”
+
+“The more reason why I should remain.”
+
+The door of the hall was suddenly flung open at the far end of the
+corridor, and Albemarle's booming voice, impatiently raised, reached
+them where they stood.
+
+“In any case,” added Trenchard, “it seems there is no help for it now.”
+
+Mr. Wilding shrugged his shoulders, but otherwise dissembled his
+vexation. Up the passage floated the constable's voice calling them.
+
+Side by side they moved down, and side by side they stepped once more
+into the presence of Christopher Monk and his associates.
+
+“Sirs, you have not been in haste,” was the Duke's ill-humoured
+greeting.
+
+“We have tarried a little that we might make an end the sooner,”
+ answered Trenchard dryly, and this was the first indication he gave Mr.
+Wilding of how naturally--like the inimitable actor that he was--he had
+slipped into his new role.
+
+Albemarle waved the frivolous rejoinder aside. “Come, Mr. Wilding,” said
+he, “let us hear what you may have to say. You are not, I take it, about
+to urge any reasons why these rogues should not be committed?”
+
+“Indeed, Your Grace,” said Wilding, “that is what I am about to urge.”
+
+Blake and Richard looked at him suddenly, and from him to Trenchard; but
+it was only Ruth whose eyes were shrewd enough to observe the altered
+demeanour of the latter. Her hopes rose, founded upon this oddly
+assorted pair. Already in anticipation she was stirred by gratitude
+towards Wilding, and it was in impatient and almost wondering awe that
+she waited for him to proceed.
+
+“I take it, sir,” he said, without waiting for Albemarle to express
+any of the fresh astonishment his countenance manifested, “that the
+accusation against these gentlemen rests entirely upon the letter which
+you have been led to believe was addressed to Mr. Westmacott.”
+
+The Duke scowled a moment before replying. “Why,” said he, “if it could
+be shown--irrefutably shown--that the letter was not addressed to either
+of them, that would no doubt establish the truth of what they say--that
+they possessed themselves of the letter in the interests of His
+Majesty.” He turned to Luttrell and Phelips, and they nodded their
+concurrence with his view of the matter. “But,” he continued, “if
+you are proposing to prove any such thing, I think you will find it
+difficult.”
+
+Mr. Wilding drew a crumpled paper from his pocket. “When the courier
+whom they robbed, as they have correctly informed you,” said he quietly,
+“suspected their design upon the contents of his wallet, he bethought
+him of removing the wrapper from the letter, so that in case the
+letter were seized by them it should prove nothing against any man
+in particular. He stuffed the wrapper into the lining of his hat,
+preserving it as a proof of his good faith against the time when he
+should bring the letter to its destination, or come to confess that it
+had been taken from him. That wrapper the courier brought to me, and I
+have it here. The evidence it will give should be more than sufficient
+to warrant your restoring these unjustly accused gentlemen their
+liberty.”
+
+“The courier took it to you?” echoed Albemarle, stupefaction in his
+glance. “But why to you?”
+
+“Because,” said Wilding, and with his left hand he placed the wrapper
+before Albemarle, whilst his right dropped again to his pocket, “the
+letter, as you may see, was addressed to me.”
+
+The quiet manner in which he made the announcement conveyed almost as
+great a shock as the announcement itself.
+
+Albemarle took up the wrapper; Luttrell and Phelips craned forward to
+join him in his scrutiny of it. They compared the two, paper with paper,
+writing with writing. Then Monk flung one and the other down in front of
+him.
+
+“What lies have I been hearing, then?” he demanded furiously of
+Trenchard. “'Slife I'll make an example of you. Arrest me that
+rogue--arrest them both,” and he half rose from his seat, his trembling
+hand pointing to Wilding and Trenchard.
+
+Two of the tything-men stirred to do his bidding, but in the same
+instant Albemarle found himself looking into the round nozzle of a
+pistol.
+
+“If,” said Mr. Wilding, “a finger is laid upon Mr. Trenchard or me I
+shall have the extreme mortification of being compelled to shoot Your
+Grace.”
+
+His pleasantly modulated voice was as deliberate and calm as if he were
+offering the Bench a pinch of snuff. Albemarle's dark visage crimsoned;
+his eyes became at once wicked and afraid. Sir Edward's cheeks turned
+pale, his glance grew startled. Luttrell alone, vigilant and dangerous,
+preserved his calm. But the situation baffled even him.
+
+Behind the two friends the tything-men had come to a terror-stricken
+halt. Diana had risen from her chair in the excitement of the moment and
+had drawn close to Ruth, who looked on with parted lips and bosom
+that rose and fell. Even Blake could not stifle his admiration of
+Mr. Wilding's coolness and address. Richard, on the other hand, was
+concerned only with thoughts for himself, wondering how it would fare
+with him if Wilding and Trenchard succeeded in getting away.
+
+“Nick,” said Mr. Wilding, “will you desire those catchpolls behind us
+to stand aside? If Your Grace raises your voice to call for help, if,
+indeed, any measures are taken calculated to lead to our capture, I
+can promise Your Grace--notwithstanding my profound reluctance to use
+violence--that they will be the last measures you will take in life. Be
+good enough to open the door, Nick, and to see that the key is on the
+outside.”
+
+Trenchard, who was by way of enjoying himself now, stepped briskly
+down the hall to do as his friend bade him, with a wary eye on the
+tything-men. But never so much as a finger did they dare to lift. Mr.
+Wilding's calm was too deadly; they had seen a man in earnest before
+this, and they knew his appearance now. From the doorway Trenchard
+called Mr. Wilding.
+
+“I must be going, Your Grace,” said the latter very courteously, “but
+I shall not be so wanting in deference to His Majesty's august
+representatives as to turn my back upon you.” Saying which, he walked
+backwards, holding his pistol level, until he had reached Trenchard and
+the door. There he paused and made them a deep bow, his manner the more
+mocking in that there was no tinge of mockery perceptible. “Your very
+obedient servant,” said he, and stepped outside. Trenchard turned the
+key, withdrew it from the lock, and, standing on tiptoe, thrust it upon
+the ledge of the lintel.
+
+Instantly a clamour arose within the chamber. But the two friends never
+stayed to listen. Down the passage they sped at the double, and out
+into the courtyard. Here Ruth's groom, mounted himself, was walking his
+mistress's and Diana's horses up and down whilst he waited; yonder one
+of Sir Edward's stable-boys was holding Mr. Wilding's roan. Two or three
+men of the Somerset militia, in their red and yellow liveries, lounged
+by the gates, and turned uninterested eyes upon these newcomers.
+
+Wilding approached his wife's groom. “Get down,” he said, “I need your
+horse--on the King's business. Get down, I say,” he added impatiently,
+upon noting the fellow's stare, and, seizing his leg, he helped him to
+dismount by almost dragging him from the saddle. “Up with you, Nick,”
+ said he, and Nick very promptly mounted. “Your mistress will be here
+presently,” Wilding told the groom, and, turning on his heel, strode
+to his own mare. A moment later Trenchard and he vanished through the
+gateway with a tremendous clatter, just as the Lord-Lieutenant, Colonel
+Luttrell, Sir Edward Phelips, the constable, the tything-men, Sir
+Rowland, Richard, and the ladies made their appearance.
+
+Ruth pushed her way quickly to the front. She feared lest her horse
+and her cousin's being at hand might be used for the pursuit; so urging
+Diana to do the same, she snatched her reins from the hands of the
+dumbfounded groom and leapt nimbly to the saddle.
+
+“After them!” roared Albemarle, and the constable with two of his
+men made a dash for the gateway to raise the hue and cry, whilst
+the militiamen watched them in stupid, inactive wonder. “Damnation,
+mistress!” thundered the Duke in ever-increasing passion, “hold your
+nag! Hold your nag, woman!” For Ruth's horse had become unmanageable,
+and was caracoling about the yard between the men and the gateway in
+such a manner that they dared not attempt to win past her.
+
+“You have scared him with your bellowing,” she panted, tugging at the
+bridle, and all but backed into the constable who had been endeavouring
+to get round behind her. The beast continued its wild prancing, and the
+Duke abated nothing in his furious profanity, until suddenly the groom,
+having relinquished to Diana the reins of the other horse, sprang to
+Ruth's assistance and caught her bridle in a firm grasp which brought
+the animal to a standstill.
+
+“You fool!” she hissed at him, and half raised her whip to strike, but
+checked on the impulse, bethinking her in time that, after all, what the
+poor lad had done he had done thinking her distressed.
+
+The constable and a couple of his fellows won through; others were
+rousing the stable and getting to horse, and in the courtyard all was
+bustle and commotion. Meanwhile, however, Mr. Wilding and Trenchard had
+made the most of their start, and were thundering through the town.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. AT THE FORD
+
+As Mr. Wilding and Nick Trenchard rode hell-to-leather through Taunton
+streets they never noticed a horseman at the door of the Red Lion Inn.
+But the horseman noticed them. He looked up at the sound of their wild
+approach, started upon recognizing them, and turned in his saddle as
+they swept past him to call upon them excitedly to stop.
+
+“Hi!” he shouted. “Nick Trenchard! Hi! Wilding!” Then, seeing that they
+either did not hear or did not heed him, he loosed a volley of oaths,
+wheeled his horse about, drove home the spurs, and started in pursuit.
+Out of the town he followed them and along the road towards Walford,
+shouting and clamouring at first, afterwards in a grim and angry
+silence.
+
+Now, despite their natural anxiety for their own safety, Wilding and
+Trenchard had by no means abandoned their project of taking cover by the
+ford to await the messenger whom Albemarle and the others would no
+doubt be sending to Whitehall; and this mad fellow thundering after them
+seemed in a fair way to mar their plan. As they reluctantly passed the
+spot they had marked out for their ambush, splashed through the ford and
+breasted the rising ground beyond, they took counsel. They determined
+to stand and meet this rash pursuer. Trenchard calmly opined that if
+necessary they must shoot him; he was, I fear, a bloody-minded fellow
+at bottom, although, it is true he justified himself now by pointing out
+that this was no time to hesitate at trifles. Partly because they
+talked and partly because the gradient was steep and their horses
+needed breathing, they slackened rein, and the horseman behind them
+came tearing through the water of the ford and lessened the distance
+considerably in the next few minutes.
+
+He bethought him of using his lungs once more. “Hi, Wilding! Hold, damn
+you!”
+
+“He curses you in a most intimate manner,” quoth Trenchard.
+
+Wilding reined in and turned in the saddle. “His voice has a familiar
+sound,” said he. He shaded his eyes with his hand, and looked down the
+slope at the pursuer, who came on crouching low upon the withers of his
+goaded beast.
+
+“Wait!” the fellow shouted. “I have news--news for you!”
+
+“It's Vallancey!” cried Wilding suddenly. Trenchard too had drawn
+rein and was looking behind him. Instead of expressing relief at the
+discovery that this was not an enemy, he swore at the trouble to
+which they had so needlessly put themselves, and he was still at his
+vituperations when Vallancey came up with them, red in the face and very
+angry, cursing them roundly for the folly of their mad career, and for
+not having stopped when he bade them.
+
+“It was no doubt discourteous,” said Mr. Wilding “but we took you for
+some friend of the Lord-Lieutenant's.”
+
+“Are they after you?” quoth Vallancey, his face of a sudden very
+startled.
+
+“Like enough,” said Trenchard, “if they have found their horses yet.”
+
+“Forward, then,” Vallancey urged them in excitement, and he picked up
+his reins again. “You shall hear my news as we ride.”
+
+“Not so,” said Trenchard. “We have business here down yonder at the
+ford.”
+
+“Business? What business?”
+
+They told him, and scarce had they got the words out than he cut in
+impatiently. “That's no matter now.
+
+“Not yet, perhaps,” said Mr. Wilding; “but it will be if that letter
+gets to Whitehall.”
+
+“Odso!” was the impatient retort, “there's other news travelling to
+Whitehall that will make small-beer of this--and belike it's well on its
+way there already.”
+
+“What news is that?” asked Trenchard. Vallancey told them. “The Duke has
+landed--he came ashore this morning at Lyme.”
+
+“The Duke?” quoth Mr. Wilding, whilst Trenchard merely stared. “What
+Duke?”
+
+“What Duke! Lord, you weary me! What dukes be there? The Duke of
+Monmouth, man.”
+
+“Monmouth!” They uttered the name in a breath. “But is this really
+true?” asked Wilding. “Or is it but another rumour?”
+
+“Remember the letter your friends intercepted,” Trenchard bade him.
+
+“I am not forgetting it,” said Wilding.
+
+“It's no rumour,” Vallancey assured them. “I was at White Lackington
+three hours ago when the news came to George Speke, and I was riding to
+carry it to you, going by way of Taunton that I might drop word of it
+for our friends at the Red Lion.”
+
+Trenchard needed no further convincing; he looked accordingly dismayed.
+But Wilding found it still almost impossible--in spite of what already
+he had learnt--to credit this amazing news. It was hard to believe the
+Duke of Monmouth mad enough to spoil all by this sudden and unheralded
+precipitation.
+
+“You heard the news at White Lackington?” said he slowly. “Who carried
+it thither?”
+
+“There were two messengers,” answered Vallancey, with restrained
+impatience, “and they were Heywood Dare--who has been appointed
+paymaster to the Duke's forces--and Mr. Chamberlain.”
+
+Mr. Wilding was observed for once to change colour. He gripped Vallancey
+by the wrist. “You saw them?” he demanded, and his voice had a husky,
+unusual sound. “You saw them?”
+
+“With these two eyes,” answered Vallancey, “and I spoke with them.”
+
+It was true, then! There was no room for further doubt.
+
+Wilding looked at Trenchard, who shrugged his shoulders and made a wry
+face. “I never thought but that we were working in the service of a
+hairbrain,” said he contemptuously.
+
+Vallancey proceeded to details. “Dare and Chamberlain,” he informed
+them, “came off the Duke's own frigate at daybreak to-day. They were put
+ashore at Seatown, and they rode straight to Mr. Speke's with the news,
+returning afterwards to Lyme.”
+
+“What men has the Duke with him, did you learn?” asked Wilding.
+
+“Not more than a hundred or so, from what Dare told us.”
+
+“A hundred! God help us all! And is England to be conquered with a
+hundred men? Oh, this is midsummer frenzy.”
+
+“He counts on all true Protestants to flock to his banner,” put in
+Trenchard, and it was not plain whether he expressed a fact or sneered
+at one.
+
+“Does he bring money and arms, at least?” asked Wilding.
+
+“I did not ask,” answered Vallancey. “But Dare told us that three
+vessels had come over, so that it is to be supposed he brings some
+manner of provision with him.”
+
+“It is to be hoped so, Vallancey; but hardly to be supposed,” quoth
+Trenchard, and then he touched Wilding on the arm and pointed with his
+whip across the fields towards Taunton. A cloud of dust was rising from
+between tall hedges where ran the road. “I think it were wise to be
+moving. At least, this sudden landing of James Scott relieves my mind in
+the matter of that letter.”
+
+Wilding, having taken a look at the floating dust that announced the
+oncoming of their pursuers, was now lost in thought. Vallancey, who,
+beyond excitement at the news of which he was the bearer, seemed to have
+no opinion of his own as to the wisdom or folly of the Duke's sudden
+arrival, looked from one to the other of these two men whom he had known
+as the prime secret agents in the West, and waited. Trenchard moved his
+horse a few paces nearer the hedge, “Whither now, Anthony?” he asked
+suddenly.
+
+“You may ask, indeed!” exclaimed Wilding, and his voice was as bitter
+as ever Trenchard had heard it. “'S heart! We are in it now! We had
+best make for Lyme--if only that we may attempt to persuade this
+crack-brained boy to ship back to Holland again, and ship ourselves with
+him.”
+
+“There's sense in you at last,” grumbled Trenchard. “But I misdoubt me
+he'll turn back after having come so far. Have you any money?” he asked.
+He could be very practical at times.
+
+“A guinea or two. But I can get money at Ilminster.”
+
+“And how do you propose to reach Ilminster with these gentlemen by way
+of cutting us off?”
+
+“We'll double back as far as the cross-roads,” said Wilding promptly,
+“and strike south over Swell Hill for Hatch. If we ride hard we can do
+it easily, and have little fear of being followed. They'll naturally
+take it we have made for Bridgwater.”
+
+They acted on the suggestion there and then, Vallancey going with them;
+for his task was now accomplished, and he was all eager to get to Lyme
+to kiss the hand of the Protestant Duke. They rode hard, as Wilding had
+said they must, and they reached the junction of the roads before their
+pursuers hove in sight. Here Wilding suddenly detained them again. The
+road ahead of them ran straight for almost a mile, so that if they took
+it now they were almost sure to be seen presently by the messengers.
+On their right a thickly grown coppice stretched from the road to the
+stream that babbled in the hollow. He gave it as his advice that they
+should lie hidden there until those who hunted them should have gone by.
+Obviously that was the only plan, and his companions instantly adopted
+it. They found a way through a gate into an adjacent field, and from
+this they gained the shelter of the trees. Trenchard, neglectful of
+his finery and oblivious of the ubiquitous brambles, left his horse in
+Vallancey's care and crept to the edge of the thicket that he might take
+a peep at the pursuers.
+
+They came up very soon, six militiamen in lobster coats with yellow
+facings, and a sergeant, which was what Mr. Trenchard might have
+expected. There was, however, something else that Mr. Trenchard did not
+expect; something that afforded him considerable surprise. At the head
+of the party rode Sir Rowland Blake--obviously leading it--and with him
+was Richard Westmacott. Amongst them went a man in grey clothes,
+whom Mr. Trenchard rightly conjectured to be the messenger riding for
+Whitehall. He thought with a smile of what a handful he and
+Wilding would have had had they waited to rob that messenger of the
+incriminating letter that he bore. Then he checked his smile to consider
+again how Sir Rowland Blake came to head that party. He abandoned the
+problem, as the little troop swept unhesitatingly round to the left and
+went pounding along the road that led northwards to Bridgwater, clearly
+never doubting which way their quarry had sped.
+
+As for Sir Rowland Blake's connection with this pursuit, the town
+gallant had by his earnestness not only convinced Colonel Luttrell of
+his loyalty and devotion to King James, but had actually gone so far as
+to beg that he might be allowed to prove that same loyalty by leading
+the soldiers to the capture of those self-confessed traitors, Mr.
+Wilding and Mr. Trenchard. From his knowledge of their haunts he was
+confident, he assured Colonel Luttrell, that he could be of service
+to the King in this matter. The fierce sincerity of his purpose shone
+through his words; Luttrell caught the accent of hate in Sir Rowland's
+tense voice, and, being a shrewd man, he saw that if Mr. Wilding was to
+be taken, an enemy would surely be the best pursuer to accomplish it. So
+he prevailed, and gave him the trust he sought, in spite of Albemarle's
+expressed reluctance. And never did bloodhound set out more relentlessly
+purposeful upon a scent than did Sir Rowland follow now in what he
+believed to be the track of this man who stood between him and Ruth
+Westmacott. Until Ruth was widowed, Sir Rowland's hopes of her must lie
+fallow; and so it was with a zest that he flung himself into the task of
+widowing her.
+
+As the party passed out of view round the angle of the white road,
+Trenchard made his way back to Wilding to tell him what he had seen and
+to lay before him, for his enucleation, the problem of Blake's being the
+leader of it. But Wilding thought little of Blake, and cared little of
+what he might be the leader.
+
+“We'll stay here,” said he, “until they have passed the crest of the
+hill.”
+
+This, Trenchard told him, was his own purpose; for to leave their
+concealment earlier would be to reveal themselves to any of the troopers
+who might happen to glance over his shoulder.
+
+And so they waited some ten minutes or so, and then walked their horses
+slowly and carefully forward through the trees towards the road. Wilding
+was alongside and slightly ahead of Trenchard; Vallancey followed close
+upon their tails. Suddenly, as Wilding was about to put his mare at the
+low stone wall, Trenchard leaned forward and caught his bridle.
+
+“Ss!” he hissed. “Horses!”
+
+And now that they halted they heard the hoofbeats clear and close at
+hand; the crackling of undergrowth and the rustle of the leaves through
+which they had thrust their passage had deafened their ears to other
+sounds until this moment. They checked and waited where they stood,
+barely screened by the few boughs that still might intervene between
+them and the open, not daring to advance, and not daring to retreat
+lest their movements should draw attention to themselves. They remained
+absolutely still, scarcely breathing, their only hope being that if
+these who came should chance to be enemies they might ride on without
+looking to right or left. It was so slender a hope that Wilding looked
+to the priming of his pistols, whilst Trenchard, who had none, loosened
+his sword in its scabbard. Nearer came the riders.
+
+“There are not more than three,” whispered Trenchard, who had been
+listening intently, and Mr. Wilding nodded, but said nothing.
+
+Another moment and the little party was abreast of those watchers; a
+dark brown riding-habit flashed into their line of vision, and a
+blue one laced with gold. At sight of the first Mr. Wilding's eyelids
+flickered; he had recognized it for Ruth's, with whom rode Diana,
+whilst some twenty paces or so behind came Jerry, the groom. They were
+returning to Bridgwater.
+
+They came along, looking neither to right nor to left, as the three men
+had hoped they would, and they were all but past, when suddenly Wilding
+gave his roan a touch of the spur and bounded forward. Diana's horse
+swerved so that it nearly threw her. Ruth, slightly ahead, reined in at
+once; so, too, did the groom in the rear, and so violently in his sudden
+fear of highwaymen that he brought his horse on to its hind legs and had
+it prancing and rearing madly about the road, so that he was hard put to
+it to keep his seat.
+
+Ruth looked round as Mr. Wilding's voice greeted her.
+
+“Mistress Wilding,” he called to her. “A moment, if I may detain you.”
+
+“You have eluded them!” she cried, entirely off her guard in her
+surprise at seeing him, and there echoed through her words a note of
+genuine gladness that almost disconcerted her husband for a moment. The
+next instant a crimson flush overspread her pale face, and her eyes were
+veiled from him, vexation in her heart at having betrayed the lively
+satisfaction it afforded her to see him safe when she feared him
+captured already or at least upon the point of capture.
+
+She had admired him almost unconsciously for his daring at the town hall
+that day, when his strong calm had stood out in such sharp contrast to
+the fluster and excitement of the men about him; of them all, indeed, it
+had seemed to her in those stressful moments that he was the only man,
+and she was--although she did not realize it--in danger of being proud
+of him. Then again the thing he had done. He had come deliberately to
+thrust his head into the lion's maw that he might save her brother. It
+was possible that he had done it in answer to the entreaties which she
+had earlier feared she had poured into deaf ears; or it was possible
+that he had done it spurred by his sense of right and justice, which
+would not permit him to allow another to suffer in his stead--however
+much that other might be caught in the very toils that he had prepared
+for Mr. Wilding himself. Her admiration, then, was swelled by gratitude,
+and it was a compound of these that had urged her to hinder the
+tything-men from winning past her until he and Trenchard should have got
+well away.
+
+Afterwards, when with Diana and her groom--on a horse which Sir Edward
+Phelips insisted upon lending them--she rode homeward from Taunton,
+there was Diana to keep alive the spark of kindness that glowed at last
+for Wilding in Ruth's breast. Miss Horton extolled his bravery, his
+chivalry, his nobility, and ended by expressing her envy of Ruth that
+she should have won such a man amongst men for her husband, and wondered
+what it might be that kept Ruth from claiming him for her own as was
+her right. Ruth had answered little, but she had ridden very thoughtful;
+there was that in the past she found it hard to forgive Wilding. And yet
+she would now have welcomed an opportunity of thanking him for what he
+had done, of expressing to him something of the respect he had won
+in her eyes by his act of self-denunciation to save her brother. This
+chance, it seemed, was given her, for there he stood, with head bared
+before her; and already she thought no longer of seizing the chance,
+vexed as she was at having been surprised into a betrayal of feelings
+whose warmth she had until that moment scarce estimated.
+
+In answer to her cry of “You have eluded them!” he waved a hand towards
+the rising ground and the road to Bridgwater.
+
+“They passed that way but a few moments since,” said he, “and by the
+rate at which they were travelling they should be nearing Newton by now.
+In their great haste to catch me they could not pause to look for me so
+close at hand,” he added with a smile, “and for that I am thankful.”
+
+She sat her horse and answered nothing, which threw her cousin out of
+all patience with her. “Come, Jerry,” Diana called to the groom. “We
+will walk our horses up the hill.”
+
+“You are very good, madam,” said Mr. Wilding, and he bowed to the
+withers of his roan.
+
+Ruth said nothing; expressed neither approval nor disapproval of Diana's
+withdrawal, and the latter, with a word of greeting to Wilding, went
+ahead followed by Jerry, who had regained control by now of the beast
+he bestrode. Wilding watched them until they turned the corner, then he
+walked his mare slowly forward until he was alongside Ruth.
+
+“Before I go,” said he, “there is something I should like to say.” His
+dark eyes were sombre, his manner betrayed some hesitation.
+
+The diffidence of his tone proved startling to her by virtue of its
+unusualness. What might it portend, she wondered, and sought with grave
+eyes to read his baffling countenance; and then a wild alarm swept into
+her and shook her spirit in its grip; there was something of which until
+this moment she had not thought--something connected with the fateful
+matter of that letter. It had stood as a barrier between them, her
+buckler, her sole defence against him. It had been to her what its
+sting is to the bee--a thing which if once used in self-defence is
+self-destructive. Not, indeed, that she had used it as her sting; it had
+been forced from her by the machinations of Trenchard; but used it had
+been, and was done with; she had it no longer that with it she might
+hold him in defiance, and it did not occur to her that he was no longer
+in case to invoke the law.
+
+Her face grew stony, a dry glitter came to her blue eyes; she cast a
+glance over her shoulder at Diana and her servant. Wilding observed
+it and read what was passing in her mind; indeed, it was not to be
+mistaken, no more than what is passing in the mind of the recruit who
+looks behind him in the act of charging. His lips half smiled.
+
+“Of what are you afraid?” he asked her.
+
+“I am not afraid,” she answered in husky accents that belied her.
+
+Perhaps to reassure her, perhaps because he thought of his companions
+lurking in the thicket and cared not to have them for his audience, he
+suggested they should go a little way in the direction her cousin had
+taken. She wheeled her horse, and, side by side, they ambled up the
+dusty road.
+
+“The thing I have to tell you,” said he presently, “concerns myself.”
+
+“Does it concern me?” she asked him coldly, and her coolness was urged
+partly by her newborn fears, partly to counterbalance such impression
+as her illjudged show of gladness at his safety might have made upon his
+mind. He flashed her a sidelong glance, the long white fingers of his
+right hand toying thoughtfully with a ringlet of the dark brown hair
+that fell upon the shoulders of his scarlet coat.
+
+“Surely, madam,” he answered dryly, “what concerns a man may well
+concern his wife.”
+
+She bowed her head, her eyes upon the road before her. “True,” said she,
+her voice expressionless. “I had forgot.”
+
+He reined in and turned to look at her; her horse moved on a pace or
+two, then came to a halt, apparently of its own accord.
+
+“I do protest,” said he, “you treat me less kindly than I deserve.” He
+urged his mare forward until he had come up with her again, and
+then drew rein once more. “I think that I may lay some claim to--at
+least--your gratitude for what I did to-day.”
+
+“It is my inclination to be grateful,” said she. She was very wary of
+him. “Forgive me, if I am still mistrustful.”
+
+“But of what?” he cried, a thought impatiently.
+
+“Of you. What ends did you seek to serve? Was it to save Richard that
+you came?”
+
+“Unless you think that it was to save Blake,” he said ironically. “What
+other ends do you conceive I could have served?” She made him no answer,
+and so he resumed after a pause. “I rode to Taunton to serve you for two
+reasons; because you asked me, and because I would have no innocent men
+suffer in my stead--not even though, as these men, they were but caught
+in their own toils, hoist with the petard they had charged for me.
+Beyond these two motives, I had no other thought in ruining myself.”
+
+“Ruining yourself?” she cried. Yes, it was true; but she had not thought
+of it until this moment; there had been so much to think of.
+
+“Is it not ruin to be outlawed, to have a price set upon your head, as
+will no doubt a price be set on mine when Albemarle's messenger shall
+have reached Whitehall? Is it not ruin to have my lands and all I
+own made forfeit to the State, to find myself a beggar, hunted and
+proscribed? Forgive me that I harass you with this catalogue of my
+misfortunes. You'll say, no doubt, that I have brought them upon myself
+by compelling you against your will to marry me.
+
+“I'll not deny that it is in my mind,” said she, and of set purpose
+stifled pity.
+
+He sighed and looked at her again, but she would not meet his eye, else
+its whimsical expression might have intrigued her. “Can you deny my
+magnanimity, I wonder?” said he, and spoke almost as one amused. “All I
+had I sacrificed to do your will, to save your brother from the snare
+of his own contriving against me. I wonder do you yet realize how much
+I sacrificed to-day at Taunton! I wonder!” And he paused, looking at her
+and waiting for some word from her; but she had none for him.
+
+“Clearly you do not, else I think you would show me if only a pretence
+of kindness.” She was looking at him at last, her eyes less hard. They
+seemed to ask him to explain. “When you came this morning with the
+tale of how the tables had been turned upon your brother, of how he
+was caught in his own springe, and the letter found in his keeping was
+before the King's folk at Taunton with every appearance of having been
+addressed to him, and not a tittle of evidence to show that it had been
+meant for me, do you know what news it was you brought me?” He paused
+a second, looking at her from narrowing eyes. Then he answered his own
+question. “You brought me the news that you were mine to take whensoe'er
+I pleased. Whilst that letter was in your hands it gave you the power to
+make me your obedient slave. You might blow upon me as you listed whilst
+you held it, and I was a vane that must turn to your blowing for my
+honour's sake and for the sake of the cause in which I worked. Through
+no rashness of mine must that letter come into the hands of the King's
+friends, else was I dishonoured. It was an effective barrier between us.
+So long as you possessed that letter you might pipe as you pleased, and
+I must dance to the tune you set. And then this morning what you came to
+tell me was that things were changed; that it was mine to call the tune.
+Had I had the strength to be a villain, you had been mine now, and
+your brother and Sir Rowland might have hanged on the rope of their own
+weaving.”
+
+She looked at him in a startled, almost shamefaced manner. This was an
+aspect of the case she had not considered.
+
+“You realize it, I see,” he said, and smiled wistfully. “Then perhaps
+you realize why you found me so unwilling to do the thing you craved.
+Having treated me ungenerously, you came to cast yourself upon my
+generosity, asking me--though I scarcely think you understood--to beggar
+myself of life itself with all it held for me. God knows I make no
+pretence to virtue, and yet I think I had been something more than human
+had I not refused you and the bargain you offered--a bargain that you
+would never be called upon to fulfil if I did the thing you asked.”
+
+At last she interrupted him; she could bear it no longer.
+
+“I had not thought of it!” she cried. It was a piteous wail that broke
+from her. “I swear I had not thought of that. I was all distraught for
+poor Richard's sake. Oh, Mr. Wilding,” she turned to him, holding out a
+hand; her eyes shone, filmed with moisture, “I shall have a kindness
+for you... all my days for your... generosity to-day.” It was lamentably
+weak, far from the hot expressions which she forced it to replace.
+
+“Yes, I was generous,” he admitted. “We will move on as far as the
+cross-roads.” Again they ambled gently forward. Up the slope from the
+ford Diana and Jerry were slowly climbing; not another human being was
+in sight ahead or behind them. “After you left me,” he continued, “your
+memory and your entreaties lingered with me. I gave the matter of our
+position thought, and it seemed to me that all was monstrously ill-done.
+I loved you, Ruth, I needed you, and you disdained me. My love was
+master of me. But 'neath your disdain it was transmuted oddly.” He
+checked the passion that was vibrating in his voice and resumed after
+a pause, in the calm, slow tones, soft and musical, that were his own.
+“There is scarce the need for so much recapitulation. When the power
+was mine I bent you unfairly to my will; you did as much by me when
+the power suddenly became yours. It was a strange war between us, and I
+accepted its conditions. To-day, when the power was mine again, mine
+to bring you at last to subjection, behold, I have capitulated at
+your bidding, and all that I held--including your own self--have I
+relinquished. It is perhaps fitting. Haply I am punished for having wed
+you before I had wooed you.” Again his tone changed, it grew more cold,
+more matter-of-fact. “I rode this way a little while ago a hunted man,
+my only hope to reach home and collect what moneys and valuables I could
+carry, and make for the coast to find a vessel bound for Holland. I
+have been engaged, as you know, in stirring up rebellion to check the
+iniquities and persecutions that are toward in a land I love. I'll not
+weary you with details. Time was needed for this as for all things, and
+by next spring, perhaps, had matters gone well, this vineyard that so
+carefully and secretly I have been tending, would have been, maybe, in
+condition to bear fruit. Even now, in the hour of my flight, I learn
+that others have come to force this delicate growth into sudden
+maturity. There! Soon ripe, soon rotten. The Duke of Monmouth has landed
+at Lyme this morning. I am riding to him.”
+
+“To what end?” she cried, and he saw in her face a dismay that amounted
+almost to fear, and he wondered was it for him.
+
+“To place my sword at his service. Were I not encompassed by this
+ruin, I should not have stirred a foot in that direction--so rash, so
+foredoomed to failure is this invasion. As it is,”--he shrugged and
+laughed--“it is the only hope--all forlorn though it may be--for me.”
+
+The trammels she had imposed upon her soul fell away at that like bonds
+of cobweb. She laid her hand upon his wrists, tears stood in her eyes;
+her lips quivered.
+
+“Anthony, forgive me,” she besought him. He trembled under her touch,
+under the caress of her voice, and at the sound of his name for the
+first time upon her lips.
+
+“What have I to forgive?” he asked.
+
+“The thing that I did in the matter of that letter.”
+
+“You poor child,” said he, smiling gently upon her, “you did it in
+self-defence.”
+
+“Yet say that you forgive me--say it before you go!” she begged him.
+
+He considered her gravely a moment. “To what end,” he asked, “do you
+imagine that I have talked so much? To the end that I might show you
+that however I may have wronged you I have at the last made some amends;
+and that for the sake of this, the truest proof of penitence, I may have
+your forgiveness ere I go.”
+
+She was weeping softly. “It was an ill day on which we met,” she sighed.
+
+“For you--aye.”
+
+“Nay--for you.
+
+“We'll say for both of us, then,” he compromised. “See, Ruth, your
+cousin grows weary, and I have a couple of comrades who are no doubt
+impatient to be gone. It may not be good for us to tarry in these parts.
+Some amends I have made; but there is one crowning wrong which I have
+done you for which there is but one amend to make.” He paused. He
+steadied himself before continuing. In his attempt to render his voice
+cold and commonplace he went near to achieving harshness. “It may be
+that this crackbrained rebellion of which the torch is already alight
+will, if it does no other good in England, at least make a widow of you.
+When that has come to pass, when I have thus repaired the wrong I
+did you, I hope you'll bear me as kindly as may be in your thought.
+Good-bye, my Ruth! I would you might have loved me. I sought to force
+it.” He smiled ever so wanly. “Perhaps that was my mistake. It is an
+ill thing to eat one's hay while it is grass.” He raised to his lips the
+little gloved hand that still rested on his wrist. “God keep you, Ruth!”
+ he murmured.
+
+She sought to answer him, but something choked her; a sob was all she
+achieved. Had he caught her to him in that moment there is little doubt
+but that she had yielded. Perhaps he knew it; and knowing it kept the
+tighter rein upon desire. She was as metal molten in the crucible, to be
+moulded by his craftsman's hands into any pattern that he chose. But the
+crucible was the crucible of pity, not of love; that, too, he knew, and,
+knowing it, forbore.
+
+He dropped her hand, doffed his hat, and, wheeling his horse about,
+touched it with the spur and rode back towards the thicket where his
+friends awaited him. As he left her, she too wheeled about, as if to
+follow him. She strove to command her voice that she might recall him;
+but at that same moment Trenchard, hearing his returning hoofs, thrust
+out into the road with Vallancey following at his heels. The old
+player's harsh voice reached her where she stood, and it was querulous
+with impatience.
+
+“What a plague do you mean, dallying here at such a time, Anthony?” he
+cried, to which Vallancey added: “In God's name, let us push on.”
+
+At that she checked her impulse--it may even be that she mistrusted it.
+She paused, lingering undecided for an instant; then, turning her horse
+once more, she ambled up the slope to rejoin Diana.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. “PRO RELIGIONE ET LIBERTATE”
+
+The evening was far advanced when Mr. Wilding and his two companions
+descended to Uplyme Common from the heights whence as they rode they had
+commanded a clear view of the fair valley of the Axe, lying now under a
+thin opalescent veil of evening mist.
+
+They had paused at Ilminster for fresh horses, and there Wilding had
+paid a visit to one of his agents from whom he had procured a hundred
+guineas. Thence they had come south at a sharp pace, and with little
+said. Wilding was moody and thoughtful, filled with chagrin at this
+unconscionable rashness of the man upon whom all his hopes were centred.
+As they cantered briskly across Uplyme Common in the twilight they
+passed several bodies of countrymen, all heading for the town, and one
+group sent up a shout of “God save the Protestant Duke!” as they rode
+past him.
+
+“Amen to that,” muttered Mr. Wilding grimly, “for I am afraid that no
+man can.”
+
+In the narrow lane by Hay Farm a horseman, going in the opposite
+direction, passed them at the gallop; but they had met several such
+since leaving Ilminster, for indeed the news was spreading fast, and the
+whole countryside was alive with messengers, some on foot and some on
+horseback, but all hurrying as if their lives depended on their haste.
+
+They made their way to the Market-Place where Monmouth's
+declaration--that remarkable manifesto from the pen of Ferguson--had
+been read some hours before. Thence, having ascertained where His Grace
+was lodged, they made their way to the George Inn.
+
+In Coombe Street they found the crowd so dense that they could but with
+difficulty open out a way for their horses through the human press.
+Not a window but was open, and thronged with sight-seers--mostly women,
+indeed, for the men were in the press below. On every hand resounded the
+cries of “A Monmouth! A Monmouth! The Protestant Religion! Religion and
+Liberty,” which latter were the words inscribed on the standard Monmouth
+had set up that evening on the Church Cliffs.
+
+In truth, Wilding was amazed at what he saw, and said as much to
+Trenchard. So pessimistic had been his outlook that he had almost
+expected to find the rebellion snuffed out by the time they reached
+Lyme-of-the-King. What had the authorities been about that they had
+permitted Monmouth to come ashore, or had Vallancey's information been
+wrong in the matter of the numbers that accompanied the Protestant
+Champion? Wilding's red coat attracted some attention. In the dusk its
+colour was almost all that could be discerned of it.
+
+“Here's a militia captain for the Duke!” cried one, and others took up
+the cry, and if it did nothing else it opened a way for them through
+that solid human mass and permitted them to win through to the yard of
+the George Inn. They found the spacious quadrangle thronged with men,
+armed and unarmed, and on the steps stood a tall, well-knit, soldierly
+man, his hat rakishly cocked, about whom a crowd of townsmen and
+country fellows were pressing with insistence. At a glance Mr. Wilding
+recognized Captain Venner--raised to the rank of colonel by Monmouth on
+the way from Holland.
+
+Trenchard dismounted, and taking a distracted stable-boy by the arm,
+bade him see to their horses. The fellow endeavoured to swing himself
+free of the other's tenacious grasp.
+
+“Let me go,” he cried. “I am for the Duke!”
+
+“And so are we, my fine rebel,” answered Trenchard, holding fast.
+
+“Let me go,” the lout insisted. “I am going to enlist.”
+
+“And so you shall when you have stabled our nags. See to him, Vallancey;
+he is brainsick with the fumes of war.”
+
+The fellow protested, but Trenchard's way was brisk and short; and so,
+protesting still, he led away their cattle in the end, Vallancey going
+with him to see that he performed this last duty as a stable-boy ere he
+too became a champion militant of the Protestant Cause. Trenchard sped
+after Wilding, who was elbowing his way through the yokels about the
+steps. The glare of a newly lighted lamp from the doorway fell full upon
+his long white face as he advanced, and Venner espied and recognized
+him.
+
+“Mr. Wilding!” he cried, and there was a glad ring in his voice,
+for though cobblers, tailors, deserters from the militia, pot-boys,
+stable-boys, and shuffling yokels had been coming in in numbers during
+the past few hours since the Declaration had been read, this was the
+first gentleman that arrived to welcome Monmouth. The soldier stretched
+out a hand to grasp the newcomer's. “His Grace will see you this
+instant, not a doubt of it.” He turned and called down the passage.
+“Cragg!” A young man in a buff coat came forward, and to him Venner
+delivered Wilding and Trenchard that he might announce them to His
+Grace.
+
+In the room that had been set apart for him abovestairs, Monmouth still
+sat at table. He had just supped, with but an indifferent appetite,
+so fevered was he by the events of his landing. He was excited with
+hope--inspired by the readiness with which the men of Lyme and its
+neighbourhood had flocked to his banner--and fretted by anxiety that
+none of the gentry of the vicinity should yet have followed the example
+of the meaner folk, in answer to the messages dispatched at dawn from
+Seaton. The board at which he sat was still cumbered with some glasses
+and platters and vestiges of his repast. Below him on his right sat
+Ferguson--that prince of plotters--very busy with pen and ink, his keen
+face almost hidden by his great periwig; opposite were Lord Grey, of
+Werke, and Andrew Fletcher, of Saltoun, whilst, standing at the foot of
+the table barely within the circle of candlelight from the branch on the
+polished oak, was Nathaniel Wade, the lawyer, who had fled to Holland
+on account of his alleged complicity in the Rye House plot and was now
+returned a major in the Duke's service. Erect and soldierly of figure,
+girt with a great sword and with the butt of a pistol protruding from
+his belt, he had little the air of a man whose methods of contention
+were forensic.
+
+“You understand, then, Major Wade,” His Grace was saying, his voice
+pleasant and musical. “It is decided that the guns had best be got
+ashore forthwith and mounted.”
+
+Wade bowed. “I shall set about it at once, Your Grace. I shall not want
+for help. Have I Your Grace's leave to go?”
+
+Monmouth nodded, and as Wade passed out, Ensign Cragg entered to
+announce Mr. Wilding and Mr. Trenchard. The Duke rose to his feet, his
+glance suddenly brightening. Fletcher and Grey rose with him; Ferguson
+paid no heed, absorbed in his task, which he industriously continued.
+
+“At last!” exclaimed the Duke. “Admit them, sir.”
+
+When they entered, Wilding coming first, his hat under his arm, the Duke
+sprang to meet him, a tall young figure, lithe and slender as a blade of
+steel, and of a steely strength for all his slimness. He was dressed in
+a suit of purple that became him marvellously well, and on his breast a
+star of diamonds flashed and smouldered like a thing of fire. He was
+of an exceeding beauty of face, wherein he mainly favoured that “bold,
+handsome woman” that was his mother, without, however, any of his
+mother's insipidity; fine eyes, a good nose, straight and slender, and
+a mouth which, if sensual and indicating a lack of strength, was
+beautifully shaped. His chin was slightly cleft, the shape of his face
+a delicate oval, framed now in the waving masses of his brown wig. Some
+likeness to his late Majesty was also discernible, in spite of the wart,
+out of which his uncle James made so much capital.
+
+There was a slight flush on his cheeks, an added lustre in his eye, as
+he took Wilding's hand and shook it heartily before Wilding had time to
+kiss His Grace's.
+
+“You are late,” he said, but there was no reproach in his voice. “We had
+looked to find you here when we came ashore. You had my letter?”
+
+“I had not, Your Grace,” answered Wilding, very grave. “It was stolen.”
+
+“Stolen?” cried the Duke, and behind him Grey pressed forward, whilst
+even Ferguson paused in his writing to raise his piercing eyes and
+listen.
+
+“It is no matter,” Wilding reassured him. “Although stolen, it has but
+gone to Whitehall to-day, when it can add little to the news that is
+already on its way there.”
+
+The Duke laughed softly, with a flash of white teeth, and looked past
+Wilding at Trenchard. Some of the light faded out of his eyes. “They
+told me Mr. Trenchard...” he began, when Wilding, half turning to his
+friend, explained.
+
+“This is Mr. Nicholas Trenchard--John Trenchard's cousin.
+
+“I bid you welcome, sir,” said the Duke, very agreeably, “and I trust
+your cousin follows you.”
+
+“Alas,” said Trenchard, “my cousin is in France,” and in a few brief
+words he related the matter of John Trenchard's home-coming on his
+acquittal and the trouble there had been connected with it.
+
+The Duke received the news in silence. He had expected good support from
+old Speke's son-in-law. Indeed, there was a promise that when he came,
+John Trenchard would bring fifteen hundred men from Taunton. He took a
+turn in the room deep in thought, and there was a pause until Ferguson,
+rubbing his great Roman nose, asked suddenly had Mr. Wilding seen the
+Declaration. Mr. Wilding had not, and thereupon the plotting parson, who
+was proud of his composition, would have read it to him there and then,
+but that Grey sourly told him the matter would keep, and that they had
+other things to discuss with Mr. Wilding.
+
+This the Duke himself confirmed, stating that there were matters on
+which he would be glad to have their opinion.
+
+He invited the newcomers to draw chairs to the table; glasses were
+called for, and a couple of fresh bottles of Canary went round the
+board. The talk was desultory for a few moments, whilst Wilding and
+Trenchard washed the dust from their throats; then Monmouth broke the
+ice by asking them bluntly what they thought of his coming thus, earlier
+than was at first agreed.
+
+Wilding never hesitated in his reply. “Frankly, Your Grace,” said he, “I
+like it not at all.”
+
+Fletcher looked up sharply, his clear intelligent eyes full upon
+Wilding's calm face, his countenance expressing as little as did
+Wilding's. Ferguson seemed slightly taken aback. Grey's thick lips were
+twisted in a sneering smile.
+
+“Faith,” said the latter with elaborate sarcasm, “in that case it only
+remains for us to ship again, heave anchor, and back to Holland.”
+
+“It is what I should advise,” said Wilding slowly and quietly, “if I
+thought there was a chance of my advice being taken.” He had a calm,
+almost apathetic way of uttering startling things which rendered them
+doubly startling. The sneer seemed to freeze on Lord Grey's lips;
+Fletcher continued to stare, but his eyes had grown more round; Ferguson
+scowled darkly. The Duke's boyish face--it was still very youthful
+despite his six-and-thirty years--expressed a wondering consternation.
+He looked at Wilding, and from Wilding to the others, and his glance
+seemed to entreat them to suggest an answer to him. It was Grey at last
+who took the matter up.
+
+“You shall explain your meaning, sir, or we must hold you a traitor,” he
+exclaimed.
+
+“King James does that already,” answered Wilding with a quiet smile.
+
+“D'ye mean the Duke of York?” rumbled Ferguson's Scottish accent with
+startling suddenness, and Monmouth nodded approval of the correction.
+“If ye mean that bloody papist and fratricide, it were well so to speak
+of him. Had ye read the Declaration...”
+
+But Fletcher cropped his speech in mid-growth. He was ever a
+short-tempered man, intolerant of irrelevancies.
+
+“It were well, perhaps,” said he, his accent abundantly proclaiming him
+a fellow countryman of Ferguson's, “to keep to the matter before us. Mr.
+Wilding, no doubt, will state the reasons that exist, or that he fancies
+may exist, for giving advice which is hardly worthy of the cause to
+which he stands committed.”
+
+“Aye, Fletcher,” said Monmouth, “there is sense in you. Tell us what is
+in your mind, Mr. Wilding.”
+
+“It is in my mind, Your Grace, that this invasion is rash, premature,
+and ill-advised.”
+
+“Odds life!” cried Grey, and he swung angrily round fully to face the
+Duke, the nostrils of his heavy nose dilating. “Are we to listen to this
+milksop prattle?”
+
+Nick Trenchard, who had hitherto been silent, cleared his throat so
+noisily that he drew all eyes to himself.
+
+“Your Grace,” Mr. Wilding pursued, his air calm and dignified, and
+gathering more dignity from the circumstance that he proceeded as if
+there had been no interruption, “when I had the honour of conferring
+with you at The Hague two months ago, it was agreed that you should
+spend the summer in Sweden--away from politics and scheming, leaving
+the work of preparation to your accredited agents here. That work I have
+been slowly but surely pushing forward. It was not to be hurried; men of
+position are not to be won over in a day; men with anything to lose need
+some guarantee that they are not wantonly casting their possessions to
+the winds. By next spring, as was agreed, all would have been ready.
+Delay could not have hurt you. Indeed, with every day by which you
+delayed your coming you did good service to your cause, you strengthened
+its prospects of success; for every day the people's burden of
+oppression and persecution grows more heavy, and the people's temper
+more short; every day, by the methods that he is pursuing, King James
+brings himself into deeper hatred. This hatred is spreading. It was
+the business of myself and those others to help it on, until from the
+cottage of the ploughman the infection of anger should have spread
+to the mansion of the squire. Had Your Grace but given me time, as
+I entreated you, and as you promised me, you might have marched to
+Whitehall with scarce the shedding of a drop of blood; had Your Grace
+but waited until we were ready, England would have so trembled at your
+landing that your uncle's throne would have toppled over 'neath the
+shock. As it is...” He shrugged his shoulders, sighed and spread his
+hands, leaving his sentence uncompleted.
+
+Monmouth sat sobered by these sober words; the intoxication that had
+come to him from the little measure of success that had attended the
+opening of the listing on Church Cliffs, deserted him now; he saw the
+thing stark and in its true proportions, and not even the shouting of
+the folk in the streets below, crying his name and acclaiming him their
+champion, served to lighten the gloom that Wilding's words cast like
+a cloud over his volatile heart. Alas, poor Monmouth! He was ever a
+weathercock, and even as Wilding's words seemed to strike the courage
+out of him, so did Grey's short contemptuous answer restore it.
+
+“As it is, we'll thrust that throne over with our hands,” said he after
+a moment's pause.
+
+“Aye,” cried Monmouth. “We'll do it, God helping us!”
+
+“Our dependence and trust is in the Lord of Hosts, in Whose Name we
+go forth,” boomed the voice of Ferguson, quoting from his precious
+Declaration. “The Lord will do that which seemeth good unto Him.”
+
+“An unanswerable argument,” said Wilding, smiling. “But the Lord, I am
+told by the gentlemen of your cloth, works in His own good time, and my
+fears are all lest, finding us unprepared of ourselves, the Lord's good
+time be not yet.”
+
+“Out on ye, sir,” cried Ferguson. “Ye want for reverence!”
+
+“Common sense will serve us better at the moment,” answered Wilding
+with a touch of sharpness. He turned to the frowning and perplexed
+Duke--whose mind was being tossed this way and that, like a shuttlecock
+upon the battledore of these men's words. “Your Grace,” he said,
+“forgive me that I speak it if hear it you will, or forbid me to say it
+if your resolve is unalterable in this matter.”
+
+“It is unalterable,” answered Grey for the Duke.
+
+But Monmouth gently overruled him for once.
+
+“Nevertheless, speak by all means, Mr. Wilding. Whatever you may say,
+you need have no fear that any of us can doubt your good intentions to
+ourselves.”
+
+“I thank Your Grace. What I have to say is but a repetition of the
+first words I uttered at this table. I would urge Your Grace even now to
+retreat.”
+
+“What? Are you mad?” It was Lord Grey who asked the impatient question.
+
+“I doubt it's over-late for that,” said Fletcher slowly.
+
+“I am not so sure,” answered Wilding. “But I am sure that to attempt it
+were the safer course--the surer in the end. I myself may not linger
+to push forward the task of stirring up the people, for I am already
+something more than under suspicion. But there are others who will
+remain to carry on the work after I have departed with Your Grace, if
+Your Grace thinks well. From the Continent by correspondence we can
+mature our plans. In a twelvemonth things will be very different, and we
+can return with confidence.”
+
+Grey shrugged and turned his shoulder upon Wilding, but said no word.
+There was silence of some few moments. Andrew Fletcher leaned his elbow
+on the table and took his brow in his great bony hand. Wilding's words
+seemed an echo of those he himself had spoken a week or two ago, only to
+be overruled by Grey, who swayed the Duke more than did any other--and
+that he did not do so of fell purpose, and seeking deliberately to work
+Monmouth's ruin, no man will ever be able to say with certainty.
+
+Ferguson rose, a tall, spare, stooping figure, and smote the board with
+his fist. “It is a good cause,” he cried, “and God will not leave us
+unless we leave Him.”
+
+“Henry the Seventh landed with fewer men than did Your Grace,” said
+Grey, “and he succeeded.”
+
+“True,” put in Fletcher. “But Henry the Seventh was sure of the support
+of not a few of the nobility, which does not seem to be our case.”
+
+Ferguson and Grey stared at him in horror; Monmouth sat biting his lip,
+more bewildered than thoughtful.
+
+“O man of little faith!” roared Ferguson in a passion. “Are ye to be
+swayed like a straw in the wind?”
+
+“I am no' swayed. Ye ken this was ever my own view. I feel, in my heart,
+that what Mr. Wilding says is right. It is but what I said myself, and
+Captain Matthews with me, before we embarked upon this expedition. We
+were in danger of ruining all by a needless precipitancy. Nay, man,
+never stare so,” he said to Grey, “I am in it now and I am no' the man
+to draw back, nor do I go so far as Mr. Wilding in counselling such a
+course. We've set our hands to the plough; let us go forward in God's
+name. Yet I would remind you that what Mr. Wilding says is true. Had
+we waited until next year, we had found the usurper's throne tottering
+under him, and, on our landing, it would have toppled o'er of itself.”
+
+“I have said already that we'll overset it with our hands,” Grey
+answered.
+
+“How many hands have you?” asked a new voice, a crisp, discordant voice,
+much steeped in mockery. It was Nick Trenchard's.
+
+“Have we another here of Mr. Wilding's mind?” cried Grey, staring at
+him.
+
+“I am seldom of any other,” answered Trenchard.
+
+“We shall no' want for hands,” Ferguson assured him. “Had ye arrived
+earlier ye might have seen how readily men enlisted.” He had risen and
+approached the window as he spoke; he pulled it open, to let in the full
+volume of sound that rose from the street below.
+
+“A Monmouth! A Monmouth!” voices shouted.
+
+Ferguson struck a theatrical posture, one long, lean arm stretched
+outward from the shoulder.
+
+“Ye hear them, sirs,” he cried, and there was a gleam of triumph in his
+eye. “That is answer enough to those who want for faith, to the feckless
+ones that think the Lord will abandon those that have set out to serve
+Him,” and his glance comprehended Fletcher, Trenchard, and Wilding.
+
+The Duke stirred in his chair, stretched a hand for the bottle and
+filled a glass. His mercurial spirits were rising again. He smiled at
+Wilding.
+
+“I think you are answered, sir,” said he; “and I hope that like Fletcher
+there, who shared your doubts, you will come to agree that since we have
+set our hands to the plough we must go forward.”
+
+“I have said that which I had it on my conscience to say. Your Grace may
+have found me over-ready with my counsel; at least you shall find me no
+less ready with my sword.”
+
+“Odso! That is better.” Grey applauded, and his manner was almost
+pleasant.
+
+“I never doubted it, Mr. Wilding,” His Grace replied; “but I should like
+to hear you say that you are convinced--at least in part,” and he
+waved his hand towards the window. It was almost as if he pleaded for
+encouragement. In common with most men who came in contact with Wilding,
+he had felt the latent force of this man's nature, the strength that was
+hidden under that calm surface, and the acuteness of the judgment that
+must be wedded to it. He longed to have the word of such a man that his
+enterprise was not as desperate as Wilding had seemed at first to paint
+it. But Wilding made no concession to hopes or desires when he dealt
+with facts.
+
+“Men will flock to you, no doubt; persecution has wearied many of the
+country-folk, and they are ready for revolt. But they are all untrained
+in arms; they are rustics, not soldiers. If any of the men of position
+were to rally round your standard they would bring the militia, and
+others in their train; they would bring arms, horses, and money, all of
+which Your Grace must be sorely needing.”
+
+“They will come,” answered the Duke.
+
+“Some, no doubt,” Wilding agreed; “but had it been next year, I would
+have answered for it that it would have been no handful had ridden in
+to welcome you. Scarce a gentleman of Devon or Somerset, of Dorset or
+Hampshire, of Wiltshire or Cheshire but would have hastened to your
+side.”
+
+“They will come as it is,” the Duke repeated with an almost womanish
+insistence, persisting in believing what he hoped, all evidence apart.
+
+The door opened and Ensign Cragg made his appearance. “May it please
+Your Grace,” he announced, “Mr. Battiscomb has just arrived, and asks
+will Your Grace receive him to-night?”
+
+“Battiscomb!” cried the Duke. Again his cheek flushed and his eye
+sparkled. “Aye, in Heaven's name, show him up.”
+
+“And may the Lord refresh us with good tidings!” prayed Ferguson
+devoutly.
+
+Monmouth turned to Wilding. “It is the agent I sent ahead of me from
+Holland to stir up the gentry from here to the Mersey.”
+
+“I know,” said Wilding; “we conferred together some weeks since.”
+
+“Now you shall see how idle are your fears,” the Duke promised him.
+
+And Wilding, who was better informed on that score, kept silence.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. HIS GRACE' IN COUNSEL
+
+Mr. Christopher Battiscomb, that mild-mannered Dorchester gentleman,
+who, like Wade, was by vocation a lawyer, was ushered into the Duke's
+presence. He was dressed in black, and, like Ferguson, was almost
+smothered in a great periwig, which he may have adopted for purposes of
+disguise rather than adornment. Certainly he had none of that air of
+the soldier of fortune which distinguished his brother of the robe. He
+advanced, hat in hand, towards the table, greeting the company about it,
+and Wilding observed that he wore silk stockings and shoes, upon which
+there rested not a speck of dust. Mr. Battiscomb was plainly a man who
+loved his ease, since on such a day he had travelled to Lyme in a coach.
+The lawyer bent low to kiss the Duke's hand, and scarce was that formal
+homage paid than questions poured upon him from Grey, from Fletcher, and
+from Ferguson.
+
+“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” the Duke entreated them, smiling; and
+remembering their manners they fell silent.
+
+As Wilding afterwards told Trenchard, they reminded him of a parcel of
+saucy lacqueys who take liberties with an upstart master for whom they
+are wanting in respect.
+
+“I am glad to see you, Battiscomb,” said Monmouth, when quiet was
+restored, “and I trust I behold in you a bearer of good tidings.”
+
+The lawyer's full face was usually pale; to-night it was, in addition,
+solemn, and the smile that haunted his lips was a courtesy smile that
+expressed neither mirth nor satisfaction. He cleared his throat, as if
+nervous. He avoided the Duke's question as to the quality of the news
+he brought by answering that he had made all haste to come to Lyme upon
+hearing of His Grace's landing. He was surprised, he said; as well he
+might be, for the arrangement was that having done his work he was to
+return to Holland and report to Monmouth upon the feeling of the gentry.
+
+“But your news, Battiscomb,” the Duke insisted. “Aye,” put in Grey; “in
+Heaven's name, let us hear that.”
+
+Again there was the little nervous cough from Battiscomb. “I have scarce
+had time to complete my round of visits,” he temporized. “Your Grace
+has taken us so by surprise. I... I was with Sir Walter Young at Colyton
+when the news of your landing came some few hours ago.” His voice
+faltered and seemed to die away.
+
+“Well?” cried the Duke. His brows were drawn together. Already he
+realized that Battiscomb's tidings were not good, else would he be
+hesitating less in uttering them. “Is Sir Walter with you, at least?”
+
+“I grieve to say that he is not.”
+
+“Not?” It was Grey who spoke, and he followed the ejaculation by an
+oath. “Why not?”
+
+“He is following, no doubt?” suggested Fletcher.
+
+“We may hope, sirs,” answered Battiscomb, “that in a few days--when he
+shall have seen the zeal of the countryside--he will be cured of his
+present luke-warmness.” Thus, discreetly, did the man of law break the
+bad news he bore.
+
+Monmouth sank back into his chair like one who has lost some of
+his strength. “Lukewarmness?” he repeated dully. “Sir Walter Young
+lukewarm!”
+
+“Even so, Your Grace--alas!” and Battiscomb sighed audibly.
+
+Ferguson's voice boomed forth again to startle them. “The ox knoweth his
+owner,” he cried, “the ass his master's crib; but Israel doth not know,
+my people doth not consider.”
+
+Grey pushed the bottle contemptuously across the table to the parson.
+“Drink, man, and get sense, said he, and turned aside to question
+Battiscomb touching others of the neighbourhood upon whom they had
+depended.
+
+“What of Sir Francis Rolles?” he inquired.
+
+Battiscomb answered the question, addressing himself to the Duke.
+
+“Alas! Sir Francis, no doubt, would have been faithful to Your Grace,
+but, unfortunately, Sir Francis is in prison already.”
+
+Deeper grew Monmouth's frown; his fingers drummed the table absently.
+Fletcher poured himself wine, his face inscrutable. Grey threw one leg
+over the other and in a voice that was carefully careless he inquired,
+“And what of Sidney Clifford?”
+
+“He is considering,” said Battiscomb. “I was to have seen him again at
+the end of the month; meanwhile, he would take no resolve.”
+
+“Lord Gervase Scoresby?” questioned Grey, less carelessly.
+
+Battiscomb half turned to him, then faced the Duke again as he made
+answer, “Mr. Wilding there, can tell you more concerning Lord Gervase.”
+
+All eyes swept round to Wilding who sat in silence, listening;
+Monmouth's were laden with inquiry and some anxiety. Wilding shook his
+head slowly, sadly. “You must not depend upon him,” he answered; “Lord
+Gervase was not yet ripe. A little longer and I think I must have won
+him for Your Grace.”
+
+“Heaven help us!” exclaimed the Duke in petulant vexation. “Is no one
+coming in?”
+
+Ferguson swung a hand towards the still open window, drawing attention
+to the sounds without.
+
+“Does Your Grace not hear, that ye can ask?” he cried, almost
+reproachfully; but they scarce heeded him, for Grey was inquiring if
+Mr. Strode might be depended upon to join, and that was a matter that
+claimed the greater attention.
+
+“I think,” said Battiscomb, “that he might have been depended upon.”
+
+“Might have been?” questioned Fletcher, speaking now for the first time
+since Battiscomb's arrival.
+
+“Like Sir Francis Rolles, he is in prison,” the lawyer explained.
+
+Monmouth leaned forward, and his young face looked careworn now; he
+thrust a slender hand under the brown curls upon his brow. “Will you
+tell us, Mr. Battiscomb, upon what friends you think that we may count?”
+ he said.
+
+Battiscomb pursed his lips a second, pondering. “I think,” said he,
+“that you may count upon Mr. Legge and Mr. Hooper, and possibly upon
+Colonel Churchill, though I cannot say what following they will bring,
+if any. Mr. Trenchard, upon whom we counted for fifteen hundred men of
+Taunton, has been obliged to fly the country to escape arrest.”
+
+“We have heard that from Mr. Trenchard's cousin,” answered the Duke.
+“What of Prideaux, of Ford? Is he lukewarm?”
+
+“I was unable to elicit a definite promise from him. But he was
+favourably disposed to Your Grace.”
+
+His Grace made a gesture that seemed to dismiss Prideaux from their
+calculations. “And Mr. Hucker, of Taunton?”
+
+Battiscomb's manner grew yet more ill at ease. “Mr. Hucker himself, I
+am sure, would place his sword at your disposal. But his brother is a
+red-hot Tory.”
+
+“Well, well,” sighed the Duke, “I take it we must not make certain of
+Mr. Hucker. Are there any others besides Legge and Hooper upon whom you
+think that we may reckon?”
+
+“Lord Wiltshire, perhaps,” said Battiscomb, but with a lack of
+assurance.
+
+“A plague on perhaps!” exclaimed Monmouth, growing irritable; “I want
+you to name the men of whom you are certain.”
+
+Battiscomb stood silent for a moment, pondering. He looked almost
+foolish, like a schoolboy who hesitates to confess his ignorance of the
+answer to a question set him.
+
+Fletcher swung round, his grey eyes flashing angrily, his accent more
+Scottish than ever.
+
+“Is it that ye're certain o' none, Mr. Battiscomb?” he exclaimed.
+
+“Indeed,” said Battiscomb, “I think we may be fairly certain of Mr.
+Legge and Mr. Hooper.”
+
+“And of none besides?” questioned Fletcher again. “Be these the only
+representatives of the flower of England's nobility that is to flock to
+the banner of the cause of England's freedom and religion?” Scorn was
+stamped on every word of his question.
+
+Battiscomb spread his hands, raised his brows, and said nothing.
+
+“The Lord knows I do not say it exulting,” said Fletcher; “but I told
+Your Grace yours was hardly the case of Henry the Seventh, as my Lord
+Grey would have you believe.”
+
+“We shall see,” snapped Grey, scowling at the Scot. “The people are
+coming in hundreds--aye, in thousands--the gentry will follow; they
+must.”
+
+“Make not too sure, Your Grace--oh, make not too sure,” Wilding besought
+the Duke. “As I have said, these hinds have nothing to lose but their
+lives.”
+
+“Faith, can a man lose more?” asked Grey contemptuously. He disliked
+Wilding by instinct, which was but a reciprocation of the feeling with
+which Wilding was inspired by him.
+
+“I think he can,” said Mr. Wilding quietly. “A man may lose honour, he
+may plunge his family into ruin. These are things of more weight with a
+gentleman than life.”
+
+“Odds death!” blazed Grey, giving a free rein to his dislike of this
+calm gentleman. “Do you suggest that a man's honour is imperilled in His
+Grace's service?”
+
+“I suggest nothing,” answered Wilding, unmoved. “What I think, I state.
+If I thought a man's honour imperilled in this service, you would not
+see me at this table now. I can make you no more convincing answer.”
+
+Grey laughed unpleasantly, and Wilding, a faint tinge on his
+cheek-bones, measured him with a stern, intrepid look before which his
+lordship's shifty glance was observed to fall. Wilding's eye, having
+achieved that much, passed from him to the Duke, and its expression
+softened.
+
+“Your Grace sees,” said he, “how well founded were the fears I expressed
+that your coming has been premature.”
+
+“In God's name, what would you have me do?” cried the Duke, and
+petulance made his voice unsteady.
+
+Mr. Wilding rose, moved out of his habitual calm by the earnestness
+that pervaded him. “It is not for me to say again what I would have Your
+Grace do. Your Grace has heard my views, and those of these gentlemen.
+It is for Your Grace to decide.”
+
+“You mean whether I will go forward with this thing? What alternative
+have I?”
+
+“No alternative,” put in Grey with finality. “Nor is alternative needed.
+We'll carry this through in spite of timorous folk and birds of ill-omen
+that croak to affright us.”
+
+“Our service is the service of the Lord,” cried Ferguson, returning from
+the window in the embrasure of which he had been standing; “the Lord
+cannot but destine it to prevail.”
+
+“Ye said so before,” quoth Fletcher testily. “We need here men, money,
+and weapons--not divinity.”
+
+“You are plainly infected with Mr. Wilding's disease,” sneered Grey.
+
+“Ford,” cried the Duke, who saw Wilding's eyes flash fire; “you go too
+fast. Mr. Wilding, you will not heed his lordship.”
+
+“I should not be likely to do so, Your Grace,” answered Wilding, who had
+resumed his seat.
+
+“What shall that mean?” quoth Grey, leaping to his feet.
+
+“Make it quite clear to him, Tony,” whispered Trenchard coaxingly; but
+Mr. Wilding was not as lost as were these immediate followers of the
+Duke's to all sense of the respect due to His Grace.
+
+“I think,” said Wilding quietly, “that you have forgotten something.”
+
+“Forgotten what?” bawled Grey.
+
+“His Grace's presence.”
+
+His lordship turned crimson, his anger swelled to think that the very
+terms of the rebuke precluded his allowing his feelings a free rein.
+
+Monmouth leaned forward. “Sit down,” he said to Grey, and Grey, so
+lately called to the respect he owed His Grace, obeyed him. “You will
+both promise me that this affair shall go no further. I know you will
+do it if I ask you, particularly when you remember how few are the
+followers upon whom I may depend. I am not in case to lose either of you
+through foolish words uttered in a heat which, in both your hearts, is
+born, I know, of your loyalty to me.”
+
+Grey's coarse, elderly face took on a sulky look, his heavy lips were
+pouted, his glance sullen. Mr. Wilding, on the contrary, smiled across
+the table.
+
+“For my part I very gladly give Your Grace the undertaking,” said he,
+and took care not to observe the sneer that altered the line of Lord
+Grey's lips. His lordship, too, was forced to give the same pledge, and
+he followed it up by inveighing sturdily against the suggestion that
+they should retreat.
+
+“I do protest,” he exclaimed, “that those who advise Your Grace to do
+anything but go forward boldly now, are evil counsellors. If you put
+back to Holland, you may leave every hope behind. There will be no
+second coming for you. Your influence will have been dissipated. Men
+will not trust you another time. I do not think that even Mr. Wilding
+can deny the truth of this.”
+
+“I am by no means sure,” said Wilding, and Fletcher looked at him with
+eyes that were full of understanding. This sturdy Scot, the only soldier
+worthy of the name in the Duke's following, who, ever since the project
+had first been mooted, had held out against it, counselling delay, was
+in sympathy with Mr. Wilding.
+
+Monmouth rose, his face anxious, his voice fretful. “There can be no
+retreat for me, gentlemen. Though many that we depended upon are not
+here to join us, yet let us remember that Heaven is on our side, and
+that we are come to fight in the sacred cause of religion and a nation's
+emancipation from the thraldom of popery, oppression, and superstition.
+Let this dispel such doubts as yet may linger in our minds.”
+
+His words had a brave sound, but, when analysed, they but formed a
+paraphrase of what Grey and Ferguson had said. It was his destiny to be
+a mere echo of the minds of other men, just as he was now the tool
+of these two, one of whom plotted, seemingly, because plotting was a
+disease that had got into his blood; the other for reasons that may have
+been of ambition or of revenge--no man will ever know for certain.
+
+In the chamber they shared, Trenchard and Mr. Wilding reviewed that
+night the scene so lately enacted, in which one had taken an active
+part, the other been little more than a spectator. Trenchard had come
+from the Duke's presence entirely out of conceit with Monmouth and
+his cause, contemptuous of Ferguson, angry with Grey, and indifferent
+towards Fletcher.
+
+“I am committed, and I'll not draw back,” said he; “but I tell you,
+Anthony, my heart is not confederate with my hand in this. Bah!” he
+railed. “We serve a man of straw, a Perkin, a very pope of a fellow.”
+
+Mr. Wilding sighed. “He's scarce the man for such an undertaking,” said
+he. “I fear we have been misled.”
+
+Trenchard was drawing off his boots. He paused in the act. “Aye,” said
+he, “misled by our blindness. What else, after all, should we have
+expected of him?” he cried contemptuously. “The Cause is good; but its
+leader---Pshaw! Would you have such a puppet as that on the throne of
+England?”
+
+“He does not aim so high.”
+
+“Be not so sure. We shall hear more of the black box anon, and of the
+marriage certificate it contains. 'Twould not surprise me if they were
+to produce forgeries of the one and the other to prove his father's
+marriage to Lucy Walters. Anthony, Anthony! To what a business are we
+wedded?”
+
+Mr. Wilding, already abed, turned impatiently. “Things cried aloud to be
+redressed; a leader was necessary, and none other offered. That is the
+whole story. But our chance is slender, and it might have been great.”
+
+“That rake-hell, Ford, Lord Grey has made it so,” grumbled Trenchard,
+busy with his stockings. “This sudden coming is his work. You heard what
+Fletcher said--how he opposed it when first it was urged.” He paused,
+and looked up suddenly. “Blister me!” he cried, “is it his lordship's
+purpose, think you, to work the ruin of Monmouth?”
+
+“What are you saying, Nick?”
+
+“There are certain rumours current touching His Grace and Lady Grey. A
+man like Grey might well resort to some such scheme of vengeance.”
+
+“Get to sleep, Nick,” said Wilding, yawning; “you are dreaming already.
+Such a plan would be over elaborate for his lordship's mind. It would
+ask a villainy parallel with your own.”
+
+Trenchard climbed into bed, and settled himself under the coverlet.
+
+“Maybe,” said he, “and maybe not; but I think that were it not for that
+cursed business of the letter Richard Westmacott stole from us, I should
+be going my ways to-morrow and leaving His Grace of Monmouth to go his.”
+
+“Aye, and I'd go with you,” answered Wilding. “I've little taste for
+suicide; but we are in it now.”
+
+“'Twas a sad pity you meddled this morning in that affair at Taunton,”
+ mused Trenchard wistfully. “A sadder pity you were bitten with a taste
+for matrimony,” he added thoughtfully, and blew out the rushlight.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. LYME OF THE KING
+
+On the next day, which was Friday, the country folk continued to come
+in, and by evening Monmouth's forces amounted to a thousand foot and
+a hundred and fifty horse. The men were armed as fast as they were
+enrolled, and scarce a field or quiet avenue in the district but
+resounded to the tramp of feet, the rattle of weapons, and the sharp
+orders of the officers who, by drilling, were converting this raw
+material into soldiers. On the Saturday the rally of the Duke's standard
+was such that Monmouth threw off at last the gloomy forebodings that had
+burdened his soul since that meeting on Thursday night. Wade, Holmes,
+Foulkes, and Fox were able to set about forming the first four
+regiments--the Duke's, and the Green, the White, and the Yellow.
+Monmouth's spirits continued to rise, for he had been joined by now
+by Legge and Hooper--the two upon whom Battiscomb had counted--and by
+Colonel Joshua Churchill, of whom Battiscomb had been less certain.
+Captain Matthews brought news that Lord Wiltshire and the gentlemen
+of Hampshire might be expected if they could force their way through
+Albemarle's militia, which was already closing round Lyme.
+
+Long before evening willing fellows were being turned away in hundreds
+for lack of weapons. In spite of Monmouth's big talk on landing, and of
+the rumour that had gone out, that he could arm thirty thousand men, his
+stock of arms was exhausted by a mere fifteen hundred. Trenchard,
+who now held a Major's rank in the horse attached to the Duke's own
+regiment, was loud in his scorn of this state of things; Mr. Wilding was
+sad, and his depression again spread to the Duke after a few words had
+passed between them towards evening. Fletcher was for heroic measures.
+He looked only ahead now, like the good soldier that he was; and,
+already, he began to suggest a bold dash for Exeter, for weapons,
+horses, and possibly the militia as well, for they had ample evidence
+that the men composing it might easily be induced to desert to the
+Duke's side.
+
+The suggestion was one that instantly received Mr. Wilding's heartiest
+approval. It seemed to fill him suddenly with hope, and he spoke of
+it, indeed, as an inspiration which, if acted upon, might yet save the
+situation. The Duke was undecided as ever; he was too much troubled
+weighing the chances for and against, and he would decide upon nothing
+until he had consulted Grey and the others. He would summon a council
+that night, he promised, and the matter should be considered.
+
+But that council was never to be called, for Andrew Fletcher's
+association with the rebellion was drawing rapidly to its close, and
+there was that to happen in the next few hours which should counteract
+all the encouragement with which the Duke had been fortified that day.
+Towards evening little Heywood Dare, the Taunton goldsmith, who had
+landed at Seatown and gone out with the news of the Duke's arrival, rode
+into Lyme with forty horse, mounted, himself, upon a beautiful charger
+which was destined to be the undoing of him.
+
+News came, too, that the Dorset militia were at Bridport, eight miles
+away, whereupon Wilding and Fletcher postponed all further suggestion of
+the dash for Exeter, proposing that in the mean time a night attack upon
+Bridport might result well. For once Lord Grey was in agreement with
+them, and so the matter was decided. Fletcher went down to arm and
+mount, and all the world knows the story of the foolish, ill-fated
+quarrel which robbed Monmouth of two of his most valued adherents.
+By ill-luck the Scot's eyes lighted upon the fine horse that Dare had
+brought from Ford Abbey. It occurred to him that nothing could be more
+fitting than that the best man should sit upon the best horse, and he
+forthwith led the beast from the stables and was about to mount when
+Dare came forth to catch him in the very act. The goldsmith was a rude,
+peppery fellow, who did not mince his words.
+
+“What a plague are you doing with that horse?” he cried.
+
+Fletcher paused, one foot in the stirrup, and looked the fellow up and
+down. “I am mounting it,” said he, and proceeded to do as he said.
+
+But Dare caught him by the tails of his coat and brought him back to
+earth.
+
+“You are making a mistake, Mr. Fletcher,” he cried angrily. “That horse
+is mine.”
+
+Fletcher, whose temper was by no means of the most peaceful, kept
+himself with difficulty in hand at the indignity Dare offered him.
+
+“Yours?” quoth he.
+
+“Aye, mine. I brought it from Ford Abbey myself.”
+
+“For the Duke's service,” Fletcher reminded him.
+
+“For my own, sir; for my own I would have you know.” And brushing
+the Scot aside, he caught the bridle, and sought to wrench it from
+Fletcher's hand.
+
+But Fletcher maintained his hold. “Softly, Mr. Dare,” said he. “Ye're
+a trifle o'er true to your name, as you once told his late Majesty
+yourself.”
+
+“Take your hands from my horse,” Dare shouted, very angry.
+
+Several loiterers in the yard gathered round to watch the scene, culling
+diversion from it and speculating upon the conclusion it might have. One
+rash young fellow offered audibly to lay ten to one that Paymaster Dare
+would have the best of the argument.
+
+Dare overheard, and was spurred on.
+
+“I will, by God!” he answered. “Come, Mr. Fletcher!” And he shook the
+bridle again.
+
+There was a dull flush showing through the tan of Fletcher's skin.
+“Mr. Dare,” said he, “this horse is no more yours than mine. It is the
+Duke's, and I, as one o' the leaders, claim it in the Duke's service.”
+
+“Aye, sir,” cried an onlooker, encouraging Fletcher, and did the
+mischief. It so goaded Dare to have his antagonist in this trifling
+matter supported that he utterly lost his head.
+
+“I have said the horse is mine, and I repeat it. Let go the bridle--let
+it go!” Still, Fletcher, striving hard to keep his calm, clung to the
+reins. “Let it go, you damned, thieving Scot!” screamed Dare in a fury,
+and struck Fletcher with his whip.
+
+It was unfortunate for them both that he should have had that switch in
+his hand at such a time, but more unfortunate still was it that Fletcher
+should have had a pistol in his belt. The Scot dropped the bridle at
+last; dropped it to pluck forth the weapon.
+
+“Hi! I did not...” began Dare, who had stood appalled by what he had
+done in the second or two that had passed since he had delivered the
+blow. The rest of his sentence was drowned in the report of Fletcher's
+pistol, and Dare dropped dead on the rough cobbles of the yard.
+
+Ferguson has left it on record--and, presumably, he had Fletcher's
+word for it--that it was no part of the Scot's intent to do Mr. Dare
+a mischief. He had but drawn the pistol to intimidate him into better
+manners, but in his haste he accidentally pulled the trigger.
+
+However that may be, there was Dare as dead as the stones on which he
+lay, and Fletcher with a smoking pistol in his hand.
+
+After that all was confusion. Fletcher was seized by those who had
+witnessed the deed; there was none thought it an accident; indeed,
+they were all ready enough to say that Fletcher had received excessive
+provocation. He was haled to the presence of the Duke with whom
+were Grey and Wilding at the time; and old Dare's son--an ensign in
+Goodenough's company--came clamouring for vengeance backed by such
+goodly numbers that the distraught Duke was forced to show at least the
+outward seeming of it.
+
+Wilding, who knew the value of this Scottish soldier of fortune who had
+seen so much service, strenuously urged his enlargement. It was not a
+time to let the fortunes of a cause suffer through such an act as this,
+deplorable though it might be. The evidence showed that Fletcher had
+been provoked; he had been struck, a thing that might well justify the
+anger in the heat of which he had done this thing. Grey was stolid and
+silent, saying nothing either for or against the man who had divided
+with him under the Duke the honours of the supreme command.
+
+Monmouth, white and horror-stricken, sat and listened first to
+Wilding, then to Dare, and lastly to Fletcher himself. But it was young
+Dare--Dare and his followers, who prevailed. They were too numerous and
+turbulent, and they must at all costs be conciliated, or there was no
+telling to what extremes they might not go. And so there was an end to
+the share of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun in this undertaking--the end of
+the only man who was of any capacity to pilot it through the troubled
+waters that lay before it. Monmouth placed him under arrest and sent him
+aboard the frigate again, ordering her captain to sail at once. That was
+the utmost Monmouth could do to save him.
+
+Wilding continued to plead with the Duke after Fletcher's removal, and
+to such good purpose that at last Monmouth determined that Fletcher
+should rejoin them later, when the affair should have blown over, and
+he sent word accordingly to the Scot. Even in this there were
+manifestations of antagonism between Mr. Wilding and Lord Grey, and it
+almost seemed enough that Wilding should suggest a course for Lord Grey
+instantly to oppose it.
+
+The effects of Fletcher's removal were not long in following. On the
+morrow came the Bridport affair, and Grey's shameful conduct when, had
+he stood his ground, victory must have been assured the Duke's forces
+instead of just that honourable retreat by which Colonel Wade so
+gallantly saved the situation. Mr. Wilding did not mince his words in
+putting it that Grey had run away.
+
+In his room at the George Inn, Monmouth, deeply distressed, asked
+Wilding and Colonel Matthews what action he should take in the
+matter--how deal with Grey.
+
+“There is no other general in Europe would ask that, Your Grace,”
+ answered Matthews gravely, and Mr. Wilding added without an instant's
+hesitation that His Grace's course was plain.
+
+“It would be an unwise thing to expose the troops to the chance of more
+such happenings.”
+
+Monmouth dismissed them and sent for Grey, and he seemed resolved to
+deal with him as he deserved. Yet an hour later, when Wilding, Matthews,
+Wade, and the others were ordered to attend the Duke in council, there
+was his lordship seemingly on as good terms as ever with His Grace.
+
+They were assembled to discuss the next step which it might be advisable
+to take, for the militia was closing in around them, and to remain
+longer in Lyme would be to be caught there as in a trap. It was Grey
+who advanced the first suggestion, his assurance no whit abated by
+the shameful thing that had befallen, by the cowardice which he had
+betrayed.
+
+“That we must quit Lyme we are all agreed,” said he. “I would propose
+that Your Grace march north to Gloucester, where our Cheshire friends
+will assemble to meet us.”
+
+Colonel Matthews reminded the Duke of Andrew Fletcher's proposal that
+they should make a raid upon Exeter with a view to seizing arms, of
+which they stood so sorely in need.
+
+This Mr. Wilding was quick to support. “Not only that, Your Grace,” he
+said, “but I am confident that with very little inducement the greater
+portion of the militia will desert to us as soon as we appear.
+
+“What assurance can you give of that?” asked Grey, his heavy lip
+protruded.
+
+“I take it,” said Mr. Wilding, “that in such matters no man can give
+an assurance of anything. I speak with knowledge of the country and the
+folk from which the militia is enlisted. I offer it as my opinion that
+the militia is favourably disposed to Your Grace. I can do no more.
+
+“If Mr. Wilding says so, Your Grace,” put in Matthews, “I have no doubt
+he has sound reasons upon which to base his opinion.
+
+“No doubt,” said Monmouth. “Indeed, I had already thought of the step
+that you suggest, Colonel Matthews, and what Mr. Wilding says causes me
+to look upon it still more favourably.”
+
+Grey frowned. “Consider, Your Grace,” he said earnestly, “that you are
+in no case to fight at present.”
+
+“What fighting do you suggest there would be?” asked the Duke.
+
+“There is Albemarle between us and Exeter.”
+
+“But with the militia,” Wilding reminded him; “and if the militia
+deserts him for Your Grace, in what case will Albemarle find himself?”
+
+“And if the militia does not desert? If you should be proven wrong, sir?
+What then? What then?” asked Grey.
+
+“Aye--true--what then, Mr. Wilding?” quoth the Duke, already wavering.
+
+Wilding considered a moment, all eyes upon him. “Even then,” said he
+presently, “I do maintain that in this dash for Exeter lies Your Grace's
+greatest chance of success. We can deliver battle if need be. Already we
+are three thousand strong...”
+
+Grey interrupted him rudely. “Nay,” he insisted. “You must not presume
+upon that. We are not yet fit to fight. It is His Grace's business at
+present to drill and discipline his troops and induce more friends to
+join him.”
+
+“Already we are turning men away because we have no weapons to put into
+their hands,” Wilding reminded them, and a murmur of approval ran round,
+which but served to anger Grey the more, to render more obstinate his
+opposition.
+
+“But all that come in are not unprovided,” was his lordship's retort.
+“There are the Hampshire gentry and their friends. They will come armed,
+and so will others if we have patience.
+
+“Aye,” said Wilding, “and if you have patience enough there will be
+troops the Parliament will send against us. They, too, will be armed, I
+can assure your lordship.”
+
+“In God's name let us keep from wrangling,” the Duke besought them. “It
+is difficult enough to determine for the best. If the dash to Exeter
+were successful...”
+
+“It cannot be,” Grey interrupted again.
+
+The liberties he took with Monmouth and which Monmouth permitted him
+might well be a source of wonder to all who heard them. Monmouth paused
+now in his interrupted speech and looked about him a trifle wearily.
+
+“It seems idle to insist,” said Mr. Wilding; “such is the temper of Your
+Grace's counsellors, that we get no further than contradictions.” Grey's
+bold eyes were upon Wilding as he spoke. “I would remind Your Grace,
+and I am sure that many present will agree with me, that in a desperate
+enterprise a sudden unexpected movement will often strike terror.”
+
+“That is true,” said Monmouth, but apparently without enthusiasm, and
+having approved what was urged on one side, he looked at Grey, as if
+waiting to hear what might be said on the other. His indecision was
+pitiful--tragical, indeed, in the leader of so bold an enterprise.
+
+“We should do better, I think,” said Grey, “to deal with the facts as we
+know them.”
+
+“It is what I am endeavouring to do, Your Grace,” protested Wilding,
+a note of despair in his voice. “Perhaps some other gentleman will put
+forward better counsel than mine.”
+
+“Aye! In Heaven's name let us hope so,” snorted Grey; and Monmouth,
+catching the sudden flash of Mr. Wilding's eye, set a hand upon his
+lordship's arm as if to urge him to be gentler. But he continued, “When
+men talk of striking terror by sudden movements they build on air.”
+
+“I had hardly thought to hear that from your lordship,” said Mr.
+Wilding, and he permitted himself that tight-lipped smile that gave his
+face so wicked a look.
+
+“And why not?” asked Grey, stupidly unsuspicious.
+
+“Because I had thought you might have concluded otherwise from your own
+experience at Bridport this morning.”
+
+Grey got angrily to his feet, rage and shame flushing his face, and it
+needed Ferguson and the Duke to restore him to some semblance of calm.
+Indeed, it may well be that it was to complete this that His Grace
+decided there and then that they should follow Grey's advice and go by
+way of Taunton, Bridgwater, and Bristol to Gloucester. He was, like all
+weak men, of conspicuous mental short-sightedness. The matter of the
+moment was ever of greater importance to him than any result that might
+attend it in the future.
+
+He insisted that Wilding and Grey should shake hands before the breaking
+up of that most astounding council, and as he had done last night, he
+now again imposed upon them his commands that they must not allow this
+matter to go further.
+
+Mr. Wilding paved the way for peace by making an apology within
+limitations.
+
+“If, in my zeal to serve Your Grace to the best of my ability, I have
+said that which Lord Grey thinks fit to resent, I would bid him consider
+my motive rather than my actual words.”
+
+But when all had gone save Ferguson, the chaplain approached the
+preoccupied and distressed Duke with counsel that Mr. Wilding should be
+sent away from the army.
+
+“Else there'll be trouble 'twixt him and Grey,” the plotting parson
+foretold. “We'll be having a repetition of the unfortunate Fletcher and
+Dare affair, and I think that has cost Your Grace enough already.”
+
+“Do you suggest that I dismiss Wilding?” cried the Duke. “You know his
+influence, and the bad impression his removal would leave.”
+
+Ferguson stroked his long lean jaw. “No, no,” said he; “all I suggest is
+that you find Mr. Wilding work to do elsewhere.”
+
+“Elsewhere?” the Duke questioned. “Where else?”
+
+“I have thought of that, too. Send him to London to see Danvers and to
+stir up your friends there. And,” he added, lowering his voice, “give
+him discretion to see Sunderland if he thinks well.”
+
+The proposition pleased Monmouth, and it seemed to please Mr. Wilding
+no less when, having sent for him, the Duke communicated it to him in
+Ferguson's presence.
+
+Upon this mission Mr. Wilding set out that very night, leaving Nick
+Trenchard in despair at being separated from him at a time when there
+seemed to be every chance that such a separation might be eternal.
+
+Monmouth and Ferguson may have conceived they did a wise thing in
+removing a man who was instinctively spoiling for a little sword-play
+with my Lord Grey. It is odds that had he remained, the brewing storm
+between the pair would have come to a head. Had it done so, it is more
+than likely, from what we know of Mr. Wilding's accomplishments, that
+he had given Lord Grey his quietus. And had that happened, it is to
+be inferred from history that it is possible the Duke of Monmouth's
+rebellion might have had a less disastrous issue.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. PLOTS AND PLOTTERS
+
+Mr. Wilding left Monmouth's army at Lyme on Sunday, the 14th of
+June, and rejoined it at Bridgwater exactly three weeks later. In the
+meanwhile a good deal had happened, yet the happenings on every hand had
+fallen far short of the expectations aroused in Mr. Wilding's mind,
+now by one circumstance, now by another. In reaching London he had
+experienced no difficulty. Men travelling in that direction were not
+subjected to the scrutiny that fell to the share of those travelling
+from it towards the West, or, rather, to the scrutiny ordained by the
+Government; for Wilding had more than one opportunity of observing
+how very lax and indifferent were the constables and
+tything-men--particularly in Somerset and Wiltshire--in the performance
+of this duty. Wayfarers were questioned as a matter of form, but in no
+case did Wilding hear of any one being detained upon suspicion. This
+was calculated to raise his drooping hopes, pointing as it did to the
+general favouring of Monmouth that was toward. He grew less despondent
+on the score of the Duke's possible ultimate success, and he came to
+hope that the efforts he went to exert would not be fruitless.
+
+But rude were the disappointments that awaited him in town. London, like
+the rest of the country, was not ready. There were not wanting men who
+favoured Monmouth; but no rising had been organized, and the Duke's
+partisans were not disposed to rashness.
+
+Wilding lodged at Covent Garden, in a house recommended to him by
+Colonel Danvers, and there--an outlaw himself--he threw himself with a
+will into his task. He heard of the burning of Monmouth's Declaration by
+the common hangman at the Royal Exchange, and of the bill passed by
+the Commons to make it treason for any to assert that Lucy Walters was
+married to the late King. He attended meetings at the “Bull's Head,”
+ in Bishopsgate, where he met Disney and Danvers, Payton and Lock; but
+though they talked and argued at prodigious length, they did naught
+besides. Danvers, who was their hope in town, definitely refused to have
+a hand in anything that was not properly organized, and in common with
+the others urged that they should wait until Cheshire had risen, as was
+reported that it must.
+
+Meanwhile, troops had gone west under Kirke and Churchill, and the
+Parliament had voted nearly half a million for the putting down of the
+rebellion. London was flung into a fever of excitement by the news
+that was reaching it. The position was not quite as Monmouth's
+advisers--before coming over from Holland--had represented that it would
+be. They had thought that out of fear of tumults about his own person,
+King James would have been compelled to keep near him what troops he
+had, sparing none to be sent against Monmouth. This, King James had not
+done; he had all but emptied London of soldiery, and, considering the
+general disaffection, no moment could have been more favourable than
+this for a rising in London itself. The confusion that must have
+resulted from the recalling of troops would have given Monmouth not
+only a mighty grip of the West, but would have heartened those who--like
+Sunderland himself--were sitting on the wall, to declare themselves for
+the Protestant Champion. This Wilding saw, and almost frenziedly did he
+urge it upon Danvers that all London needed at the moment was a resolute
+leader. But the Colonel still held back; indeed, he had neither truth
+nor valour; he was timid, and used deceit to mask his timidity; he urged
+frivolous reasons for inaction, and when Wilding waxed impatient with
+him, he suggested that Wilding himself should head the rising if he were
+so confident of its success. And Wilding would have done it but that,
+being unknown in London, he had no reason to suppose that men would
+flock to him if he raised the Duke's banner.
+
+Later, when the excitement grew and rumours ran through town that
+Monmouth had now a following of twenty thousand men and that the King's
+forces were falling back before him, and discontent was rife at the
+commissioning of Catholic lords to levy troops, Wilding again pressed
+the matter upon Danvers. Surely no moment could be more propitious.
+But again he received the same answer, that Danvers had lacked time to
+organize matters sufficiently; that the Duke's coming had taken him by
+surprise.
+
+Lastly came the news that Monmouth had been crowned at Taunton amid the
+wildest enthusiasm, and that there were now in England two men each
+of whom called himself King James the Second. This was the excuse
+that Danvers needed to be rid of a business he had not the courage to
+transact to a finish. He swore that he washed his hands of Monmouth's
+affairs; that the latter had broken faith with him and the promise
+he had made him in having himself proclaimed King. He protested that
+Monmouth had done ill, and prophesied that his act would alienate from
+him the numerous republicans who, like Danvers, had hitherto looked to
+him for the country's salvation. Wilding himself was appalled at the
+news for Monmouth was indeed going further than men had been given to
+understand. Nevertheless, for his own sake, in very self-defence now,
+if out of no motives of loyalty to the Duke, he must urge forward the
+fortunes of this man. He had high words with Danvers, and the two might
+have quarrelled before long but for the sudden arrest of Disney, which
+threw Danvers into such a panic that he fled incontinently, abandoning
+in body, as he already appeared to have abandoned in spirit, the
+Monmouth Cause.
+
+The arrest of Disney struck a chill into Wilding. From his lodging at
+Covent Garden he had communicated cautiously with Sunderland a few days
+after his arrival, building upon certain information he had received
+from the Duke at parting as to Sunderland's attachment to the Cause. He
+had carefully chosen his moment for making this communication, having
+a certain innate mistrust of a man who so obviously as Sunderland was
+running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. He had sent a letter
+to the Secretary of State when London was agog with the Axminster
+affair, and the tale--of which Sir Edward Phelips wrote to Colonel
+Berkeley as “the shamefullest story that you ever heard”--of how
+Albemarle's forces and the Somerset militia had run before Monmouth in
+spite of their own overwhelming numbers. This promised ill for James,
+particularly when it was perceived as perceived it was--that this
+running away was not all cowardice, not all “the shamefullest story”
+ that Phelips accounted it. It was an expression of good-will towards
+Monmouth on the part of the militia of the West, and it was confidently
+expected that the next news would be that these men who had decamped
+before him would presently be found to have ranged themselves under his
+banner.
+
+Sunderland had given no sign that he had received Wilding's
+communication. And Wilding drew his own contemptuous conclusions of the
+Secretary of State's cautious policy. It was a fortnight later--when
+London was settling down again from the diversion of excitement created
+by the news of Argyle's defeat in Scotland--before Mr. Wilding attempted
+to approach Sunderland again. He awaited a favourable opportunity, and
+this he had when London was thrown into consternation by the alarming
+news of the Duke of Somerset's urgent demand for reinforcements. Unless
+he had them, he declared, the whole country was lost, as he could not
+get the militia to stand, whilst Lord Stawell's regiment were all fled
+and mostly gone over to the rebels at Bridgwater.
+
+This was grave news, but it was followed in a few days by graver. The
+affair at Philips Norton was exaggerated by report into a wholesale
+defeat of the loyal army, and it was reported--on, apparently, such good
+authority that it received credence in quarters that might have waited
+for official news--that the Duke of Albemarle had been slain by the
+militia which had mutinied and deserted to Monmouth.
+
+It was while this news was going round that Sunderland--in a moment of
+panic--at last vouchsafed an answer to Mr. Wilding's letters, and he
+vouchsafed it in person, just as Wilding--particularly since Disney's
+arrest--was beginning to lose all hope. He came one evening to Mr.
+Wilding's lodgings in Covent Garden, unattended and closely muffled, and
+he remained closeted with the Duke's ambassador for nigh upon an hour,
+at the end of which he entrusted Mr. Wilding with a letter for the Duke,
+very brief but entirely to the point, which expressed him Monmouth's
+most devoted servant.
+
+“You may well judge, sir,” he had said at parting, “that this is not
+such a letter as I should entrust to any man.”
+
+Mr. Wilding had bowed gravely, and gravely he had expressed himself
+sensible of the exceptional honour his lordship did him by such a trust.
+
+“And I depend upon you, sir, as you are a man of honour, to take such
+measures as will ensure against its falling into any but the hands for
+which it is intended.”
+
+“As I am a man of honour, you may depend upon me,” Mr. Wilding solemnly
+promised. “Will your lordship give me three lines above your signature
+that will save me from molestation; thus you will facilitate the
+preservation of this letter.”
+
+“I had already thought of that,” was Sunderland's answer, and he placed
+before Mr. Wilding three lines of writing signed and sealed which
+enjoined all, straitly, in the King's name to suffer the bearer to pass
+and repass and to offer him no hindrance.
+
+On that they shook hands and parted, Sunderland to return to Whitehall
+and his obedience to the King James whom he was ready to betray as
+soon as he saw profit for himself in the act, Mr. Wilding to return to
+Somerset to the King James in whom his faith was scant, indeed, but with
+whom his fortunes were irrevocably bound up.
+
+Meanwhile, Monmouth was back in Bridgwater, his second occupation
+of which town was not being looked upon with unmixed favour. The
+inhabitants had suffered enough already from his first visit; his return
+there, after the Philips Norton affair of which such grossly exaggerated
+reports had reached London, and which, in point of fact, had been little
+better than a drawn battle--had been looked upon with dread by some,
+with disfavour by others, and with dismay by not a few who viewed in
+this an augury of failure.
+
+Now Sir Rowland Blake, who since his pursuit of Mr. Wilding and
+Trenchard on the occasion of their flight from Taunton had--in spite
+of his failure on that occasion--been more or less in the service of
+Albemarle and the loyal army, saw in this indisposition towards Monmouth
+of so many of Bridgwater's inhabitants great possibilities of profit to
+himself.
+
+He was at Lupton House, the guest of his friend Richard Westmacott, and
+the open suitor of Ruth, entirely ignoring the circumstance that she was
+nominally the wife of Mr. Wilding--this to the infinite chagrin of Miss
+Horton, who saw all her scheming likely to go for nothing.
+
+In his heart of hearts it was a matter of not the slightest consequence
+to Sir Rowland whether James Stuart or James Scott occupied the throne
+of England. His own affairs gave him more than enough to think of, and
+these disturbances in the West were very welcome to him, since they
+rendered difficult any attempt to trace him on the part of his London
+creditors. It happens, however, very commonly that enmity to an
+individual will lead to enmity to the cause which that individual
+espouses. Thus may it have been with Sir Rowland. His hatred of Wilding
+and his keen desire to see Wilding destroyed had made him a zealous
+partisan of the loyal cause. Richard Westmacott, easily swayed and
+overborne by the town rake, whose vices made him seem to Richard the
+embodiment of all that is splendid and enviable in man, had become
+practically the baronet's tool, now that he had abandoned Monmouth's
+Cause. Sir Rowland had not considered it beneath the dignity of his name
+and station to discharge in Bridgwater certain functions that made him
+more or less a spy. And so reliable had been the information he had sent
+Feversham and Albemarle during Monmouth's first occupation of the town,
+that he had won by now their complete confidence.
+
+The second occupation and its unpopularity with many of those who
+earlier--if lukewarm--had been partisans of the Duke, swelled the number
+of loyally inclined people in Bridgwater, and suddenly inspired
+Sir Rowland with a scheme by which at a blow he might snuff out the
+rebellion.
+
+This scheme involved the capture of the Duke, and the reward of success
+should mean far more to Blake than the five thousand pounds at which the
+value of the Duke's head had already been fixed by Parliament. He needed
+a tool for this, and he even thought of Westmacott and Lupton House, but
+afterwards preferred a Mr. Newlington, who was in better case to assist
+him. This Newlington, an exceedingly prosperous merchant and one of the
+richest men perhaps in the whole West of England, looked with extreme
+disfavour upon Monmouth, whose advent had paralyzed his industries to an
+extent that was costing him a fine round sum of money weekly.
+
+He was now in alarm lest the town of Bridgwater should be made to
+pay dearly for having harboured the Protestant Duke--he had no faith
+whatever in the Protestant Duke's ultimate prevailing--and that he,
+as one of the town's most prominent and prosperous citizens, might
+be amongst the heaviest sufferers in spite of his neutrality. This
+neutrality he observed because it was hardly safe in that disaffected
+town for a man to proclaim himself a loyalist.
+
+To him Sir Rowland expounded his audacious plan... He sought out the
+merchant in his handsome mansion on the night of that Friday which had
+witnessed Monmouth's return, and the merchant, honoured by the visit of
+this gallant--ignorant as he was of the gentleman's fame in town--placed
+himself entirely and instantly at his disposal, though the hour was
+late. Sounding him carefully, and finding the fellow most amenable
+to any scheme that should achieve the salvation of his purse and
+industries, Blake boldly laid his plan before him. Startled at first,
+Mr. Newlington upon considering it became so enthusiastic that he hailed
+Sir Rowland as his deliverer, and heartily promised his cooperation.
+Indeed, it was Mr. Newlington who was, himself, to take the first step.
+
+Well pleased with his evening's work, Sir Rowland went home to Lupton
+House and to bed. In the morning he broached the matter to Richard. He
+had all the vanity of the inferior not only to lessen the appearance of
+his inferiority, but to clothe himself in a mantle of importance; and it
+was this vanity urged him to acquaint Richard with his plans in the very
+presence of Ruth.
+
+They had broken their fast, and they still lingered in the dining-room,
+the largest and most important room in Lupton House. It was cool and
+pleasant here in contrast to the heat of the July sun, which, following
+upon the late wet weather, beat fiercely on the lawn, the window-doors
+to which stood open. The cloth had been raised, and Diana and her mother
+had lately left the room. Ruth, in the window-seat, at a small oval
+table, was arranging a cluster of roses in an old bronze bowl. Sir
+Rowland, his stiff short figure carefully dressed in a suit of brown
+camlet, his fair wig very carefully curled, occupied a tall-backed
+armchair near the empty fireplace. Richard, perched on the table's edge,
+swung his shapely legs idly backwards and forwards and cogitated upon a
+pretext to call for a morning draught of last October's ale.
+
+Ruth completed her task with the roses and turned her eyes upon her
+brother.
+
+“You are not looking well, Richard,” she said, which was true enough,
+for much hard drinking was beginning to set its stamp on Richard, and
+young as he was, his insipidly fair face began to display a bloatedness
+that was exceedingly unhealthy.
+
+“Oh, I am well enough,” he answered almost peevishly, for these
+allusions to his looks were becoming more frequent than he savoured.
+
+“Gad!” cried Sir Rowland's deep voice, “you'll need to be well. I have
+work for you to-morrow, Dick.”
+
+Dick did not appear to share his enthusiasm. “I am sick of the work you
+discover for us, Rowland,” he answered ungraciously.
+
+But Blake showed no resentment. “Maybe you'll find the present task more
+to your taste. If it's deeds of derring-do you pine for, I am the man
+to satisfy you.” He smiled grimly, his bold grey eyes glancing across at
+Ruth, who was observing him, listening.
+
+Richard sneered, but offered him no encouragement to proceed.
+
+“I see,” said Blake, “that I shall have to tell you the whole story
+before you'll credit me. Shalt have it, then. But...” and he checked on
+the word, his face growing serious, his eye wandering to the door, “I
+would not have it overheard--not for a king's ransom,” which was more
+literally true than he may have intended it to be.
+
+Richard looked over his shoulder carelessly at the door.
+
+“We have no eavesdroppers,” he said, and his voice bespoke his contempt
+of the gravity of this news of which Sir Rowland made so much in
+anticipation. He was acquainted with Sir Rowland's ways, and the
+importance of them. “What are you considering?” he inquired.
+
+“To end the rebellion,” answered Blake, his voice cautiously lowered.
+
+Richard laughed outright. “There are several others considering
+that--notably His Majesty King James, the Duke of Albemarle, and the
+Earl of Feversham. Yet they don't appear to achieve it.”
+
+“It is in that particular,” said Blake complacently, “that I shall
+differ from them.” He turned to Ruth, eager to engage her in the
+conversation, to flatter her by including her in the secret. Knowing the
+loyalist principles she entertained, he had no reason to fear that his
+plans could other than meet her approval. “What do you say, Mistress
+Ruth?” Presuming upon his friendship with her brother, he had taken to
+calling her by that name in preference to the other which he could not
+bring himself to give her. “Is it not an object worthy of a gentleman's
+endeavour?”
+
+“If you can save so many poor people from encompassing their ruin by
+following that rash young man the Duke of Monmouth, you will indeed be
+doing a worthy deed.”
+
+Blake rose, and made her a leg. “Madam,” said he, “had aught been
+wanting to cement my resolve, your words would supply it to me. My plan
+is simplicity itself. I propose to capture Monmouth and his principal
+agents, and deliver them over to the King. And that is all.”
+
+“A mere nothing,” croaked Richard.
+
+“Could more be needed?” quoth Blake. “Once the rebel army is deprived of
+its leaders it will melt and dissolve of itself. Once the Duke is in the
+hands of his enemies there will be nothing left to fight for. Is it not
+shrewd?”
+
+“You are telling us the object rather than the plan,” Ruth reminded him.
+“If the plan is as good as the object...”
+
+“As good?” he echoed, chuckling. “You shall judge.” And briefly he
+sketched for her the springe he was setting with the help of Mr.
+Newlington. “Newlington is rich; the Duke is in straits for money.
+Newlington goes to-day to offer him twenty thousand pounds; and the Duke
+is to do him the honour of supping at his house to-morrow night to fetch
+the money. It is a reasonable request for Mr. Newlington to make under
+the circumstances, and the Duke cannot--dare not refuse it.”
+
+“But how will that advance your project?” Ruth inquired, for Blake had
+paused again, thinking that the rest must be obvious.
+
+“In Mr. Newlington's orchard I propose to post a score or so of men,
+well armed. Oh! I shall run no risks of betrayal by engaging Bridgwater
+folk. I'll get the fellows I need from General Feversham. We take
+Monmouth at supper, as quietly as may be, with what gentlemen happen to
+have accompanied him. We bind and gag the Duke, and we convey him with
+all speed and quiet out of Bridgwater. Feversham shall send a troop to
+await me a mile or so from the town on the road to Weston Zoyland. We
+shall join them with our captive, and thus convey him to the Royalist
+General. Could aught be simpler or more infallible?”
+
+Richard had slipped from the table. He had changed his mind on the
+subject of the importance of the business Blake had in view. Excited by
+it, he clapped his friend on the back approvingly.
+
+“A great plan!” he cried. “Is it not, Ruth?”
+
+“It should be the means of saving hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives,”
+ said she, “and so it deserves to prosper. But what of the officers who
+may be with the Duke?” she inquired.
+
+“There are not likely to be many--half a dozen, say. We shall have to
+make short work of them, lest they should raise an alarm.” He saw her
+glance clouding. “That is the ugly part of the affair,” he was quick
+to add, himself assuming a look of sadness. He sighed. “What help is
+there?” he asked. “Better that those few should suffer than that, as you
+yourself have said, there should be some thousands of lives lost before
+this rebellion is put down. Besides,” he continued, “Monmouth's officers
+are far-seeing, ambitious men, who have entered into this affair to
+promote their own personal fortunes. They are gamesters who have set
+their lives upon the board against a great prize, and they know it. But
+these other poor misguided people who have gone out to fight for liberty
+and religion--it is these whom I am striving to rescue.”
+
+His words sounded fervent, his sentiments almost heroic. Ruth looked at
+him, and wondered had she misjudged him in the past. She sighed. Then
+she thought of Wilding. He was on the other side, but where was he?
+Rumour ran that he was dead; that he and Grey had quarrelled at Lyme,
+and that Wilding had been killed as a result. Had it not been for Diana,
+who strenuously bade her attach no credit to these reports, she would
+readily have believed them. As it was she waited, wondering, thinking of
+him always as she had seen him on that day at Walford when he had taken
+his leave of her, and more than once, when she pondered the words he had
+said, the look that had invested his drooping eyes, she found herself
+with tears in her own. They welled up now, and she rose hastily to her
+feet.
+
+She looked a moment at Blake who was watching her keenly, speculating
+upon this emotion of which she betrayed some sign, and wondering might
+not his heroism have touched her, for, as we have seen, he had arrayed
+a deed of excessive meanness, a deed worthy, almost, of the Iscariot, in
+the panoply of heroic achievement.
+
+“I think,” she said, “that you are setting your hand to a very worthy
+and glorious enterprise, and I hope, nay, I am sure, that success must
+attend your efforts.” He was still bowing his thanks when she passed out
+through the open window-doors into the sunshine of the garden.
+
+Sir Rowland swung round upon Richard. “A great enterprise, Dick,” he
+cried; “I may count upon you for one?”
+
+“Aye,” said Dick, who had found at last the pretext that he needed,
+“you may count on me. Pull the bell, we'll drink to the success of the
+venture.”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. MR. WILDING'S RETURN
+
+The preparations to be made for the momentous coup Sir Rowland meditated
+were considerable. Mr. Newlington was yet to be concerted with and
+advised, and, that done, Sir Rowland had to face the difficulty of
+eluding the Bridgwater guards and make his way to Feversham's camp at
+Somerton to enlist the general's cooperation to the extent that we
+have seen he looked for. That done, he was to return and ripen his
+preparations for the business he had undertaken. Nevertheless, in spite
+of all that lay before him, he did not find it possible to leave Lupton
+House without stepping out into the garden in quest of Ruth. Through
+the window, whilst he and Richard were at their ale, he had watched her
+between whiles, and had lingered, waiting; for Diana was with her, and
+it was not his wish to seek her whilst Diana was at hand. Speak with
+her, ere he went, he must. He was an opportunist, and now, he fondly
+imagined, was his opportunity. He had made that day, at last, a
+favourable impression upon Richard's sister; he had revealed himself in
+an heroic light, and egregiously misreading the emotion she had shown
+before withdrawing, he was satisfied that did he strike now victory must
+attend him. He sighed his satisfaction and pleasurable anticipation. He
+had been wary and he had known how to wait; and now, it seemed to him,
+he was to be rewarded for his patience. Then he frowned, as another
+glance showed him that Diana still lingered with her cousin; he wished
+Diana at the devil. He had come to hate this fair-haired doll to whom
+he had once paid court. She was too continually in his way, a constant
+obstacle in his path, ever ready to remind Ruth of Anthony Wilding when
+Sir Rowland most desired Anthony Wilding to be forgotten; and in Diana's
+feelings towards himself such a change had been gradually wrought that
+she had come to reciprocate his sentiments--to hate him with all the
+bitter hatred into which love can be by scorn transmuted. At first her
+object in keeping Ruth's thoughts on Mr. Wilding, in pleading his cause,
+and seeking to present him in a favourable light to the lady whom he had
+constrained to become his wife, had been that he might stand a barrier
+between Ruth and Sir Rowland to the end that Diana might hope to see
+revived--faute de mieux, since possible in no other way--the feelings
+that once Sir Rowland had professed for herself. The situation was
+rich in humiliations for poor, vain, foolishly crafty Diana, and these
+humiliations were daily rendered more bitter by Sir Rowland's unwavering
+courtship of her cousin in spite of all that she could do.
+
+In the end the poison of them entered her soul, corroded her sentiments
+towards him, dissolved the love she had borne him, and transformed
+it into venom. She would not have him now if he did penitence for his
+disaffection by going in sackcloth and crawling after her on his knees
+for a full twelvemonth. But neither should he have Ruth if she could
+thwart his purpose. On that she was resolved.
+
+Had she but guessed that he watched them from the windows, waiting for
+her to take her departure, she had lingered all the morning, and all
+the afternoon if need be, at Ruth's side. But being ignorant of
+the circumstance--believing that he had already left the house--she
+presently quitted Ruth to go indoors, and no sooner was she gone than
+there was Blake replacing her at Ruth's elbow. Mistress Wilding met him
+with unsmiling, but not ungentle face.
+
+“Not yet gone, Sir Rowland?” she asked him, and a less sanguine man had
+been discouraged by the words.
+
+“It may be forgiven me that I tarry at such a time,” said he, “when we
+consider that I go, perhaps--to return no more.” It was an inspiration
+on his part to assume the role of the hero going forth to a possible
+death. It invested him with noble, valiant pathos which could not, he
+thought, fail of its effect upon a woman's mind. But he looked in vain
+for a change of colour, be it ever so slight, or a quickening of the
+breath. He found neither; though, indeed, her deep blue eyes seemed to
+soften as they observed him.
+
+“There is danger in this thing that you are undertaking?” said she,
+between question and assertion.
+
+“It is not my wish to overstate it; yet I leave you to imagine what the
+risk may be.”
+
+“It is a good cause,” said she, thinking of the poor, deluded, humble
+folk that followed Monmouth's banner, whom Blake's fine action was to
+rescue from impending ruin and annihilation, “and surely Heaven will be
+on your side.”
+
+“We must prevail,” cried Blake with kindling eye, and you had thought
+him a fanatic, not a miserable earner of blood-money. “We must
+prevail, though some of us may pay dearly for the victory. I have a
+foreboding...” He paused, sighed, then laughed and flung back his head,
+as if throwing off some weight that had oppressed him.
+
+It was admirably played; Nick Trenchard, had he observed it, might have
+envied the performance; and it took effect with her, this adding of a
+prospective martyr's crown to the hero's raiment he had earlier donned.
+It was a master-touch worthy of one who was deeply learned--from the
+school of foul experience--in the secret ways that lead to a woman's
+favour. In a pursuit of this kind there was no subterfuge too mean, no
+treachery too base for Sir Rowland Blake.
+
+“Will you walk, mistress?” he said, and she, feeling that it were an
+unkindness not to do his will, assented gravely. They moved down the
+sloping lawn, side by side, Sir Rowland leaning on his cane, bareheaded,
+his feathered hat tucked under his arm. Before them the river's smooth
+expanse, swollen and yellow with the recent rains, glowed like a sheet
+of copper, so that it blurred the sight to look upon it long.
+
+A few steps they took with no word uttered, then Sir Rowland spoke.
+“With this foreboding that is on me,” said he, “I could not go without
+seeing you, without saying something that I may never have another
+chance of saying; something that--who knows?--but for the emprise to
+which I am now wedded you had never heard from me.”
+
+He shot her a furtive, sidelong glance from under his heavy, beetling
+brows, and now, indeed, he observed a change ripple over the composure
+of her face like a sudden breeze across a sheet of water. The deep lace
+collar at her throat rose and fell, and her fingers toyed nervously with
+a ribbon of her grey bodice. She recovered in an instant, and threw up
+entrenchments against the attack she saw he was about to make.
+
+“You exaggerate, I trust,” said she. “Your forebodings will be proved
+groundless. You will return safe and sound from this venture, as indeed
+I hope you may.”
+
+That was his cue. “You hope it?” he cried, arresting his step, turning,
+and imprisoning her left hand in his right. “You hope it? Ah, if you
+hope for my return, return I will; but unless I know that you will have
+some welcome for me such as I desire from you, I think...” his
+voice quivered cleverly, “I think, perhaps, it were well if... if
+my forebodings were not as groundless as you say they are. Tell me,
+Ruth...”
+
+But she interrupted him. It was high time, she thought. Her face he saw
+was flushed, her eyes had hardened somewhat. Calmly she disengaged her
+hand.
+
+“What is't you mean?” she asked. “Speak, Sir Rowland, speak plainly,
+that I may give you a plain answer.”
+
+It was a challenge in which another man had seen how hopeless was his
+case, and, accepting defeat, had made as orderly a retreat as still was
+possible. But Sir Rowland, stricken in his vanity, went headlong on to
+utter rout.
+
+“Since you ask me in such terms I will be plain, indeed,” he answered
+her. “I mean...” He almost quailed before the look that met him from her
+intrepid eyes. “Do you not see my meaning, Ruth?”
+
+“That which I see,” said she, “I do not believe, and as I would not
+wrong you by any foolish imaginings, I would have you plain with me.”
+
+Yet the egregious fool went on. “And why should you not believe your
+senses?” he asked her, between anger and entreaty. “Is it wonderful that
+I should love you? Is it...?”
+
+“Stop!” She drew back a pace from him. There was a moment's silence,
+during which it seemed she gathered her forces to destroy him, and,
+in the spirit, he bowed his head before the coming storm. Then, with a
+sudden relaxing of the stiffness her lissom figure had assumed, “I think
+you had better leave me, Sir Rowland,” she advised him. She half turned
+and moved a step away; he followed with lowering glance, his upper lip
+lifting and laying bare his powerful teeth. In a stride he was beside
+her.
+
+“Do you hate me, Ruth?” he asked her hoarsely.
+
+“Why should I hate you?” she counter-questioned, sadly. “I do not even
+dislike you,” she continued in a more friendly tone, adding, as if by
+way of explaining this phenomenon, “You are my brother's friend. But I
+am disappointed in you, Sir Rowland. You had, I know, no intention of
+offering me disrespect; and yet it is what you have done.”
+
+“As how?” he asked.
+
+“Knowing me another's wife...”
+
+He broke in tempestuously. “A mock marriage! If it is but that scruple
+stands between us...”
+
+“I think there is more,” she answered him. “You compel me to hurt you; I
+do so as the surgeon does--that I may heal you.”
+
+“Why, thanks for nothing,” he made answer, unable to repress a sneer.
+Then, checking himself, and resuming the hero-martyr posture, “I go,
+mistress,” he told her sadly, “and if I lose my life to-night, or
+to-morrow, in this affair...”
+
+“I shall pray for you,” said she; for she had found him out at
+last, perceived the nature of the bow he sought to draw across her
+heart-strings, and, having perceived it, contempt awoke in her. He had
+attempted to move her by unfair, insidious means.
+
+He fell back, crimson from chin to brow. He stifled the wrath that
+welled up, threatening to choke him. He was a short-necked man, of the
+sort--as Trenchard had once reminded him--that falls a prey to apoplexy,
+and surely he was never nearer it than at that moment. He made her a
+profound bow, bending himself almost in two before her in a very irony
+of deference; then, drawing himself up again, he turned and left her.
+
+The plot which with some pride he had hatched and the reward he looked
+to cull from it, were now to his soul as ashes to his lips. What could
+it profit him to destroy Monmouth so that Anthony Wilding lived? For
+whether she loved Wilding or not, she was Wilding's wife. Wilding,
+nominally, at least, was master of that which Sir Rowland coveted;
+not her heart, indeed, but her ample fortune. Wilding had been a
+stumbling-block to him since he had come to Bridgwater; but for Wilding
+he might have run a smooth course; he was still fool enough to hug
+that dear illusion to his soul. Somewhere in England--if not dead
+already--this Wilding lurked, an outlaw, whom any might shoot down at
+sight. Sir Rowland swore he would not rest until he knew that Anthony
+Wilding cumbered the earth no more--leastways, not the surface of it.
+
+He went forth to seek Newlington. The merchant had sent his message
+to the rebel King, and had word in answer that His Majesty would be
+graciously pleased to sup at Mr. Newlington's at nine o'clock on
+the following evening, attended by a few gentlemen of his immediate
+following. Sir Rowland received the news with satisfaction, and sighed
+to think that Mr. Wilding--still absent, Heaven knew where--would not be
+of the party. It was reported that on the Monday Monmouth was to march
+to Gloucester, hoping there to be joined by his Cheshire friends, so
+that it seemed Sir Rowland had not matured his plan a day too soon.
+He got to horse, and contriving to win out of Bridgwater, rode off to
+Somerton to concert with Lord Feversham concerning the men he would need
+for his undertaking.
+
+That night Richard made free talk of the undertaking to Diana and to
+Ruth, loving, as does the pusillanimous, to show himself engaged in
+daring enterprises. Emulating his friend Sir Rowland, he held forth
+with prolixity upon the great service he was to do the State, and Ruth,
+listening to him, was proud of his zeal, the sincerity of which it never
+entered her mind to doubt.
+
+Diana listened, too, but without illusions concerning Master Richard,
+and she kept her conclusions to herself.
+
+During the afternoon of the morrow, which was Sunday, Sir Rowland
+returned to Bridgwater, his mission to Feversham entirely successful,
+and all preparations made. He completed his arrangements, and towards
+eight o'clock that night the twenty men sent by Feversham--they had
+slipped singly into the town--began to muster in the orchard at the back
+of Mr. Newlington's house.
+
+It was just about that same hour that Mr. Wilding, saddle-worn and
+dust-clogged in every pore, rode into Bridgwater, and made his way to
+the sign of The Ship in the High Street, overlooking the Cross where
+Trenchard was lodged. His friend was absent--possibly gone with his men
+to the sermon Ferguson was preaching to the army in the Castle Fields.
+Having put up his horse, Mr. Wilding, all dusty as he was, repaired
+straight to the Castle to report himself to Monmouth.
+
+He was informed that His Majesty was in council. Nevertheless, urging
+that his news was of importance, he begged to be instantly announced.
+After a pause, he was ushered into a lofty, roomy chamber where, in
+the fading daylight, King Monmouth sat in council with Grey and Wade,
+Matthews, Speke, Ferguson, and others. At the foot of the table stood a
+sturdy country-fellow, unknown to Wilding. It was Godfrey, the spy, who
+was to act as their guide across Sedgemoor that night; for the matter
+that was engaging them just then was the completion of their plans
+for the attack that was to be made that very night upon Feversham's
+unprepared camp--a matter which had been resolved during the last few
+hours as an alternative preferable to the retreat towards Gloucester
+that had at first been intended.
+
+Wilding was shocked at the change that had been wrought in Monmouth's
+appearance during the few weeks since last he had seen him. His face
+was thin, pale, and haggard, his eyes were more sombre, and beneath them
+there were heavy, dark stains of sleeplessness and care, his very voice,
+when presently he spoke, seemed to have lost the musical timbre that had
+earlier distinguished it; it was grown harsh and rasping. Disappointment
+after disappointment, set down to ill-luck, but in reality the fruit of
+incompetence, had served to sour him. The climax had been reached in
+the serious desertions after the Philips Norton fight, and the flight
+of Paymaster Goodenough with the funds for the campaign. The company sat
+about the long oak table on which a map was spread, and Colonel Wade was
+speaking when Wilding entered.
+
+On his appearance Wade ceased, and every eye was turned upon the
+messenger from London. Ferguson, fresh from his sermon, sat with elbows
+resting on the table, his long chin supported by his hands, his eyes
+gleaming sharply under the shadow of his wig which was pulled down in
+front to the level of his eyebrows.
+
+It was the Duke who addressed Mr. Wilding, and the latter's keen ears
+were quick to catch the bitterness that underlay his words.
+
+“We are glad to see you, sir; we had not looked to do so again.”
+
+“Not looked to do so, Your Gr... Majesty!” he echoed, plainly not
+understanding, and it was observed that he stumbled over the Duke's new
+title.
+
+“We had imagined that the pleasures of the town were claiming your
+entire attention.”
+
+Wilding looked from one to the other of the men before him, and on the
+face of all he saw a gravity that amounted to disapproval of him.
+
+“The pleasures of the town?” said he, frowning, and again--“the
+pleasures of the town? There is something in this that I fear I do not
+understand.”
+
+“Do you bring us news that London has risen?” asked Grey suddenly.
+
+“I would I could,” said Wilding, smiling wistfully.
+
+“Is it a laughing matter?” quoth Grey angrily.
+
+“A smiling matter, my lord,” answered Wilding, nettled. “Your lordship
+will observe that I did but smile.”
+
+“Mr. Wilding,” said Monmouth darkly, “we are not pleased with you.”
+
+“In that case,” returned Wilding, more and more irritated, “Your Majesty
+expected of me more than was possible to any man.”
+
+“You have wasted your time in London, sir,” the Duke explained. “We sent
+you thither counting upon your loyalty and devotion to ourselves. What
+have you done?”
+
+“As much as a man could...” Wilding began, when Grey again interrupted
+him.
+
+“As little as a man could,” he answered. “Were His Grace not the most
+foolishly clement prince in Christendom, a halter would be your reward
+for the fine things you have done in London.”
+
+Mr. Wilding stiffened visibly, his long white face grew set, and his
+slanting eyes looked wicked. He was not a man readily moved to anger,
+but to be greeted in such words as these by one who constituted himself
+the mouthpiece of him for whom Wilding had incurred ruin was more than
+he could bear with equanimity; that the risks to which he had exposed
+himself in London--where, indeed, he had been in almost hourly
+expectation of arrest and such short shrift as poor Disney had--should
+be acknowledged in such terms as these, was something that turned him
+almost sick with disgust. To what manner of men had he leagued himself?
+He looked Grey steadily between the eyes.
+
+“I mind me of an occasion on which such a charge of foolish clemency
+might, indeed--and with greater justice--have been levelled against His
+Majesty,” said he and his calm was almost terrible.
+
+His lordship grew pale at the obvious allusion to Monmouth's mild
+treatment of him for his cowardice at Bridport, and his eyes were as
+baleful as Wilding's own at that moment. But before he could speak,
+Monmouth had already answered Mr. Wilding.
+
+“You are wanting in respect to us, sir,” he admonished him.
+
+Mr. Wilding bowed to the rebuke in a submission that seemed ironical.
+The blood mounted slowly to Monmouth's cheeks.
+
+“Perhaps,” put in Wade, who was anxious for peace, “Mr. Wilding has some
+explanation to offer us of his failure.”
+
+His failure! They took too much for granted. Stitched in the lining of
+his boot was the letter from the Secretary of State. To have achieved
+that was surely to have achieved something.
+
+“I thank you, sir, for supposing it,” answered Wilding, his voice hard
+with self-restraint; “I have indeed an explanation.”
+
+“We will hear it,” said Monmouth condescendingly, and Grey sneered,
+thrusting out his bloated lips.
+
+“I have to offer the explanation that Your Majesty is served in London
+by cowards; self-sufficient and self-important cowards who have hindered
+me in my task instead of helping me. I refer particularly to Colonel
+Danvers.”
+
+Grey interrupted him. “You have a rare effrontery, sir--aye, by God! Do
+you dare call Danvers a coward?”
+
+“It is not I who so call him; but the facts. Colonel Danvers has run
+away.
+
+“Danvers gone?” cried Ferguson, voicing the consternation of all.
+
+Wilding shrugged and smiled; Grey's eye was offensively upon him. He
+elected to answer the challenge of that glance. “He has followed
+the illustrious example set him by other of Your Majesty's devoted
+followers,” said Wilding.
+
+Grey rose suddenly. This was too much. “I'll not endure it from this
+knave!” he cried, appealing to Monmouth.
+
+Monmouth wearily waved him to a seat; but Grey disregarded the command.
+
+“What have I said that should touch your lordship?” asked Wilding, and,
+smiling sardonically, he looked into Grey's eyes.
+
+“It is not what you have said. It is what you have inferred.”
+
+“And to call me knave!” said Wilding in a mocking horror.
+
+The repression of his anger lent him a rare bitterness, and an almost
+devilishly subtle manner of expressing wordlessly what was passing in
+his mind. There was not one present but gathered from his utterance of
+those five words that he did not hold Grey worthy the honour of
+being called to account for that offensive epithet. He made just an
+exclamatory protest, such as he might have made had a woman applied the
+term to him.
+
+Grey turned from him slowly to Monmouth. “It might be well,” said he,
+in his turn controlling himself at last, “to place Mr. Wilding under
+arrest.”
+
+Mr. Wilding's manner quickened on the instant from passive to active
+anger.
+
+“Upon what charge, sir?” he demanded sharply. In truth it was the
+only thing wanting that, after all that he had undergone, he should be
+arrested. His eyes were upon the Duke's melancholy face, and his anger
+was such that in that moment he vowed that if Monmouth acted upon this
+suggestion of Grey's he should not have so much as the consolation of
+Sunderland's letter.
+
+“You have been wanting in respect to us, sir,” the Duke answered him.
+He seemed able to do little more than repeat himself. “You return from
+London empty-handed, your task unaccomplished, and instead of a becoming
+contrition, you hector it here before us in this manner.” He shook his
+head. “We are not pleased with you, Mr. Wilding.”
+
+“But, Your Grace,” exclaimed Wilding, “is it my fault that your London
+agents had failed to organize the rising? That rising should have taken
+place, and it would have taken place had Your Majesty been more ably
+represented there.”
+
+“You were there, Mr. Wilding,” said Grey with heavy sarcasm.
+
+“Would it no' be better to leave Mr. Wilding's affair until afterwards?”
+ suggested Ferguson at that moment. “It is already past eight, Your
+Majesty, and there be still some details of this attack to settle that
+your officers may prepare for it, whilst Mr. Newlington awaits Your
+Majesty to supper at nine.”
+
+“True,” said Monmouth, ever ready to take a solution offered by another.
+“We will confer with you again later, Mr. Wilding.”
+
+Wilding bowed, accepting his dismissal. “Before I go, Your Majesty,
+there are certain things I would report...” he began.
+
+“You have heard, sir,” Grey broke in. “Not now. This is not the time.”
+
+“Indeed, no. This is not the time, Mr. Wilding,” echoed the Duke.
+
+Wilding set his teeth in the intensity of his vexation.
+
+“What I have to tell Your Majesty is of importance,” he exclaimed, and
+Monmouth seemed to waver, whilst Grey looked disdainful unbelief of the
+importance of any communication Wilding might have to make.
+
+“We have little time, Your Majesty,” Ferguson reminded Monmouth.
+
+“Perhaps,” put in friendly Wade, “Your Majesty might see Mr. Wilding at
+Mr. Newlington's.”
+
+“Is it really necessary?” quoth Grey.
+
+This treatment of him inspired Mr. Wilding with malice. The mere mention
+of Sunderland's letter would have changed their tone. But he elected
+by no such word to urge the importance of his business. It should be
+entirely as Monmouth should elect or be constrained by these gentlemen
+about his council-table.
+
+“It would serve two purposes,” said Wade, whilst Monmouth still
+considered. “Your Majesty will be none too well attended, your officers
+having this other matter to prepare for. Mr. Wilding would form another
+to swell your escort of gentlemen.”
+
+“I think you are right, Colonel Wade,” said Monmouth. “We sup at Mr.
+Newlington's at nine o'clock, Mr. Wilding. We shall expect you to attend
+us there. Lieutenant Cragg,” said His Grace to the young officer who had
+admitted Wilding, and who had remained at attention by the door, “you
+may reconduct Mr. Wilding.”
+
+Wilding bowed, his lips tight to keep in the anger that craved
+expression. Then, without another word spoken, he turned and departed.
+
+“An insolent, overbearing knave!” was Grey's comment upon him after he
+had left the room.
+
+“Let us attend to this, your lordship,” said Speke, tapping the
+map. “Time presses,” and he invited Wade to continue the matter that
+Wilding's advent had interrupted.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. BETRAYAL
+
+Still smarting under the cavalier treatment he had received, Mr. Wilding
+came forth from the Castle to find Trenchard awaiting him among the
+crowd of officers and men that thronged the yard.
+
+Nick linked his arm through his friend's and led him away. They quitted
+the place in silence, and in silence took their way south towards the
+High Street, Nick waiting for Mr. Wilding to speak, Mr. Wilding's mind
+still in turmoil at the things he had endured. At last Nick halted
+suddenly and looked keenly at his friend in the failing light.
+
+“What a plague ails you, Tony?” said he sharply. “You are as silent as I
+am impatient for your news.”
+
+Wilding told him in brief, disdainful terms of the reception they
+had given him at the Castle, and of how they had blamed him for the
+circumstance that London had failed to proclaim itself for Monmouth.
+
+Trenchard snarled viciously. “'Tis that mongrel Grey,” said he. “Oh,
+Anthony, to what an affair have we set our hands? Naught can prosper
+with that fellow in it.” He laid his hand on Wilding's arm and lowered
+his voice. “As I have hinted before, 'twould not surprise me if time
+proved him a traitor. Failure attends him everywhere, and so unfailingly
+that one wonders is not failure invited by him. And that fool Monmouth!
+Pshaw! See what it is to serve a weakling. With another in his place
+and the country disaffected as it is, we had been masters of England by
+now.”
+
+Two ladies passed them at that moment, cloaked and hooded, walking
+briskly. One of them turned to look at Trenchard, who, waving his arms
+in wild gesticulation, was a conspicuous object. She checked in her
+walk, arresting her companion.
+
+“Mr. Wilding!” she exclaimed. It was Lady Horton.
+
+“Mr. Wilding!” cried Diana, her companion.
+
+Wilding doffed his hat and bowed, Trenchard following his example.
+
+“We had scarce looked to see you in Bridgwater again,” said the mother,
+her mild, pleasant countenance reflecting the satisfaction it gave her
+to behold him safe and sound.
+
+“There have been moments,” answered Wilding, “when myself I scarce
+expected to return. Your ladyship's greeting shows me what I had lost
+had I not done so.”
+
+“You are but newly arrived?” quoth Diana, scanning him in the gloaming.
+
+“From London, an hour since.”
+
+“An hour?” she echoed, and observed that he was still booted and
+dust-stained. “You will have been to Lupton House?”
+
+A shadow crossed his face, his glance seemed to grow clouded, all of
+which watchful Diana did not fail to observe. “Not yet,” said he.
+
+“You are a laggard,” she laughed at him, and he felt the blood driven
+back upon his heart. What did she mean? Was it possible she suggested
+that he should be welcome, that his wife's feelings towards him had
+undergone a change? His last parting from her on the road near Walford
+had been ever in his mind.
+
+“I have had weighty business to transact, he replied, and Trenchard
+snorted, his mind flying back to the council-room at the Castle, and
+what his friend had told him.
+
+“But now that you have disposed of that you will sup with us,” said Lady
+Horton, who was convinced that since Ruth had gone to the altar with
+him he was Ruth's lover in spite of the odd things she had heard.
+Appearances with Lady Horton counted for everything, and all that
+glittered was gold to her.
+
+“I would,” he answered, “but that I am to sup at Mr. Newlington's with
+His Majesty. My visit must wait until to-morrow.”
+
+“Let us hope,” said Trenchard, “that it waits no longer.” He was already
+instructed touching the night attack on Feversham's camp on Sedgemoor,
+and thought it likely Wilding would accompany them.
+
+“You are going to Mr. Newlington's?” said Diana, and Trenchard thought
+she had turned singularly pale. Her hand was over her heart, her eyes
+wide. She seemed about to add something, but checked herself. She took
+her mother's arm. “We are detaining Mr. Wilding, mother,” said she,
+and her voice quivered as if her whole being were shaken by some gusty
+agitation. They spoke their farewells briefly, and moved on. A second
+later Diana was back at their side again.
+
+“Where are you lodged, Mr. Wilding?” she inquired.
+
+“With my friend Trenchard--at the sign of The Ship, by the Cross.”
+
+She briefly acknowledged the information, rejoined her mother, and
+hurried away with her.
+
+Trenchard stood staring after them a moment. “Odd!” said he; “did you
+mark that girl's discomposure?”
+
+But Wilding's thoughts were elsewhere. “Come, Nick! If I am to render
+myself fit to sit at table with Monmouth, we'll need to hasten.”
+
+They went their way, but not so fast as went Diana, urging with her her
+protesting and short-winded mother.
+
+“Where is your mistress?” the girl asked excitedly of the first servant
+she met at Lupton House.
+
+“In her room, madam,” the man replied, and to Ruth's room went Diana
+breathlessly, leaving Lady Horton gaping after her and understanding
+nothing.
+
+Ruth, who was seated pensive by her window, rose on Diana's impetuous
+entrance, and in the deepening twilight she looked almost ghostly in her
+gown of shimmering white satin, sewn with pearls about the neck of the
+low-cut bodice.
+
+“Diana!” she cried. “You startled me.”
+
+“Not so much as I am yet to do,” answered Diana, breathing excitement.
+She threw back the wimple from her head, and pulling away her cloak,
+tossed it on to the bed. “Mr. Wilding is in Bridgwater,” she announced.
+
+There was a faint rustle from the stiff satin of Ruth's gown. “Then...”
+ her voice shook slightly. “Then... he is not dead,” she said, more
+because she felt that she must say something than because her words
+fitted the occasion.
+
+“Not yet,” said Diana grimly.
+
+“Not yet?”
+
+“He sups to-night at Mr. Newlington's,” Miss Horton exclaimed in a voice
+pregnant with meaning.
+
+“Ah!” It was a cry from Ruth, sharp as if she had been stabbed. She sank
+back to her seat by the window, smitten down by this sudden news.
+
+There was a pause, which fretted Diana, who now craved knowledge of what
+might be passing in her cousin's mind. She advanced towards Ruth and
+laid a trembling hand on her shoulder, where the white gown met the
+ivory neck. “He must be warned,” she said.
+
+“But... but how?” stammered Ruth. “To warn him were to betray Sir
+Rowland.”
+
+“Sir Rowland?” cried Diana in high scorn.
+
+“And... and Richard,” Ruth continued.
+
+“Yes, and Mr. Newlington, and all the other knaves that are engaged in
+this murderous business. Well?” she demanded. “Will you do it, or must
+I?”
+
+“Do it?” Ruth's eyes sought her cousin's white, excited face in the
+quasi-darkness. “But have you thought of what it will mean? Have you
+thought of the poor people that will perish unless the Duke is taken and
+this rebellion brought to an end?”
+
+“Thought of it?” repeated Diana witheringly. “Not I. I have thought that
+Mr. Wilding is here and like to have his throat cut before an hour is
+past.”
+
+“Tell me, are you sure of this?” asked Ruth.
+
+“I have it from your husband's own lips,” Diana answered, and told her
+in a few words of her meeting with Mr. Wilding.
+
+Ruth sat with hands folded in her lap, her eyes on the dim violet
+after-glow in the west, and her mind wrestling with this problem that
+Diana had brought her.
+
+“Diana,” she cried at last, “what am I to do?”
+
+“Do?” echoed Diana. “Is it not plain? Warn Mr. Wilding.”
+
+“But Richard?”
+
+“Mr. Wilding saved Richard's life...”
+
+“I know. I know. My duty is to warn him.”
+
+“Then why hesitate?”
+
+“My duty is also to keep faith with Richard, to think of those poor
+misguided folk who are to be saved by this,” cried Ruth in an agony. “If
+Mr. Wilding is warned, they will all be ruined.”
+
+Diana stamped her foot impatiently. “Had I thought to find you in this
+mind, I had warned him myself,” said she.
+
+“Ah! Why did you not?”
+
+“That the chance of doing so might be yours. That you might thus repay
+him the debt in which you stand.”
+
+“Diana, I can't!” The words broke from her in a sob.
+
+But whatever her interest in Mr. Wilding for her own sake, Diana's prime
+intent was the thwarting of Sir Rowland Blake. If Wilding were warned
+of what manner of feast was spread at Newlington's, Sir Rowland would be
+indeed undone.
+
+“You think of Richard,” she exclaimed, “and you know that Richard is to
+have no active part in the affair--that he will run no risk. They have
+assigned him but a sentry duty that he may warn Blake and his followers
+if any danger threatens them.”
+
+“It is not of Richard's life I am thinking, but of his honour, of his
+trust in me. To warn Mr. Wilding were... to commit an act of betrayal.”
+
+“And is Mr. Wilding to be slaughtered with his friends?” Diana asked
+her. “Resolve me that. Time presses. In half an hour it will be too
+late.”
+
+That allusion to the shortness of the time brought Ruth an inspiration.
+Suddenly she saw a way. Wilding should be saved, and yet she would not
+break faith with Richard nor ruin those others. She would detain him,
+and whilst warning him at the last moment, in time for him to save
+himself; not do so until it must be too late for him to warn the others.
+Thus she would do her duty by him, and yet keep faith with Richard and
+Sir Rowland. She had resolved, she thought, the awful difficulty that
+had confronted her. She rose suddenly, heartened by the thought.
+
+“Give me your cloak and wimple,” she bade Diana, and Diana flew to do
+her bidding. “Where is Mr. Wilding lodged?” she asked.
+
+“At the sign of The Ship--overlooking the Cross, with Mr. Trenchard.
+Shall I come with you?”
+
+“No,” answered Ruth without hesitation. “I will go alone.” She drew the
+wimple well over her head, so that in its shadows her face might lie
+concealed, and hid her shimmering white dress under Diana's cloak.
+
+She hastened through the ill-lighted streets, never heeding the rough
+cobbles that hurt her feet, shod in light indoor wear, never heeding the
+crowds that thronged her way. All Bridgwater was astir with Monmouth's
+presence; moreover, there had been great incursions from Taunton and the
+surrounding country, the women-folk of the Duke-King's followers having
+come that day to Bridgwater to say farewell to father and son, husband
+and brother, before the army marched--as was still believed--to
+Gloucester.
+
+The half-hour was striking from Saint Mary's--the church in which she
+had been married--as Ruth reached the door of the sign of The Ship. She
+was about to knock, when suddenly it opened, and Mr. Wilding himself,
+with Trenchard immediately behind him, stood confronting her. At sight
+of him a momentary weakness took her. He had changed from his hard-used
+riding-garments into a suit of roughly corded black silk, which threw
+into relief the steely litheness of his spare figure. His dark brown
+hair was carefully dressed, diamonds gleamed in the cravat of snowy lace
+at his throat. He was uncovered, his hat under his arm, and he stood
+aside to make way for her, imagining that she was some woman of the
+house.
+
+“Mr. Wilding,” said she, her heart fluttering in her throat. “May I...
+may I speak with you?”
+
+He leaned forward, seeking to pierce the shadows of her wimple; he had
+thought he recognized the voice, as his sudden start had shown; and
+yet he disbelieved his ears. She moved her head at that moment, and the
+light streaming out from a lamp in the passage beat upon her white face.
+
+“Ruth!” he cried, and came quickly forward. Trenchard, behind
+him, looked on and scowled with sudden impatience. Mr. Wilding's
+philanderings with this lady had never had the old rake's approval. Too
+much trouble already had resulted from them.
+
+“I must speak with you at once. At once!” she urged him, her tone
+fearful.
+
+“Are you in need of me?” he asked concernedly.
+
+“In very urgent need,” said she.
+
+“I thank God,” he answered without flippancy. “You shall find me at your
+service. Tell me.”
+
+“Not here; not here,” she answered him.
+
+“Where else?” said he. “Shall we walk?”
+
+“No, no.” Her repetitions marked the deep excitement that possessed her.
+“I will go in with you.” And she signed with her head towards the door
+from which he was barely emerged.
+
+“'Twere scarce fitting,” said he, for being confused and full of
+speculation on the score of her need, he had for the moment almost
+overlooked the relations in which they stood. In spite of the ceremony
+through which they had gone together, Mr. Wilding still mostly thought
+of her as of a mistress very difficult to woo.
+
+“Fitting?” she echoed, and then after a pause, “Am I not your wife?” she
+asked him in a low voice, her cheeks crimsoning.
+
+“Ha! 'Pon honour, I had almost forgot,” said he, and though the burden
+of his words seemed mocking, their tone was sad.
+
+Of the passers-by that jostled them a couple had now paused to watch a
+scene that had an element of the unusual in it. She pulled her wimple
+closer to her face, took him by the arm, and drew him with her into the
+house.
+
+“Close the door,” she bade him, and Trenchard, who had stood aside that
+they might pass in, forestalled him in obeying her. “Now lead me to your
+room, said she, and Wilding in amaze turned to Trenchard as if asking
+his consent, for the lodging, after all, was Trenchard's.
+
+“I'll wait here,” said Nick, and waved his hand towards an oak bench
+that stood in the passage. “You had best make haste,” he urged his
+friend; “you are late already. That is, unless you are of a mind to set
+the lady's affairs before King Monmouth's. And were I in your place,
+Anthony, faith I'd not scruple to do it. For after all,” he added under
+his breath, “there's little choice in rotten apples.”
+
+Ruth waited for some answer from Wilding that might suggest he was
+indifferent whether he went to Newlington's or not; but he spoke no word
+as he turned to lead the way above-stairs to the indifferent
+parlour which with the adjoining bedroom constituted Mr. Trenchard's
+lodging--and his own, for the time being.
+
+Having assured herself that the curtains were closely drawn, she put by
+her cloak and hood, and stood revealed to him in the light of the
+three candles, burning in a branch upon the bare oak table, dazzlingly
+beautiful in her gown of ivory-white.
+
+He stood apart, cogitating her with glowing eyes, the faintest smile
+between question and pleasure hovering about his thin mouth. He had
+closed the door, and stood in silence waiting for her to make known to
+him her pleasure.
+
+“Mr. Wilding...” she began, and straightway he interrupted her.
+
+“But a moment since you did remind me that I have the honour to be your
+husband,” he said with grave humour. “Why seek now to overcloud that
+fact? I mind me that the last time we met you called me by another name.
+But it may be,” he added as an afterthought, “you are of opinion that I
+have broken faith with you.”
+
+“Broken faith? As how?”
+
+“So!” he said, and sighed. “My words were of so little account that they
+have been, I see, forgotten. Yet, so that I remember them, that is what
+chiefly matters. I promised then--or seemed to promise--that I would
+make a widow of you, who had made a wife of you against your will. It
+has not happened yet. Do not despair. This Monmouth quarrel is not yet
+fought out. Hope on, my Ruth.”
+
+She looked at him with eyes wide open--lustrous eyes of sapphire in
+a face of ivory. A faint smile parted her lips, the reflection of the
+thought in her mind that had she, indeed, been eager for his death she
+would not be with him at this moment; had she desired it, how easy would
+her course have been.
+
+“You do me wrong to bid me hope for that,” she answered him, her tones
+level. “I do not wish the death of any man, unless...” She paused; her
+truthfulness urged her too far.
+
+“Unless?” said he, brows raised, polite interest on his face.
+
+“Unless it be His Grace of Monmouth.”
+
+He considered her with suddenly narrowed eyes. “You have not by chance
+sought me to talk politics?” said he. “Or...” and he suddenly caught his
+breath, his nostrils dilating with rage at the bare thought that leapt
+into his mind. Had Monmouth, the notorious libertine, been to Lupton
+House and persecuted her with his addresses? “Is it that you are
+acquainted with His Grace?” he asked.
+
+“I have never spoken to him!” she answered, with no suspicion of what
+was in his thoughts.
+
+In his relief he laughed, remembering now that Monmouth's affairs were
+too absorbing just at present to leave him room for dalliance.
+
+“But you are standing,” said he, and he advanced a chair. “I deplore
+that I have no better hospitality to offer you. I doubt if I ever shall
+again. I am told that Albemarle did me the honour to stable his knackers
+in my hall at Zoyland.”
+
+She took the chair he offered her, sinking to it like one physically
+weary, a thing he was quick to notice. He watched her, his body eager,
+his soul trammelling it with a steely restraint. “Tell me, now,” said
+he, “in what you need me.”
+
+She was silent a moment, pondering, hesitation and confusion seeming to
+envelop her. A pink flush rose to colour the beautiful pillar of neck
+and overspread the delicate half-averted face. He watched it, wondering.
+
+“How long,” she asked him, her whole intent at present being to delay
+him and gain time. “How long have you been in Bridgwater?”
+
+“Two hours at most,” said he.
+
+“Two hours! And yet you never came to... to me. I heard of your
+presence, and I feared you might intend to abstain from seeking me.”
+
+He almost held his breath while she spoke, caught in amazement. He was
+standing close beside her chair, his right hand rested upon its tall
+back.
+
+“Did you so intend?” she asked him.
+
+“I told you even now,” he answered with hard-won calm, “that I had made
+you a sort of promise.”
+
+“I... I would not have you keep it,” she murmured. She heard his sharply
+indrawn breath, felt him leaning over her, and was filled with an
+unaccountable fear.
+
+“Was it to tell me this you came?” he asked her, his voice reduced to a
+whisper.
+
+“No... yes,” she answered, an agony in her mind, which groped for some
+means to keep him by her side until his danger should be overpast. That
+much she owed him in honour if in nothing else.
+
+“No--yes?” he echoed, and he had drawn himself erect again. “What is't
+you mean, Ruth?”
+
+“I mean that it was that, yet not quite only that.”
+
+“Ah!” Disappointment vibrated faintly in his clamation. “What else?”
+
+“I would have you abandon Monmouth's following,” she told him.
+
+He stared a moment, moved away and round where he could confront her.
+The flush had now faded from her face. This he observed and the heave
+of her bosom in its low bodice. He knit his brows, perplexed. Here was
+surely more than at first might seem.
+
+“Why so?” he asked.
+
+“For your own safety's sake,” she answered him.
+
+“You are oddly concerned for that, Ruth.”
+
+“Concerned--not oddly.” She paused an instant, swallowed hard, and then
+continued. “I am concerned too for your honour, and there is no honour
+in following his banner. He has crowned himself King, and so proved
+himself a self-seeker who came dissembled as the champion of a cause
+that he might delude poor ignorant folk into flocking to his standard
+and helping him to his ambitious ends.”
+
+“You are wondrously well schooled,” said he. “Whose teachings do you
+recite me? Sir Rowland Blake's?”
+
+At another time the sneer might have cut her. At the moment she was too
+intent upon gaining time. The means to it mattered little. The more she
+talked to no purpose, the more at random was their discourse, the better
+would her ends be served.
+
+“Sir Rowland Blake?” she cried. “What is he to me?”
+
+“Ah, what? Let me set you the question rather.”
+
+“Less than nothing,” she assured him, and for some moments afterwards it
+was this Sir Rowland who served them as a topic for their odd interview.
+On the overmantel the pulse of time beat on from a little wooden clock.
+His eyes strayed to it; it marked the three-quarters. He bethought
+him suddenly of his engagement. Trenchard, below-stairs, supremely
+indifferent whether Wilding went to Newlington's or not, smoked on,
+entirely unconcerned by the flight of time.
+
+“Mistress,” said Wilding suddenly, “you have not yet told me in what you
+seek my service. Indeed, we seem to have talked to little purpose. My
+time is very short.”
+
+“Where are you going?” she asked him, and fearfully she shot a sidelong
+glance at the timepiece. It was still too soon, by at least five
+minutes.
+
+He smiled, but his smile was singular. He began to suspect at last that
+her only purpose--to what end he could not guess--was to detain him.
+
+“'Tis a singularly sudden interest in my doings, this,” said he quietly.
+“What is't you seek of me?” He reached for the hat he had cast upon the
+table when they had entered. “Tell me briefly. I may stay no longer.”
+
+She rose, her agitation suddenly increasing, afraid that after all he
+would escape her. “Where are you going?” she asked. “Answer me that, and
+I will tell you why I came.”
+
+“I am to sup at Mr. Newlington's in His Majesty's company.
+
+“His Majesty's?”
+
+“King Monmouth's,” he explained impatiently. “Come, Ruth. Already I am
+late.”
+
+“If I were to ask you not to go,” she said slowly, and she held out her
+hands to him, her glance most piteous--and that was not acting--as she
+raised it to meet his own, “would you not stay to pleasure me?”
+
+He considered her from under frowning eyes. “Ruth,” he said, and he took
+her hands, “there is here something that I do not understand. What is't
+you mean?”
+
+“Promise me that you will not go to Newlington's, and I will tell you.”
+
+“But what has Newlington to do with...? Nay, I am pledged already to
+go.”
+
+She drew closer to him, her hands upon his shoulders. “Yet if I ask
+you--I, your wife?” she pleaded, and almost won him to her will.
+
+But suddenly he remembered another occasion on which, for purposes of
+her own, she had so pleaded. He laughed softly, mockingly.
+
+“Do you woo me, Ruth, who, when I wooed you, would have none of me?”
+
+She drew back from him, crimsoning. “I think I had better go,” said she.
+“You have nothing but mockery for me. It was ever so. Who knows?” she
+sighed as she took up her mantle. “Had you but observed more gentle
+ways, you... you...” She paused, needing to say no more. “Good-night!”
+ she ended, and made shift to leave. He watched her, deeply mystified.
+She had gained the door when suddenly he moved.
+
+“Wait!” he cried. She paused, and turned to look over her shoulder, her
+hand apparently upon the latch. “You shall not go until you have told
+me why you besought me to keep away from Newlington's. What is it?” he
+asked, and paused suddenly, a flood of light breaking in upon his mind.
+“Is there some treachery afoot?” he asked her, and his eye went wildly
+to the clock. A harsh, grating sound rang through the room. “What are
+you doing?” he cried. “Why have you locked the door?” She was tugging
+and fumbling desperately to extract the key, her hands all clumsy in her
+nervous haste. He leapt at her, but in that moment the key came away in
+her hand. She wheeled round to face him, erect, defiant almost.
+
+“Here is some devilry!” he cried. “Give me that key.”
+
+He had no need for further questions. Here was a proof more eloquent
+than words to his ready wit. Sir Rowland or Richard, or both, were in
+some plot for the Duke's ruin--perhaps assassination. Had not her very
+words shown that she herself was out of all sympathy with Monmouth? He
+was out of sympathy himself. But not to the extent of standing by to see
+his throat cut. She would have the plot succeed--whatever it might be
+and yet that he himself be spared. There his thoughts paused; but only
+for a moment. He saw suddenly in this, not a proof of concern born of
+love but of duty towards him who had imperilled himself once--and for
+all time, indeed--that he might save her brother and Sir Rowland.
+
+He told her what had been so suddenly revealed to him, taxing her with
+it. She acknowledged it, her wits battling to find some way by which
+she might yet gain a few moments more. She would cling to the key, and
+though he should offer her violence, she would not let it go without a
+struggle, and that struggle must consume the little time yet wanting to
+make it too late for him to save the Duke, and--what imported more--thus
+save herself from betraying her brother's trust. Another fear leapt at
+her suddenly. If through deed of hers Monmouth was spared that night,
+Blake, in his despair and rage, might slake his vengeance upon Richard.
+
+“Give me that key,” he demanded, his voice cold and quiet, his face set.
+
+“No, no,” she cried, setting her hand behind her. “You shall not go,
+Anthony. You shall not go.”
+
+“I must,” he insisted, still cold, but oh! so determined. “My honour's
+in it now that I know.”
+
+“You'll go to your death,” she reminded him.
+
+He sneered. “What signifies a day or so? Give me the key.”
+
+“I love you, Anthony!” she cried, livid to the lips.
+
+“Lies!” he answered her contemptuously. “The key!”
+
+“No,” she answered, and her firmness matched his own. “I will not have
+you slain.”
+
+“'Tis not my purpose--not just yet. But I must save the others. God
+forgive me if I offer violence to a woman,” he added, “and lay rude
+hands upon her. Do not compel me to it.” He advanced upon her, but she,
+lithe and quick, evaded him, and sprang for the middle of the room. He
+wheeled about, his self-control all slipping from him now. Suddenly she
+darted to the window, and with the hand that clenched the key she
+smote a pane with all her might. There was a smash of shivering glass,
+followed an instant later by a faint tinkle on the stones below, and the
+hand that she still held out covered itself all with blood.
+
+“O God!” he cried, the key and all else forgotten. “You are hurt.”
+
+“But you are saved,” she cried, overwrought, and staggered, laughing and
+sobbing, to a chair, sinking her bleeding hand to her lap, and smearing
+recklessly her spotless, shimmering gown.
+
+He caught up a chair by its legs, and at a single blow smashed down the
+door--a frail barrier after all. “Nick!” he roared. “Nick!” He tossed
+the chair from him and vanished into the adjoining room to reappear a
+moment later carrying basin and ewer, and a shirt of Trenchard's--the
+first piece of linen he could find.
+
+She was half fainting, and she let him have his swift, masterful way.
+He bathed her hand, and was relieved to find that the injury was none so
+great as the flow of blood had made him fear. He tore Trenchard's
+fine cambric shirt to shreds--a matter on which Trenchard afterwards
+commented in quotations from at least three famous Elizabethan
+dramatists. He bound up her hand, just as Nick made his appearance at
+the splintered door, his mouth open, his pipe, gone out, between his
+fingers. He was followed by a startled serving-wench, the only other
+person in the house, for every one was out of doors that night.
+
+Into the woman's care Wilding delivered his wife, and without a word to
+her he left the room, dragging Trenchard with him. It was striking nine
+as they went down the stairs, and the sound brought as much satisfaction
+to Ruth above as dismay to Wilding below.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. THE BANQUET
+
+It was striking nine. Therefore, Ruth thought that she had achieved her
+object, Wilding imagined that all was lost. It needed the more tranquil
+mind of Nicholas Trenchard to show him the fly in madam's ointment,
+after Wilding, in half a dozen words, had made him acquainted with the
+situation.
+
+“What are you going to do?” asked Trenchard.
+
+“Run to Newlington's and warn the Duke--if still in time.”
+
+“And thereby precipitate the catastrophe? Oh, give it thought. It is all
+it needs. You are taking it for granted that nine o'clock is the hour
+appointed for King Monmouth's butchery.”
+
+“What else?” asked Wilding, impatient to be off.
+
+They were standing in the street under the sign of The Ship, by which
+Jonathan Edney--Mr. Trenchard's landlord--distinguished his premises and
+the chandler's trade he drove there. Trenchard set a detaining hand on
+Mr. Wilding's arm.
+
+“Nine o'clock is the hour appointed for supper. It is odds the Duke will
+be a little late, and it is more than odds that when he does arrive, the
+assassins will wait until the company is safely at table and lulled by
+good eating and drinking. You had overlooked that, I see. It asks an old
+head for wisdom, after all. Look you, Anthony. Speed to Colonel Wade as
+fast as your legs can carry you, and get a score of men. Then find
+some fellow to lead you to Newlington's orchard, and if only you do not
+arrive too late you may take Sir Rowland and his cut-throats in the rear
+and destroy them to a man before they realize themselves attacked. I'll
+reconnoitre while you go, and keep an eye on the front of the house.
+Away with you!”
+
+Ordinarily Wilding was a man of a certain dignity, but you had not
+thought it had you seen him running in silk stockings and silver-buckled
+shoes at a headlong pace through the narrow streets of Bridgwater,
+in the direction of the Castle. He overset more than one, and oaths
+followed him from these and from others whom he rudely jostled out of
+his path. Wade was gone with Monmouth, but he came upon Captain Slape,
+who had a company of scythes and musketeers incorporated in the Duke's
+own regiment, and to him Wilding gasped out the news and his request for
+a score of men with what breath was left him.
+
+Time was lost--and never was time more precious--in convincing Slape
+that this was no old wife's tale. At last, however, he won his way and
+twenty musketeers; but the quarter-past the hour had chimed ere they
+left the Castle. He led them forth at a sharp run, with never a thought
+for the circumstance that they would need their breath anon, perhaps for
+fighting, and he bade the man who guided them take them by back streets
+that they might attract as little attention as possible.
+
+Within a stone's-throw of the house he halted them, and sent one
+forward to reconnoitre, following himself with the others as quietly and
+noiselessly as possible. Mr. Newlington's house was all alight, but from
+the absence of uproar--sounds there were in plenty from the main street,
+where a dense throng had collected to see His Majesty go in--Mr. Wilding
+inferred with supreme relief that they were still in time. But
+the danger was not yet past. Already, perhaps, the assassins were
+penetrating--or had penetrated--to the house; and at any moment such
+sounds might greet them as would announce the execution of their
+murderous design.
+
+Meanwhile Mr. Trenchard, having relighted his pipe, and set his hat
+rakishly atop his golden wig, strolled up the High Street, swinging
+his long cane very much like a gentleman taking the air in quest of an
+appetite for supper. He strolled past the Cross and on until he came
+to the handsome mansion--one of the few handsome houses in
+Bridgwater--where opulent Mr. Newlington had his residence. A small
+crowd had congregated about the doors, for word had gone forth that His
+Majesty was to sup there. Trenchard moved slowly through the people,
+seemingly uninterested, but, in fact, scanning closely every face he
+encountered. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he espied in the
+indifferent light Mr. Richard Westmacott.
+
+Trenchard passed him, jostling him as he went, and strolled on some few
+paces, then turned, and came slowly back, and observed that Richard had
+also turned and was now watching him as he approached. He was all but
+upon the boy when suddenly his wrinkled face lighted with recognition.
+
+“Mr. Westmacott!” he cried, and there was surprise in his voice.
+
+Richard, conscious that Trenchard must no doubt regard him as a
+turn-tippet, flushed, and stood aside to give passage to the other.
+But Mr. Trenchard was by no means minded to pass. He clapped a hand
+on Richard's shoulder. “Nay,” he cried, between laughter and feigned
+resentment. “Do you bear me ill-will, lad?”
+
+Richard was somewhat taken aback. “For what should I bear you ill-will,
+Mr. Trenchard?” quoth he.
+
+Trenchard laughed frankly, and so uproariously that his hat
+over-jauntily cocked was all but shaken from his head. “I mind me the
+last time we met, I played you an unfair trick,” said he. His tone
+bespoke the very highest good-humour. He slipped his arm through
+Richard's. “Never bear an old man malice, lad,” said he.
+
+“I assure you that I bear you none,” said Richard, relieved to find that
+Trenchard apparently knew nothing of his defection, yet wishing that
+Trenchard would go his ways, for Richard's task was to stand sentry
+there.
+
+“I'll not believe you till you afford me proof,” Trenchard replied. “You
+shall come and wash your resentment down in the best bottle of Canary
+the White Cow can furnish us.”
+
+“Not now, I thank you,” answered Richard.
+
+“You are thinking of the last occasion on which I drank with you,” said
+Trenchard reproachfully.
+
+“Not so. But... but I am not thirsty.”
+
+“Not thirsty?” echoed Trenchard. “And is that a reason? Why, lad, it is
+the beast that drinks only when he thirsts. And in that lies one of the
+main differences between beast and man. Come on”--and his arm effected a
+gentle pressure upon Richard's, to move him thence. But at that moment,
+down the street with a great rumble of wheels, cracking of whips
+and clatter of hoofs, came a coach, bearing to Mr. Newlington's King
+Monmouth escorted by his forty life-guards. Cheering broke from the
+crowd as the carriage drew up, and the Duke-King as he alighted
+turned his handsome face, on which shone the ruddy glow of torches, to
+acknowledge these loyal acclamations. He passed up the steps, at the top
+of which Mr. Newlington--fat and pale and monstrously overdressed--stood
+bowing to welcome his royal visitor. Host and guest vanished, followed
+by some six officers of Monmouth's, among whom were Grey and Wade.
+The sight-seers flattened themselves against the walls as the great
+lumbering coach put about and went off again the way it had come, the
+life-guards following after.
+
+Trenchard fancied that he caught a sigh of relief from Richard, but the
+street was noisy at the time and he may well have been mistaken.
+
+“Come,” said he, renewing his invitation, “we shall both be the better
+for a little milk of the White Cow.”
+
+Richard wavered almost by instinct. The White Cow, he knew, was famous
+for its sack; on the other hand, he was pledged to Sir Rowland to
+stand guard in the narrow lane at the back where ran the wall of Mr.
+Newlington's garden. Under the gentle suasion of Trenchard's arm, he
+moved a few steps up the street; then halted, his duty battling with his
+inclination.
+
+“No, no,” he muttered. “If you will excuse me...”
+
+“Not I,” said Trenchard, drawing from his hesitation a shrewd inference
+as to Richard's business. “To drink alone is an abomination I'll not be
+guilty of.”
+
+“But...” began the irresolute Richard.
+
+“Shalt urge me no excuses, or we'll quarrel. Come,” and he moved on,
+dragging Richard with him.
+
+A few steps Richard took unwillingly under the other's soft compulsion;
+then, having given the matter thought--he was always one to take the
+line of least resistance--he assured himself that his sentryship was
+entirely superfluous; the matter of Blake's affair was an entire secret,
+shared only by those who had a hand in it. Blake was quite safe from all
+surprises; Trenchard was insistent and it was difficult to deny him;
+and the sack at the White Cow was no doubt the best in Somerset. He gave
+himself up to the inevitable and fell into step alongside his companion
+who babbled aimlessly of trivial matters. Trenchard felt the change from
+unwilling to willing companionship, and approved it.
+
+They mounted the three steps and entered the common room of the inn.
+It was well thronged at the time, but they found places at the end of a
+long table, and there they sat and discussed the landlady's Canary for
+the best part of a half-hour, until a sudden spatter of musketry, near
+at hand, came to startle the whole room.
+
+There was a momentary stillness in the tavern, succeeded by an excited
+clamouring, a dash for the windows and a storm of questions, to
+which none could return any answer. Richard had risen with a sudden
+exclamation, very pale and scared of aspect. Trenchard tugged at his
+sleeve.
+
+“Sit down,” said he. “Sit down. It will be nothing.”
+
+“Nothing?” echoed Richard, and his eyes were suddenly bent on Trenchard
+in a look in which suspicion was now blent with terror.
+
+A second volley of musketry crackled forth at that moment, and the next
+the whole street was in an uproar. Men were running and shots resounded
+on every side, above all of which predominated the cry that His Majesty
+was murdered.
+
+In an instant the common room of the White Cow was emptied of every
+occupant save two--Trenchard and Westmacott. Neither of them felt the
+need to go forth in quest of news. They knew how idle was the cry in
+the streets. They knew what had taken place, and knowing it, Trenchard
+smoked on placidly, satisfied that Wilding had been in time, whilst
+Richard stood stricken and petrified by dismay at realizing, with even
+greater certainty, that something had supervened to thwart, perhaps
+to destroy, Sir Rowland. For he knew that Blake's party had gone forth
+armed with pistols only, and intent not to use even these save in
+the last extremity; to avoid noise they were to keep to steel. This
+knowledge gave Richard positive assurance that the volleys they had
+heard must have been fired by some party that had fallen upon Blake's
+men and taken them by surprise.
+
+And it was his fault! He was the traitor to whom perhaps a score of men
+owed their deaths at that moment! He had failed to keep watch as he had
+undertaken. His fault it was--No! not his, but this villain's who sat
+there smugly taking his ease and pulling at his pipe.
+
+At a blow Richard dashed the thing from his companion's mouth and
+fingers.
+
+Trenchard looked up startled.
+
+“What the devil...?” he began.
+
+“It is your fault, your fault!” cried Richard, his eyes blazing, his
+lips livid. “It was you who lured me hither.”
+
+Trenchard stared at him in bland surprise. “Now, what a plague is't
+you're saying?” he asked, and brought Richard to his senses by awaking
+in him the instinct of self-preservation.
+
+How could he explain his meaning without betraying himself?--and surely
+that were a folly, now that the others were no doubt disposed of. Let
+him, rather, bethink him of his own safety. Trenchard looked at him
+keenly, with well-assumed intent to read what might be passing in his
+mind, then rose, paid for the wine, and expressed his intention of
+going forth to inquire into these strange matters that were happening in
+Bridgwater.
+
+Meanwhile, those volleys fired in Mr. Newlington's orchard had
+caused--as well may be conceived--an agitated interruption of the superb
+feast Mr. Newlington had spread for his noble and distinguished guests.
+The Duke had for some days been going in fear of his life, for already
+he had been fired at more than once by men anxious to earn the price
+at which his head was valued; instantly he surmised that whatever that
+firing might mean, it indicated some attempt to surprise him with the
+few gentlemen who attended him.
+
+The whole company came instantly to its feet, and Colonel Wade stepped
+to a window that stood open--for the night was very warm. The Duke
+turned for explanation to his host; the trader, however, professed
+himself entirely unable to offer any. He was very pale and his limbs
+were visibly trembling, but then his agitation was most natural. His
+wife and daughter supervened at that moment, in their alarm entering the
+room unceremoniously, in spite of the august presence, to inquire into
+the meaning of this firing, and to reassure themselves that their father
+and his illustrious guests were safe.
+
+From the windows they could observe a stir in the gardens below. Black
+shadows of men flitted to and fro, and a loud, rich voice was heard
+calling to them to take cover, that they were betrayed. Then a sheet of
+livid flame blazed along the summit of the low wall, and a second volley
+of musketry rang out, succeeded by cries and screams from the assailed
+and the shouts of the assailers who were now pouring into the garden
+through the battered doorway and over the wall. For some moments
+steel rang on steel, and pistol-shots cracked here and there to the
+accompaniment of voices, raised some in anger, some in pain. But it was
+soon over, and a comparative stillness succeeded.
+
+A voice called up from the darkness under the windows to know if His
+Majesty was safe. There had been a plot to take him; but the ambuscaders
+had been ambuscaded in their turn, and not a man of them remained--which
+was hardly exact, for under a laurel bush, scarce daring to breathe, lay
+Sir Rowland Blake, livid with fear and fury, and bleeding from a rapier
+scratch in the cheek, but otherwise unhurt.
+
+In the room above, Monmouth had sunk wearily into his chair upon hearing
+of the design there had been against his life. A deep, bitter melancholy
+enwrapped his spirit. Lord Grey's first thoughts flew to the man he
+most disliked--the one man missing from those who had been bidden to
+accompany His Majesty, whose absence had already formed the subject
+of comment. Grey remembered this bearing before the council that same
+evening, and his undisguised resentment of the reproaches levelled
+against him.
+
+“Where is Mr. Wilding?” he asked suddenly, his voice dominating the
+din of talk that filled the room. “Do we hold the explanation of his
+absence?”
+
+Monmouth looked up quickly, his beautiful eyes ineffably sad, his weak
+mouth drooping at the corners. Wade turned to confront Grey.
+
+“Your lordship does not suggest that Mr. Wilding can have a hand in
+this?”
+
+“Appearances would seem to point in that direction,” answered Grey, and
+in his wicked heart he almost hoped it might be so.
+
+“Then appearances speak truth for once,” came a bitter, ringing voice.
+They turned, and there on the threshold stood Mr. Wilding. Unheard he
+had come upon them. He was bareheaded and carried his drawn sword. There
+was blood upon it, and there was blood on the lace that half concealed
+the hand that held it; otherwise--and saving that his shoes and
+stockings were sodden with the dew from the long grass in the
+orchard--he was as spotless as when he had left Ruth in Trenchard's
+lodging; his face, too, was calm, save for the mocking smile with which
+he eyed Lord Grey.
+
+Monmouth rose on his appearance, and put his hand to his sword in alarm.
+Grey whipped his own from the scabbard, and placed himself slightly in
+front of his master as if to preserve him.
+
+“You mistake, sirs,” said Wilding quietly. “The hand I have had in this
+affair has been to save Your Majesty from your enemies. At the moment I
+should have joined you, word was brought me of the plot that was laid,
+of the trap that was set for you. I hastened to the Castle and obtained
+a score of musketeers of Slape's company. With those I surprised the
+murderers lurking in the garden there, and made an end of them. I
+greatly feared I should not come in time; but it is plain that Heaven
+preserves Your Majesty for better days.”
+
+In the revulsion of feeling, Monmouth's eyes shone moist. Grey sheathed
+his sword with an awkward laugh, and a still more awkward word of
+apology to Wilding. The Duke, moved by a sudden impulse to make amends
+for his unworthy suspicions, for his perhaps unworthy reception of
+Wilding earlier that evening in the council-room, drew the sword on
+which his hand still rested. He advanced a step.
+
+“Kneel, Mr. Wilding,” he said in a voice stirred by emotion. But
+Wilding's stern spirit scorned this all too sudden friendliness of
+Monmouth's as much as he scorned the accolade at Monmouth's hands.
+
+“There are more pressing matters to demand Your Majesty's attention,”
+ said Mr. Wilding coldly, advancing to the table as he spoke, and taking
+up a napkin to wipe his blade, “than the reward of an unworthy servant.”
+
+Monmouth felt his sudden enthusiasm chilled by that tone and manner.
+
+“Mr. Newlington,” said Mr. Wilding, after the briefest of pauses, and
+the fat, sinful merchant started forward in alarm. It was like a summons
+of doom. “His Majesty came hither, I am informed, to receive at your
+hands a sum of money--twenty thousand pounds--towards the expenses
+of the campaign. Have you the money at hand?” And his eye, glittering
+between cruelty and mockery, fixed itself upon the merchant's ashen
+face.
+
+“It... it shall be forthcoming by morning,” stammered Newlington.
+
+“By morning?” cried Grey, who, with the others, watched Mr. Newlington
+what time they all wondered at Mr. Wilding's question and the manner of
+it.
+
+“You knew that I march to-night,” Monmouth reproached the merchant.
+
+“And it was to receive the money that you invited His Majesty to do you
+the honours of supping with you here,” put in Wade, frowning darkly.
+
+The merchant's wife and daughter stood beside him watching him, and
+plainly uneasy. Before he could make any reply, Mr. Wilding spoke again.
+
+“The circumstance that he has not the money by him is a little odd--or
+would be were it not for what has happened. I would submit, Your
+Majesty, that you receive from Mr. Newlington not twenty thousand pounds
+as he had promised you, but thirty thousand, and that you receive it not
+as a loan as was proposed, but as a fine imposed upon him in consequence
+of... his lack of care in the matter of his orchard.”
+
+Monmouth looked at the merchant very sternly. “You have heard Mr.
+Wilding's suggestion,” said he. “You may thank the god of traitors it
+was made, else we might have thought of a harsher course. You shall pay
+the money by ten o'clock to-morrow to Mr. Wilding, whom I shall leave
+behind for the sole purpose of collecting it.” He turned from Newlington
+in plain disgust. “I think, sirs, that here is no more to be done. Are
+the streets safe, Mr. Wilding?”
+
+“Not only safe, Your Majesty, but the twenty men of Slape's and your own
+life-guards are waiting to escort you.”
+
+“Then in God's name let us be going,” said Monmouth, sheathing his sword
+and moving towards the door. Not a second time did he offer to confer
+the honour of knighthood upon his saviour.
+
+Mr. Wilding turned and went out to marshal his men. The Duke and his
+officers followed more leisurely. As they reached the door, a woman's
+cry broke the silence behind them. Monmouth turned. Mr. Newlington,
+purple of face and his eyes protruding horridly, was beating the air
+with his hands. Suddenly he collapsed, and crashed forward with arms
+flung out amid the glass and silver of the table all spread with the
+traitor's banquet to which he had bidden his unsuspecting victim.
+
+His wife and daughter ran to him and called him by name, Monmouth
+pausing a moment to watch them from the doorway with eyes unmoved. But
+Mr. Newlington answered not their call, for he was dead.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. THE RECKONING
+
+Ruth had sped home through the streets unattended, as she had come,
+heedless of the rude jostlings and ruder greetings she met with from
+those she passed; heedless, too, of the smarting of her injured hand,
+for the agony of her soul was such that it whelmed all minor sufferings
+of the flesh.
+
+In the dining-room at Lupton House she came upon Diana and Lady Horton
+at supper, and her appearance--her white and distraught face and
+blood-smeared gown--brought both women to their feet in alarmed inquiry,
+no less than it brought Jasper, the butler, to her side with ready
+solicitude. Ruth answered him that there was no cause for fear, that she
+was quite well--had scratched her hand, no more; and with that dismissed
+him. When she was alone with her aunt and cousin, she sank into a chair
+and told them what had passed 'twixt her husband and herself and most of
+what she said was Greek to Lady Horton.
+
+“Mr. Wilding has gone to warn the Duke,” she ended, and the despair of
+her tone was tragical. “I sought to detain him until it should be too
+late--I thought I had done so, but... but... Oh, I am afraid, Diana!”
+
+“Afraid of what?” asked Diana. “Afraid of what?”
+
+And she came to Ruth and set an arm in comfort about her shoulders.
+
+“Afraid that Mr. Wilding might reach the Duke in time to be destroyed
+with him,” her cousin answered. “Such a warning could but hasten on the
+blow.”
+
+Lady Horton begged to be enlightened, and was filled with horror
+when--from Diana--enlightenment was hers. Her sympathies were all with
+the handsome Monmouth, for he was beautiful and should therefore be
+triumphant; poor Lady Horton never got beyond externals. That her
+nephew and Sir Rowland, whom she had esteemed, should be leagued in this
+dastardly undertaking against that lovely person horrified her beyond
+words. She withdrew soon afterwards, having warmly praised Ruth's action
+in warning Mr. Wilding--unable to understand that it should be no part
+of Ruth's design to save the Duke--and went to her room to pray for the
+preservation of the late King's handsome son.
+
+Left alone with her cousin, Ruth gave expression to the fears for
+Richard by which she was being tortured. Diana poured wine for her
+and urged her to drink; she sought to comfort and reassure her. But
+as moments passed and grew to hours and still Richard did not appear,
+Ruth's fears that he had come to harm were changed to certainty. There
+was a moment when, but for Diana's remonstrances, she had gone forth in
+quest of news. Bad news were better than this horror of suspense. What
+if Wilding's warning should have procured help, and Richard were slain
+in consequence? Oh, it was unthinkable! Diana, white of face, listened
+to and shared her fears. Even her shallow nature was stirred by the
+tragedy of Ruth's position, by dread lest Richard should indeed have met
+his end that night. In these moments of distress, she forgot her hopes
+of triumphing over Blake, of punishing him for his indifference to
+herself.
+
+At last, at something after midnight, there came a fevered rapping at
+the outer door. Both women started up, and with arms about each other,
+in their sudden panic, stood there waiting for the news that must be
+here at last.
+
+The door of the dining-room was flung open; the women recoiled in
+their dread of what might come; then Richard entered, Jasper's startled
+countenance showing behind him.
+
+He closed the door, shutting out the wondering servant, and they saw
+that, though his face was ashen and his limbs all a-tremble, he showed
+no sign of any hurt or effort. His dress was as meticulous as when last
+they had seen him. Ruth flew to him, flung her arms about his neck, and
+pressed him to her.
+
+“Oh, Richard, Richard!” she sobbed in the immensity of her relief.
+“Thank God! Thank God!”
+
+He wriggled peevishly in her embrace, disengaged her arms, and put her
+from him almost roughly. “Have done!” he growled, and, lurching past
+her, he reached the table, took up a bottle, and brimmed himself a
+measure. He gulped the wine avidly, set down the cup, and shivered.
+“Where is Blake?” he asked.
+
+“Blake?” echoed Ruth, her lips white. Diana sank into a chair,
+watchful, fearful and silent, taking now no glory in the thing she had
+encompassed.
+
+Richard beat his hands together in a passion of dismay. “Is he not
+here?” he asked, and groaned, “O God!” He flung himself all limp into a
+chair. “You have heard the news, I see,” he said.
+
+“Not all of it,” said Diana hoarsely, leaning forward. “Tell us what
+passed.”
+
+He moistened his lips with his tongue. “We were betrayed,” he said in a
+quivering voice. “Betrayed! Did I but know by whom...” He broke off with
+a bitter laugh and shrugged, rubbing his hands together and shivering
+till his shoulders shook. “Blake's party was set upon by half a company
+of musketeers. Their corpses are strewn about old Newlington's orchard.
+Not one of them escaped. They say that Newlington himself is dead.” He
+poured himself more wine.
+
+Ruth listened, her eyes burning, the rest of her as cold as ice.
+“But...but... oh, thank God that you at least are safe, Dick!”
+
+“How did you escape?” quoth Diana.
+
+“How?” He started as if he had been stung. He laughed in a high, cracked
+voice, his eyes wild and bloodshot. “How? Perhaps it is just as well
+that Blake has gone to his account. Perhaps...” He checked on the word,
+and started to his feet; Diana screamed in sheer affright. Behind her
+the windows had been thrust open so violently that one of the panes was
+shivered. Blake stood under the lintel, scarce recognizable, so smeared
+was his face with the blood escaping from the wound his cheek had taken.
+His clothes were muddied, soiled, torn, and disordered.
+
+Framed there against the black background of the night, he stood and
+surveyed them for a moment, his aspect terrific. Then he leapt forward,
+baring his sword as he came. An incoherent roar burst from his lips as
+he bore straight down upon Richard.
+
+“You damned, infernal traitor!” he cried. “Draw, draw! Or die like the
+muckworm that you are.”
+
+Intrepid, her terror all vanished now that there was the need for
+courage, Ruth confronted him, barring his passage, a buckler to her
+palsied brother.
+
+“Out of my way, mistress, or I'll be doing you a mischief.”
+
+“You are mad, Sir Rowland,” she told him in a voice that did something
+towards restoring him to his senses.
+
+His fierce eyes considered her a moment, and he controlled himself to
+offer an explanation. “The twenty that were with me lie stark under
+the stars in Newlington's garden,” he told her, as Richard had told her
+already. “I escaped by a miracle, no less, but for what? Feversham will
+demand of me a stern account of those lives, whilst if I am found in
+Bridgwater there will be a short shrift for me at the rebel hands--for
+my share in this affair is known, my name on every lip in the town. And
+why?” he asked with a sudden increase of fierceness. “Why? Because that
+craven villain there betrayed me.”
+
+“He did not,” she answered in so assured a voice that not only did it
+give him pause, but caused Richard, cowering behind her, to raise his
+head in wonder.
+
+Sir Rowland smiled his disbelief, and that smile, twisting his
+blood-smeared countenance, was grotesque and horrible. “I left him to
+guard our backs and give me warning if any approached,” he informed her.
+“I knew him for too great a coward to be trusted in the fight; so I gave
+him a safe task, and yet in that he failed me-failed me because he had
+betrayed and sold me.”
+
+“He had not. I tell you he had not,” she insisted. “I swear it.”
+
+He stared at her. “There was no one else for it,” he made answer, and
+bade her harshly stand aside.
+
+Diana, huddled together, watched and waited in horror for the end of
+these consequences of her work.
+
+Blake made a sudden movement to win past Ruth. Richard staggered to his
+feet intent on defending himself; but he was swordless; retreat to the
+door suggested itself, and he had half turned to attempt to gain it,
+when Ruth's next words arrested him, petrified him.
+
+“There was some one else for it, Sir Rowland,” she cried. “It was not
+Richard who betrayed you. It... it was I.”
+
+“You?” The fierceness seemed all to drop away from him, whelmed in the
+immensity of his astonishment. “You?” Then he laughed loud in scornful
+disbelief. “You think to save him,” he said.
+
+“Should I lie?” she asked him, calm and brave.
+
+He stared at her stupidly; he passed a hand across his brow, and looked
+at Diana. “Oh, it is impossible!” he said at last.
+
+“You shall hear,” she answered, and told him how at the last moment she
+had learnt not only that her husband was in Bridgwater, but that he was
+to sup at Newlington's with the Duke's party.
+
+“I had no thought of betraying you or of saving the Duke,” she said.
+“I knew how justifiable was what you intended. But I could not let Mr.
+Wilding go to his death. I sought to detain him, warning him only when
+I thought it would be too late for him to warn others. But you delayed
+overlong, and...”
+
+A hoarse inarticulate cry from him came to interrupt her at that point.
+One glimpse of his face she had and of the hand half raised with sword
+pointing towards her, and she closed her eyes, thinking that her sands
+were run. And, indeed, Blake's intention was just then to kill her. That
+he should owe his betrayal to her was in itself cause enough to
+enrage him, but that her motive should have been her desire to save
+Wilding--Wilding of all men!--that was the last straw.
+
+Had he been forewarned that Wilding was to be one of Monmouth's party at
+Mr. Newlington's, his pulses would have throbbed with joy, and he would
+have flung himself into his murderous task with twice the zest he had
+carried to it. And now he learnt that not only had she thwarted his
+schemes against Monmouth, but had deprived him of the ardently sought
+felicity of widowing her. He drew back his arm for the thrust;
+Diana huddled into her chair too horror-stricken to speak or move:
+Richard--immediately behind his sister--saw nothing of what was passing,
+and thought of nothing but his own safety.
+
+Then Blake paused, stepped back, returned his sword to its scabbard, and
+bending himself--but whether to bow or not was not quite plain--he took
+some paces backwards, then turned and went out by the window as he had
+come. But there was a sudden purposefulness in the way he did it that
+might have warned them this withdrawal was not quite the retreat it
+seemed.
+
+They watched him with many emotions, predominant among which was relief,
+and when he was gone Diana rose and came to Ruth.
+
+“Come,” she said, and sought to lead her from the room.
+
+But there was Richard now to be reckoned with, Richard from whom the
+palsy was of a sudden fallen, now that the cause of it had withdrawn.
+He had his back to the door, and his weak mouth was pursed up into a
+semblance of resolution, his pale eyes looked stern, his white eyebrows
+bent together in a frown.
+
+“Wait,” he said. They looked at him, and the shadow of a smile almost
+flitted across Diana's face. He stepped to the door, and, opening it,
+held it wide. “Go, Diana,” he said. “Ruth and I must understand each
+other.”
+
+Diana hesitated. “You had better go, Diana,” said her cousin, whereupon
+Mistress Horton went.
+
+Hot and fierce came the recriminations from Richard's lips when he and
+his sister were alone, and Ruth weathered the storm bravely until it
+was stemmed again by fresh fear in Richard. For Blake had suddenly
+reappeared. He came forward from his window; his manner composed and
+full of resolution. Young Westmacott recoiled, the heat all frozen out
+of him. But Blake scarce looked at him, his smouldering glance was all
+for Ruth, who watched him with incipient fear, despite herself.
+
+“Madam,” he said, “'tis not to be supposed a mind holding so much
+thought for a husband's safety could find room for any concern as to
+another's. I will ask you, natheless, to consider what tale I am to bear
+Lord Feversham.”
+
+“What tale?” said she.
+
+“Aye--that will account for what has chanced; for my failure to
+discharge the task entrusted me, and for the slaughter of an officer of
+his and twenty men.
+
+“Why ask me this?” she demanded half angrily; then suddenly bethinking
+her of how she had ruined his enterprise, and of the position in which
+she had placed him, she softened. Her clear mind held justice very dear.
+She approached. “Oh, I am sorry--sorry, Sir Rowland,” she cried.
+
+He sneered. He had wiped some of the blood from his face, but still
+looked terrible enough.
+
+“Sorry!” said he, and laughed unpleasantly. “You'll come with me to
+Feversham and tell him what you did,” said he.
+
+“I?” She recoiled in fear.
+
+“At once” he informed her.
+
+“Wha... what's that?” faltered Richard, calling up his manhood, and
+coming forward. “What are you saying, Blake?”
+
+Sir Rowland disdained to heed him. “Come, mistress,” he said, and
+putting forward his hand he caught her wrist and pulled her roughly
+towards him. She struggled to free herself, but he leered evilly upon
+her, no whit discomposed by her endeavours. Though short of stature,
+he was a man of considerable bodily strength, and she, though tall, was
+slight of frame. He released her wrist, and before she realized what he
+was about he had stooped, passed an arm behind her knees, another round
+her waist, and, swinging her from her feet, took her up bodily in his
+arms. He turned about, and a scream broke from her.
+
+“Hold!” cried Richard. “Hold, you madman!”
+
+“Keep off, or I'll make an end of you before I go,” roared Blake over
+his shoulder, for already he had turned about and was making for the
+window, apparently no more hindered by his burden than had she been a
+doll.
+
+Richard sprang to the door. “Jasper!” he bawled. “Jasper!” He had no
+weapons, as we have seen, else it may be that he had made an attempt to
+use them.
+
+Ruth got a hand free and caught at the windowframe as Blake was leaping
+through. It checked their progress, but did not sensibly delay it. It
+was unfortunately her wounded hand with which she had sought to cling,
+and with an angry, brutal wrench Sir Rowland compelled her to unclose
+her grasp. He sped down the lawn towards the orchard, where his horse
+was tethered. And now she knew in a subconscious sort of way why he had
+earlier withdrawn. He had gone to saddle for this purpose.
+
+She struggled now, thinking that he would be too hampered to compel her
+to his will. He became angry, and set her down beside his horse, one arm
+still holding her.
+
+“Look you, mistress,” he told her fiercely, “living or dead, you come
+with me to Feversham. Choose now.”
+
+His tone was such that she never doubted he would carry out his threat.
+And so in dull despair she submitted, hoping that Feversham might be
+a gentleman and would recognize and respect a lady. Half fainting, she
+allowed him to swing her to the withers of his horse. Thus they threaded
+their way in the dim starlit night through the trees towards the gate.
+
+It stood open, and they passed out into the lane. There Sir Rowland put
+his horse to the trot, which he increased to a gallop when he was over
+the bridge and clear of the town.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI. THE SENTENCE
+
+Mr. Wilding, as we know, was to remain at Bridgwater for the purpose of
+collecting from Mr. Newlington the fine which had been imposed upon him.
+It is by no means clear whether Monmouth realized the fullness of
+the tragedy at the merchant's house, and whether he understood that,
+stricken with apoplexy at the thought of parting with so considerable a
+portion of his fortune, Mr. Newlington had not merely fainted, but had
+expired under His Grace's eyes. If he did realize it he was cynically
+indifferent, and lest we should be doing him an injustice by assuming
+this we had better give him the benefit of the doubt, and take it that
+in the subsequent bustle of departure, his mind filled with the prospect
+of the night attack to be delivered upon his uncle's army at-Sedgemoor,
+he thought no more either of Mr. Newlington or of Mr. Wilding. The
+latter, as we know, had no place in the rebel army; although a man of
+his hands, he was not a trained soldier, and notwithstanding that he may
+fully have intended to draw his sword for Monmouth when the time came,
+yet circumstances had led to his continuing after Monmouth's landing the
+more diplomatic work of movement-man, in which he had been engaged for
+the months that had preceded it.
+
+So it befell that when Monmouth's army marched out of Bridgwater at
+eleven o'clock on that Sunday night, not to make for Gloucester and
+Cheshire, as was generally believed, but to fall upon the encamped
+Feversham at Sedgemoor and slaughter the royal army in their beds, Mr.
+Wilding was left behind. Trenchard was gone, in command of his troop of
+horse, and Mr. Wilding had for only company his thoughts touching the
+singular happenings of that busy night.
+
+He went back to the sign of The Ship overlooking the Cross, and, kicking
+off his sodden shoes, he supped quietly in the room of which shattered
+door and broken window reminded him of his odd interview with Ruth, and
+of the comedy of love she had enacted to detain him there. The
+thought of it embittered him; the part she had played seemed to his
+retrospective mind almost a wanton's part--for all that in name she was
+his wife. And yet, underlying a certain irrepressible nausea, came the
+reflection that, after all, her purpose had been to save his life. It
+would have been a sweet thought, sweet enough to have overlaid that
+other bitterness, had he not insisted upon setting it down entirely to
+her gratitude and her sense of justice. She intended to repay the debt
+in which she had stood to him since, at the risk of his own life
+and fortune, he had rescued her brother from the clutches of the
+Lord-Lieutenant at Taunton.
+
+He sighed heavily as he thought of the results that had attended his
+compulsory wedding of her. In the intensity of his passion, in
+the blindness of his vanity, which made him confident--gloriously
+confident--that did he make himself her husband, she herself would make
+of him her lover before long, he had committed an unworthiness of which
+it seemed he might never cleanse himself in life. There was but one
+amend, as he had told her. Let him make it, and perhaps she would--out
+of gratitude, if out of no other feeling--come to think more kindly
+of him; and that night it seemed to him as he sat alone in that mean
+chamber that it were a better and a sweeter thing to earn some measure
+of her esteem by death than to continue in a life that inspired her
+hatred and resentment. From which it will be seen how utterly he
+disbelieved the protestations she had uttered in seeking to detain him.
+They were--he was assured--a part of a scheme, a trick, to lull him
+while Monmouth and his officers were being butchered. And she had gone
+the length of saying she loved him! He regretted that, being as he was
+convinced of its untruth. What cause had she to love him? She hated him,
+and because she hated him she did not scruple to lie to him--once with
+suggestions and this time with actual expression of affection--that she
+might gain her ends: ends that concerned her brother and Sir Rowland
+Blake. Sir Rowland Blake! The name was a very goad to his passion and
+despair.
+
+He rose from the table and took a turn in the room, moving noiselessly
+in his stockinged feet. He felt the need of air and action; the
+weariness of his flesh incurred in his long ride from London was cast
+off or forgotten. He must go forth. He picked up his fine shoes of
+Spanish leather, but as luck would have it--little though he guessed the
+extent just then--he found them hardening, though still damp from the
+dews of Mr. Newlington's garden. He cast them aside, and, taking a key
+from his pocket, unlocked an oak cupboard and withdrew the heavy muddy
+boots in which he had ridden from town. He drew them on and, taking
+up his hat and sword, went down the creaking stairs and out into the
+street.
+
+Bridgwater had fallen quiet by now; the army was gone and townsfolk were
+in their beds. Moodily, unconsciously, yet as if guided by a sort of
+instinct, he went down the High Street, and then turned off into the
+narrower lane that led in the direction of Lupton House. By the gates
+of this he paused, recalled out of his abstraction and rendered aware
+of whither his steps had led him by the sight of the hall door standing
+open, a black figure silhouetted against the light behind it. What was
+happening here? Why were they not abed like all decent folk?
+
+The figure called to him in a quavering voice. “Mr. Wilding! Mr.
+Wilding!” for the light beating upon his face and figure from the
+open door had revealed him. The form came swiftly forward, its steps
+pattering down the walk, another slenderer figure surged in its place
+upon the threshold, hovered there an instant, then plunged down into the
+darkness to come after it. But the first was by now upon Mr. Wilding.
+
+“What is it, Jasper?” he asked, recognizing the old servant.
+
+“Mistress Ruth!” wailed the fellow, wringing his hands. “She... she has
+been... carried off.” He got it out in gasps, winded by his short run
+and by the excitement that possessed him.
+
+No word said Wilding. He just stood and stared, scarcely understanding,
+and in that moment they were joined by Richard. He seized Wilding by the
+arm. “Blake has carried her off,” he cried.
+
+“Blake?” said Mr. Wilding, and wondered with a sensation of nausea was
+it an ordinary running away. But Richard's next words made it plain to
+him that it was no amorous elopement, nor even amorous abduction.
+
+“He has carried her to Feversham... for her betrayal of his to-night's
+plan to seize the Duke.”
+
+That stirred Mr. Wilding. He wasted no time in idle questions or idler
+complainings. “How long since?” he asked, and it was he who clutched
+Richard now, by the shoulder and with a hand that hurt.
+
+“Not ten minutes ago,” was the quavering answer.
+
+“And you were at hand when it befell?” cried Wilding, the scorn in his
+voice rising superior to his agitation and fears for Ruth. “You were at
+hand, and could neither prevent nor follow him?”
+
+“I'll go with you now, if you'll give chase,” whimpered Richard, feeling
+himself for once the craven that he was.
+
+“If?” echoed Wilding scornfully, and dragged him past the gate and up
+towards the house even as he spoke. “Is there room for a doubt of it?
+Have you horses, at least?”
+
+“To spare,” said Richard as they hurried on. They skirted the house and
+found the stable door open as Blake had left it. Old Jasper followed
+with a lamp which burned steadily, so calm was the air of that July
+night. In three minutes they had saddled a couple of nags; in five they
+were riding for the bridge and the road to Weston Zoyland.
+
+“It is a miracle you remained in Bridgwater,” said Richard as they rode.
+“How came you to be left behind?”
+
+“I had a task assigned me in the town against the Duke's return
+to-morrow,” Wilding explained, and he spoke almost mechanically, his
+mind full of--anguished by--thoughts of Ruth.
+
+“Against the Duke's return?” cried Richard, first surprised and then
+thinking that Wilding spoke at random. “Against the Duke's return?” he
+repeated.
+
+“That is what I said?”
+
+“But the Duke is marching to Gloucester.”
+
+“The Duke is marching by circuitous ways to Sedgemoor,” answered
+Wilding, never dreaming that at this time of day there could be the
+slightest imprudence in saying so much, indeed, taking little heed of
+what he said, his mind obsessed by the other, to him, far weightier
+matter.
+
+“To Sedgemoor?” gasped Westmacott.
+
+“Aye--to take Feversham by surprise--to destroy King James's soldiers in
+their beds. He should be near upon the attack by now. But there! Spur on
+and save your breath if we are to overtake Sir Rowland.”
+
+They pounded on through the night at a breakneck pace which they never
+slackened until, when within a quarter of a mile or so of Penzoy Pound,
+where the army was encamped and slumbering by now, they caught sight of
+the musketeers' matches glowing in the dark ahead of them. An outpost
+barred their progress; but Richard had the watchword, and he spurred
+ahead shouting “Albemarle,” and the soldiers fell back and gave them
+passage. On they galloped, skirting Penzoy Pound and the army sleeping
+in utter unconsciousness of the fate that was creeping stealthily upon
+it out of the darkness and mists across the moors; they clattered on
+past Langmoor Stone and dashed straight into the village, Richard never
+drawing rein until he reached the door of the cottage where Feversham
+was lodged.
+
+They had come not only at a headlong pace, but in a headlong manner,
+without quite considering what awaited them at the end of their ride in
+addition to their object of finding Ruth. It was only now, as he drew
+rein before the lighted house and caught the sound of Blake's raised
+voice pouring through an open window on the ground floor, that Richard
+fully realized what manner of rashness he was committing. He was too
+late to rescue Ruth from Blake. What more could he look to achieve?
+His hope had been that with Wilding's help he might snatch her from Sir
+Rowland before the latter reached his destination. But now--to enter
+Feversham's presence and in association with so notorious a rebel as Mr.
+Wilding were a piece of folly of the heroic kind that Richard did not
+savour. Indeed, had it not been for Wilding's masterful presence, it is
+more than odds he had turned tail, and ridden home again to bed.
+
+But Wilding, who had leapt nimbly to the ground, stood waiting for
+Richard to dismount, impatient now that from the sound of Sir Rowland's
+voice he had assurance that Richard had proved an able guide. The young
+man got down, but might yet have hesitated had not Wilding caught him
+by the arm and whirled him up the steps, through the open door, past
+the two soldiers who kept it, and who were too surprised to stay him,
+straight into the long, low-ceilinged chamber where Feversham, attended
+by a captain of horse, was listening to Blake's angry narrative of that
+night's failure.
+
+Mr. Wilding's entrance was decidedly sensational. He stepped quickly
+forward, and, taking Blake who was still talking, all unconscious of
+those behind him, by the collar of his coat, he interrupted him in the
+middle of an impassioned period, wrenched him backwards off his feet,
+and dashed him with a force almost incredible into a heap in a corner of
+the room. There for some moments the baronet lay half dazed by the shock
+of his fall.
+
+A long table, which seemed to divide the chamber in two, stood between
+Lord Feversham and his officer and Mr. Wilding and Ruth--by whose side
+he had now come to stand in Blake's room.
+
+There was an exclamation, half anger, half amazement, at Mr. Wilding's
+outrage upon Sir Rowland, and the captain of horse sprang forward.
+But Wilding raised his hand, his face so composed and calm that it was
+impossible to think him conceiving any violence, as indeed he protested
+at that moment.
+
+“Be assured, gentlemen,” he said, “that I have no further rudeness to
+offer any so that this lady is suffered to withdraw with me.” And he
+took in his own a hand that Ruth, amazed and unresisting, yielded up to
+him. That touch of his seemed to drive out her fears and to restore her
+confidence; the mortal terror in which she had been until his coming
+dropped from her now. She was no longer alone and abandoned to the
+vindictiveness of rude and violent men. She had beside her one in whom
+experience had taught her to have faith.
+
+Louis Duras, Marquis de Blanquefort, and Earl of Feversham, coughed with
+mock discreetness under cover of his hand. “Ahem!”
+
+He was a comely man with a long nose, good low-lidded eyes, a humorous
+mouth, and a weak chin; at a glance he looked what he was, a weak,
+good-natured sensualist. He was resplendent at the moment in a blue
+satin dressing-gown stiff with gold lace, for he had been interrupted
+by Blake's arrival in the very act of putting himself to bed, and his
+head--divested of his wig--was bound up in a scarf of many colours.
+
+At his side, the red-coated captain, arrested by the general's sardonic
+cough, stood, a red-faced, freckled boy, looking to his superior for
+orders.
+
+“I t'ink you 'ave 'urt Sare Rowland,” said Feversham composedly in his
+bad English. “Who are you, sare?”
+
+“This lady's husband,” answered Wilding, whereupon the captain stared
+and Feversham's brows went up in surprised amusement.
+
+“So-ho! T'at true?” quoth the latter in a tone suggesting that it
+explained everything to him. “T'is gif a differen' colour to your
+story, Sare Rowlan'.” Then he added in a chuckle, “Ho, ho--l'amour!” and
+laughed outright.
+
+Blake, gathering together his wits and his limbs at the same time, made
+shift to rise.
+
+“What a plague does their relationship matter?” he began. He would have
+added more, but the Frenchman thought this question one that needed
+answering.
+
+“Parbleu!” he swore, his amusement rising. “It seem to matter
+somet'ing.”
+
+“Damn me!” swore Blake, red in the face from pale that he had been. “Do
+you conceive that if I had run away with his wife for her own sake I
+had fetched her to you?” He lurched forward as he spoke, but kept his
+distance from Wilding, who stood between Ruth and him.
+
+Feversham bowed sardonically. “You are a such flatterer, Sare Rowlan',”
+ said he, laughter bubbling in his words.
+
+Blake looked his scorn of this trivial Frenchman, who, upon scenting
+what appeared to be the comedy of an outraged husband overtaking the
+man who had carried off his wife, forgot the serious business, a part
+of which Sir Rowland had already imparted to him. Captain Wentworth--a
+time-serving gentleman--smiled with this French general of a British
+army that he might win the great man's favour.
+
+“I have told your lordship,” said Blake, froth on his lips, “that
+the twenty men I had from you, as well as Ensign Norris, are dead in
+Bridgwater, and that my plan to carry off King Monmouth has come to
+ruin, all because we were betrayed by this woman. It is now my further
+privilege to point out to your lordship the man to whom she sold us.”
+
+Feversham misliked Sir Rowland's arrogant tone, misliked his angry,
+scornful glance. His eyes narrowed, the laughter faded slowly from his
+face.
+
+“Yes, yes, I remember,” said he; “t'is lady, you have tole us, betray
+you. Ver' well. But you have not tole us who betray you to t'is lady.”
+ And he looked inquiringly at Blake.
+
+The baronet's jaw dropped; his face lost some of its high colour. He
+was stunned by the question as the bird is stunned that flies headlong
+against a pane of glass. He had crashed into an obstruction so
+transparent that he had not seen it.
+
+“So!” said Feversham, and he stroked the cleft of his chin. “Captain
+Wentwort', be so kind as to call t'e guard.”
+
+Wentworth moved to obey, but before he had gone round the table, Blake
+had looked behind him and espied Richard shrinking by the door.
+
+“By heaven!” he cried, “I can more than answer your lordship's
+question.”
+
+Wentworth stopped, looking at Feversham.
+
+“Voyons,” said the General.
+
+“I can place you in possession of the man who has wrought our ruin. He
+is there,” and he pointed theatrically to Richard.
+
+Feversham looked at the limp figure in some bewilderment. Indeed, he was
+having a most bewildering evening--or morning, rather, for it was even
+then on the stroke of one o'clock. “An' who are you, sare?” he asked.
+
+Richard came forward, nerving himself for what was to follow. It had
+just occurred to him that he held a card which should trump any trick of
+Sir Rowland's vindictiveness, and the prospect heartened and comforted
+him.
+
+“I am this lady's brother, my lord,” he answered, and his voice was
+fairly steady.
+
+“Tiens!” said Feversham, and, smiling, he turned to Wentworth.
+
+“Quite a family party, sir,” said the captain, smiling back.
+
+“Oh! mais tout--fait,” said the General, laughing outright, and then
+Wilding created a diversion by leading Ruth to a chair that stood at the
+far end of the table, and drawing it forward for her. “Ah, yes,” said
+Feversham airily, “let Madame sit.”
+
+“You are very good, sir,” said Ruth, her voice brave and calm.
+
+“But somewhat lacking in spontaneity,” Wilding criticized, which set
+Wentworth staring and the Frenchman scowling.
+
+“Shall I call the guard, my lord?” asked Wentworth crisply.
+
+“I t'ink yes,” said Feversham, and the captain gained the door, and
+spoke a word to one of the soldiers without.
+
+“But, my lord,” exclaimed Blake in a tone of protest, “I vow you are too
+ready to take this fellow's word.”
+
+“He 'as spoke so few,” said Feversham.
+
+“Do you know who he is?”
+
+“You 'af 'eard 'im say--t'e lady's 'usband.”
+
+“Aye--but his name,” cried Blake, quivering with anger. “Do you know
+that it is Wilding?”
+
+The name certainly made an impression that might have flattered the man
+to whom it belonged. Feversham's whole manner changed; the trivial air
+of persiflage that he had adopted hitherto was gone on the instant, and
+his brow grew dark.
+
+“T'at true?” he asked sharply. “Are you Mistaire Wildin'--Mistaire
+Antoine Wildin'?”
+
+“Your lordship's most devoted servant,” said Wilding suavely, and made a
+leg.
+
+Wentworth in the background paused in the act of reclosing the door to
+stare at this gentleman whose name Albemarle had rendered so excellently
+well known.
+
+“And you to dare come 'ere?” thundered Feversham, thoroughly roused
+by the other's airy indifference. “You to dare come 'ere--into my ver'
+presence?”
+
+Mr. Wilding smiled conciliatingly. “I came for my wife, my lord,” he
+reminded him. “It grieves me to intrude upon your lordship at so late an
+hour, and indeed it was far from my intent. I had hoped to overtake Sir
+Rowland before he reached you.”
+
+“Nom de Dieu!” swore Feversham. “Ho! A so great effrontery!” He swung
+round upon Blake again. “Sare Rowlan',” he bade him angrily, “be so kind
+to tell me what 'appen in Breechwater--everyt'ing!”
+
+Blake, his face purple, seemed to struggle for breath and words. Mr.
+Wilding answered for him.
+
+“Sir Rowland is so choleric, my lord,” he said in his pleasant, level
+voice, “that perhaps the tale would come more intelligibly from
+me. Believe me that he has served you to the best of his ability.
+Unfortunately for the success of your choice plan of murder, I had news
+of it at the eleventh hour, and with a party of musketeers I was able
+to surprise and destroy your cut-throats in Mr. Newlington's garden.
+You see, my lord, I was to have been one of the victims myself, and I
+resented the attentions that were intended me. I had no knowledge that
+Sir Rowland had contrived to escape, and, frankly, it is a thing I
+deplore more than I can say, for had that not happened much trouble
+might have been saved and your lordship's rest had not been disturbed.”
+
+“But t'e woman?” cried Feversham impatiently. “How is she come into this
+galare?”
+
+“It was she who warned him,” Blake got out, “as already I have had the
+honour to inform your lordship.”
+
+“And your lordship cannot blame her for that,” said Wilding. “The lady
+is a most loyal subject of King James; but she is also, as you observe,
+a dutiful wife. I will add that it was her intention to warn me only
+when too late for interference. Sir Rowland, as it happened, was slow
+in...”
+
+“Silence!” blazed the Frenchman. “Now t'at I know who you are, t'at make
+a so great difference. Where is t'e guard, Wentwort'?”
+
+“I hear them,” answered the captain, and from the street came the tramp
+of their marching feet.
+
+Feversham turned again to Blake. “T'e affaire 'as 'appen' so,” he
+said, between question and assertion, summing up the situation as he
+understood it. “T'is rogue,” and he pointed to Richard, “'ave betray
+your plan to 'is sister, who betray it to 'er 'usband, who save t'e Duc
+de Monmoot'. N'est-ce pas?”
+
+“That is so,” said Blake, and Ruth scarcely thought it worth while to
+add that she had heard of the plot not only from her brother, but from
+Blake as well. After all, Blake's attitude in the matter, his action in
+bringing her to Feversham for punishment, and to exculpate himself, must
+suffice to cause any such statement of hers to be lightly received by
+the General.
+
+She sat in an anguished silence, her eyes wide, her face pale, and
+waited for the end of this strange business. In her heart she did permit
+herself to think that it would be difficult to assemble a group of
+men less worthy of respect. Choleric and vindictive Blake, foolish
+Feversham, stupid Wentworth, and timid Richard--even Richard did
+not escape the unfavourable criticism they were undergoing in her
+subconscious mind. Only Wilding detached in that assembly--as he had
+detached in another that she remembered--and stood out in sharp relief a
+very man, calm, intrepid, self-possessed; and if she was afraid, she was
+more afraid for him than for herself. This was something that, perhaps,
+she scarcely realized just then; but she was to realize it soon.
+
+Feversham was speaking again, asking Blake a fresh question. “And who
+betray you to t'is rogue?”
+
+“To Westmacott?” cried Blake. “He was in the plot with me. He was left
+to guard the rear, to see that we were not taken by surprise, and he
+deserted his post. Had he not done that, there had been no disaster, in
+spite of Mr. Wilding's intervention.”
+
+Feversham's brow was dark, his eyes glittered as they rested on the
+traitor.
+
+“T'at true, sare?” he asked him.
+
+“Not quite,” put in Mr. Wilding. “Mr. Westmacott, I think, was
+constrained away. He did not intend...”
+
+“Tais-toi!” blazed Feversham. “Did I interrogate you? It is for Mistaire
+Westercott to answer.” He set a hand on the table and leaned forward
+towards Wilding, his face very malign. “You shall to answer for
+yourself, Mistaire Wildin'; I promise you you shall to answer for
+yourself.” He turned again to Richard. “Eh, bien?” he snapped. “Will you
+speak?”
+
+Richard came forward a step; he was certainly nervous, and certainly
+pale; but neither as pale nor as nervous as from our knowledge of
+Richard we might have looked to see him at that moment.
+
+“It is in a measure true,” he said. “But what Mr. Wilding has said is
+more exact. I was induced away. I did not dream any could know of the
+plan, or that my absence could cause this catastrophe.”
+
+“So you went, eh, vaurien? You t'ought t'at be to do your duty, eh? And
+it was you who tole your sistaire?”
+
+“I may have told her, but not before she had the tale already from
+Blake.”
+
+Feversham sneered and shrugged. “Natural you will not speak true. A
+traitor I 'ave observe' is always liar.”
+
+Richard drew himself up; he seemed invested almost with a new dignity.
+“Your lordship is pleased to account me a traitor?” he inquired.
+
+“A dam' traitor,” said his lordship, and at that moment the door opened,
+and a sergeant, with six men following him, stood at the salute upon the
+threshold. “A la bonne heure!” his lordship hailed them. “Sergean', you
+will arrest t'is rogue and t'is lady,”--he waved his hand from Richard
+to Ruth--“and you will take t'em to lock..up.”
+
+The sergeant advanced towards Richard, who drew a step away from him.
+Ruth rose to her feet in agitation. Mr. Wilding interposed himself
+between her and the guard, his hand upon his sword.
+
+“My lord,” he cried, “do they teach no better courtesy in France?”
+
+Feversham scowled at him, smiling darkly. “I shall talk wit' you soon,
+sare,” said he, his words a threat.
+
+“But, my lord...” began Richard. “I can make it very plain I am no
+traitor...”
+
+“In t'e mornin',” said Feversham blandly, waving his hand, and the
+sergeant took Richard by the shoulder.
+
+But Richard twisted from his grasp. “In the morning will be too late,”
+ he cried. “I have it in my power to render you such a service as you
+little dream of.”
+
+“Take 'im away,” said Feversham wearily.
+
+“I can save you from destruction,” bawled Richard, “you and your army.”
+
+Perhaps even now Feversham had not heeded him but for Wilding's sudden
+interference.
+
+“Silence, Richard!” he cried to him. “Would you betray...?” He checked
+on the word; more he dared not say; but he hoped faintly that he had
+said enough.
+
+Feversham, however, chanced to observe that this man who had shown
+himself hitherto so calm looked suddenly most singularly perturbed.
+
+“Eh?” quoth the General. “An instan', Sergean'. What is t'is, eh?”--and
+he looked from Wilding to Richard.
+
+“Your lordship shall learn at a price,” cried Richard.
+
+“Me, I not bargain wit' traitors,” said his lordship stiffly.
+
+“Very well, then,” answered Richard, and he folded his arms
+dramatically. “But no matter what your lordship's life may be hereafter,
+you will never regret anything more bitterly than you shall regret this
+by sunrise if indeed you live to see it.”
+
+Feversham shifted uneasily on his feet. “'What you say?” he asked. “What
+you mean?”
+
+“You shall know at a price,” said Richard again.
+
+Wilding, realizing the hopelessness of interfering now, stood gloomily
+apart, a great bitterness in his soul at the indiscretion he had
+committed in telling Richard of the night attack that was afoot.
+
+“Your lordship shall hear my price, but you need not pay it me until you
+have had an opportunity of verifying the information I have to give you.
+
+“Tell me,” said Feversham after a brief pause, during which he
+scrutinized the young man's face.
+
+“If your lordship will promise liberty and safe-conduct to my sister and
+myself.”
+
+“Tell me,” Feversham repeated.
+
+“When you have promised to grant me what I ask in return for my
+information.”
+
+“Yes, if I t'ink your information is wort'”
+
+“I am content,” said Richard. He inclined his head and loosed the
+quarrel of his news. “Your camp is slumbering, your officers are all
+abed with the exception of the outpost on the road to Bridgwater. What
+should you say if I told you that Monmouth and all his army are marching
+upon you at this very moment, will probably fall upon you before another
+hour is past?”
+
+Wilding uttered a groan, and his hands fell to his sides. Had Feversham
+observed this he might have been less ready with his sneering answer.
+
+“A lie!” he answered, and laughed. “My fren', I 'ave myself been
+to-night, at midnight, on t'e moore, and I 'ave 'eard t'e army of t'e
+Duc de Monmoot' marching to Bristol on t'e road--what you call t'e road,
+Wentwort'?”
+
+“The Eastern Causeway, my lord,” answered the captain.
+
+“Voil!” said Feversham, and spread his hands. “What you say now, eh?”
+
+“That that is part of Monmouth's plan to come at you across the moors,
+by way of Chedzoy, avoiding your only outpost, and falling upon you in
+your beds, all unawares. Lord! sir, do not take my word for it. Send out
+your scouts, and I dare swear they'll not need go far before they come
+upon the enemy.”
+
+Feversham looked at Wentworth. His lordship's face had undergone a
+change.
+
+“What you t'ink?” he asked.
+
+“Indeed, my lord, it sounds so likely,” answered Wentworth, “that...
+that... I marvel we did not provide against such a contingency.”
+
+“But I 'ave provide'!” cried this nephew of the great Turenne.
+“Ogelt'orpe is on t'e moor and Sare Francis Compton. If t'is is true,
+'ow can t'ey 'ave miss Monmoot'? Send word to Milor' Churchill at once,
+Wentwort'. Let t'e matter be investigate'--at once, Wentwort'--at once!”
+ The General was dancing with excitement. Wentworth saluted and turned to
+leave the room. “If you 'ave tole me true,” continued Feversham, turning
+now to Richard, “you shall 'ave t'e price you ask, and t'e t'anks of t'e
+King's army. But if not...”
+
+“Oh, it's true enough,” broke in Wilding, and his voice was like a
+groan, his face over-charged with gloom.
+
+Feversham looked at him; his sneering smile returned.
+
+“Me, I not remember,” said he, “that Mr. Westercott 'ave include you in
+t'e bargain.”
+
+Nothing had been further from Wilding's thoughts than such a suggestion.
+And he snorted his disdain. The sergeant had fallen back at Feversham's
+words, and his men lined the wall of the chamber. The General bade
+Richard be seated whilst he waited. Sir Rowland stood apart, leaning
+wearily against the wainscot, waiting also, his dull wits not quite
+clear how Richard might have come by so valuable a piece of information,
+his evil spirit almost wishing it untrue, in his vindictiveness, to the
+end that Richard might pay the price of having played him false and Ruth
+the price of having scorned him.
+
+Feversham meanwhile was seeking--with no great success--to engage
+Mr. Wilding in talk of Monmouth, against whom Feversham harboured in
+addition to his political enmity a very deadly personal hatred; for
+Feversham had been a suitor to the hand of the Lady Henrietta Wentworth,
+the woman for whom Monmouth--worthy son of his father--had practically
+abandoned his own wife; the woman with whom he had run off, to the great
+scandal of court and nation.
+
+Despairing of drawing any useful information from Wilding, his lordship
+was on the point of turning to Blake, when quick steps and the rattle of
+a scabbard sounded without; the door was thrust open without ceremony,
+and Captain Wentworth reappeared.
+
+“My lord,” he cried, his manner excited beyond aught one could have
+believed possible in so phlegmatic-seeming a person, “it is true. We are
+beset.”
+
+“Beset!” echoed Feversham. “Beset already?”
+
+“We can hear them moving on the moor. They are crossing the Langmoor
+Rhine. They will be upon us in ten minutes at the most. I have roused
+Colonel Douglas, and Dunbarton's regiment is ready for them.”
+
+Feversham exploded. “What else 'ave you done?” he asked. “Where is
+Milor' Churchill?”
+
+“Lord Churchill is mustering his men as quietly as may be that they may
+be ready to surprise those who come to surprise us. By Heaven, sir, we
+owe a great debt to Mr. Westmacott. Without his information we might
+have had all our throats cut whilst we slept.”
+
+“Be so kind to call Belmont,” said Feversham. “Tell him to bring my
+clot'es.”
+
+Wentworth turned and went out again to execute the General's orders.
+Feversham spoke to Richard. “We are oblige', Mr. Westercott,” said he.
+“We are ver' much oblige'.”
+
+Suddenly from a little distance came the roll of drums. Other sounds
+began to stir in the night outside to tell of a waking army.
+
+Feversham stood listening. “It is Dunbarton's,” he murmured. Then, with
+some show of heat, “Ah, pardieu!” he cried. “But it was a dirty t'ing
+t'is Monmoot' 'ave prepare'. It is murder; it is not t'e war.
+
+“And yet,” said Wilding critically, “it is a little more like war than
+the Bridgwater affair to which your lordship gave your sanction.”
+
+Feversham pursed his lips and considered the speaker. Wentworth
+reentered, followed by the Earl's valet carrying an armful of garments.
+His lordship threw off his dressing-gown and stood forth in shirt and
+breeches.
+
+“Mais duche-toi, donc, Belmont!” said he. “Nous nous battons! Ii faut
+que je m'habille.” Belmont, a little wizened fellow who understood
+nothing of this topsy-turveydom, hastened forward, deposited his armful
+on the table, and selected a finely embroidered waistcoat, which he
+proceeded to hold for his master. Wriggling into it, Feversham rapped
+out his orders.
+
+“Captain Wentwort', you will go to your regimen at once. But first,
+ah--wait. Take t'ose six men and Mistaire Wilding. 'Ave 'im shot at
+once; you onderstan', eh? Good. Allons, Belmont! my cravat.”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII. THE EXECUTION
+
+Captain Wentworth clicked his heels together and saluted. Blake, in the
+background, drew a deep breath--unmistakably of satisfaction, and his
+eyes glittered. A muffled cry broke from Ruth, who rose instantly from
+her chair, her hand on her bosom. Richard stood with fallen jaw, amazed,
+a trifle troubled even, whilst Mr. Wilding started more in surprise than
+actual fear, and approached the table.
+
+“You heard, sir,” said Captain Wentworth.
+
+“I heard,” answered Mr. Wilding quietly. “But surely not aright. One
+moment, sir,” and he waved his hand so compellingly that, despite the
+order he had received, the phlegmatic captain hesitated.
+
+Feversham, who had taken the cravat--a yard of priceless Dutch
+lace--from the hands of his valet, and was standing with his back to the
+company at a small and very faulty mirror that hung by the overmantel,
+looked peevishly over his shoulder.
+
+“My lord,” said Wilding, and Blake, for all his hatred of this man,
+marvelled at a composure that did not forsake him even now, “you are
+surely not proposing to deal with me in this fashion--not seriously, my
+lord?”
+
+“Ah, ca!” said the Frenchman. “T'ink it a jest if you please. What for
+you come 'ere?”
+
+“Assuredly not for the purpose of being shot,” said Wilding, and
+actually smiled. Then, in the tones of one discussing a matter that is
+grave but not of surpassing gravity, he continued: “It is not that I
+fail to recognize that I may seem to have incurred the rigour of the
+law; but these matters must be formally proved against me. I have
+affairs to set in order against such a consummation.”
+
+“Ta, ta!” snapped Feversham. “T'at not regard me Weutwort', you 'ave
+'eard my order.” And he returned to his mirror and the nice adjustment
+of his neckwear.
+
+“But, my lord,” insisted Wilding, “you have not the right--you have not
+the power so to proceed against me. A man of my quality is not to be
+shot without a trial.”
+
+“You can 'ang if you prefer,” said Feversham indifferently, drawing out
+the ends of his cravat and smoothing them down upon his breast. He faced
+about briskly. “Give me t'at coat, Belmont. His Majesty 'ave empower me
+to 'ang or shoot any gentlemens of t'e partie of t'e Duc t'e Monmoot' on
+t'e spot. I say t'at for your satisfaction. And look, I am desolate' to
+be so quick wit' you, but please to consider t'e circumstance. T'e enemy
+go to attack. Wentwort' must go to his regimen', and my ot'er
+officers are all occupi'. You comprehen' I 'ave not t'e time to spare
+you--n'est-ce-pas?”--Wentworth's hand touched Wilding on the shoulder.
+He was standing with head slightly bowed, his brows knit in thought. He
+looked round at the touch, sighed and smiled.
+
+Belmont held the coat for his master, who slipped into it, and flung
+at Wilding what was intended for a consolatory sop. “It is fortune de
+guerre, Mistaire Wilding. I am desolate'; but it is fortune of t'e war.”
+
+“May it be less fortunate for your lordship, then,” said Wilding dryly,
+and was on the point of turning, when Ruth's voice came in a loud cry to
+startle him and to quicken his pulses.
+
+“My lord!” It was a cry of utter anguish.
+
+Feversham, settling his gold-laced coat comfortably to his figure,
+looked at her. “Madame?” said he.
+
+But she had nothing to say. She stood, deathly white, slightly bent
+forward, one hand wringing the other, her eyes almost wild, her bosom
+heaving frantically.
+
+“Hum!” said Feversham, and he loosened and removed the scarf from his
+head. He shrugged slightly and looked at Wentworth. “Finissons!” said
+he.
+
+The word and the look snapped the trammels that bound Ruth's speech.
+
+“Five minutes, my lord!” she cried imploringly. “Give him five
+minutes--and me, my lord!”
+
+Wilding, deeply shaken, trembled now as he awaited Feversham's reply.
+
+The Frenchman seemed to waver. “Bien,” he began, spreading his hands.
+And in that moment a shot rang out in the night and startled the whole
+company. Feversham threw back his head; the signs of yielding left his
+face. “Ha!” he cried. “T'ey are arrive.” He snatched his wig from his
+lacquey's hands, donned it, and turned again an instant to the mirror
+to adjust the great curls. “Quick, Wentwort'! T'ere is no more time now.
+Make Mistaire Wilding be shot at once. T'en to your regimen'.” He faced
+about and took the sword his valet proffered. “Au revoir, messieurs!”
+
+“Serviteur, madame!” And, buckling his sword-belt as he went, he swept
+out, leaving the door wide open, Belmont following, Wentworth saluting
+and the guards presenting arms.
+
+“Come, sir,” said the captain in a subdued voice, his eyes avoiding
+Ruth's face.
+
+“I am ready,” answered Wilding firmly, and he turned to glance at his
+wife.
+
+She was bending towards him, her hands held out, such a look on her face
+as almost drove him mad with despair, reading it as he did. He made a
+sound deep in his throat before he found words.
+
+“Give me one minute, sir--one minute,” he begged Wentworth. “I ask no
+more than that.”
+
+Wentworth was a gentleman and not ill-natured. But he was a soldier and
+had received his orders. He hesitated between the instincts of the
+two conditions. And what time he did so there came a clatter of hoofs
+without to resolve him. It was Feversham departing.
+
+“You shall have your minute, sir,” said he. “More I dare not give you,
+as you can see.
+
+“From my heart I thank you,” answered Mr. Wilding, and from the
+gratitude of his tone you might have inferred that it was his life
+Wentworth had accorded him.
+
+The captain had already turned aside to address his men. “Two of you
+outside, guard that window,” he ordered. “The rest of you, in the
+passage. Bestir there!”
+
+“Take your precautions, by all means, sir,” said Wilding; “but I give
+you my word of honour I shall attempt no escape.”
+
+Wentworth nodded without replying. His eye lighted on Blake--who had
+been seemingly forgotten in the confusion--and on Richard. A kindliness
+for the man who met his end so unflinchingly, a respect for so worthy an
+enemy, actuated the red-faced captain.
+
+“You had better take yourself off, Sir Rowland,” said he. “And you, Mr.
+Westmacott--you can wait in the passage with my men.”
+
+They obeyed him promptly enough, but when outside Sir Rowland made
+bold to remind the captain that he was failing in his duty, and that
+he should make a point of informing the General of this anon. Wentworth
+bade him go to the devil, and so was rid of him.
+
+Alone, inside that low-ceilinged chamber, stood Ruth and Wilding face
+to face. He advanced towards her, and with a shuddering sob she flung
+herself into his arms. Still, he mistrusted the emotion to which she
+was a prey--dreading lest it should have its root in pity. He patted her
+shoulder soothingly.
+
+“Nay, nay, little child,” he whispered in her ear. “Never weep for
+me that have not a tear for myself. What better resolution of the
+difficulties my folly has created?” For only answer she clung closer,
+her hands locked about his neck, her slender body shaken by her silent
+weeping. “Don't pity me,” he besought her. “I am content it should be
+so. It is the amend I promised you. Waste no pity on me, Ruth.”
+
+She raised her face, her eyes wild and blurred with tears, looked up to
+his.
+
+“It is not pity!” she cried. “I want you, Anthony! I love you, Anthony,
+Anthony!”
+
+His face grew ashen. “It is true, then!” he asked her. “And what you
+said to-night was true! I thought you said it only to detain me.”
+
+“Oh, it is true, it is true!” she wailed.
+
+He sighed; he disengaged a hand to stroke her face. “I am happy,” he
+said, and strove to smile. “Had I lived, who knows...?”
+
+“No, no, no,” she interrupted him passionately, her arms tightening
+about his neck. He bent his head. Their lips met and clung. A knock
+fell upon the door. They started, and Wilding raised his hands gently to
+disengage her pinioning arms.
+
+“I must go, sweet,” he said.
+
+“God help me!” she moaned, and clung to him still. “It is I who am
+killing you--I and your love for me. For it was to save me you rode
+hither to-night, never pausing to weigh your own deadly danger. Oh, I
+am punished for having listened to every voice but the voice of my own
+heart where you were concerned. Had I loved you earlier--had I owned it
+earlier...”
+
+“It had still been too late,” he said, more to comfort her than because
+he knew it to be so. “Be brave for my sake, Ruth. You can be brave, I
+know--so well. Listen, sweet. Your words have made me happy. Mar not
+this happiness of mine by sending me out in grief at your grief.”
+
+Her response to his prayer was brave, indeed. Through her tears came a
+faint smile to overspread her face so white and pitiful.
+
+“We shall meet soon again,” she said.
+
+“Aye--think on that,” he bade her, and pressed her to him. “Good-bye,
+sweet! God keep you till we meet!” he added, his voice infinitely
+tender.
+
+“Mr. Wilding!” Wentworth's voice called him, and the captain thrust the
+door open a foot or so. “Mr. Wilding!”
+
+“I am coming,” he answered steadily. He kissed her again, and on that
+kiss of his she sank against him, and he felt her turn all limp. He
+raised his voice. “Richard!” he shouted wildly. “Richard!”
+
+At the note of alarm in his voice, Wentworth flung wide the door
+and entered, Richard's ashen face showing over his shoulder. In her
+brother's care Wilding delivered his mercifully unconscious wife. “See
+to her, Dick,” he said, and turned to go, mistrusting himself now.
+But he paused as he reached the door, Wentworth waxing more and more
+impatient at his elbow. He turned again.
+
+“Dick,” he said, “we might have been better friends. I would we had
+been. Let us part so at least,” and he held out his hand, smiling.
+
+Before so much gallantry Richard was conquered almost to the point of
+worship; a weak man himself, there was no virtue he could more admire
+than strength. He left Ruth in the high-backed chair in which Wilding's
+tender hands had placed her, and sprang forward, tears in his eyes. He
+wrung Wilding's hands in wordless passion.
+
+“Be good to her, Dick,” said Wilding, and went out with Wentworth.
+
+He was marched down the street in the centre of that small party of
+musketeers of Dunbarton's regiment, his thoughts all behind him rather
+than ahead, a smile on his lips. He had conquered at the last. He
+thought of that other parting of theirs, nearly a month ago, on the road
+by Walford. Now, as then, circumstance was the fire that had melted her.
+But the crucible was no longer--as then of pity; it was the crucible of
+love.
+
+And in that same crucible, too, Anthony Wilding's nature had undergone a
+transmutation; his love for Ruth had been purified of that base alloy of
+desire which had driven him into the unworthiness of making her his own
+at all costs; there was no carnal grossness in his present passion; it
+was pure as a religion--the love that takes no account of self, the love
+that makes for joyous and grateful martyrdom. And a joyous and grateful
+martyr would Anthony Wilding have been could he have thought that his
+death would bring her happiness or peace. In such a faith as that he had
+marched--or so he thought blithely to his end, and the smile on his lips
+had been less wistful than it was. Thinking of the agony in which he had
+left her, he almost came to wish--so pure was his love grown--that he
+had not conquered. The joy that at first was his was now all dashed. His
+death would cause her pain. His death! O God! It is an easy thing to be
+a martyr; but this was not martyrdom; having done what he had done he
+had not the right to die. The last vestige of the smile that he had worn
+faded from his tight-pressed lips, tight-pressed as though to endure
+some physical suffering. His face greyed, and deep lines furrowed
+his brow. Thus he marched on, mechanically, amid his marching escort,
+through the murky, fog-laden night, taking no heed of the stir about
+them, for all Weston Zoyland was aroused by now.
+
+Ahead of them, and over to the east, the firing blazed and crackled,
+volley upon volley, to tell them that already battle had been joined
+in earnest. Monmouth's surprise had aborted, and it passed through
+Wilding's mind that to a great extent he was to blame for this. But it
+gave him little care.
+
+At least his indiscretion had served the purpose of rescuing Ruth from
+Lord Feversham's unclean clutches. For the rest, knowing that Monmouth's
+army by far outnumbered Feversham's, he had no doubt that the advantage
+must still lie with the Duke, in spite of Feversham's having been warned
+in the eleventh hour.
+
+Louder grew the sounds of battle. Above the din of firing a swelling
+chorus rose upon the night, startling and weird in such a time and
+place. Monmouth's pious infantry went into action singing hymns, and
+Wentworth, impatient to be at his post, bade his men go faster.
+
+The night was by now growing faintly luminous, and the deathly grey
+light of approaching dawn hung in the mists upon the moor. Objects grew
+visible in bulk at least, if not in form and shape, by the time the
+little company had reached the end of Weston village and come upon
+the deep mud dyke which had been Wentworth's objective--a ditch that
+communicated with the great rhine that served the King's forces so well
+on that night of Sedgemoor.
+
+Within some twenty paces of this Wentworth called a halt, and would have
+had Wilding's hands pinioned behind him, and his eyes blindfolded, but
+that Wilding begged him this might not be done. Wentworth was, as we
+know, impatient; and between impatience and kindliness, perhaps, he
+acceded to Wilding's prayer.
+
+He even hesitated a moment at the last. It was in his mind to speak some
+word of comfort to the doomed man. Then a sudden volley, more terrific
+than any that had preceded it, followed by hoarse cheering away to
+eastward, quickened his impatience. He bade the sergeant lead Mr.
+Wilding forward and stand him on the edge of the ditch. His object was
+that thus the man's body would be disposed of without waste of time.
+This Wilding realized, his soul rebelling against this fate which
+had come upon him in the very hour when he most desired to live. Mad
+thoughts of escape crossed his mind--of a leap across the dyke, and a
+wild dash through the fog. But the futility of it was too appalling.
+The musketeers were already blowing their matches. He would suffer the
+ignominy of being shot in the back, like a coward, if he made any such
+attempt.
+
+And so, despairing but not resigned, he took his stand on the very edge
+of the ditch. In an irony of obligingness he set half of his heels over
+the void, so that he was nicely balanced upon the edge of the cutting,
+and must go backwards and down into the mud when hit.
+
+It was this position he had taken that gave him an inspiration in that
+last moment. The sergeant had moved away out of the line of fire, and he
+stood there alone, waiting, erect and with his head held high, his
+eyes upon the grey mass of musketeers--blurred alike by mist and
+semi-darkness--some twenty paces distant along the line of which glowed
+eight red fuses.
+
+Wentworth's voice rang out with the words of command.
+
+“Blow your matches!”
+
+Brighter gleamed the points of light, and under their steel pots the
+faces of the musketeers, suffused by a dull red glow, sprang for a
+moment out of the grey mass, to fade once more into the general greyness
+at the word, “Cock your matches!”
+
+“Guard your pans!” came a second later the captain's voice, and then:
+
+“Present!”
+
+There was a stir and rattle, and the dark, indistinct figure standing
+on the lip of the ditch was covered by the eight muskets. To the eyes of
+the firing-party he was no more than a blurred shadowy form, showing a
+little darker than the encompassing dark grey.
+
+“Give fire!”
+
+On the word Mr. Wilding lost the delicate, precarious balance he had
+been sustaining on the edge of the ditch, and went over backwards, at
+the imminent risk--as he afterwards related--of breaking his neck.
+At the same instant a jagged, eight-pointed line of flame slashed the
+darkness, and the thunder of the volley pealed forth to lose itself in
+the greater din of battle on Penzoy Pound, hard by.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII. MR. WILDING'S BOOTS
+
+In the filth of the ditch, Mr. Wilding rolled over and lay prone. He
+threw out his left arm, and rested his brow upon it to keep his face
+above the mud. He strove to hold his breath, not that he might dissemble
+death, but that he might avoid being poisoned by the foul gases that,
+disturbed by his weight, bubbled up to choke him. His body half sank
+and settled in the mud, and seen from above, as he was presently seen
+by Wentworth--who ran forward with the sergeant's lanthorn to assure
+himself that the work had been well done--he had all the air of being
+not only dead but already half buried.
+
+And now, for a second, Mr. Wilding was in his greatest danger, and this
+from the very humaneness of the sergeant. The fellow advanced to the
+captain's side, a pistol in his hand. Wentworth held the light aloft and
+peered down into that six feet of blackness at the jacent figure.
+
+“Shall I give him an ounce of lead to make sure, Captain?” quoth the
+sergeant. But Wentworth, in his great haste, had already turned about,
+and the light of his lanthorn no longer revealed the form of Mr.
+Wilding.
+
+“There is not the need. The ditch will do what may remain to be done, if
+anything does. Come on, man. We are wanted yonder.”
+
+The light passed, steps retreated, the sergeant muttering, and then
+Wentworth's voice was heard by Wilding some little distance off.
+
+“Bring up your muskets!”
+
+“Shoulder!”
+
+“By the right--turn! March!” And the tramp, tramp of feet receded
+rapidly.
+
+Wilding was already sitting up, endeavouring to get a breath of purer
+air. He rose to his feet, sinking almost to the top of his boots in
+the oozy slime. Foul gases were belched up to envelop him. He seized
+at irregularities in the bank, and got his head above the level of the
+ground. He thrust forward his chin and took great greedy breaths in a
+very gluttony of air--and never came Muscadine sweeter to a drunkard's
+lips. He laughed softly to himself. He was alone and safe. Wentworth
+and his men had disappeared. Away in the direction of Penzoy Pound the
+sounds of battle swelled ever to a greater volume. Cannons were booming
+now, and all was uproar--flame and shouting, cheering and shrieking,
+the thunder of hastening multitudes, the clash of steel, the pounding of
+horses, all blent to make up the horrid din of carnage.
+
+Mr. Wilding listened, and considered what to do. His first impulse was
+to join the fray. But, bethinking him that there could be little place
+for him in the confusion that must prevail by now, he reconsidered the
+matter, and his thoughts returning to Ruth--the wife for whom he had
+been at such pains to preserve himself on the very brink of death--he
+resolved to endanger himself no further for that night.
+
+He dropped back into the ditch, and waded, ankle deep in slime, to the
+other side. There he crawled out, and gaining the moor lay down awhile
+to breathe his lungs. But not for long. The dawn was creeping pale and
+ghostly across the solid earth, and a faint fresh breeze was stirring
+and driving the mist in wispy shrouds before it. If he lingered there he
+might yet be found by some party of Royalist soldiers, and that would be
+to undo all that he had done. He rose, and struck out across the peaty
+ground. None knew the moors better than did he, and had he been with
+Grey's horse that night, it is possible things had fared differently,
+for he had proved a surer guide than did Godfrey, the spy.
+
+At first he thought of making for Bridgwater and Lupton House. By now
+Richard would be on his way thither with Ruth, and Wilding was in haste
+that she should be reassured that he had not fallen to the muskets
+of Wentworth's firing-party. But Bridgwater was far, and he began
+to realize, now that all excitement was past, that he was utterly
+exhausted. Next he thought of Scoresby Hall and his cousin Lord Gervase.
+But he was by no means sure that he might count upon a welcome. Gervase
+had shown no sympathy for Monmouth or his partisans, and whilst he would
+hardly go so far as to refuse Mr. Wilding shelter, still Wilding felt an
+aversion to seeking what might be grudged him. At last he bethought him
+of home. Zoyland Chase was near at hand; but he had not been there since
+his wedding-day, and in the mean time he knew that it had been used as
+a barrack for the militia, and had no doubt that it had been wrecked and
+plundered. Still, it must have walls and a roof, and that, for the time,
+was all he craved, that he might rest awhile and recuperate his wasted
+forces.
+
+A half-hour later he dragged himself wearily up the avenue between the
+elms--looking white as snow in the pale July dawn--to the clearing in
+front of his house.
+
+Desertion was stamped upon the face of it. Shattered windows and hanging
+shutters everywhere. How wantonly they had wrecked it! It might have
+been a church, and the militia a regiment of Cromwell's iconoclastic
+Puritans. The door was locked, but going round he found a window--one
+of the door-windows of his library--hanging loose upon its hinges. He
+pushed it wide, and entered with a heavy heart. Instantly something
+stirred in a corner; a fierce growl was followed by a furious bark, and
+a lithe brown body leapt from the greater into the lesser shadows to
+attack the intruder. But at one word of his the hound checked suddenly,
+crouched an instant, then with a queer, throaty sound bounded forward in
+a wild delight that robbed it on the instant of its voice. It found it
+anon and leapt about him, barking furious joy in spite of all his
+vain endeavours to calm it. He grew afraid lest the dog should draw
+attention. He knew not who--if any--might be in possession of his
+house. The library, as he looked round, showed a scene of wreckage that
+excellently matched the exterior. Not a picture on the walls, not an
+arras, but had been rent to shreds. The great lustre that had hung
+from the centre of the ceiling was gone. Disorder reigned along
+the bookshelves, and yet there and elsewhere there was a certain
+orderliness, suggesting an attempt to straighten up the place after
+the ravagers had departed. It was these signs made him afraid the house
+might be tenanted by such as might prove his enemies.
+
+“Down, Jack,” he said to the dog for the twentieth time, patting its
+sleek head. “Down, down!”
+
+But still the dog bounded about him, barking wildly.
+
+“Sh!” he hissed suddenly. Steps sounded in the hall. It was as he
+feared. The door was suddenly thrown open, and the grey morning light
+gleamed upon the long barrel of a musket. After it, bearing it, entered
+a white-haired old man.
+
+He paused on the threshold, measuring the tall disordered stranger who
+stood there, his figure a black silhouette against the window by which
+he had entered.
+
+“What seek you here, sir, in this house of desolation?” asked the voice
+of Mr. Wilding's old servant.
+
+He answered but one word. “Walters!”
+
+The musket dropped with a clatter from the old man's hands. He sank back
+against the doorpost and leaned there an instant; then, whimpering and
+laughing, he came tottering forward--his old legs failing him in this
+excess of unexpected joy--and sank on his knees to kiss his master's
+hand.
+
+Wilding patted the old head, as he had patted the dog's a little while
+ago. He was oddly moved; there was a knot in his throat. No home-coming
+could well have been more desolate. And yet, what home-coming could have
+brought him such a torturing joy as was now his? Oh, it is good to be
+loved, if it be by no more than a dog and an old servant!
+
+In a moment Walters was himself again. He was on his feet, scrutinizing
+Wilding's haggard face and disordered, filthy clothes. He broke into
+exclamations between dismay and reproach, but these Wilding interrupted
+to ask the old man how it happened that he had remained.
+
+“My son John was a sergeant in the troop that quartered itself here,
+sir,” Walters explained, “and so they left me alone. But even had it not
+been for that, I scarcely think they would have harmed an old man. They
+were brave fellows for all the mischief they did here, and they seemed
+to have little heart in the service of the Popish King. It was
+the officers drove them on to all this damage, and once they'd
+started--well, there were rogues amongst them saw a chance of plunder,
+and they took it. I have sought to put the place to rights; but they did
+some woeful, wanton mischief.”
+
+Wilding sighed. “It's little matter, perhaps, as the place is no longer
+mine.
+
+“No... no longer yours, sir?”
+
+“I'm an attainted outlaw, Walters,” he explained. “They'll bestow it on
+some Popish time-server, unless King Monmouth can follow up by greater
+victories to-night's. Have you aught a man may eat or drink?”
+
+Meat and wine, fresh linen and fresh garments did old Walters find him;
+and when he had washed, eaten, and drunk, Mr. Wilding wrapped himself
+in a dressing-gown and laid himself down to sleep on a settle in the
+library, his servant and his dog on guard.
+
+Not above an hour, however, was he destined to enjoy his hard-earned
+rest. The light had grown, meanwhile, and from grey it had turned
+golden, the heralds of the sun being already in the east. In the
+distance the firing had died down to a mere occasional boom.
+
+Suddenly old Walters raised his head to listen. The beat of hoofs was
+drawing rapidly near, so near that presently he rose in alarm, for
+a horseman was pounding up the avenue, had drawn rein at the main
+entrance.
+
+Walters knit his brows in perplexity, and glanced at his master who
+slept on utterly worn out. A silent pause followed, lasting some
+minutes. Then it was the dog that rose with a growl, his coat bristling,
+and an instant later there came a sharp rapping at the hall door.
+
+“Sh! Down, Jack!” whispered Walters, afraid of rousing Mr. Wilding. He
+tiptoed softly across the room, picked up his musket, and, calling the
+dog, went out, a great fear in his heart, but not for himself.
+
+The rapping continued, growing every instant more urgent, so urgent that
+Walters was almost reassured. Here was no enemy, but surely some one
+in need. Walters opened at last, and Mr. Trenchard, grimy of face and
+hands, his hat shorn of its plumes, his clothes torn, staggered with an
+oath across the threshold.
+
+“Walters!” he cried. “Thank God! I thought you'd be here, but I wasn't
+certain. Down, Jack!”
+
+The hound was barking madly again, having recognized an old friend.
+
+“Plague on the dog!” growled Walters. “He'll wake Mr. Wilding.”
+
+“Mr. Wilding?” said Trenchard, and checked midway across the hall. “Mr.
+Wilding?”
+
+“He arrived here a couple of hours ago, sir...”
+
+“Wilding here? Oddsheart! I was more than well advised to come. Where is
+he, man?”
+
+“Sh, sir! He's asleep in the library. You'll wake him, you'll wake him!”
+
+But Trenchard never paused. He crossed the hall at a bound, and flung
+wide the library door. “Anthony!” he shouted. “Anthony!” And in the
+background Walters cursed him for a fool. Wilding leapt to his feet,
+awake and startled.
+
+“Wha... Nick!”
+
+“Oons!” roared Nick. “You're choicely found. I came to send to
+Bridgwater for you. We must away at once, man.”
+
+“How--away? I thought you were in the fight, Nick.”
+
+“And don't I look as if I had been?”
+
+“But then...
+
+“The fight is fought and lost; there's an end to the garboil. Monmouth
+is in full flight with what's left him of his horse. When I quitted the
+field, he was riding hard for Polden Hill.” He dropped into a chair, his
+accents grim and despairing, his eyes haggard.
+
+“Lost?” gasped Wilding, and his conscience pricked him for a moment,
+remembering how much it had been his fault--however indirectly--that
+Feversham had been forewarned. “But how lost?” he cried a moment later.
+
+“Ask Grey,” snapped Trenchard. “Ask his craven, numskulled lordship. He
+had as good a hand in losing it as any. Oh, it was all most infernally
+mishandled, as has been everything in this ill-starred rising. Grey sent
+back Godfrey, the guide, and attempted in the dark to find his own way
+across the rhine. He missed the ford. What else could the fool have
+hoped? And when he was discovered and Dunbarton's guns began to play on
+us--hell and fire! we ran as if Sedgemoor had been a race-course.
+
+“The rest was but the natural sequel. The foot, seeing our confusion,
+broke. They were rallied again; broke again; and again were rallied; but
+all too late. The enemy was up, and with that damned ditch between us
+there was no getting to close quarters with them. Had Grey ridden round,
+and sought to turn their flank, things might have been--O God!--they
+would have been entirely different. I did suggest it. But for my pains
+Grey threatened to pistol me if I presumed to instruct him in his duty.
+I would to Heaven I had pistolled him where he stood.”
+
+Walters, at gaze in the doorway, listened to the bitter tirade. Wilding,
+on the settle, sat silent a moment, his elbows on his knees, his chin
+in his hands, his eyes set and grim as Trenchard's own. Then he mastered
+himself, and waved a hand towards the table where stood food and wine.
+
+“Eat and drink, Nick,” he said, “and we'll discuss what's to be done.”
+
+“It'll need little discussing,” was Nick's savage answer as he rose and
+went to pour himself a cup of wine. “There's but one course open to us
+--instant flight. I am for Minehead to join Hewling's horse, which went
+there yesterday for guns. We might seize a ship somewhere on the coast,
+and thus get out of this infernal country of mine.”
+
+They discussed the matter in spite of Trenchard's having said that there
+was nothing to discuss, and in the end Wilding agreed to go with him.
+What choice had he? But first he must go to Bridgwater to reassure his
+wife.
+
+“To Bridgwater?” blazed Trenchard, in a passion at the folly of the
+suggestion. “You're clearly mad! All the King's forces will be there in
+an hour or two.”
+
+“No matter,” said Wilding, “I must go. I am dead already, as it
+happens.” And he related his singular adventure in Feversham's camp last
+night.
+
+Trenchard heard him in amazement. If any suspicion crossed his mind that
+his friend's love affairs had had anything to do with rousing Feversham
+prematurely, he showed no sign of it. But he shook his head at Wilding's
+insistence that he must first go to Lupton House.
+
+“Shalt send a message, Anthony. Walters will find some one to bear it.
+But you must not go yourself.”
+
+In the end Mr. Trenchard prevailed upon him to adopt this course,
+however reluctant he might be. Thereafter they proceeded to make their
+preparations. There were still a couple of nags in the stables, in spite
+of the visitation of the militia, and Walters was able to find fresh
+clothes for Mr. Trenchard above-stairs.
+
+A half-hour later they were ready to set out on this forlorn hope of
+escape; the horses were at the door, and Mr. Wilding was in the act
+of drawing on the fresh pair of boots which Walters had fetched him.
+Suddenly he paused, his foot in the leg of his right boot, and sat
+bemused a moment.
+
+Trenchard, watching him, waxed impatient. “What ails you now?” he
+croaked.
+
+Without answering him, Wilding turned to Walters. “Where are the boots
+I wore last night?” he asked, and his voice was sharp--oddly sharp,
+considering how trivial the matter of his speech.
+
+“In the kitchen,” answered Walters.
+
+“Fetch me them.” And he kicked off again the boot he had half drawn on.
+
+“But they are all befouled with mud, sir.”
+
+“Clean them, Walters; clean them and let me have them.”
+
+Still Walters hesitated, pointing out that the boots he had brought his
+master were newer and sounder. Wilding interrupted him impatiently. “Do
+as I bid you, Walters.” And the old man, understanding nothing, went off
+on the errand.
+
+“A pox on your boots!” swore Trenchard. “What does this mean?”
+
+Wilding seemed suddenly to have undergone a transformation. His gloom
+had fallen from him. He looked up at his old friend and, smiling,
+answered him. “It means, Nick, that whilst these excellent boots that
+Walters would have me wear might be well enough for a ride to the coast
+such as you propose, they are not at all suited to the journey I intend
+to make.”
+
+“Maybe,” said Nick with a sniff, “you're intending to journey to Tower
+Hill?”
+
+“In that direction,” answered Mr. Wilding suavely.
+
+“I am for London, Nick. And you shall come with me.”
+
+“God save us! Do you keep a fool's egg under that nest of hair?”
+
+Wilding explained, and by the time Walters returned with the boots
+Trenchard was walking up and down the room in an odd agitation. “Odds my
+life, Tony!” he cried at last. “I believe it is the best thing.”
+
+“The only thing, Nick.”
+
+“And since all is lost, why...” Trenchard blew out his cheeks and
+smacked fist into palm. “I am with you,” said he.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV. JUSTICE
+
+It has fallen to my lot in the course of this veridical chronicle of Mr.
+Anthony Wilding's connection with the Rebellion in the West, and of his
+wedding and post-nuptial winning of Ruth Westmacott, to relate certain
+matters of incident and personality that may be accounted strange. But
+the strangest yet remains to be related. For in spite of all that had
+passed between Sir Rowland Blake and the Westmacotts on that memorable
+night of Sunday to Monday, on which the battle of Sedgemoor was lost
+and won, towards the end of that same month of July we find him not only
+back at Lupton House, but once again the avowed suitor of Mr. Wilding's
+widow. For effrontery this is a matter of which it is to be doubted
+whether history furnishes a parallel. Indeed, until the circumstances
+are sifted it seems wild and incredible. So let us consider these.
+
+On the morrow of Sedgemoor, the town of Bridgwater became
+invested--infested were no whit too strong a word--by the King's forces
+under Feversham and the odious Kirke, and there began a reign of terror
+for the town. The prisons were choked with attainted and suspected
+rebels. From Bridgwater to Weston Zoyland the road was become an avenue
+of gallows, each bearing its repulsive grimace-laden burden; for the
+King's commands were unequivocal, and hanging was the order of the day.
+
+It is not my desire at this stage to surfeit you with the horrors that
+were perpetrated during that hideous week of July, when no man's life
+was safe from the royal butchers. The awful campaign of Jeffries and
+his four associates was yet to follow, but it is doubtful if it could
+compare in ruthlessness with that of Feversham and Kirke. At least, when
+Jeffries came, men were given a trial--or what looked like it--and there
+remained them a chance, however slender, of acquittal, as many lived to
+prove thereafter. With Feversham there was no such chance. And it was
+of this circumstance that Sir Rowland Blake took the fullest and the
+cowardliest advantage.
+
+There can be no doubt that Sir Rowland was a villain. It might be
+urged for him that he was a creature of circumstance, and that had
+circumstances been other it is possible he had been a credit to his
+name. But he was weak in character, and out of that weakness he had
+developed a Herculean strength in villainy. Failure had dogged him in
+everything he undertook. Broken at the gaming-tables, hounded out of
+town by creditors, he was in desperate straits to repair his fortunes
+and, as we have seen, he was not nice in his endeavours to achieve that
+end.
+
+Ruth Westmacott's fair inheritance had seemed an easy thing to conquer,
+and to its conquest he had applied himself to suffer defeat as he had
+suffered it in all things else. But Sir Rowland did not yet acknowledge
+himself beaten, and the Bridgwater reign of terror dealt him a fresh
+hand--a hand of trumps. With this he came boldly to renew the game.
+
+He was as smooth as oil at first, a very penitent, confessing himself
+mad in what he had done on that Sunday night--mad with despair and rage
+at having been defeated in the noble task to which he had turned his
+hands. His penitence might have had little effect upon the Westmacotts
+had he not known how to insinuate that it might be best for them to lend
+an ear to it--and a forgiving one.
+
+“You will tell Mr. Westmacott, Jasper,” he had said, when Jasper told
+him that they could not receive him, “that he would be unwise not to see
+me, and the same to Mistress Wilding.”
+
+And old Jasper had carried his message, and had told Richard of the
+wicked smile that had been on Sir Rowland's lips when he had uttered it.
+
+Now Richard was in many ways a changed man since that night at Weston
+Zoyland. A transformation seemed to have been wrought in him as odd as
+it was sudden, and it dated from the moment when with tears in his
+eyes he had wrung Wilding's hand in farewell. Where precept had failed,
+Richard found himself converted by example. He contrasted himself in
+that stressful hour with great-souled Anthony Wilding, and saw himself
+as he was, a weakling, strong only in vicious ways. Repentance claimed
+him; repentance and a fine ambition to be worthier, to resemble as
+nearly as his nature would allow him this Anthony Wilding whom he took
+for pattern. He changed his ways, abandoned drink and gaming, and gained
+thereby a healthier countenance. Then in his zeal he overshot his mark.
+He developed a taste for Scripture-reading, bethought him of prayers,
+and even took to saying grace to his meat. Indeed--for conversion,
+when it comes, is a furious thing--the swing of his soul's pendulum
+threatened now to carry him to extremes of virtue and piety. “O Lord!”
+ he would cry a score of times a day, “Thou hast brought up my soul from
+the grave; Thou hast kept me alive that I should not go down to the
+pit!”
+
+But underlying all this remained unfortunately the inherent weakness of
+his nature--indeed, it was that very weakness and malleability made this
+sudden and wholesale conversion possible.
+
+Upon hearing Sir Rowland's message his heart fainted, despite his good
+intentions, and he urged that perhaps they had better hear what the
+baronet might have to say.
+
+It was three days after Sedgemoor Fight, and poor Ruth was worn and
+exhausted with her grief--believing Wilding dead, for he had sent no
+message to inform her of his almost miraculous preservation. The thing
+he went to do in London was fraught with such peril that he foresaw
+but the slenderest chance of escaping with his life. Therefore, he had
+argued, why console her now with news that he lived, when in a few days
+the headsman might prove that his end had been but postponed? To do so
+might be to give her cause to mourn him twice. Again he was haunted by
+the thought that, in spite of all, it may have been pity that had so
+grievously moved her at their last meeting. Better, then, to wait;
+better for both their sakes. If he came safely through his ordeal it
+would be time enough to bear her news of his preservation.
+
+In deepest mourning, very white, with dark stains beneath her eyes
+to tell the tale of anguished vigils, she received Sir Rowland in the
+withdrawing-room, her brother at her side. To his expressions of
+deep penitence he found them cold; so he passed on to show them what
+disastrous results might ensue upon a stubborn maintaining of this
+attitude of theirs towards him.
+
+“I have come,” he said, his eyes downcast, his face long-drawn, for he
+could play the sorrowful with any hypocrite in England, “to do something
+more than speak of my grief and regret. I have come to offer proof of it
+by service.
+
+“We ask no service of you, sir,” said Ruth, her voice a sword of
+sharpness.
+
+He sighed, and turned to Richard. “This were folly,” he assured his
+whilom friend. “You know the influence I wield.”
+
+“Do I?” quoth Richard, his tone implying doubt.
+
+“You think that the bungled matter at Newlington's may have shaken it?”
+ quoth Blake. “With Feversham, perhaps. But Albemarle, remember, trusts
+me very fully. There are ugly happenings in the town here. Men are being
+hung like linen on a washing-day. Be not too sure that yourself are
+free from all danger.” Richard paled under the baronet's baleful,
+half-sneering glance. “Be not in too great haste to cast me aside, for
+you may find me useful.”
+
+“Do you threaten, sir?” cried Ruth.
+
+“Threaten?” quoth he. He turned up his eyes and showed the whites of
+them. “Is it to threaten to promise you my protection; to show you how I
+can serve you?--than which I ask no sweeter boon of heaven. A word from
+me, and Richard need fear nothing.”
+
+“He need fear nothing without that word,” said Ruth disdainfully. “Such
+service as he did Lord Feversham the other night...”
+
+“Is soon forgotten,” Blake cut in adroitly. “Indeed, 'twill be most
+convenient to his lordship to forget it. Think you he would care to have
+it known that 'twas to such a chance he owes the preservation of his
+army?” He laughed, and added in a voice of much sly meaning, “The times
+are full of peril. There's Kirke and his lambs. And there's no saying
+how Kirke might act did he chance to learn what Richard failed to do
+that night when he was left to guard the rear at Newlington's!”
+
+“Would you inform him of it?” cried Richard, between anger and alarm.
+
+Blake thrust out his hands in a gesture of horrified repudiation.
+“Richard!” he cried in deep reproof and again, “Richard!”
+
+“What other tongue has he to fear?” asked Ruth.
+
+“Am I the only one who knows of it?” cried Blake. “Oh, madam, why will
+you ever do me such injustice? Richard has been my friend--my dearest
+friend. I wish him so to continue, and I swear that he shall find me
+his, as you shall find me yours.”
+
+“It is a boon I could dispense with,” she assured him, and rose. “This
+talk can profit little, Sir Rowland,” said she. “You seek to bargain.”
+
+“You shall see how unjust you are,” he cried with deep sorrow. “It is
+but fitting, perhaps, after what has passed. It is my punishment. But
+you shall come to acknowledge that you have done me wrong. You shall see
+how I shall befriend and protect him.”
+
+That said, he took his leave and went, but he left behind him a shrewd
+seed of fear in Richard's mind, and of the growth that sprang from it
+Richard almost unconsciously transplanted something in the days that
+followed into the heart of Ruth. As a result, to make sure that no harm
+should come to her brother, the last of his name and race, she resolved
+to receive Sir Rowland, resolved in spite of Diana's outspoken scorn, in
+spite of Richard's protests--for though afraid, yet he would not have it
+so--in spite even of her own deep repugnance of the man.
+
+Days passed and grew to weeks. Bridgwater was settling down to peace
+again--to peace and mourning; the Royalist scourge had spread to
+Taunton, and Blake lingered on at Lupton House, an unwelcome but an
+undeniable guest.
+
+His presence was as detestable to Richard now as it was to Ruth, for
+Richard had to submit to the mockery with which the town rake lashed his
+godly bearing and altered ways. More than once in gusts of sudden valour
+the boy urged his sister to permit him to drive the baronet from the
+house and let him do his worst. But Ruth, afraid for Richard, bade him
+wait until the times were more settled. When the royal vengeance had
+slaked its lust for blood it might matter little, perhaps, what tales
+Sir Rowland might elect to carry.
+
+And so Sir Rowland remained and waited. He assured himself that he knew
+how to be patient, and congratulated himself upon that circumstance.
+Wilding dead, a little time must now suffice to blunt the sharp edge of
+his widow's grief; let him but await that time, and the rest should be
+easy, the battle his. With Richard he did not so much as trouble himself
+to reckon.
+
+Thus he determined, and thus no doubt he would have acted but for an
+unforeseen contingency. A miserable, paltry creditor had smoked him out
+in his Somerset retreat, and got a letter to him full of dark hints of
+a debtor's gaol. The fellow's name was Swiney, and Sir Rowland knew him
+for fierce and pertinacious where a defaulting creditor was concerned.
+One only course remained him: to force matters with Wilding's widow. For
+days he refrained, fearing that precipitancy might lose him all; it was
+his wish to do the thing without too much coercion; some, he was not
+coxcomb enough to think--coxcomb though he was--might be dispensed with.
+
+At last one Sunday evening he decided to be done with dallying, and to
+bring Ruth between the hammer and the anvil of his will. It was the
+last Sunday in July, exactly three weeks after Sedgemoor, and the
+odd coincidence of his having chosen such a day and hour you shall
+appreciate anon.
+
+They were on the lawn taking the cool of the evening after an
+oppressively hot day. By the stone seat, now occupied by Lady Horton
+and Diana, Richard lay on the sward at their feet in talk with them,
+and their talk was of Sir Rowland. Diana--gall in her soul to see the
+baronet by way of gaining yet his ends--chid Richard in strong terms for
+his weakness in submitting to Blake's constant presence at Lupton House.
+And Richard meekly took her chiding and promised that, if Ruth would but
+sanction it, things should be changed upon the morrow.
+
+Sir Rowland, all unconscious--reckless, indeed--of this, sauntered with
+Ruth some little distance from them, having contrived adroitly to draw
+her aside. He broke a spell of silence with a dolorous sigh.
+
+“Ruth,” said he pensively, “I mind me of the last evening on which you
+and I walked here alone.”
+
+She flashed him a glance of fear and aversion, and stood still. Under
+his brow he watched the quick heave of her bosom, the sudden flow and
+abiding ebb of blood in her face--grown now so thin and wistful--and he
+realized that before him lay no easy task. He set his teeth for battle.
+
+“Will you never have a kindness for me, Ruth?” he sighed.
+
+She turned about, her intent to join the others, a dull anger in her
+soul. He sat a hand upon her arm. “Wait!” said he, and the tone in
+which he uttered that one word kept her beside him. His manner changed a
+little. “I am tired of this,” said he.
+
+“Why, so am I,” she answered bitterly.
+
+“Since we are agreed so far, let us agree to end it.”
+
+“It is all I ask.”
+
+“Yes, but--alas!--in a different way. Listen now.”
+
+“I will not listen. Let me go.”
+
+“I were your enemy did I do so, for you would know hereafter a sorrow
+and repentance for which nothing short of death could offer you escape.
+Richard is under suspicion.”
+
+“Do you hark back to that?” The scorn of her voice was deadly. Had it
+been herself he desired, surely that tone had quenched all passion in
+him, or else transformed it into hatred. But Blake was playing for a
+fortune, for shelter from a debtor's prison.
+
+“It has become known,” he continued, “that Richard was one of the early
+plotters who paved the way for Monmouth's coming. I think that that, in
+conjunction with his betrayal of his trust that night at Newlington's,
+thereby causing the death of some twenty gallant fellows of King
+James's, will be enough to hang him.”
+
+Her hand clutched at her heart. “What is't you seek?” she cried. It was
+almost a moan. “What is't you want of me?”
+
+“Yourself,” said he. “I love you, Ruth,” he added, and stepped close up
+to her.
+
+“O God!” she cried aloud. “Had I a man at hand to kill you for that
+insult!”
+
+And then--miracle of miracles!--a voice from the shrubs by which they
+stood bore to her ears the startling words that told her her prayer was
+answered there and then.
+
+“Madam, that man is here.”
+
+She stood frozen. Not more of a statue was Lot's wife in the moment of
+looking behind her than she who dared not look behind. That voice! A
+voice from the dead, a voice she had heard for the last time in the
+cottage that was Feversham's lodging at Weston Zoyland. Her wild eyes
+fell upon Sir Rowland's face. It showed livid; the nether-lip sucked
+in and caught in the strong teeth, as if to prevent an outcry; the eyes
+wild with fright. What did it mean? By an effort she wrenched herself
+round at last, and a scream broke from her to rouse her aunt, her
+cousin, and her brother, and bring them hastening towards her across the
+sweep of lawn.
+
+Before her, on the edge of the shrubbery, a grey figure stood erect and
+graceful, and the face, with its thin lips faintly smiling, its dark
+eyes gleaming, was the face of Anthony Wilding. And as she stared he
+moved forward, and she heard the fall of his foot upon the turf, the
+clink of his spurs, the swish of his scabbard against the shrubs, and
+reason told her that this was no ghost.
+
+She held out her arms to him. “Anthony! Anthony!” She staggered forward,
+and he was no more than in time to catch her as she swayed.
+
+He held her fast against him and kissed her brow. “Sweet,” he said,
+“forgive me that I frightened you. I came by the orchard gate, and my
+coming was so timely that I could not hold in my answer to your cry.”
+
+Her eyelids fluttered, she drew a long sighing breath, and nestled
+closer to him. “Anthony!” she murmured again, and reached up a hand to
+stroke his face, to feel that it was truly living flesh.
+
+And Sir Rowland, realizing, too, by now that here was no ghost,
+recovered his lost courage. He put a hand to his sword, then withdrew
+it, leaving the weapon sheathed. Here was a hangman's job, not a
+swordsman's, he opined--and wisely, for he had had earlier experience of
+Mr. Wilding's play of steel.
+
+He advanced a step. “O fool!” he snarled. “The hangman waits for you.”
+
+“And a creditor for you, Sir Rowland,” came the voice of Mr. Trenchard,
+who now pushed forward through those same shrubs that had masked his
+friend's approach. “A Mr. Swiney. 'Twas I sent him from town. He's
+lodged at the Bull, and bellows like one when he speaks of what you owe
+him. There are three messengers with him, and they tell of a debtor's
+gaol for you, sweetheart.”
+
+A spasm of fury crossed the face of Blake. “They may have me, and
+welcome, when I've told my tale,” said he. “Let me but tell of Anthony
+Wilding's lurking here, and not only Anthony Wilding, but all the rest
+of you are doomed for harbouring him. You know the law, I think,” he
+mocked them, for Lady Horton, Diana, and Richard, who had come up,
+stood now a pace or so away in deepest wonder. “You shall know it better
+before the night is out, and better still before next Sunday's come.”
+
+“Tush!” said Trenchard, and quoted, “'There's none but Anthony may
+conquer Anthony.'”
+
+“'Tis clear,” said Wilding, “you take me for a rebel. An odd mistake!
+For it chances, Sir Rowland, that you behold in me an accredited servant
+of the Secretary of State.”
+
+Blake stared, then fell a prey to ironic laughter. He would have spoken,
+but Mr. Wilding plucked a paper from his pocket, and handed it to
+Trenchard.
+
+“Show it him,” said he, and Blake's face grew white again as he read the
+lines above Sunderland's signature and observed the seals of office. He
+looked from the paper to the hated smiling face of Mr. Wilding.
+
+“You were a spy?” he said, his tone making a question of the odious
+statement. “A dirty spy?”
+
+“Your incredulity is flattering, at least,” said Wilding pleasantly as
+he repocketed the parchment, “and it leads you in the right direction. I
+neither was nor am a spy.”
+
+“That paper proves it!” cried Blake contemptuously. Having been a spy
+himself, he was a good judge of the vileness of the office.
+
+“See to my wife, Nick,” said Wilding sharply, and made as if to transfer
+her to the care of his friend.
+
+“Nay,” said Trenchard, “'tis your own duty that. Let me discharge the
+other for you.” And he stepped up to Blake and tapped him briskly on the
+shoulder. “Sir Rowland,” said he, “you're a knave.” Sir Rowland stared
+at him. “You're a foul thing--a muckworm--Sir Rowland,” added Trenchard
+amiably, “and you've been discourteous to a lady, for which may Heaven
+forgive you--I can't.”
+
+“Stand aside,” Blake bade him, hoarse with passion, blind to all risks.
+“My affair is with Mr. Wilding.”
+
+“Aye,” said Trenchard, “but mine is with you. If you survive it, you can
+settle what other affairs you please--including, belike, your business
+with Mr. Swiney.”
+
+“Not so, Nick,” said Wilding suddenly, and turned to Richard. “Here,
+Richard! Take her,” he bade his brother-in-law.
+
+“Anthony, you damned shirk-duty, see to your wife. Leave me to my own
+diversions. Sir Rowland,” he reminded the baronet, “I have called you a
+knave and a foul thing, and faith! if you want it proven, you need but
+step down the orchard with me.”
+
+He saw hesitation lingering in Sir Rowland's face, and he uncurled the
+last of the whip he carried. “I'd grieve to do a violent thing before
+the ladies,” he murmured deprecatingly. “I'd never respect myself again
+if I had to drive a gentleman of your quality to the ground of honour
+with a horsewhip. But, as God's my life, if you don't go willingly this
+instant, 'tis what will happen.”
+
+Richard's newborn righteousness prompted him to interfere, to seek to
+avert this threatened bloodshed; his humanity urged him to let matters
+be, and his humanity prevailed. Diana watched this foreshadowing of
+tragedy with tight lips, pale cheeks. Justice was to be done at last,
+it seemed, and as her frightened eye fell upon Sir Rowland she knew not
+whether to exult or weep. Her mother--understanding nothing--plied her
+meanwhile with whispered questions.
+
+As for Sir Rowland, he looked into the old rake's eyes agleam with
+wicked mirth, and rage welled up to choke him. He must kill this man.
+
+“Come,” said he. “I'll see to your fine friend Wilding afterwards.”
+
+“Excellent,” said Trenchard, and led the way through the shrubbery to
+the orchard.
+
+Ruth, reviving, looked up. Her glance met Mr. Wilding's; it quickened
+into understanding, and she stirred. “Is it true? Is it really true?”
+ she cried. “I am being tortured by this dream again!”
+
+“Nay, sweet, it is true; it is true. I am here. Say, shall I stay?”
+
+She clung to him for answer. “And you are in no danger?”
+
+“In none, sweet. I am Mr. Wilding of Zoyland Chase, free to come and go
+as best shall seem to me.” He begged the others to leave them a little
+while, and he led her to the stone seat by the river. He set her at his
+side there and told her the story of his escape from the firing-party,
+and of the inspiration that had come to him on the morrow to make use
+of the letter in his boot which Sunderland had given him for Monmouth
+in the hour of panic. Monmouth's cavalier treatment of him when he had
+arrived in Bridgwater had precluded his delivering that letter at the
+council. There was never another opportunity, nor did he again think of
+the package in the stressful hours that followed. It was not until the
+following morning that he suddenly remembered it lay undelivered, and
+bethought him that it might prove a weapon to win him delivery from the
+dangers that encompassed him.
+
+“It was a slender chance,” he told her, “but I employed it. I waited in
+London, in hiding, close upon a fortnight ere I had an opportunity of
+seeing Sunderland. He laughed me to scorn at first, and threatened me
+with the Tower. But I told him the letter was in safe hands and would
+remain there in earnest of his good behaviour, and that did he have me
+arrested it would instantly be laid before the King and bring his own
+head to the block more surely even than my own. It frightened him; but
+it had scarcely done so, sweet, had he known that that precious letter
+was still in my boot, for my boot was on my leg, and my leg was in the
+room with the rest of me.
+
+“He surrendered at last, and gave me papers proving that Trenchard
+and I--for I stipulated for old Nick's safety too--were His Majesty's
+accredited agents in the West. I loathed the title. But...”--he spread
+his hands and smiled--“it was that or widowing you.”
+
+She took his face in her hands and stroked it fondly, and they sat thus
+until a dry cough behind them roused them from their joyous silence. Mr.
+Trenchard was sauntering towards them, his left eye tucked farther under
+his hat than usual, his hands behind him.
+
+“'Tis a thirsty evening,” he informed them.
+
+“Go, tell Richard so,” said Wilding, who knew naught of Richard's
+altered ways.
+
+“I've thought of it; but haply he's sensitive on the score of drinking
+with me again. He has done it twice to his undoing.”
+
+“He'll do it a third time, no doubt,” said Mr. Wilding curtly, and
+Trenchard, taking the hint, turned with a shrug, and went up the lawn
+towards the house. He found Richard in the porch, where he had
+lingered fearfully, waiting for news. At sight of Mr. Trenchard's grim,
+weather-beaten countenance he came forward suddenly.
+
+“How has it sped?” he asked, his lips twitching on the words.
+
+“Yonder they sit,” said Trenchard, pointing down the lawn.
+
+“No, no. I mean... Sir Rowland.”
+
+“Oh, Sir Rowland?” cried the old sinner, as though Sir Rowland were
+some matter long forgotten. He sighed. “Alas, poor Swiney! I fear I've
+cheated him.”
+
+“You mean?”
+
+“Art slow at inference, Dick. Sir Rowland has passed away in the odour
+of villainy.”
+
+Richard clasped nervous hands together and raised his colourless eyes to
+heaven.
+
+“May the Lord have mercy on his soul!” said he.
+
+“May He, indeed!” said Trenchard, when he had recovered from his
+surprise. “But,” he added pessimistically, “I doubt the rogue's in
+hell.”
+
+Richard's eyes kindled suddenly, and he quoted from the thirtieth Psalm,
+“'I will extol thee, O Lord; for Thou hast lifted me up, and hast not
+made my foes to rejoice over me.'”
+
+Dumbfounded, wondering, indeed, was Westmacott's mind unhinged,
+Trenchard scanned him narrowly. Richard caught the glance and
+misinterpreted it for one of reproof. He bethought him that his joy was
+unrighteous. He stifled it, and forced his lips to sigh “Poor Blake!”
+
+“Poor, indeed!” quoth Trenchard, and adapted a remembered line of his
+play-acting days to suit the case. “The tears live in an onion that
+shall water his grave. Though, perhaps, I am forgetting Swiney.” Then,
+in a brisker tone, “Come, Richard. What like is the muscadine you keep
+at Lupton House?”
+
+“I have abjured all wine,” said Richard.
+
+“A plague you have!” quoth Trenchard, understanding less and less. “Have
+you turned Mussulman, perchance?”
+
+“No,” answered Richard sternly; “Christian.”
+
+Trenchard hesitated, rubbing his nose thoughtfully. “Hum,” said he at
+length. “Peace be with you, then. I'll leave you here to bay the moon
+to your heart's content. Perhaps Jasper will know where to find me a
+brain-wash.” And with a final suspicious, wondering look at the whilom
+bibber, he passed into the house, much exercised on the score of the
+sanity of this family into which his friend Anthony had married.
+
+Outside, the twilight shadows were deepening.
+
+“Shall we home, sweet?” whispered Mr. Wilding. The shadows befriended
+her, a veil for her sudden confusion. She breathed something that seemed
+no more than a sigh, though more it seemed to Anthony Wilding.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mistress Wilding, by Rafael
+Sabatini
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+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      Mistress Wilding, by Rafael Sabatini
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mistress Wilding, by Rafael Sabatini
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Mistress Wilding
+
+Author: Rafael Sabatini
+
+Release Date: September, 1998 [EBook #1457]
+Last Updated: March 10, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISTRESS WILDING ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <div style="height: 8em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      MISTRESS WILDING
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      By Rafael Sabatini
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I &mdash; POT-VALIANCE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II &mdash; SIR ROWLAND TO THE RESCUE
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III &mdash; DIANA SCHEMES </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV &mdash; TERMS OF SURRENDER </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V &mdash; THE ENCOUNTER </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI &mdash; THE CHAMPION </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII &mdash; THE NUPTIALS OF RUTH
+        WESTMACOTT </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII &mdash; BRIDE AND GROOM </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX &mdash; MR. TRENCHARD'S
+        COUNTERSTROKE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X &mdash; THEIR OWN PETARD </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI &mdash; THE MARPLOT </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII &mdash; AT THE FORD </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII &mdash; &ldquo;PRO RELIGIONE ET
+        LIBERTATE&rdquo; </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV &mdash; HIS GRACE' IN COUNSEL </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV &mdash; LYME OF THE KING </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI &mdash; PLOTS AND PLOTTERS </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII &mdash; MR. WILDING'S RETURN </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII &mdash; BETRAYAL </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX &mdash; THE BANQUET </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX &mdash; THE RECKONING </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI &mdash; THE SENTENCE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII &mdash; THE EXECUTION </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII &mdash; MR. WILDING'S BOOTS </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV &mdash; JUSTICE </a>
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I. POT-VALIANCE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Then drink it thus, cried the rash young fool, and splashed the contents
+      of his cup full into the face of Mr. Wilding even as that gentleman, on
+      his feet, was proposing to drink to the eyes of the young fool's sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The moments that followed were full of interest. A stillness, a brooding,
+      expectant stillness, fell upon the company&mdash;and it numbered a round
+      dozen&mdash;about Lord Gervase's richly appointed board. In the soft
+      candlelight the oval table shone like a deep brown pool, in which were
+      reflected the gleaming silver and sparkling crystal that seemed to float
+      upon it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake sucked in his nether-lip, his florid face a thought less florid than
+      its wont, his prominent blue eyes a thought more prominent. Under its
+      golden periwig old Nick Trenchard's wizened countenance was darkened by a
+      scowl, and his fingers, long, swarthy, and gnarled, drummed fretfully upon
+      the table. Portly Lord Gervase Scoresby&mdash;their host, a benign and
+      placid man of peace, detesting turbulence&mdash;turned crimson now in
+      wordless rage. The others gaped and stared&mdash;some at young Westmacott,
+      some at the man he had so grossly affronted&mdash;whilst in the shadows of
+      the hall a couple of lacqueys looked on amazed, all teeth and eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding stood, very still and outwardly impassive, the wine trickling
+      from his long face, which, if pale, was no paler than its habit, a vestige
+      of the smile with which he had proposed the toast still lingering on his
+      thin lips, though departed from his eyes. An elegant gentleman was Mr.
+      Wilding, tall, and seeming even taller by virtue of his exceeding
+      slenderness. He had the courage to wear his own hair, which was of a dark
+      brown and very luxuriant; dark brown too were his sombre eyes, low-lidded
+      and set at a downward slant. From those odd eyes of his, his countenance
+      gathered an air of superciliousness tempered by a gentle melancholy. For
+      the rest, it was scored by lines that stamped it with the appearance of an
+      age in excess of his thirty years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thirty guineas' worth of Mechlin at his throat was drenched, empurpled and
+      ruined beyond redemption, and on the breast of his blue satin coat a dark
+      patch was spreading like a stain of blood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard Westmacott, short, sturdy, and fair-complexioned to the point of
+      insipidity, watched him sullenly out of pale eyes, and waited. It was Lord
+      Gervase who broke at last the silence&mdash;broke it with an oath, a thing
+      unusual in one whose nature was almost woman-mild.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As God's my life!&rdquo; he spluttered wrathfully, glowering at Richard. &ldquo;To
+      have this happen in my house! The young fool shall make apology!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With his dying breath,&rdquo; sneered Trenchard, and the old rake's words, his
+      tone, and the malevolent look he bent upon the boy increased the company's
+      malaise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding, with a most singular and excessive sweetness,
+      &ldquo;that what Mr. Westmacott has done he has done because he apprehended me
+      amiss.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No doubt he'll say so,&rdquo; opined Trenchard with a shrug, and had caution
+      dug into his ribs by Blake's elbow, whilst Richard made haste to prove him
+      wrong by saying the contrary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I apprehended you exactly, sir,&rdquo; he answered, defiance in his voice and
+      wine-flushed face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha!&rdquo; clucked Trenchard, irrepressible. &ldquo;He's bent on self-destruction.
+      Let him have his way, in God's name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Wilding seemed intent upon showing how long-suffering he could be. He
+      gently shook his head. &ldquo;Nay, now,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;You thought, Mr. Westmacott,
+      that in mentioning your sister, I did so lightly. Is it not so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mentioned her, and that is all that matters,&rdquo; cried Westmacott. &ldquo;I'll
+      not have her name on your lips at any time or in any place&mdash;no, nor
+      in any manner.&rdquo; His speech was thick from too much wine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are drunk,&rdquo; cried indignant Lord Gervase with finality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pot-valiant,&rdquo; Trenchard elaborated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding set down at last the glass which he had continued to hold
+      until that moment. He rested his hands upon the table, knuckles downward,
+      and leaning forward he spoke impressively, his face very grave; and those
+      present&mdash;knowing him as they did&mdash;were one and all lost in
+      wonder at his unusual patience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Westmacott,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I do think you are wrong to persist in
+      affronting me. You have done a thing that is beyond forgiveness, and yet,
+      when I offer you this opportunity of honourably retrieving...&rdquo; He shrugged
+      his shoulders, leaving the sentence incomplete.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The company might have spared its deep surprise at so much mildness. There
+      was but the semblance of it. Wilding proceeded thus of purpose set, and
+      under the calm mask of his long white face his mind worked wickedly and
+      deliberately. The temerity of Westmacott, whose nature was notoriously
+      timid, had surprised him for a moment. But anon, reading the boy's mind as
+      readily as though it had been a scroll unfolded for his instruction, he
+      saw that Westmacott, on the strength of his position as his sister's
+      brother, conceived himself immune. Mr. Wilding's avowed courtship of the
+      lady, the hopes he still entertained of winning her, despite the aversion
+      she was at pains to show him, gave Westmacott assurance that Mr. Wilding
+      would never elect to shatter his all too slender chances by embroiling
+      himself in a quarrel with her brother. And&mdash;reading him, thus, aright&mdash;Mr.
+      Wilding put on that mask of patience, luring the boy into greater
+      conviction of the security of his position. And Richard, conceiving
+      himself safe in his entrenchment behind the bulwarks of his brothership to
+      Ruth Westmacott, and heartened further by the excess of wine he had
+      consumed, persisted in insults he would never otherwise have dared to
+      offer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who seeks to retrieve?&rdquo; he crowed offensively, boldly looking up into the
+      other's face. &ldquo;It seems you are yourself reluctant.&rdquo; And he laughed a
+      trifle stridently, and looked about him for applause, but found none.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are overrash,&rdquo; Lord Gervase disapproved him harshly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not the first coward I've seen grow valiant at a table,&rdquo; put in Trenchard
+      by way of explanation, and might have come to words with Blake on that
+      same score, but that in that moment Wilding spoke again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Reluctant to do what?&rdquo; he questioned amiably, looking Westmacott so
+      straightly between the eyes that the boy shifted uneasily on his
+      high-backed chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, still full of confidence in the unassailability of his
+      position, the mad youth answered, &ldquo;To cleanse yourself of what I threw at
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fan me, ye winds!&rdquo; gasped Nick Trenchard, and looked with expectancy at
+      his friend Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now there was one factor with which, in basing with such craven shrewdness
+      his calculations upon Mr. Wilding's feelings for his sister, young Richard
+      had not reckoned. He was not to know that Wilding, bruised and wounded by
+      Miss Westmacott's scorn of him, had reached that borderland where love and
+      hate are so merged that they are scarce to be distinguished. Embittered by
+      the slights she had put upon him&mdash;slights which his sensitive,
+      lover's fancy had magnified a hundredfold&mdash;Anthony Wilding's frame of
+      mind was grown peculiar. Of his love she would have none; his kindness she
+      seemingly despised. So be it; she should taste his cruelty. If she scorned
+      his wooing and forbade him to pursue it, at least it was not hers to deny
+      him the power to hurt; and in hurting her that would not be loved by him
+      some measure of fierce and bitter consolation seemed to await him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He realized, perhaps, not quite all this&mdash;and to the unworthiness of
+      it all he gave no thought. But he realized enough as he toyed, as cat with
+      mouse, with Richard Westmacott, to know that in striking at her through
+      the worthless person of this brother whom she cherished&mdash;and who
+      persisted in affording him this opportunity&mdash;a wicked vengeance would
+      be his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peace-loving Lord Gervase had heaved himself suddenly to his feet at
+      Westmacott's last words, still intent upon saving the situation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In Heaven's name...&rdquo; he began, when Mr. Wilding, ever calm and smiling,
+      though now a trifle sinister, waved him gently into silence. But that
+      persisting calm of Mr. Wilding's was too much for old Nick Trenchard. He
+      rose abruptly, drawing all eyes upon himself. It was time, he thought, he
+      took a hand in this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In addition to his affection for Wilding and his contempt for Westmacott,
+      he was filled with a fear that the latter might become dangerous if not
+      crushed at once. Gifted with a shrewd knowledge of men, acquired during a
+      chequered life of much sour experience, old Nick instinctively mistrusted
+      Richard. He had known him for a fool, a weakling, a babbler, and a bibber
+      of wine. Out of such elements a villain is soon compounded, and Trenchard
+      had cause to fear the form of villainy that lay ready to Richard's hand.
+      For it chanced that Mr. Trenchard was second cousin to that famous John
+      Trenchard, so lately tried for treason and acquitted to the great joy of
+      the sectaries of the West, and still more lately&mdash;but yesterday, in
+      fact&mdash;fled the country to escape the rearrest ordered in consequence
+      of that excessive joy. Like his more famous cousin, Nick Trenchard was one
+      of the Duke of Monmouth's most active agents; and Westmacott, like
+      Wilding, Vallancey, and one or two others at that board, stood, too,
+      committed to the cause of the Protestant Champion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Out of his knowledge of the boy Trenchard was led to fear that if he were
+      leniently dealt with now, tomorrow, when, sober, he came to realize the
+      grossness of the thing he had done and the unlikelihood of its being
+      forgiven him, there was no saying but that to protect himself he might
+      betray Wilding's share in the plot that was being hatched. That in itself
+      would be bad enough; but there might be worse, for he could scarcely
+      betray Wilding without betraying others and&mdash;what mattered most&mdash;the
+      Cause itself. He must be dealt with out of hand, Trenchard opined, and
+      dealt with ruthlessly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think, Anthony,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that we have had words enough. Shall you be
+      disposing of Mr. Westmacott to-morrow, or must I be doing it for you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With a gasp of dismay young Richard twisted in his chair to confront this
+      fresh and unsuspected antagonist. What danger was this that he had
+      overlooked? Then, even as he turned, Wilding's voice fell on his ear, and
+      each word of the few he spoke was like a drop of icy water on Westmacott's
+      overheated brain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I protest you are vastly kind, Nick. But I intend, myself, to have the
+      pleasure of killing Mr. Westmacott.&rdquo; And his smile fell now in mockery
+      upon the disillusioned lad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Crushed by that bolt from the blue, Richard sat as if stunned, the flush
+      receding from his face until his very lips were livid. The shock had
+      sobered him, and, sobered, he realized in terror what he had done. And yet
+      even sober he was amazed to find that the staff upon which with such
+      security he had leaned should have proved rotten. True he had put much
+      strain upon it; but then he had counted that it would stand much strain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He would have spoken, but he lacked words, so stricken was he. And even
+      had he done so it is odds none would have heard him, for the late calm was
+      of a sudden turned to garboil. Every man of that company&mdash;with the
+      sole exception of Richard himself&mdash;was on his feet, and all were
+      speaking at once, in clamouring, excited chorus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding alone&mdash;the butt of their expostulations&mdash;stood quietly
+      smiling, and wiped his face at last with a kerchief of finest lawn.
+      Dominating the others in the Babel rose the voice of Sir Rowland Blake&mdash;impecunious
+      Blake; Blake lately of the Guards, who had sold his commission as the only
+      thing remaining him upon which he could raise money; Blake, that other
+      suitor for Miss Westmacott's hand, the suitor favoured by her brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall not do it, Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; he shouted, his face crimson. &ldquo;No, by
+      God! You were shamed forever. He is but a lad, and drunk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard eyed the short, powerfully built man beside him, and laughed
+      unpleasantly. &ldquo;You should get yourself bled one of these days, Sir
+      Rowland,&rdquo; he advised. &ldquo;There may be no great danger yet; but a man can't
+      be too careful when he wears a narrow neckcloth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake&mdash;a short, powerfully built man&mdash;took no heed of him, but
+      looked straight at Mr. Wilding, who, smiling ever, calmly returned the
+      gaze of those prominent blue eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will suffer me, Sir Rowland,&rdquo; said he sweetly, &ldquo;to be the judge of
+      whom I will and whom I will not meet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Rowland flushed under that mocking glance and caustic tone. &ldquo;But he is
+      drunk,&rdquo; he repeated feebly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; said Trenchard, &ldquo;that he is hearing something that will make
+      him sober.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Gervase took the lad by the shoulder, and shook him impatiently.
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; quoth he. &ldquo;Have you nothing to say? You did a deal of prating just
+      now. I make no doubt but that even at this late hour if you were to make
+      apology...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would be idle,&rdquo; came Wilding's icy voice to quench the gleam of hope
+      kindling anew in Richard's breast. The lad saw that he was lost, and he is
+      a poor thing, indeed, who cannot face the worst once that worst is shown
+      to be irrevocable. He rose with some semblance of dignity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is as I would wish,&rdquo; said he, but his livid face and staring eyes
+      belied the valour of his words. He cleared his huskiness from his throat.
+      &ldquo;Sir Rowland,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;will you act for me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not I!&rdquo; cried Blake with an oath. &ldquo;I'll be no party to the butchery of a
+      boy unfledged.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Unfledged?&rdquo; echoed Trenchard. &ldquo;Body o' me! 'Tis a matter Wilding will
+      amend to-morrow. He'll fledge him, never fear. He'll wing him on his
+      flight to heaven.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Of set purpose did Trenchard add this fuel to the blazing fire. It was no
+      part of his views that this encounter should be avoided. If Richard
+      Westmacott were allowed to live after what had passed, there were too many
+      tall fellows might go in peril of their lives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard, meanwhile, had turned to the man on his left&mdash;young
+      Vallancey, a notorious partisan of the Duke of Monmouth's, a hair-brained
+      gentleman who was his own worst enemy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May I count on you, Ned?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye&mdash;to the death,&rdquo; said Vallancey magniloquently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Vallancey,&rdquo; said Trenchard with a wry twist of his sharp features,
+      &ldquo;you grow prophetic.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II. SIR ROWLAND TO THE RESCUE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      From Scoresby Hall, near Weston Zoyland, young Westmacott rode home that
+      Saturday night to his sister's house in Bridgwater, a sobered man and an
+      anguished. He had committed a folly which was like to cost him his life
+      to-morrow. Other follies had he committed in his twenty-five years&mdash;for
+      he was not quite the babe that Blake had represented him, although he
+      certainly looked nothing like his age. But to-night he had contrived to
+      set the crown to all. He had good cause to blame himself and to curse the
+      miscalculation that had emboldened him to launch himself upon a course of
+      insult against this Wilding, whom he hated with all the currish and
+      resentful hatred of the worthless for the man of parts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But there was more than hate in the affront that he had offered; there was
+      calculation&mdash;to an even greater extent than we have seen. It happened
+      that through his own fault young Richard was all but penniless. The pious,
+      nonconformist soul of Sir Geoffrey Lupton&mdash;the wealthy uncle from
+      whom he had had great expectations&mdash;had been so stirred to anger by
+      Richard's vicious and besotted ways that he had left every guinea that was
+      his, every perch of land, and every brick of edifice to Richard's
+      half-sister Ruth. At present things were not so bad for the worthless boy.
+      Ruth worshipped him. He was a sacred charge to her from their dead father,
+      who, knowing the stoutness of her soul and the feebleness of Richard's,
+      had in dying imposed on her the care and guidance of her graceless
+      brother. But Ruth, in all things strong, was weak with Richard out of her
+      very fondness for him. To what she had he might help himself, and thus it
+      was that things were not so bad with him at present. But when Richard's
+      calculating mind came to give thought to the future he found that this
+      occasioned him some care. Rich ladies, even when they do not happen to be
+      equipped in addition with Ruth's winsome beauty and endearing nature, are
+      not wont to go unmarried. It would have pleased Richard best to have had
+      her remain a spinster. But he well knew that this was a matter in which
+      she might have a voice of her own, and it behoved him betimes to take wise
+      measures where possible husbands were concerned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+The first that came in a suitor's obvious panoply was Anthony Wilding,
+of Zoyland Chase, and Richard watched his advent with foreboding.
+Wilding's was a personality to dazzle any woman, despite&mdash;perhaps even
+because of&mdash;the reputation for wildness that clung to him. That he was
+known as Wild Wilding to the countryside is true; but it were unfair&mdash;as
+Richard knew&mdash;to attach to this too much importance; for the adoption
+of so obvious an alliteration the rude country minds needed but a slight
+encouragement.
+
+From the first it looked as if Ruth might favour him, and Richard's
+fears assumed more definite shape. If Wilding married her&mdash;and he was
+a bold, masterful fellow who usually accomplished what he aimed at&mdash;her
+fortune and estate must cease to be a pleasant pasture land for bovine
+Richard. The boy thought at first of making terms with Wilding; the idea
+was old; it had come to him when first he had counted the chances of his
+sister's marrying. But he found himself hesitating to lay his proposal
+before Mr. Wilding. And whilst he hesitated Mr. Wilding made obvious
+headway. Still Richard dared not do it. There was a something in
+Wilding's eye that cried him danger. Thus, in the end, since he
+could not attempt a compromise with this fine fellow, the only course
+remaining was that of direct antagonism&mdash;that is to say, direct as
+Richard understood directness. Slander was the weapon he used in that
+secret duel; the countryside was well stocked with stories of Mr.
+Wilding's many indiscretions. I do not wish to suggest that these were
+unfounded. Still, the countryside, cajoled by its primitive sense of
+humour into that alliteration I have mentioned, found that having given
+this dog its bad name, it was under the obligation of keeping up his
+reputation. So it exaggerated. Richard, exaggerating those exaggerations
+in his turn, had some details, as interesting and unsavoury as they were
+in the main untrue, to lay before his sister.
+</p>
+    <p>
+      Now established love, it is well known, thrives wondrously on slander. The
+      robust growth of a maid's feelings for her accepted suitor is but further
+      strengthened by malign representations of his character. She seizes with
+      joy the chance of affording proof of her great loyalty, and defies the
+      world and its evil to convince her that the man to whom she has given her
+      trust is not most worthy of it. Not so, however, with the first timid bud
+      of incipient interest. Slander nips it like a frost; in deadliness it is
+      second only to ridicule.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth Westmacott lent an ear to her brother's stories, incredulous only
+      until she remembered vague hints she had caught from this person and from
+      that, whose meaning was now made clear by what Richard told her, which,
+      incidentally, they served to corroborate. Corroboration, too, did the tale
+      of infamy receive from the friendship that prevailed between Mr. Wilding
+      and Nick Trenchard, the old ne'er-dowell, who in his time&mdash;as
+      everybody knew&mdash;had come so low, despite his gentle birth, as to have
+      been one of a company of strolling players. Had Mr. Wilding been other
+      than she now learnt he was, he would surely not cherish an attachment for
+      a person so utterly unworthy. Clearly, they were birds of a plumage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so, her maiden purity outraged at the thought that she had been in
+      danger of lending a willing ear to the wooing of such a man, she had
+      crushed this love which she blushed to think was on the point of throwing
+      out roots to fasten on her soul, and was sedulous thereafter in
+      manifesting the aversion which she accounted it her duty to foster for Mr.
+      Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard had watched and smiled in secret, taking pride in the cunning way
+      he had wrought this change&mdash;that cunning which so often is given to
+      the stupid by way of compensation for the intelligence that has been
+      withheld them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now what time discountenanced, Wilding fumed and fretted all in vain,
+      Sir Rowland Blake, fresh from London and in full flight from his
+      creditors, flashed like a comet into the Bridgwater heavens. He dazzled
+      the eyes and might have had for the asking the heart and hand of Diana
+      Horton&mdash;Ruth's cousin. Her heart, indeed, he had without the asking,
+      for Diana fell straightway in love with him and showed it, just as he
+      showed that he was not without response to her affection. There were some
+      tender passages between them; but Blake, for all his fine exterior, was a
+      beggar, and Diana far from rich, and so he rode his feelings with a hard
+      grip upon the reins. And then, in an evil hour for poor Diana, young
+      Westmacott had taken him to Lupton House, and Sir Rowland had his first
+      glimpse of Ruth, his first knowledge of her fortune. He went down before
+      Ruth's eyes like a man of heart; he went down more lowly still before her
+      possessions like a man of greed; and poor Diana might console herself with
+      whom she could.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her brother watched him, appraised him, and thought that in this broken
+      gamester he had a man after his own heart; a man who would be ready enough
+      for such a bargain as Richard had in mind; ready enough to sell what rags
+      might be left him of his honour so that he came by the wherewithal to mend
+      his broken fortunes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The twain made terms. They haggled like any pair of traders out of Jewry,
+      but in the end it was settled&mdash;by a bond duly engrossed and sealed&mdash;that
+      on the day that Sir Rowland married Ruth he should make over to her
+      brother certain values that amounted to perhaps a quarter of her
+      possessions. There was no cause to think that Ruth would be greatly
+      opposed to this&mdash;not that that consideration would have weighed with
+      Richard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But now that all essentials were so satisfactorily determined a vexation
+      was offered Westmacott by the circumstance that his sister seemed nowise
+      taken with Sir Rowland. She suffered him because he was her brother's
+      friend; on that account she even honoured him with some measure of her own
+      friendship; but to no greater intimacy did her manner promise to admit
+      him. And meanwhile, Mr. Wilding persisted in the face of all rebuffs.
+      Under his smiling mask he hid the smart of the wounds she dealt him, until
+      it almost seemed to him that from loving her he had come to hate her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It had been well for Richard had he left things as they were and waited.
+      Whether Blake prospered or not, leastways it was clear that Wilding would
+      not prosper, and that, for the season, was all that need have mattered to
+      young Richard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But in his cups that night he had thought in some dim way to precipitate
+      matters by affronting Mr. Wilding, secure, as I have shown, in his belief
+      that Wilding would perish sooner than raise a finger against Ruth's
+      brother. And his drunken astuteness, it seemed, had been to his mind as a
+      piece of bottle glass to the sight, distorting the image viewed through
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With some such bitter reflection rode he home to his sleepless couch. Some
+      part of those dark hours he spent in bitter reviling of Wilding, of
+      himself, and even of his sister, whom he blamed for this awful situation
+      into which he had tumbled; at other times he wept from self-pity and sheer
+      fright.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once, indeed, he imagined that he saw light, that he saw a way out of the
+      peril that hemmed him in. His mind turned for a moment in the direction
+      that Trenchard had feared it might. He bethought him of his association
+      with the Monmouth Cause&mdash;into which he had been beguiled by the
+      sordid hope of gain&mdash;and of Wilding's important share in that same
+      business. He was even moved to rise and ride that very night for Exeter to
+      betray to Albemarle the Cause itself, so that he might have Wilding laid
+      by the heels. But if Trenchard had been right in having little faith in
+      Richard's loyalty, he had, it seems, in fearing treachery made the mistake
+      of giving Richard credit for more courage than was his endowment. For
+      when, sitting up in bed, fired by his inspiration, young Westmacott came
+      to consider the questions the Lord-Lieutenant of Devon would be likely to
+      ask him, he reflected that the answers he must return would so incriminate
+      himself that he would be risking his own neck in the betrayal. He flung
+      himself down again with a curse and a groan, and thought no more of the
+      salvation that might lie for him that way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The morning of that last day of May found him pale and limp and all
+      a-tremble. He rose betimes and dressed, but stirred not from his chamber
+      till in the garden under his window he heard his sister's voice, and that
+      of Diana Horton, joined anon by a man's deeper tones, which he recognized
+      with a start as Blake's. What did the baronet here so early? Assuredly it
+      must concern the impending duel. Richard knew no mawkishness on the score
+      of eavesdropping. He stole to his window and lent an ear, but the voices
+      were receding, and to his vexation he caught nothing of what was said. He
+      wondered how soon Vallancey would come, and for what hour the encounter
+      had been appointed. Vallancey had remained behind at Scoresby Hall last
+      night to make the necessary arrangements with Trenchard, who was to act
+      for Mr. Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now it chanced that Trenchard and Wilding had business&mdash;business of
+      Monmouth's&mdash;to transact in Taunton that morning; business which might
+      not be delayed. There were odd rumours afloat in the West; persistent
+      rumours which had come fast upon the heels of the news of Argyle's landing
+      in Scotland; rumours which maintained that Monmouth himself was coming
+      over from Holland. These tales Wilding and his associates had ignored. The
+      Duke, they knew, was to spend the summer in retreat in Sweden, with (it
+      was alleged) the Lady Henrietta Wentworth to bear him company, and in the
+      mean time his trusted agents were to pave the way for his coming in the
+      following spring. Of late the lack of direct news from the Duke had been a
+      source of mystification to his friends in the West, and now, suddenly, the
+      information went abroad&mdash;it was something more than rumour this time&mdash;that
+      a letter of the greatest importance had been intercepted. From whom that
+      letter proceeded or to whom it was addressed, could not yet be discovered.
+      But it seemed clear that it was connected with the Monmouth Cause, and it
+      behoved Mr. Wilding to discover what he could. With this intent he rode
+      with Trenchard that Sunday morning to Taunton, hoping that at the Red Lion
+      Inn&mdash;that meeting-place of dissenters&mdash;he might cull reliable
+      information.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was in consequence of this that the meeting with Richard Westmacott was
+      not to take place until the evening, and therefore Vallancey came not to
+      Lupton House as early as Richard thought he should expect him. Blake,
+      however&mdash;more no doubt out of a selfish fear of losing a valued ally
+      in the winning of Ruth's hand than out of any excessive concern for
+      Richard himself&mdash;had risen early and hastened to Lupton House, in the
+      hope, which he recognized as all but forlorn, of yet being able to avert
+      the disaster he foresaw for Richard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Peering over the orchard wall as he rode by, he caught a glimpse, through
+      an opening between the trees, of Ruth herself and Diana on the lawn
+      beyond. There was a wicket gate that stood unlatched, and availing himself
+      of this Sir Rowland tethered his horse in the lane and threading his way
+      briskly through the orchard came suddenly upon the girls. Their laughter
+      reached him as he advanced, and told him they could know nothing yet of
+      Richard's danger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On his abrupt and unexpected apparition, Diana paled and Ruth flushed
+      slightly, whereupon Sir Rowland might have bethought him, had he been
+      book-learned, of the axiom, &ldquo;Amour qui rougit, fleurette; amour qui plit,
+      drame du coeur.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He doffed his hat and bowed, his fair ringlets tumbling forward till they
+      hid his face, which was exceeding grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth gave him good morning pleasantly. &ldquo;You London folk are earlier risers
+      than we are led to think,&rdquo; she added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Twill be the change of air makes Sir Rowland matutinal,&rdquo; said Diana,
+      making a gallant recovery from her agitation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I vow,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that I had grown matutinal earlier had I known what
+      here awaited me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Awaited you?&rdquo; quoth Diana, and tossed her head archly disdainful. &ldquo;La!
+      Sir Rowland, your modesty will be the death of you.&rdquo; Archness became this
+      lady of the sunny hair, tip-tilted nose, and complexion that outvied the
+      apple-blossoms. She was shorter by a half-head than her darker cousin, and
+      made up in sprightliness what she lacked of Ruth's gentle dignity. The
+      pair were foils, each setting off the graces of the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I protest I am foolish,&rdquo; answered Blake, a shade discomfited. &ldquo;But I want
+      not for excuse. I have it in the matter that brings me here.&rdquo; So solemn
+      was his air, so sober his voice, that both girls felt a premonition of the
+      untoward message that he bore. It was Ruth who asked him to explain
+      himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you walk, ladies?&rdquo; said Blake, and waved the hand that still held
+      his hat riverwards, adown the sloping lawn. They moved away together, Sir
+      Rowland pacing between his love of yesterday and his love of to-day,
+      pressed with questions from both. He shaded his eyes to look at the river,
+      dazzling in the morning sunlight that came over Polden Hill, and, standing
+      thus, he unburdened himself at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My news concerns Richard and&mdash;Mr. Wilding.&rdquo; They looked at him. Miss
+      Westmacott's fine level brows were knit. He paused to ask, as if suddenly
+      observing his absence, &ldquo;Is Richard not yet risen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet,&rdquo; said Ruth, and waited for him to proceed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It does credit to his courage that he should sleep late on such a day,&rdquo;
+       said Blake, and was pleased with the adroitness wherewith he broke the
+      news. &ldquo;He quarrelled last night with Anthony Wilding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth's hand went to her bosom; fear stared at Blake from out her eyes,
+      blue as the heavens overhead; a grey shade overcast the usual warm pallor
+      of her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With Mr. Wilding?&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;That man!&rdquo; And though she said no more her
+      eyes implored him to go on, and tell her what more there might be. He did
+      so, and he spared not Wilding. The task, indeed, was one to which he
+      applied himself with a certain zest; whatever might be the outcome of the
+      affair, there was no denying that he was by way of reaping profit from it
+      by the final overthrow of an acknowledged rival. And when he told her how
+      Richard had flung his wine in Wilding's face when Wilding stood to toast
+      her, a faint flush crept to her cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Richard did well,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;I am proud of him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The words pleased Sir Rowland vastly; but he reckoned without Diana. Miss
+      Horton's mind was illumined by her knowledge of herself. In the light of
+      that she saw precisely what capital this tale-bearer sought to make. The
+      occasion might not be without its opportunities for her; and to begin
+      with, it was no part of her intention that Wilding should be thus maligned
+      and finally driven from the lists of rivalry with Blake. Upon Wilding,
+      indeed, and his notorious masterfulness did she found what hopes she still
+      entertained of winning back Sir Rowland.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;you are a little hard on Mr. Wilding. You speak as if
+      he were the first gallant that ever toasted lady's eyes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am no lady of his, Diana,&rdquo; Ruth reminded her, with a faint show of
+      heat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana shrugged her shoulders. &ldquo;You may not love him, but you can't ordain
+      that he shall not love you. You are very harsh, I think. To me it rather
+      seems that Richard acted like a boor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, mistress,&rdquo; cried Sir Rowland, half out of countenance, and stifling
+      his vexation, &ldquo;in these matters it all depends upon the manner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, yes,&rdquo; she agreed; &ldquo;and whatever Mr. Wilding's manner, if I know him
+      at all, it would be nothing but respectful to the last degree.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My own conception of respect,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;is not to bandy a lady's name
+      about a company of revellers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bethink you, though, you said just now, it all depended on the manner,&rdquo;
+       she rejoined. Sir Rowland shrugged and turned half from her to her
+      listening cousin. When all is said, poor Diana appears&mdash;despite her
+      cunning&mdash;to have been short-sighted. Aiming at a defined advantage in
+      the game she played, she either ignored or held too lightly the
+      concomitant disadvantage of vexing Blake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It were perhaps best to tell us the exact words he used, Sir Rowland,&rdquo;
+       she suggested, &ldquo;that for ourselves we may judge how far he lacked
+      respect.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What signify the words!&rdquo; cried Blake, now almost out of temper. &ldquo;I don't
+      recall them. It is the air with which he pledged Mistress Westmacott.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah yes&mdash;the manner,&rdquo; quoth Diana irritatingly. &ldquo;We'll let that be.
+      Richard threw his wine in Mr. Wilding's face? What followed then? What
+      said Mr. Wilding?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Rowland remembered what Mr. Wilding had said, and bethought him that
+      it were impolitic in him to repeat it. At the same time, not having looked
+      for this cross-questioning, he was all unprepared with any likely answer.
+      He hesitated, until Ruth echoed Diana's question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell us, Sir Rowland,&rdquo; she begged him, &ldquo;what Mr. Wilding said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Being forced to say something, and being by nature slow-witted and
+      sluggish of invention, Sir Rowland was compelled, to his unspeakable
+      chagrin, to fall back upon the truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is not that proof?&rdquo; cried Diana in triumph. &ldquo;Mr. Wilding was reluctant to
+      quarrel with Richard. He was even ready to swallow such an affront as
+      that, thinking it might be offered him under a misconception of his
+      meaning. He plainly professed the respect that filled him for Mistress
+      Westmacott, and yet, and yet, Sir Rowland, you tell us that he lacked
+      respect!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam,&rdquo; cried Blake, turning crimson, &ldquo;that matters nothing. It was not
+      the place or time to introduce your cousin's name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You think, Sir Rowland,&rdquo; put in Ruth, her air grave, judicial almost,
+      &ldquo;that Richard behaved well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As I would like to behave myself, as I would have a son of mine behave on
+      the like occasion,&rdquo; Blake protested. &ldquo;But we waste words,&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;I
+      did not come to defend Richard, nor just to bear you this untoward news. I
+      came to consult with you, in the hope that we might find some way to avert
+      this peril from your brother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What way is possible?&rdquo; asked Ruth, and sighed. &ldquo;I would not... I would
+      not have Richard a coward.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you prefer him dead?&rdquo; asked Blake, sadly grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sooner than craven&mdash;yes,&rdquo; Ruth answered him, very white.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no question of that,&rdquo; was Blake's rejoinder. &ldquo;The question is
+      that Wilding said last night that he would kill the boy, and what Wilding
+      says he does. Out of the affection that I bear Richard is born my anxiety
+      to save him despite himself. It is in this that I come to seek your aid or
+      offer mine. Allied we might accomplish what singly neither of us could.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had at once the reward of his cunning speech. Ruth held out her hands.
+      &ldquo;You are a good friend, Sir Rowland,&rdquo; she said, with a pale smile; and
+      pale too was the smile with which Diana watched them. No more than Ruth
+      did she suspect the sincerity of Blake's protestations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am proud you should account me that,&rdquo; said the baronet, taking Ruth's
+      hands and holding them a moment; &ldquo;and I would that I could prove myself
+      your friend in this to some good purpose. Believe me, if Wilding would
+      consent that I might take your brother's place, I would gladly do so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a safe boast, knowing as he did that Wilding would consent to no
+      such thing; but it earned him a glance of greater kindliness from Ruth&mdash;who
+      began to think that hitherto perhaps she had done him some injustice&mdash;and
+      a look of greater admiration from Diana, who saw in him her beau-ideal of
+      the gallant lover.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would not have you endanger yourself so,&rdquo; said Ruth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It might,&rdquo; said Blake, his blue eyes very fierce, &ldquo;be no great danger,
+      after all.&rdquo; And then dismissing that part of the subject as if, like a
+      brave man, the notion of being thought boastful were unpleasant, he passed
+      on to the discussion of ways and means by which the coming duel might be
+      averted. But when they came to grips with facts, it seemed that Sir
+      Rowland had as little idea of what might be done as had the ladies. True,
+      he began by making the obvious suggestion that Richard should tender
+      Wilding a full apology. That, indeed, was the only door of escape, and
+      Blake shrewdly suspected that what the boy had been unwilling to do last
+      night&mdash;partly through wine, and partly through the fear of looking
+      fearful in the eyes of Lord Gervase Scoresby's guests&mdash;he might be
+      willing enough to do to-day, sober and upon reflection. For the rest Blake
+      was as far from suspecting Mr. Wilding's peculiar frame of mind as had
+      Richard been last night. This his words showed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am satisfied,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that if Richard were to go to-day to Wilding
+      and express his regret for a thing done in the heat of wine, Wilding would
+      be forced to accept it as satisfaction, and none would think that it did
+      other than reflect credit upon Richard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you very sure of that?&rdquo; asked Ruth, her tone dubious, her glance
+      hopefully anxious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What else is to be thought?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; put in Diana shrewdly, &ldquo;it were an admission of Richard's that he
+      had done wrong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No less,&rdquo; he agreed, and Ruth caught her breath in fresh dismay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And yet you have said that he did as you would have a son of yours do,&rdquo;
+       Diana reminded him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I maintain it,&rdquo; answered Blake; his wits worked slowly ever. It was
+      for Ruth to reveal the flaw to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you not understand, then,&rdquo; she asked him sadly, &ldquo;that such an
+      admission on Richard's part would amount to a lie&mdash;a lie uttered to
+      save himself from an encounter, the worst form of lie, a lie of cowardice?
+      Surely, Sir Rowland, your kindly anxiety for his life outruns your anxiety
+      for his honour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana, having accomplished her task, hung her head in silence, pondering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Rowland was routed utterly. He glanced from one to the other of his
+      companions, and grew afraid that he&mdash;the town gallant&mdash;might
+      come to look foolish in the eyes of these country ladies. He protested
+      again his love for Richard, and increased Ruth's terror by his mention of
+      Wilding's swordsmanship; but when all was said, he saw that he had best
+      retreat ere he spoiled the good effect which he hoped his solicitude had
+      created. And so he spoke of seeking counsel with Lord Gervase Scoresby,
+      and took his leave, promising to return by noon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III. DIANA SCHEMES
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Notwithstanding the brave face Ruth Westmacott had kept during his
+      presence, when he departed Sir Rowland left behind him a distress
+      amounting almost to anguish in her mind. Yet though she might suffer,
+      there was no weakness in Ruth's nature. She knew how to endure. Diana,
+      bearing Richard not a tenth of the affection his sister consecrated to
+      him, was alarmed for him. Besides, her own interests urged the averting of
+      this encounter. And so she held in accents almost tearful that something
+      must be done to save him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This, too, appeared to be Richard's own view, when presently&mdash;within
+      a few minutes of Blake's departure&mdash;he came to join them. They
+      watched his approach in silence, and both noted&mdash;though with
+      different eyes and different feelings&mdash;the pallor of his fair face,
+      the dark lines under his colourless eyes. His condition was abject, and
+      his manners, never of the best&mdash;for there was much of the spoiled
+      child about Richard&mdash;were clearly suffering from it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stood before his sister and his cousin, moving his eyes shiftily from
+      one to the other, rubbing his hands nervously together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your precious friend Sir Rowland has been here,&rdquo; said he, and it was not
+      clear from his manner which of them he addressed. &ldquo;Not a doubt but he will
+      have brought you the news.&rdquo; He seemed to sneer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth advanced towards him, her face grave, her sweet eyes full of pitying
+      concern. She placed a hand upon his sleeve. &ldquo;My poor Richard...&rdquo; she
+      began, but he shook off her kindly touch, laughing angrily&mdash;a mere
+      cackle of irritability.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Odso!&rdquo; he interrupted her. &ldquo;It is a thought late for this mock
+      kindliness!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana, in the background, arched her brows, then with a shrug turned aside
+      and seated herself on the stone seat by which they had been standing. Ruth
+      shrank back as if her brother had struck her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Richard!&rdquo; she cried, and searched his livid face with her eyes.
+      &ldquo;Richard!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He read a question in the interjection, and he answered it. &ldquo;Had you known
+      any real care, any true concern for me, you had not given cause for this
+      affair,&rdquo; he chid her peevishly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you saying?&rdquo; she cried, and it occurred to her at last that
+      Richard was afraid. He was a coward! She felt as she would faint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am saying,&rdquo; said he, hunching his shoulders, and shivering as he spoke,
+      yet, his glance unable to meet hers, &ldquo;that it is your fault that I am like
+      to get my throat cut before sunset.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My fault?&rdquo; she murmured. The slope of lawn seemed to wave and swim about
+      her. &ldquo;My fault?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The fault of your wanton ways,&rdquo; he accused her harshly. &ldquo;You have so
+      played fast and loose with this fellow Wilding that he makes free of your
+      name in my very presence, and puts upon me the need to get myself killed
+      by him to save the family honour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He would have said more in this strain, but something in her glance gave
+      him pause. There fell a silence. From the distance came the melodious
+      pealing of church bells. High overhead a lark was pouring out its song; in
+      the lane at the orchard end rang the beat of trotting hoofs. It was Diana
+      who spoke presently. Just indignation stirred her, and, when stirred, she
+      knew no pity, set no limits to her speech.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think, indeed,&rdquo; said she, her voice crisp and merciless, &ldquo;that the
+      family honour will best be saved if Mr. Wilding kills you. It is in danger
+      while you live. You are a coward, Richard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Diana!&rdquo; he thundered&mdash;he could be mighty brave with women&mdash;whilst
+      Ruth clutched her arm to restrain her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she continued, undeterred: &ldquo;You are a coward&mdash;a pitiful coward,&rdquo;
+       she told him. &ldquo;Consult your mirror. It will tell you what a palsied thing
+      you are. That you should dare so speak to Ruth...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't!&rdquo; Ruth begged her, turning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye,&rdquo; growled Richard, &ldquo;she had best be silent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana rose, to battle, her cheeks crimson. &ldquo;It asks a braver man than you
+      to compel my obedience,&rdquo; she told him. &ldquo;La!&rdquo; she fumed, &ldquo;I'll swear that
+      had Mr. Wilding overheard what you have said to your sister, you would
+      have little to fear from his sword. A cane would be the weapon he'd use on
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard's pale eyes flamed malevolently; a violent rage possessed him and
+      flooded out his fear, for nothing can so goad a man as an offensive truth.
+      Ruth approached him again; again she took him by the arm, seeking to
+      soothe his over-troubled spirit; but again he shook her off. And then to
+      save the situation came a servant from the house. So lost in anger was all
+      Richard's sense of decency that the mere supervention of the man would not
+      have been enough to have silenced him could he have found adequate words
+      in which to answer Mistress Horton. But even as he racked his mind, the
+      footman's voice broke the silence, and the words the fellow uttered did
+      what his presence alone might not have sufficed to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Vallancey is asking for you, sir,&rdquo; he announced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard started. Vallancey! He had come at last, and his coming was
+      connected with the impending duel. The thought was paralyzing to young
+      Westmacott. The flush of anger faded from his face; its leaden hue
+      returned and he shivered as with cold. At last he mastered himself
+      sufficiently to ask:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is he, Jasper?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the library, sir,&rdquo; replied the servant. &ldquo;Shall I bring him hither?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;no,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;I will come to him.&rdquo; He turned his back upon
+      the ladies, paused a moment, still irresolute. Then, as by an effort, he
+      followed the servant across the lawn and vanished through the ivied porch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he went Diana flew to her cousin. Her shallow nature was touched with
+      transient pity. &ldquo;My poor Ruth...&rdquo; she murmured soothingly, and set her arm
+      about the other's waist. There was a gleam of tears in the eyes Ruth
+      turned upon her. Together they came to the granite seat and sank to it
+      side by side, fronting the placid river. There Ruth, her elbows on her
+      knees, cradled her chin in her hands, and with a sigh of misery stared
+      straight before her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was untrue!&rdquo; she said at last. &ldquo;What Richard said of me was untrue.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, yes,&rdquo; Diana snapped, contemptuous. &ldquo;The only truth is that Richard
+      is afraid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth shivered. &ldquo;Ah, no,&rdquo; she pleaded&mdash;she knew how true was the
+      impeachment. &ldquo;Don't say it, Diana.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It matters little that I say it,&rdquo; snorted Diana impatiently. &ldquo;It is a
+      truth proclaimed by the first glance at him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is in poor health, perhaps,&rdquo; said Ruth, seeking miserably to excuse
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye,&rdquo; said Diana. &ldquo;He's suffering from an ague&mdash;the result of a lack
+      of courage. That he should so have spoken to you! Give me patience,
+      Heaven!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth crimsoned again at the memory of his words; a wave of indignation
+      swept through her gentle soul, but was gone at once, leaving an ineffable
+      sadness in its room. What was to be done? She turned to Diana for counsel.
+      But Diana was still whipping up her scorn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If he goes out to meet Mr. Wilding, he'll shame himself and every man and
+      woman that bears the name of Westmacott,&rdquo; said she, and struck a new fear
+      with that into the heart of Ruth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He must not go!&rdquo; she answered passionately. &ldquo;He must not meet him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana flashed her a sidelong glance. &ldquo;And if he doesn't, will things be
+      mended?&rdquo; she inquired. &ldquo;Will it save his honour to have Mr. Wilding come
+      and cane him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He'd not do that?&rdquo; said Ruth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not if you asked him&mdash;no,&rdquo; was Diana's sharp retort, and she caught
+      her breath on the last word of it, for just then the Devil dropped the
+      seed of a suggestion into the fertile soil of her lovesick soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Diana!&rdquo; Ruth exclaimed in reproof, turning to confront her cousin. But
+      Diana's mind started upon its scheming journey was now travelling fast.
+      Out of that devil's seed there sprang with amazing rapidity a tree-like
+      growth, throwing out branches, putting forth leaves, bearing already&mdash;in
+      her fancy&mdash;bloom and fruit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo; quoth she after a breathing space, and her voice was gentle,
+      her tone innocent beyond compare. &ldquo;Why should you not ask him?&rdquo; Ruth
+      frowned, perplexed and thoughtful, and now Diana turned to her with the
+      lively eye of one into whose mind has leapt a sudden inspiration. &ldquo;Ruth!&rdquo;
+       she exclaimed. &ldquo;Why, indeed, should you not ask him to forgo this duel?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How, how could I?&rdquo; faltered Ruth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He'd not deny you; you know he'd not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not know it,&rdquo; answered Ruth. &ldquo;But if I did, how could I ask it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Were I Richard's sister, and had I his life and honour at heart as you
+      have, I'd not ask how. If Richard goes to that encounter he loses both,
+      remember&mdash;unless between this and then he undergoes some change. Were
+      I in your place, I'd straight to Wilding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To him?&rdquo; mused Ruth, sitting up. &ldquo;How could I go to him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go to him, yes,&rdquo; Diana insisted. &ldquo;Go to him at once&mdash;while there is
+      yet time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth rose and moved away a step or two towards the water, deep in thought.
+      Diana watched her furtively and slyly, the rapid rise and fall of her
+      maiden breast betraying the agitation that filled her as she waited&mdash;like
+      a gamester&mdash;for the turn of the card that would show her whether she
+      had won or lost. For she saw clearly how Ruth might be so compromised that
+      there was something more than a chance that Diana would no longer have
+      cause to account her cousin a barrier between herself and Blake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I could not go alone,&rdquo; said Ruth, and her tone was that of one still
+      battling with a notion that is repugnant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, if that is all,&rdquo; said Diana, &ldquo;then I'll go with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't! I can't! Consider the humiliation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Consider Richard rather,&rdquo; the fair temptress made answer eagerly. &ldquo;Be
+      sure that Mr. Wilding will save you all humiliation. He'll not deny you.
+      At a word from you, I know what answer he will make. He will refuse to
+      push the matter forward&mdash;acknowledge himself in the wrong, do
+      whatever you may ask him. He can do it. None will question his courage. It
+      has been proved too often.&rdquo; She rose and came to Ruth. She set her arm
+      about her waist again, and poured shrewd persuasion over her cousin's
+      indecision. &ldquo;To-night you'll thank me for this thought,&rdquo; she assured her.
+      &ldquo;Why do you pause? Are you so selfish as to think more of the little
+      humiliation that may await you than of Richard's life and honour?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; Ruth protested feebly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, then? Is Richard to go out and slay his honour by a show of fear
+      before he is slain, himself, by the man he has insulted?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll go,&rdquo; said Ruth. Now that the resolve was taken, she was brisk,
+      impatient. &ldquo;Come, Diana. Let Jerry saddle for us. We'll ride to Zoyland
+      Chase at once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They went without a word to Richard who was still closeted with Vallancey,
+      and riding forth they crossed the river and took the road that, skirting
+      Sedgemoor, runs south to Weston Zoyland. They rode with little said until
+      they came to the point where the road branches on the left, throwing out
+      an arm across the moor towards Chedzoy, a mile or so short of Zoyland
+      Chase. Here Diana reined in with a sharp gasp of pain. Ruth checked, and
+      cried to know what ailed her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the sun, I think,&rdquo; muttered Diana, her hand to her brow. &ldquo;I am sick
+      and giddy.&rdquo; And she slipped a thought heavily to the ground. In an instant
+      Ruth had dismounted and was beside her. Diana was pale, which lent colour
+      to her complaint, for Ruth was not to know that the pallor sprang from her
+      agitation in wondering whether the ruse she attempted would succeed or
+      not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A short stone's-throw from where they had halted stood a cottage back from
+      the road in a little plot of ground, the property of a kindly old woman
+      known to both. There Diana expressed the wish to rest awhile, and thither
+      they took their way, Ruth leading both horses and supporting her faltering
+      cousin. The dame was all solicitude. Diana was led into her parlour, and
+      what could be done was done. Her corsage was loosened, water drawn from
+      the well and brought her to drink and bathe her brow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She sat back languidly, her head lolling sideways against one of the wings
+      of the great chair, and languidly assured them she would be better soon if
+      she were but allowed to rest awhile. Ruth drew up a stool to sit beside
+      her, for all that her soul fretted at this delay. What if in consequence
+      she should reach Zoyland Chase too late&mdash;to find that Mr. Wilding had
+      gone forth already? But even as she was about to sit, it seemed that the
+      same thought had of a sudden come to Diana. The girl leaned forward,
+      thrusting&mdash;as if by an effort&mdash;some of her faintness from her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not wait for me, Ruth,&rdquo; she begged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must, child.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must not;&rdquo; the other insisted. &ldquo;Think what it may mean&mdash;Richard's
+      life, perhaps. No, no, Ruth, dear. Go on; go on to Zoyland. I'll follow
+      you in a few minutes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll wait for you,&rdquo; said Ruth with firmness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At that Diana rose, and in rising staggered. &ldquo;Then we'll push on at once,&rdquo;
+       she gasped, as if speech itself were an excruciating effort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you are in no case to stand!&rdquo; said Ruth. &ldquo;Sit, Diana, sit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Either you go on alone or I go with you, but go at once you must. At any
+      moment Mr. Wilding may go forth, and your chance is lost. I'll not have
+      Richard's blood upon my head.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth wrung her hands in her dismay, confronted by a parlous choice.
+      Consent to Diana's accompanying her in this condition she could not; ride
+      on alone to Mr. Wilding's house was hardly to be thought of, and yet if
+      she delayed she was endangering Richard's life. By the very strength of
+      her nature she was caught in the mesh of Diana's scheme. She saw that her
+      hesitation was unworthy. This was no ordinary cause, no ordinary occasion.
+      It was a time for heroic measures. She must ride on, nor could she consent
+      to take Diana.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so in the end she went, having seen her cousin settled again in the
+      high chair, and took with her Diana's feeble assurances that she would
+      follow her in a few moments, as soon as her faintness passed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV. TERMS OF SURRENDER
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;MR. WILDING rode at dawn with Mr. Trenchard, madam,&rdquo; announced old
+      Walters, the butler at Zoyland Chase. Old and familiar servant though he
+      was, he kept from his countenance all manifestation of the deep surprise
+      occasioned him by the advent of Mistress Westmacott, unescorted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He rode... at dawn?&rdquo; faltered Ruth, and for a moment she stood
+      irresolute, afraid and pondering in the shade of the great pillared porch.
+      Then she took heart again. If he rode at dawn, it was not in quest of
+      Richard that he went, since it had been near eleven o'clock when she had
+      left Bridgwater. He must have gone on other business first, and,
+      doubtless, before he went to the encounter he would be returning home.
+      &ldquo;Said he at what hour he would return?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He bade us expect him by noon, madam.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This gave confirmation to her thoughts. It wanted more than half an hour
+      to noon already. &ldquo;Then he may return at any moment?&rdquo; said she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At any moment, madam,&rdquo; was the grave reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She took her resolve. &ldquo;I will wait,&rdquo; she announced, to the man's
+      increasing if undisplayed astonishment. &ldquo;Let my horse be seen to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He bowed his obedience, and she followed him&mdash;a slender, graceful
+      figure in her dove-coloured riding-habit laced with silver&mdash;across
+      the stone-flagged vestibule, through the cool gloom of the great hall,
+      into the spacious library of which he held the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mistress Horton is following me,&rdquo; she informed the butler. &ldquo;Will you
+      bring her to me when she comes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bowing again in silent acquiescence, the white-haired servant closed the
+      door and left her. She stood in the centre of the great room, drawing off
+      her riding-gloves, perturbed and frightened beyond all reason at finding
+      herself for the first time under Mr. Wilding's roof. He was most
+      handsomely housed. His grandfather, who had travelled in Italy, had built
+      the Chase upon the severe and noble lines which there he had learnt to
+      admire, and he had embellished its interior, too, with many treasures of
+      art which with that intent he had there collected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She dropped her whip and gloves on to a table, and sank into a chair to
+      wait, her heart fluttering in her throat. Time passed, and in the silence
+      of the great house her anxiety was gradually quieted, until at last
+      through the long window that stood open came faintly wafted to her on the
+      soft breeze of that June morning the sound of a church clock at Weston
+      Zoyland chiming twelve. She rose with a start, bethinking her suddenly of
+      Diana, and wondering why she had not yet arrived. Was the child's
+      indisposition graver than she had led Ruth to suppose? She crossed to the
+      windows and stood there drumming impatiently upon the pane, her eyes
+      straying idly over the sweep of elm-fringed lawns towards the river
+      gleaming silvery here and there between the trees in the distance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly she caught a sound of hoofs. Was this Diana? She sped to the
+      other window, the one that stood open, and now she heard the crunch of
+      gravel and the champ of bits and the sound of more than two pairs of
+      hoofs. She caught a glimpse of Mr. Wilding and Mr. Trenchard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She felt the colour flying from her cheeks; again her heart fluttered in
+      her throat, and it was in vain that with her hand she sought to repress
+      the heaving of her breast. She was afraid; her every instinct bade her
+      slip through the window at which she stood and run from Zoyland Chase. And
+      then she thought of Richard and his danger, and she seemed to gather
+      courage from the reflection of her purpose in this house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Men's voices reached her&mdash;a laugh, the harsh cawing of Nick
+      Trenchard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A lady!&rdquo; she heard him cry. &ldquo;'Od's heart, Tony! Is this a time for
+      trafficking with doxies?&rdquo; She crimsoned an instant at the coarse word and
+      set her teeth, only to pale again the next. The voices were lowered so
+      that she heard not what was said; one sharp exclamation she recognized to
+      be in Wilding's voice, but caught not the word he uttered. There followed
+      a pause, and she stirred uneasily, waiting. Then came swift steps and
+      jangling spurs across the hall, the door opened suddenly, and Mr. Wilding,
+      in a scarlet riding-coat, his boots white with dust, stood bowing to her
+      from the threshold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your servant, Mistress Westmacott,&rdquo; she heard him murmur. &ldquo;My house is
+      deeply honoured.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She dropped him a half-curtsy, pale and tongue-tied. He turned to deliver
+      hat and whip and gloves to Walters, who had followed him, then closed the
+      door and came forward into the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will forgive that I present myself thus before you,&rdquo; he said, in
+      apology for his dusty raiment. &ldquo;But I bethought me you might be in haste,
+      and Walters tells me that already have you waited nigh upon an hour. Will
+      you not sit, madam?&rdquo; And he advanced a chair. His long white face was set
+      like a mask; but his dark, slanting eyes devoured her. He guessed the
+      reason of her visit. She who had humbled him, who had driven him to the
+      very borders of despair, was now to be humbled and to despair before him.
+      Under the impassive face his soul exulted fiercely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She disregarded the chair he proffered. &ldquo;My visit... has no doubt
+      surprised you,&rdquo; she began, tremulous and hesitating.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I' faith, no,&rdquo; he answered quietly. &ldquo;The cause, after all, is not very
+      far to seek. You are come on Richard's behalf.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not on Richard's,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;On my own.&rdquo; And now that the ice was
+      broken, the suspense of waiting over, she found the tide of her courage
+      flowing fast. &ldquo;This encounter must not take place, Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; she
+      informed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He raised his eyebrows&mdash;fine and level as her own&mdash;his thin lips
+      smiled never so faintly. &ldquo;It is, I think,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;for Richard to
+      prevent it. The chance was his last night. It shall be his again when we
+      meet. If he will express regret...&rdquo; He left his sentence there. In truth
+      he mocked her, though she guessed it not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;that if he makes apology...?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What else? What other way remains?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shook her head, and, if pale, her face was resolute, her glance
+      steady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is impossible,&rdquo; she told him. &ldquo;Last night&mdash;as I have the story&mdash;he
+      might have done it without shame. To-day it is too late. To tender his
+      apology on the ground would be to proclaim himself a coward.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding pursed his lips and shifted his position. &ldquo;It is difficult,
+      perhaps,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;but not impossible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is impossible,&rdquo; she insisted firmly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll not quarrel with you for a word,&rdquo; he answered, mighty agreeable.
+      &ldquo;Call it impossible, if you will. Admit, however, that it is all I can
+      suggest. You will do me the justice, I am sure, to see that in expressing
+      my willingness to accept your brother's expressions of regret I am proving
+      myself once more your very obedient servant. But that it is you who ask it&mdash;and
+      whose desires are my commands&mdash;I should let no man go unpunished for
+      an insult such as your brother put upon me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She winced at his words, at the bow with which he had professed himself
+      once more her servant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is no clemency that you offer him,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You leave him a choice
+      between death and dishonour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has,&rdquo; Wilding reminded her, &ldquo;the chance of combat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She flung back her head impatiently. &ldquo;I think you mock me,&rdquo; said she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at her keenly. &ldquo;Will you tell me plainly, madam,&rdquo; he begged,
+      &ldquo;what you would have me do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She flushed under his gaze, and the flush told him what he sought to
+      learn. There was, of course, another way, and she had thought of it; but
+      she lacked&mdash;as well she might, all things considered&mdash;the
+      courage to propose it. She had come to Mr. Wilding in the vague hope that
+      he himself would choose the heroic part. And he, to punish for her scorn
+      of him this woman whom he loved to hating-point, was resolved that she
+      herself must beg it of him. Whether, having so far compelled her, he would
+      grant her prayer or not was something he could not just then himself have
+      told you. She bowed her head in silence, and Wilding, that faint smile,
+      half friendliness, half mockery, hovering ever on his lips, turned aside
+      and moved softly towards the window. Her eyes, veiled behind the long
+      lashes of their drooping lids, followed him furtively. She felt that she
+      hated him in very truth. She marked the upright elegance of his figure,
+      the easy grace of his movements, the fine aristocratic mould of the
+      aquiline face, which she beheld in profile; and she hated him the more for
+      these outward favours that must commend him to no lack of women. He was
+      too masterful. He made her realize too keenly her own weakness and that of
+      Richard. She felt that just now he controlled the vice that held her fast&mdash;her
+      affection for her brother. And because of that she hated him the more.
+      &ldquo;You see, Mistress Westmacott,&rdquo; said he, his shoulder to her, his tone
+      sweet to the point of sadness, &ldquo;that there is nothing else.&rdquo; She stood,
+      her eyes following the pattern of the parquetry, her foot unconsciously
+      tracing it; her courage ebbed, and she had no answer for him. After a
+      pause he spoke again, still without turning. &ldquo;If that was not enough to
+      suit your ends&rdquo;&mdash;and though he spoke in a tone of ever-increasing
+      sadness, there glinted through it the faintest ray of mockery&mdash;&ldquo;I
+      marvel you should have come to Zoyland&mdash;to compromise yourself to so
+      little purpose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She raised a startled face. &ldquo;Com... compromise myself?&rdquo; she echoed. &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo;
+       It was a cry of indignation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What else?&rdquo; quoth he, and turned abruptly to confront her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mistress Horton was... was with me,&rdquo; she panted, her voice quivering as
+      on the brink of tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis unfortunate you should have separated,&rdquo; he condoled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But... but, Mr. Wilding, I... I trusted to your honour. I accounted you a
+      gentleman. Surely... surely, sir, you will not let it be known that... I
+      came to you? You will keep my secret?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Secret!&rdquo; said he, his eyebrows raised. &ldquo;'Tis already the talk of the
+      servants' hall. By to-morrow 'twill be the gossip of Bridgwater.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Air failed her. Her blue eyes fixed him in horror out of her stricken face.
+      Not a word had she wherewith to answer him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sight of her, thus, affected him oddly. His passion for her surged up,
+      aroused by pity for her plight, and awakened in him a sense of his
+      brutality. A faint flush stirred in his cheeks. He stepped quickly to her,
+      and caught her hand. She let it lie, cold and inert, within his nervous
+      grasp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ruth, Ruth!&rdquo; he cried, and his voice was for once unsteady. &ldquo;Give it no
+      thought! I love you, Ruth. If you'll but heed that, no breath of scandal
+      can hurt you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She swallowed hard. &ldquo;As how?&rdquo; she asked mechanically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He bowed low over her hand&mdash;so low that his face was hidden from her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you will do me the honour to become my wife...&rdquo; he began, but got no
+      further, for she snatched away her hand, her cheeks crimsoning, her eyes
+      aflame with indignation. He stepped back, crimsoning too. She had dashed
+      the gentleness from his mood. He was angered now and tigerish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; she panted. &ldquo;It is to affront me! Is this the time or place...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He cropped her flow of indignant speech ere it was well begun. He caught
+      her in his arms, and held her tight, and so sudden was the act, so firm
+      his grip that she had not the thought or force to struggle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All time is love's time, all places are love's place,&rdquo; he told her, his
+      face close to her own. &ldquo;And of all time and places the present ever
+      preferable to the wise&mdash;for life is uncertain and short at best. I
+      bring you worship, and you answer me with scorn. But I shall prevail, and
+      you shall come to love me in very spite of your own self.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She threw back her head, away from his as far as the bonds he had cast
+      about her would allow. &ldquo;Air! Air!&rdquo; she panted feebly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you shall have air enough anon,&rdquo; he answered with a half-strangled
+      laugh, his passion mounting ever. &ldquo;Hark you, now&mdash;hark you, for
+      Richard's sake, since you'll not listen for my own nor yours. There is
+      another course by which I can save both Richard's life and honour. You
+      know it, and you counted upon my generosity to suggest it. But you
+      overlooked the thing on which you should have counted. You overlooked my
+      love. Count upon that, my Ruth, and Richard shall have naught to fear.
+      Count upon that, and when we meet this evening, Richard and I, it is I who
+      will tender the apology, I who will admit that I was wrong to introduce
+      your name into that company last night, and that what Richard did was a
+      just and well-deserved punishment upon me. This will I do if you'll but
+      count upon my love.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked up at him fearfully, yet with flutterings of hope. &ldquo;What is't
+      you mean?&rdquo; she asked him faintly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That if you'll promise to be my wife...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your wife!&rdquo; she interrupted him. She struggled to free herself, released
+      one arm and struck him in the face. &ldquo;Let me go, you coward!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was answered. His arms melted from her. He fell back a pace, very white
+      and even trembling, the fire all gone from his eye, which was now turned
+      dull and deadly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So be it,&rdquo; he said, and strode to the bell-rope. &ldquo;I'll not offend again.
+      I had not offended now&rdquo;&mdash;he continued, in the voice of one offering
+      an explanation cold and formal&mdash;&ldquo;but that when first I came into your
+      life you seemed to bid me welcome.&rdquo; His fingers closed upon the crimson
+      bell-cord. She guessed his purpose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait!&rdquo; she gasped, and put forth her hand. He paused, the rope in his,
+      his eye kindling anew. &ldquo;You... you mean to kill Richard now?&rdquo; she asked
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A swift lifting of his brows was his only answer. He tugged the cord. From
+      the distance the peal of the bell reached them faintly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, wait, wait!&rdquo; she begged, her hands pressed against her cheeks. He
+      stood impassible&mdash;hatefully impassible. &ldquo;....... if I were to consent
+      to... this... how... how soon...?&rdquo; He understood the unfinished question.
+      Interest warmed his face again. He took a step towards her, but by a
+      gesture she seemed to beg him come no nearer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you will promise to marry me within the week, Richard shall have no
+      cause to fear either for his life or his honour at my hands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She seemed now to be recovering her calm. &ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; she said, her voice
+      singularly steady. &ldquo;Let that be a bargain between us. Spare Richard's life
+      and honour&mdash;both, remember!&mdash;and on Sunday next...&rdquo; For all her
+      courage her voice quavered and faltered. She dared add no more, lest it
+      should break altogether.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding drew a deep breath. Again he would have advanced. &ldquo;Ruth!&rdquo; he
+      cried, and some repentance smote him, some shame shook him in his purpose.
+      At that moment it was in his mind to capitulate unconditionally; to tell
+      her that Richard should have naught to fear from him, and yet that she
+      should go free as the winds. Her gesture checked him. It was so eloquent
+      of aversion. He paused in his advance, stifled his better feelings, and
+      turned once more, relentless. The door opened and old Walters stood
+      awaiting his commands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mistress Westmacott is leaving,&rdquo; he informed his servant, and bowed low
+      and formally in farewell before her. She passed out without another word,
+      the old butler following, and presently through the door that remained
+      open came Trenchard, in quest of Mr. Wilding who stood bemused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nick sauntered in, his left eye almost hidden by the rakish cock of his
+      hat, one hand tucked away under the skirts of his plum-coloured coat, the
+      other supporting the stem of a long clay pipe, at which he was pulling
+      thoughtfully. The pipe and he were all but inseparable; indeed, the year
+      before in London he had given appalling scandal by appearing with it in
+      the Mall, and had there remained him any character to lose, he must
+      assuredly have lost it then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He observed his friend through narrowing eyes&mdash;he had small eyes,
+      very blue and very bright, in which there usually abode a roguish gleam.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My sight, Anthony,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;reminds me that I am growing old. I wonder
+      did it mislead me on the score of your visitor?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The lady who left,&rdquo; said Wilding with a touch of severity, &ldquo;will be
+      Mistress Wilding by this day se'night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard took the pipe from his lips, audibly blew out a cloud of smoke
+      and stared at his friend. &ldquo;Body o' me!&rdquo; quoth he. &ldquo;Is this a time for
+      marrying?&mdash;with these rumours of Monmouth's coming over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding made an impatient gesture. &ldquo;I thought to have convinced you they
+      are idle,&rdquo; said he, and flung himself into a chair at his writing-table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nick came over and perched himself upon the table's edge, one leg swinging
+      in the air. &ldquo;And what of this matter of the intercepted letter from London
+      to our Taunton friends?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't tell you. But of this I am sure, His Grace is incapable of
+      anything so rash. Certain is it that he'll not stir until Battiscomb
+      returns to Holland, and Battiscomb is still in Cheshire sounding the
+      Duke's friends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet were I you, I should not marry just at present.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding smiled. &ldquo;If you were me, you'd never marry at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Faith, no!&rdquo; said Trenchard. &ldquo;I'd as soon play at 'hot-cockles,' or
+      'Parson-has-lost-his-cloak.' 'Tis a mort more amusing and the sooner done
+      with.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V. THE ENCOUNTER
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Ruth Wesmacott rode back like one in a dream, with vague and hazy notions
+      of what she saw or did. So overwrought was she by the interview from which
+      she came, her mind so obsessed by it, that never a thought had she for
+      Diana and her indisposition until she arrived home to find her cousin
+      there before her. Diana was in tears, called up by the reproaches of her
+      mother, Lady Horton&mdash;the relict of that fine soldier Sir Cholmondeley
+      Horton, of Taunton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl had arrived at Lupton House a half-hour ahead of Miss Westmacott,
+      and upon her arrival she had expressed surprise, either feigned or real,
+      at finding Ruth still absent. Detecting the alarm that Diana was careful
+      to throw into her voice and manner, her mother questioned her, and
+      elicited the story of her faintness and of Ruth's having ridden on alone
+      to Mr. Wilding's. So outraged was Lady Horton that for once in a way this
+      woman, usually so meek and ease-loving, was roused to an energy and anger
+      with her daughter and her niece that threatened to remove Diana at once
+      from the pernicious atmosphere of Lupton House and carry her home to
+      Taunton. Ruth found her still at her remonstrances, arrived, indeed, in
+      time for her share of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been sore mistaken in you, Ruth!&rdquo; the dame reproached her. &ldquo;I can
+      scarce believe it of you. I have held you up as an example to Diana, for
+      the discretion and wisdom of your conduct, and you do this! You go alone
+      to Mr. Wilding's house&mdash;to Mr. Wilding's, of all men!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was no time for ordinary measures,&rdquo; said Ruth, but she spoke without
+      any of the heat of one who defends her conduct. She was, the slyly
+      watchful Diana observed, very white and tired. &ldquo;It was no time to think of
+      nice conduct. There was Richard to be saved.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And was it worth ruining yourself to do that?&rdquo; quoth Lady Horton, her
+      colour high.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ruining myself?&rdquo; echoed Ruth, and she smiled never so weary a smile. &ldquo;I
+      have, indeed, done that, though not in the way you mean.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mother and daughter eyed her, mystified. &ldquo;Your good name is blasted,&rdquo; said
+      her aunt, &ldquo;unless so be that Mr. Wilding is proposing to make you his
+      wife.&rdquo; It was a sneer the good woman could not, in her indignation,
+      repress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is what Mr. Wilding has done me the honour to propose,&rdquo; Ruth
+      answered bitterly, and left them gaping. &ldquo;We are to be married this day
+      se'night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A dead silence followed the calm announcement. Then Diana rose. At the
+      misery, the anguish that could impress so strange and white a look on
+      Ruth's winsome face, she was smitten with remorse, her incipient
+      satisfaction dashed. This was her work; the fruit of her scheming. But it
+      had gone further than she had foreseen; and for all that no result could
+      better harmonize with her own ambitions and desires, for the moment&mdash;under
+      the first shock of that announcement&mdash;she felt guilty and grew
+      afraid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ruth!&rdquo; she cried, her voice a whisper of stupefaction. &ldquo;Oh, I wish I had
+      come with you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you couldn't; you were faint.&rdquo; And then&mdash;recalling what had
+      passed&mdash;her mind was filled with sudden concern for Diana, even amid
+      her own sore troubles. &ldquo;Are you quite yourself again, Diana?&rdquo; she
+      inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana answered almost fiercely, &ldquo;I am quite well.&rdquo; And then, with a change
+      to wistfulness, she added, &ldquo;Oh, I would I had come with you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Matters had been no different,&rdquo; Ruth assured her. &ldquo;It was a bargain Mr.
+      Wilding drove. It was the price I had to pay for Richard's life and
+      honour.&rdquo; She swallowed hard, and let her hands fall limply to her sides.
+      &ldquo;Where is Richard?&rdquo; she inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was her aunt who answered her. &ldquo;He went forth half an hour agone with
+      Mr. Vallancey and Sir Rowland.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir Rowland had returned, then?&rdquo; She looked up quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; answered Diana. &ldquo;But he had achieved nothing by his visit to Lord
+      Gervase. His lordship would not intervene; he swore he hoped the cub would
+      be flayed alive by Wilding. Those were his lordship's words, as Sir
+      Rowland repeated them. Sir Rowland is in sore distress for Richard. He has
+      gone with them to the meeting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At least, he has no longer cause for his distress,&rdquo; said Miss Westmacott
+      with her bitter smile, and sank as one exhausted to a chair. Lady Horton
+      moved to comfort her, her motherliness all aroused for this motherless
+      girl, usually so wise and strong, and seemingly wiser and stronger than
+      ever in this thing that Lady Horton had deemed a weakness and a folly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, Richard and his two friends were on their way to the moors
+      across the river to the encounter with Mr. Wilding. But before they had
+      got him to ride forth, Vallancey had had occasion to regret that he stood
+      committed to a share in this quarrel, for he came to know Richard as he
+      really was. He had found him in an abject state, white and trembling, his
+      coward's fancy anticipating a hundred times a minute the death he was anon
+      to die.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vallancey had hailed him cheerily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The day is yours, Dick,&rdquo; he had cried, when Richard entered the library
+      where he awaited him. &ldquo;Wild Wilding has ridden to Taunton this morning and
+      is to be back by noon. Odsbud, Dick!&mdash;twenty miles and more in the
+      saddle before coming on the ground. Heard you ever of the like madness?
+      He'll be stiff as a broom-handle&mdash;an easy victim.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard listened, stared, and, finding Vallancey's eyes fixed steadily
+      upon him, attempted a smile and achieved a horrible grimace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What ails you, man?&rdquo; cried his second, and caught him by the wrist. He
+      felt the quiver of the other's limb. &ldquo;Stab me!&rdquo; quoth he, &ldquo;you are in no
+      case to fight. What the plague ails you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am none so well this morning,&rdquo; answered Richard feebly. &ldquo;Lord Gervase's
+      claret,&rdquo; he added, passing a hand across his brow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord Gervase's claret?&rdquo; echoed Vallancey in horror, as at some outrageous
+      blasphemy. &ldquo;Frontignac at ten shillings the bottle!&rdquo; he exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Still, claret never does lie easy on my stomach,&rdquo; Richard explained,
+      intent upon blaming Lord Gervase s wine&mdash;since he could think of
+      nothing else&mdash;for his condition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vallancey looked at him shrewdly. &ldquo;My cock,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;if you're to fight
+      we'll have to mend your temper.&rdquo; He took it upon himself to ring the bell,
+      and to order up two bottles of Canary and one of brandy. If he was to get
+      his man to the ground at all&mdash;and young Vallancey had a due sense of
+      his responsibilities in that connection&mdash;it would be well to supply
+      Richard with something to replace the courage that had oozed out
+      overnight. Young Richard, never loath to fortify himself, proved amenable
+      enough to the stiffly laced Canary that his friend set before him. Then,
+      to divert his mind, Vallancey, with that rash freedom that had made the
+      whole of Somerset know him for a rebel, set himself to talk of the
+      Protestant Duke and his right to the crown of England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was still at his talk, Richard listening moodily what time he was
+      slowly but surely befuddling himself, when Sir Rowland&mdash;returning
+      from Scoresby Hall&mdash;came to bring the news of his lack of success.
+      Richard hailed him noisily, and bade him ring for another glass, adding,
+      with a burst of oaths, some appalling threats of how anon he should serve
+      Anthony Wilding. His wits drowned in the stiff liquor Vallancey had
+      pressed upon him, he seemed of a sudden to have grown as fierce and
+      bloodthirsty as any scourer that ever terrorized the watch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake listened to him and grunted. &ldquo;Body o' me!&rdquo; swore the town gallant.
+      &ldquo;If that's the humour you're going out to fight in, I'll trouble you for
+      the eight guineas I won from you at Primero yesterday before you start.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard reared himself, by the help of the table, and stood a thought
+      unsteadily, his glance laboriously striving to engage Blake's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damn me!&rdquo; quoth he. &ldquo;Your want of faith dishgraces me&mdash;and 't
+      'shgraces you. Shalt ha' the guineas when we're back&mdash;and not
+      before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hum!&rdquo; quoth Blake, to whom eight guineas were a consideration in these
+      bankrupt days. &ldquo;And if you don't come back at all upon whom am I to draw?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The suggestion sank through Dick's half-fuddled senses, and the scare it
+      gave him was reflected on his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damn you, Blake!&rdquo; swore Vallancey between his teeth. &ldquo;Is that a decent
+      way to talk to a man who is going out? Never heed him, Dick! Let him wait
+      for his dirty guineas till we return.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thirty guineas?&rdquo; hiccoughed Richard. &ldquo;It was only eight. Anyhow&mdash;wait'll
+      I've sli' the gullet of's Mr. Wilding.&rdquo; He checked on a thought that
+      suddenly occurred to him. He turned to Vallancey with a ludicrous
+      solemnity. &ldquo;'Sbud!&rdquo; he swore. &ldquo;'S a scurvy trick I'm playing the Duke. 'S
+      treason to him&mdash;treason no less.&rdquo; And he smote the table with his
+      open hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's that?&rdquo; quoth Blake so sharply, his eyes so suddenly alert that
+      Vallancey made haste to cover up his fellow rebel's indiscretion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's the brandy-and-Canary makes him dream,&rdquo; said he with a laugh, and
+      rising as he spoke he announced that it was high time they should set out.
+      Thus he brought about a bustle that drove the Duke's business from
+      Richard's mind, and left Blake without a pretext to pursue his quest for
+      information. But the mischief was done, and Blake's suspicions were awake.
+      He bethought him now of dark hints that Richard had let fall to Vallancey
+      in the past few days, and of hints less dark with which Vallancey&mdash;who
+      was a careless fellow at ordinary times&mdash;had answered. And now this
+      mention of the Duke and of treason to him&mdash;to what Duke could it
+      refer but Monmouth?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake was well aware of the wild tales that were going round, and he began
+      to wonder now was aught really afoot, and was his good friend Westmacott
+      in it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If there was, he bethought him that the knowledge might be of value, and
+      it might help to float once more his shipwrecked fortunes. The haste with
+      which Vallancey had proffered a frivolous explanation of Richard's words,
+      the bustle with which upon the instant he swept Richard and Sir Rowland
+      from the house to get to horse and ride out to Bridgwater were in
+      themselves circumstances that went to heighten those suspicions of Sir
+      Rowland's. But lacking all opportunity for investigation at the moment, he
+      deemed it wisest to say no more just then lest he should betray his
+      watchfulness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were the first to arrive upon the ground&mdash;an open space on the
+      borders of Sedgemoor, in the shelter of Polden Hill. But they had not long
+      to wait before Wilding and Trenchard rode up, attended by a groom. Their
+      arrival had an oddly sobering effect upon young Westmacott, for which Mr.
+      Vallancey was thankful. For during their ride he had begun to fear that he
+      had carried too far the business of equipping his principal with
+      artificial valour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard came forward to offer Vallancey the courteous suggestion that
+      Mr. Wilding's servant should charge himself with the care of the horses of
+      Mr. Westmacott's party, if this would be a convenience to them. Vallancey
+      thanked him and accepted the offer, and thus the groom&mdash;instructed by
+      Trenchard&mdash;led the five horses some distance from the spot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It now became a matter of making preparation, and leaving Richard to
+      divest himself of such garments as he might deem cumbrous, Vallancey went
+      forward to consult with Trenchard upon the choice of ground. At that same
+      moment Mr. Wilding lounged forward, flicking the grass with his whip in an
+      absent manner.
+    </p>
+<p>
+ &ldquo;Mr. Vallancey,&rdquo; he began, when Trenchard turned to interrupt him.
+</p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can leave it safely to me, Tony,&rdquo; he growled. &ldquo;But there is something
+      I wish to say, Nick,&rdquo; answered Mr. Wilding, his manner mild. &ldquo;By your
+      leave, then.&rdquo; And he turned again to Valiancey. &ldquo;Will you be so good as to
+      call Mr. Westmacott hither?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Vallancey stared. &ldquo;For what purpose, sir?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For my purpose,&rdquo; answered Mr. Wilding sweetly. &ldquo;It is no longer my wish
+      to engage with Mr. Westmacott.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anthony!&rdquo; cried Trenchard, and in his amazement forgot to swear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I propose,&rdquo; added Mr. Wilding, &ldquo;to relieve Mr. Westmacott of the
+      necessity of fighting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Vallancey in his heart thought this might be pleasant news for his
+      principal. Still, he did not quite see how the end was to be attained, and
+      said so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall be enlightened if you will do as I request,&rdquo; Wilding insisted,
+      and Vallancey, with a lift of the brows, a snort, and a shrug, turned away
+      to comply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean,&rdquo; quoth Trenchard, bursting with indignation, &ldquo;that you will
+      let live a man who has struck you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding took his friend affectionately by the arm. &ldquo;It is a whim of mine,&rdquo;
+       said he. &ldquo;Do you think, Nick, that it is more than I can afford to
+      indulge?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say not so,&rdquo; was the ready answer; &ldquo;but...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought you'd not,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding, interrupting. &ldquo;And if any does&mdash;why,
+      I shall be glad to prove it upon him that he lies.&rdquo; He laughed, and
+      Trenchard, vexed though he was, was forced to laugh with him. Then Nick
+      set himself to urge the thing that last night had plagued his mind: that
+      this Richard might prove a danger to the Cause; that in the Duke's
+      interest, if not to safeguard his own person from some vindictive
+      betrayal, Wilding would be better advised in imposing a reliable silence
+      upon him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But why vindictive?&rdquo; Mr. Wilding remonstrated. &ldquo;Rather must he have cause
+      for gratitude.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Trenchard laughed short and contemptuously. &ldquo;There is,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;no
+      rancour more bitter than that of the mean man who has offended you and
+      whom you have spared. I beg you'll ponder it.&rdquo; He lowered his voice as he
+      ended his admonition, for Vallancey and Westmacott were coming up,
+      followed by Sir Rowland Blake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard, although his courage had been sinking lower and lower in a
+      measure as he had grown more and more sober with the approach of the
+      moment for engaging, came forward now with a firm step and an arrogant
+      mien; for Vallancey had given him more than a hint of what was toward. His
+      heart had leapt, not only at the deliverance that was promised him, but
+      out of satisfaction at the reflection of how accurately last night he had
+      gauged what Mr. Wilding would endure. It had dismayed him then, as we have
+      seen, that this man who, he thought, must stomach any affront from him out
+      of consideration for his sister, should have ended by calling him to
+      account. He concluded now that upon reflection Wilding had seen his error,
+      and was prepared to make amends that he might extricate himself from an
+      impossible situation, and Richard blamed himself for having overlooked
+      this inevitable solution and given way to idle panic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vallancey and Blake watching him, and the sudden metamorphosis that was
+      wrought in him, despised him heartily, and yet were glad&mdash;for the
+      sake of their association with him&mdash;that things were as they were.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Westmacott,&rdquo; said Wilding quietly, his eyes steadily set upon
+      Richard's own arrogant gaze, his lips smiling a little, &ldquo;I am here not to
+      fight, but to apologize.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard's sneer was audible to all. Oh, he was gathering courage fast now
+      that there no longer was the need for it. It urged him to lengths of
+      daring possible only to a fool.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you can take a blow, Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; said he offensively, &ldquo;that is your
+      own affair.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And his friends gasped at his temerity and trembled for him, not knowing
+      what grounds he had for counting himself unassailable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just so,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding, as meek and humble as a nun, and Trenchard,
+      who had expected something very different from him, swore aloud and with
+      some circumstance of oaths. &ldquo;The fact is,&rdquo; continued Mr. Wilding, &ldquo;that
+      what I did last night, I did in the heat of wine, and I am sorry for it. I
+      recognize that this quarrel is of my provoking; that it was unwarrantable
+      in me to introduce the name of Mistress Westmacott, no matter how
+      respectfully; and that in doing so I gave Mr. Westmacott ample grounds for
+      offence. For that I beg his pardon, and I venture to hope that this matter
+      need go no further.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Vallancey and Blake were speechless in astonishment; Trenchard livid with
+      fury. Westmacott moved a step or two forward, a swagger unmistakable in
+      his gait, his nether-lip thrust out in a sneer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; said he, his voice mighty disdainful, &ldquo;if Mr. Wilding apologizes,
+      the matter hardly can go further.&rdquo; He conveyed such a suggestion of regret
+      at this that Trenchard bounded forward, stung to speech.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But if Mr. Westmacott's disappointment threatens to overwhelm him,&rdquo; he
+      snapped, very tartly, &ldquo;I am his humble servant, and he may call upon me to
+      see that he's not robbed of the exercise he came to take.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding set a restraining hand upon Trenchard's arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Westmacott turned to him, the sneer, however, gone from his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no quarrel with you, sir,&rdquo; said he, with an uneasy assumption of
+      dignity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's a want that may be soon supplied,&rdquo; answered Trenchard briskly, and,
+      as he afterwards confessed, had not Wilding checked him at that moment, he
+      had thrown his hat in Richard's face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Vallancey who saved the situation, cursing in his heart the bearing
+      of his principal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;this is very handsome in you. You are of the
+      happy few who may tender such an apology without reflection upon your
+      courage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding made him a leg very elegantly. &ldquo;You are vastly kind, sir,&rdquo;
+       said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have given Mr. Westmacott the fullest satisfaction, and it is with an
+      increased respect for you&mdash;if that were possible&mdash;that I
+      acknowledge it on my friend's behalf.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are, sir, a very mirror of the elegancies,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding, and
+      Vallancey wondered was he being laughed at. Whether he was or not, he
+      conceived that he had done the only seemly thing. He had made handsome
+      acknowledgment of a handsome apology, stung to it by the currishness of
+      Richard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And there the matter ended, despite Trenchard's burning eagerness to carry
+      it himself to a different consummation. Wilding prevailed upon him, and
+      withdrew him from the field. But as they rode back to Zoyland Chase the
+      old rake was bitter in his inveighings against Wilding's folly and
+      weakness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I pray Heaven,&rdquo; he kept repeating, &ldquo;that it may not come to cost you
+      dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have done,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding, a trifle out of patience. &ldquo;Could I wed the
+      sister having slain the brother?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Trenchard, understanding at last, accounted himself a numskull that he
+      had not understood before. But he none the less deemed it a pity Richard
+      had been spared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI. THE CHAMPION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      As vainglorious was Richard Westmacott's retreat from the field of
+      unstricken battle as his advance upon it had been inglorious. He spoke
+      with confidence now of the narrow escape that Wilding had had at his
+      hands, of the things he would have done to Wilding had not that gentleman
+      grown wise in time. Sir Rowland, who had seen little of Richard's earlier
+      stricken condition, was in a measure imposed upon by his blustering tone
+      and manner; not so Vallancey, who remembered the steps he had been forced
+      to take to bolster up the young man's courage sufficiently to admit of his
+      being brought to the encounter. Richard so disgusted him that he felt if
+      he did not quit his company soon, he would be quarrelling with him
+      himself. So, congratulating him, in a caustic manner that Richard did not
+      relish, upon the happy termination of the affair, Vallancey took his leave
+      of him and Blake at the cross-roads, pleading business with Lord Gervase,
+      and left them to proceed without him to Bridgwater.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake, whose suspicions of some secret matter to which Vallancey and
+      Richard were wedded, had been earlier excited by Westmacott's
+      indiscretions, was full of sly questions now touching the business which
+      might be taking Vallancey to Scoresby. But Richard was too full of the
+      subject of the fear he had instilled into Wilding to afford his companion
+      much satisfaction on any other score. Thus they came to Lupton House, and
+      as Richard swaggered down the lawn into the presence of the ladies&mdash;Ruth
+      and her aunt were occupying the stone bench, Diana the circular seat about
+      the great oak in the centre of the lawn&mdash;he was a very different
+      person from the pale, limp creature they had beheld there some few hours
+      earlier. Loud and offensive was he now in self-laudation, and so
+      indifferent to all else that he left unobserved the little smile, half
+      wistful, half scornful, that visited his sister's lips when he sneeringly
+      told how Mr. Wilding had chosen that better part of valour which
+      discretion is alleged to be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It needed Diana, who, blinded by no sisterly affection, saw him exactly as
+      he was, and despised him accordingly, to enlighten him. It may also be
+      that in doing so at once she had ends of her own to serve; for Sir Rowland
+      was still of the company.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilding afraid?&rdquo; she cried, her voice so charged with derision that
+      it inclined to shrillness. &ldquo;La! Richard, Mr. Wilding was never afraid of
+      any man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Faith!&rdquo; said Rowland, although his acquaintance with Mr. Wilding was
+      slight and recent. &ldquo;It is what I should think. He does not look like a man
+      familiar with fear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard struck something of an attitude, his fair face flushed, his pale
+      eyes glittering. &ldquo;He took a blow,&rdquo; said he, and sneered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There may have been reasons,&rdquo; Diana suggested darkly, and Sir Rowland's
+      eyes narrowed at the hint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+Again he recalled the words Richard had let fall that afternoon. Wilding
+and he were fellow workers in some secret business, and Richard had said
+that the encounter was treason to that same business, whatever it might
+be. And of what it might be Sir Rowland had grounds upon which to found
+at least a guess. Had perhaps Wilding acted upon some similar feelings
+in avoiding the duel? He wondered; and when Richard dismissed Diana's
+challenge with a fatuous laugh, it was Blake who took it up.
+</p>
+    <p>
+&ldquo;You speak, ma'am,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;as if you knew that there were
+reasons, and knew, too, what those reasons might be.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana looked at Ruth, as if for guidance before replying. But Ruth sat
+      calm and seemingly impassive, looking straight before her. She was,
+      indeed, indifferent how much Diana said, for in any case the matter could
+      not remain a secret long. Lady Horton, silent too and listening, looked a
+      question at her daughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so, after a pause: &ldquo;I know both,&rdquo; said Diana, her eyes straying again
+      to Ruth; and a subtler man than Blake would have read that glance and
+      understood that this same reason which he sought so diligently sat there
+      before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard, indeed, catching that sly look of his cousin's, checked his
+      assurance, and stood frowning, cogitating. Then, quite suddenly, his voice
+      harsh:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean, Diana?&rdquo; he inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana shrugged and turned her shoulder to him. &ldquo;You had best ask Ruth,&rdquo;
+       said she, which was an answer more or less plain to both the men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They stood at gaze, Richard looking a thought foolish. Blake, frowning,
+      his heavy lip caught in his strong, white teeth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth turned to her brother with an almost piteous attempt at a smile. She
+      sought to spare him pain by excluding from her manner all suggestion that
+      things were other than she desired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am betrothed to Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; said she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Rowland made a sudden forward movement, drew a deep breath, and as
+      suddenly stood still. Richard looked at his sister as she were mad and
+      raving. Then he laughed, between unbelief and derision.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a jest,&rdquo; said he, but his accents lacked conviction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the truth,&rdquo; Ruth assured him quietly.
+    </p>
+<p>
+ &ldquo;The truth?&rdquo; His brow darkened ominously&mdash;stupendously for one so
+fair. &ldquo;The truth, you baggage...?&rdquo; He began and stopped in very fury.
+</p>
+    <p>
+      She saw that she must tell him all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I promised to wed Mr. Wilding this day se'night so that he saved your
+      life and honour,&rdquo; she told him calmly, and added, &ldquo;It was a bargain that
+      we drove.&rdquo; Richard continued to stare at her. The thing she told him was
+      too big to be swallowed at a mouthful; he was absorbing it by slow
+      degrees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So now,&rdquo; said Diana, &ldquo;you know the sacrifice your sister has made to save
+      you, and when you speak of the apology Mr. Wilding tendered you, perhaps
+      you'll speak of it in a tone less loud.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But the sarcasm was no longer needed. Already poor Richard was very
+      humble, his make-believe spirit all snuffed out. He observed at last how
+      pale and set was his sister's face, and he realized something of the
+      sacrifice she had made. Never in all his life was Richard so near to
+      lapsing from the love of himself; never so near to forgetting his own
+      interests, and preferring those of Ruth. Lady Horton sat silent, her heart
+      fluttering with dismay and perplexity. Heaven had not equipped her with a
+      spirit capable of dealing with a situation such as this. Blake stood in
+      make believe stolidity dissembling his infinite chagrin and the stormy
+      emotions warring within him, for some signs of which Diana watched his
+      countenance in vain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall not do it!&rdquo; cried Richard suddenly. He came forward and laid
+      his hand on his sister's shoulder. His voice was almost gentle. &ldquo;Ruth, you
+      shall not do this for me. You must not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;By Heaven, no!&rdquo; snapped Blake before she could reply. &ldquo;You are right,
+Richard. Mistress Westmacott must not be the scapegoat. She shall not
+play the part of Iphigenia.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+    <p>
+     But Ruth smiled wistfully as she answered him with a question,
+&ldquo;Where is the help for it?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard knew where the help for it lay, and for once&mdash;for just a
+      moment&mdash;he contemplated danger and even death with equanimity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can take up this quarrel again,&rdquo; he announced. &ldquo;I can compel Mr.
+      Wilding to meet me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth's eyes, looking up at him, kindled with pride and admiration. It
+      warmed her heart to hear him speak thus, to have this assurance that he
+      was anything but the coward she had been so disloyal as to deem him; no
+      doubt she had been right in saying that it was his health was the cause of
+      the palsy he had displayed that morning; he was a little wild, she knew;
+      inclined to sit over-late at the bottle; with advancing manhood, she had
+      no doubt, he would overcome this boyish failing. Meanwhile it was this
+      foolish habit&mdash;nothing more&mdash;that undermined the inherent
+      firmness of his nature. And it comforted her generous soul to have this
+      proof that he was full worthy of the sacrifice she was making for him.
+      Diana watched him in some surprise, and never doubted but that his offer
+      was impulsive, and that he would regret it when his ardour had had time to
+      cool.
+    </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It were idle,&rdquo; said Ruth at last&mdash;not that she quite believed it, but
+that it was all-important to her that Richard should not be imperilled.
+&ldquo;Mr. Wilding will prefer the bargain he has made.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+    <p>
+&ldquo;No doubt,&rdquo; growled Blake, &ldquo;but he shall be forced to unmake it.&rdquo;
+ He advanced and bowed low before her. &ldquo;Madam,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;will you grant
+me leave to champion your cause and remove this troublesome Mr. Wilding
+from your path?&rdquo;
+ </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana's eyes narrowed; her cheeks paled, partly from fear for Blake,
+      partly from vexation at the promptness of an offer that afforded a fresh
+      and so eloquent proof of the trend of his affections.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth smiled at him in a very friendly manner, but gently shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thank you, sir,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;But it were more than I could permit. This
+      has become a family affair.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was in her tone something which, despite its friendliness, gave Sir
+      Rowland his dismissal. He was not at best a man of keen sensibilities; yet
+      even so, he could not mistake the request to withdraw that was implicit in
+      her tone and manner. He took his leave, registering, however, in his heart
+      a vow that he would have his way with Wilding. Thus must he&mdash;through
+      her gratitude&mdash;assuredly come to have his way with Ruth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana rose and turned to her mother. &ldquo;Come,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;we'll speed Sir
+      Rowland. Ruth and Richard would perhaps prefer to remain alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth thanked her with her eyes. Richard, standing beside his sister with
+      bent head and moody gaze, did not appear to have heard. Thus he remained
+      until he and his half-sister were alone together, then he flung himself
+      wearily into the seat beside her, and took her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ruth,&rdquo; he faltered, &ldquo;Ruth!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stroked his hand, her honest, intelligent eyes bent upon him in a look
+      of pity&mdash;and to indulge this pity for him, she forgot how much
+      herself she needed pity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take it not so to heart,&rdquo; she urged him, her voice low and crooning
+      &mdash;as that of a mother to her babe. &ldquo;Take it not so to heart, Richard.
+      I should have married some day, and, after all, it may well be that Mr.
+      Wilding will make me as good a husband as another. I do believe,&rdquo; she
+      added, her only intent to comfort Richard; &ldquo;that he loves me; and if he
+      loves me, surely he will prove kind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He flung himself back with an exclamation of angry pain. He was white to
+      the lips, his eyes bloodshot. &ldquo;It must not be&mdash;it shall not be&mdash;I'll
+      not endure it!&rdquo; he cried hoarsely.
+    </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Richard, dear...&rdquo; she began, recapturing the hand he had snatched from
+hers in his gust of emotion.
+</p>
+    <p>
+     He rose abruptly, interrupting her. &ldquo;I'll go to Wilding now,&rdquo; he
+cried, his voice resolute. &ldquo;He shall cancel this bargain he had no right
+to make. He shall take up his quarrel with me where it stood before you
+went to him.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no, Richard, you must not!&rdquo; she urged him, frightened, rising too,
+      and clinging to his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;At the worst he can but kill me. But at least you
+      shall not be sacrificed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sit here, Richard,&rdquo; she bade him. &ldquo;There is something you have not
+      considered. If you die, if Mr. Wilding kills you...&rdquo; she paused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at her, and at the repetition of the fate that would probably
+      await him if he persevered in the course he threatened, his purely
+      emotional courage again began to fail him. A look of fear crept gradually
+      into his face to take the room of the resolution that had been stamped
+      upon it but a moment since.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He swallowed hard. &ldquo;What then?&rdquo; he asked, his voice harsh, and, obeying
+      her command and the pressure on his hand, he resumed his seat beside her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She spoke now at length and very gravely, dwelling upon the circumstance
+      that he was the head of the family, the last Westmacott of his line,
+      pointing out to him the importance of his existence, the insignificance of
+      her own. She was but a girl, a thing of small account where the
+      perpetuation of a family was at issue. After all, she must marry somebody
+      some day, she repeated, and perhaps she had been foolish in attaching too
+      much importance to the tales she had heard of Mr. Wilding. Probably he was
+      no worse than other men, and after all he was a gentleman of wealth and
+      position, such a man as half the women in Somerset might be proud to own
+      for husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her arguments and his weakness&mdash;his returning cowardice, which made
+      him lend an ear to those same arguments&mdash;prevailed with him; at least
+      they convinced him that he was far too important a person to risk his life
+      in this quarrel upon which he had so rashly entered. He did not say that
+      he was convinced; but he said that he would give the matter thought,
+      hinting that perhaps some other way might present itself of cancelling the
+      bargain she had made. They had a week before them, and in any case he
+      promised readily in answer to her entreaties&mdash;for her faith in him
+      was a thing unquenchable&mdash;that he would do nothing without taking
+      counsel with her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Diana had escorted Sir Rowland to the main gates of Lupton
+      House, in front of which Miss Westmacott's groom was walking his horse,
+      awaiting him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir Rowland,&rdquo; said she at parting, &ldquo;your chivalry makes you take this
+      matter too deeply to heart. You overlook the possibility that my cousin
+      may have good reason for not desiring your interference.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked keenly at this little lady to whom a month ago he had been on
+      the point of offering marriage. His coxcombry might readily have suggested
+      to him that she was in love with him, but that his conscience and
+      inclinations urged him to assure himself that this was not the case.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What shall that mean, madam?&rdquo; he asked her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana hesitated. &ldquo;What I have said is plain,&rdquo; she answered, and it was
+      clear that she held something back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Rowland flattered himself upon the shrewdness with which he read her,
+      never dreaming that he had but read just what she intended he should.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stood squarely before her, shaking his great head. &ldquo;Not plain enough
+      for me,&rdquo; he said. Then his tone softened to one of prayer. &ldquo;Tell me,&rdquo; he
+      besought her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't! I can't!&rdquo; she cried in feigned distress. &ldquo;It were too disloyal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He frowned. He caught her arm and pressed it, his heart sick with jealous
+      alarm. &ldquo;What do you mean? Tell me, tell me, Mistress Horton.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana lowered her eyes. &ldquo;You'll not betray me?&rdquo; she stipulated.
+    </p>
+<p>
+ &ldquo;Why, no. Tell me.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+    <p>
+      She flushed delicately. &ldquo;I am disloyal to Ruth,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and yet I am
+      loath to see you cozened.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cozened?&rdquo; quoth he hoarsely, his egregious vanity in arms. &ldquo;Cozened?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana explained. &ldquo;Ruth was at his house to-day,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;closeted alone
+      with him for an hour or more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Impossible!&rdquo; he cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where else was the bargain made?&rdquo; she asked, and shattered his last
+      doubt. &ldquo;You know that Mr. Wilding has not been here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet Blake struggled heroically against conviction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She went to intercede for Richard,&rdquo; he protested. Miss Horton looked up
+      at him, and under her glance Sir Rowland felt that he was a man of
+      unfathomable ignorance. Then she turned aside her eyes and shrugged her
+      shoulders very eloquently. &ldquo;You are a man of the world, Sir Rowland. You
+      cannot seriously suppose that any maid would so imperil her good name in
+      any cause?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Darker grew his florid countenance; his bulging eyes looked troubled and
+      perplexed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean that she loves him?&rdquo; he said, between question and assertion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana pursed her lips. &ldquo;You shall draw your own inference,&rdquo; quoth she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He breathed heavily, and squared his broad shoulders, as one who braces
+      himself for battle against an element stronger than himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But her talk of sacrifice?&rdquo; he cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana laughed, and again he was stung by her contempt of his perceptions.
+      &ldquo;Her brother is set against her marrying him,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;Here was her
+      chance. Is it not very plain?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Doubt stared from his eyes. &ldquo;Why do you tell me this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I esteem you, Sir Rowland,&rdquo; she answered very gently. &ldquo;I would
+      not have you meddle in a matter you cannot mend.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Which I am not desired to mend, say rather,&rdquo; he replied with heavy
+      sarcasm. &ldquo;She would not have my interference!&rdquo; He laughed angrily. &ldquo;I
+      think you are right, Mistress Diana,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and I think that more than
+      ever is there the need to kill this Mr. Wilding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He took his departure abruptly, leaving her scared at the mischief she had
+      made for him in seeking to save him from it, and that very night he sought
+      out Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Wilding was from home again. Under its placid surface the West Country
+      was in a ferment. And if hitherto Mr. Wilding had disdained the insistent
+      rumours of Monmouth's coming, his assurance was shaken now by proof that
+      the Government, itself, was stirring; for four companies of foot and a
+      troop of horse had been that day ordered to Taunton by the
+      Deputy-Lieutenant. Wilding was gone with Trenchard to White Lackington in
+      a vain hope that there he might find news to confirm his persisting
+      unbelief in any such rashness as was alleged on Monmouth's part.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So Blake was forced to wait, but his purpose suffered nothing by delay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Returning on the morrow, he found Mr. Wilding at table with Nick
+      Trenchard, and he cut short the greetings of both men. He flung his hat&mdash;a
+      black castor trimmed with a black feather&mdash;rudely among the dishes on
+      the board.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have come to ask you, Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;to be so good as to tell
+      me the colour of that hat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding raised one eyebrow and looked aslant at Trenchard, whose
+      weather-beaten face was suddenly agrin with stupefaction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I could not,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding, &ldquo;deny an answer to a question set so
+      courteously.&rdquo; He looked up into Blake's flushed and scowling face with the
+      sweetest and most innocent of smiles. &ldquo;You'll no doubt disagree with me,&rdquo;
+       said he, &ldquo;but I love to meet a man halfway. Your hat, sir, is as white as
+      virgin snow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake's slow wits were disconcerted for a moment. Then he smiled
+      viciously. &ldquo;You mistake, Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;My hat is black.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding looked more attentively at the object in dispute. He was in a
+      trifling mood, and the stupidity of this runagate debtor afforded him
+      opportunities to indulge it. &ldquo;Why, true,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;now that I come to
+      look, I perceive that it is indeed black.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And again was Sir Rowland disconcerted. Still he pursued the lesson he had
+      taught himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are mistaken again,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that hat is green.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed?&rdquo; quoth Mr. Wilding, like one surprised and he turned to
+      Trenchard, who was enjoying himself. &ldquo;What is your own opinion of it,
+      Nick?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus appealed to, Trenchard's reply was prompt. &ldquo;Why, since you ask me,&rdquo;
+       said he, &ldquo;my opinion is that it's a noisome thing not meet for a
+      gentleman's table.&rdquo; And he took it up, and threw it through the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Rowland was entirely put out of countenance. Here was a deliberate
+      shifting of the quarrel he had come to pick, which left him all at sea. It
+      was his duty to himself to take offence at Mr. Trenchard's action. But
+      that was not the business on which he had come. He became angry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Blister me!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Must I sweep the cloth from the table before
+      you'll understand me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you were to do anything so unmannerly I should have you flung out of
+      the house,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding, &ldquo;and it would distress me so to treat a
+      person of your station and quality. The hat shall serve your purpose,
+      although Mr. Trenchard's concern for my table has removed it. Our memories
+      will supply its absence. What colour did you say it was?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I said it was green,&rdquo; answered Blake, quite ready to keep to the point.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, I am sure you were wrong,&rdquo; said Wilding with a grave air. &ldquo;Although
+      I admit that since it is your own hat, you should be the best judge of its
+      colour, I am, nevertheless, of opinion that it is black.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if I were to say that it is white?&rdquo; asked Blake, feeling mighty
+      ridiculous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, in that case you would be confirming my first impression of it,&rdquo;
+       answered Wilding, and Trenchard let fly a burst of laughter at sight of
+      the baronet's furious and bewildered countenance. &ldquo;And since we are agreed
+      on that,&rdquo; continued Mr. Wilding, imperturbable, &ldquo;I hope you'll join us at
+      supper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll be damned,&rdquo; roared Blake, &ldquo;if ever I sit at table of yours, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding regretfully. &ldquo;Now you become offensive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean to be,&rdquo; said Blake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You astonish me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You lie! I don't,&rdquo; Sir Rowland answered him in triumph. He had got it out
+      at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding sat back in his chair, and looked at him, his face
+      inexpressibly shocked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you of your own accord deprive us of your company, Sir Rowland,&rdquo; he
+      wondered, &ldquo;or shall Mr. Trenchard throw you after your hat?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean...&rdquo; gasped the other, &ldquo;that you'll ask no satisfaction of
+      me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not so. Mr. Trenchard shall wait upon your friends to-morrow, and I hope
+      you'll afford us then as felicitous entertainment as you do now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Rowland snorted, and, turning on his heel, made for the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give you a good night, Sir Rowland,&rdquo; Mr. Wilding called after him.
+      &ldquo;Walters, you rascal, light Sir Rowland to the door.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor Blake went home deeply vexed; but it was no more than the beginning
+      of his humiliation at Mr. Wilding's hands&mdash;for what can be more
+      humiliating to a quarrel&mdash;seeking man than to have his enemy refuse
+      to treat him seriously? He and Mr. Wilding met next morning, and before
+      noon the tale of it had run through Bridgwater that Wild Wilding was at
+      his tricks again. It made a pretty story how twice he had disarmed and
+      each time spared the London beau, who still insisted&mdash;each time more
+      furiously&mdash;upon renewing the encounter, till Mr. Wilding had been
+      forced to run him through the sword-arm and thus put him out of all case
+      of continuing. It was a story that heaped ridicule upon Sir Rowland and
+      did credit to Mr. Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard heard it, and trembled, enraged and impotent. Ruth heard it, and
+      was stirred despite herself to a feeling of gratitude towards Wilding for
+      the patience and toleration he had displayed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There for a while the matter rested, and the days passed slowly. But Sir
+      Rowland's nature&mdash;mean at bottom&mdash;was spurred to find him some
+      other way of wiping out the score that lay 'twixt him and Mr. Wilding, a
+      score mightily increased by the shame that Mr. Wilding had put upon him in
+      that encounter from which&mdash;whatever the issue&mdash;he had looked to
+      cull great credit in Ruth's eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had been thinking constantly of the incautious words that Richard had
+      let fall, thinking of them in conjunction with the startling rumours that
+      were now the talk of the whole countryside. He laid two and two together,
+      and the four he found them make afforded him some hope. Then he realized&mdash;as
+      he might have realized before had he been shrewder&mdash;that Richard's
+      mood was one that made him ripe for any villainy. He thought that he was
+      much in error if a treachery existed so black that Richard would quail
+      before it, if it but afforded him the means of ridding himself and the
+      world of Mr. Wilding. He was considering how best to approach the subject,
+      when it happened that one night when Richard sat at play with him in his
+      own lodging, the boy grew talkative through excess of wine. It happened
+      naturally enough that Richard sought an ally in Blake, just as Blake
+      sought an ally in Richard. Indeed, their fortunes&mdash;so far as Ruth was
+      concerned&mdash;were bound up together. The baronet saw that Richard,
+      half-fuddled, was ripe for any confidences that might aim at the
+      destruction of his enemy. He questioned him adroitly, and drew from him
+      the story of the rising that was being planned, and of the share that Mr.
+      Wilding&mdash;one of the Duke of Monmouth's chief movement-men&mdash;bore
+      in the business that was toward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When, towards midnight, Richard Westmacott went home, he left in Sir
+      Rowland's hands an instrument which the latter accounted potential not
+      only for the destruction of Anthony Wilding, but perhaps also for laying
+      the foundations to the building of his own fortunes anew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII. THE NUPTIALS OF RUTH WESTMACOTT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Here was Sir Rowland Blake in high fettle at knowing himself armed with a
+      portentous weapon for the destruction of Anthony Wilding. Upon closer
+      inspection of it, however, he came to realize&mdash;as Richard had
+      realized earlier&mdash;that it was double-edged, and that the wielding of
+      it must be fraught with as much danger for Richard as for their common
+      enemy. For to betray Mr. Wilding and the plot would scarce be possible
+      without betraying young Westmacott, and that was unthinkable, since to
+      ruin Richard&mdash;a thing he would have done with a light heart so far as
+      Richard was himself concerned&mdash;would be to ruin his own hopes of
+      winning Ruth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Therefore, during the days that followed, Sir Rowland was forced to fret
+      in idleness what time his wound was healing; but if his arm was invalided,
+      his eyes and ears were sound, and he remained watchful for an opportunity
+      to apply the knowledge he had gained. Richard mentioned the subject no
+      more, so that Blake almost came to wonder whether the boy remembered what
+      in his cups he had betrayed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Mr. Wilding moved serene and smiling on his way. Daily there
+      were great armfuls of flowers deposited at Lupton House&mdash;his lover's
+      offering to his mistress&mdash;and no day went by but that some richer
+      gift accompanied them. Now it was a collar of brilliants, anon a rope of
+      pearls, again a priceless ring that had been Mr. Wilding's mother's. Ruth
+      received with reluctance these pledges of his undesired affection. It were
+      idle to reject them, considering that she was to marry him; yet it hurt
+      her sorely to retain them. On her side she made no dispositions for the
+      marriage, but went about her daily tasks as though she were to remain a
+      maid at Lupton House for a time as yet indefinite.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Diana, Wilding had&mdash;though he was far from guessing it&mdash;an
+      entirely exceptional ally. Lady Horton, too, was favourably disposed
+      towards him. A foolish, worldly woman, who never probed beneath life's
+      surface, nor indeed dreamed that anything existed in life beyond that to
+      which her five senses testified, she was content placidly to contemplate
+      the advantages that must accrue to her niece from this alliance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so mother and daughter in Mr. Wilding's absence pleaded his cause with
+      his refractory bride-elect. But they pleaded it to little real purpose.
+      Something perhaps they achieved in that Ruth grew more or less resigned to
+      the fate that awaited her. By repeating to herself the arguments she had
+      employed to Richard&mdash;that she must wed some day, and that Mr. Wilding
+      would prove no doubt as good a husband as another&mdash;she came in a
+      measure to believe them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard meanwhile appeared to avoid her. Lacking the courage to adopt the
+      heroic measures which at first he had promised, yet had he grace enough to
+      take shame at his inaction. But if he was idle so far as Mr. Wilding was
+      concerned, there was no lack of work for him in other connections. The
+      clouds of war were gathering in that summer sky, and about to loose the
+      storm gestating in them upon that fair country of the West, and young
+      Westmacott, committed as he stood to the Duke of Monmouth's party, was
+      forced to take his share in the surreptitious bustle that was toward. He
+      was away two days in that week, having been summoned to a meeting of the
+      leading gentlemen of the party at White Lackington, where he was forced
+      into the unwelcome company of his future brother-in-law, to meet with
+      courteous, deferential treatment from that imperturbable gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding, indeed, seemed to have forgotten that any quarrel had ever
+      existed between them. For the rest, he came and went, supremely calm, as
+      if he were, and knew himself to be, most welcome at Lupton House. Thrice
+      in the course of that week of waiting he rode over from Zoyland Chase to
+      pay his duty to Mistress Westmacott, and Ruth was persuaded on each
+      occasion by her aunt and cousin to receive him. Indeed, how could she well
+      refuse?
+    </p>
+<p>
+His manner was ever all that could be desired. Gallant, affectionate,
+deferential. He was in word and look and tone Ruth's most obedient
+servant. Had she been less prejudiced she must have admired the
+admirable restraint with which he kept all exultation from his manner,
+for, after all, it is difficult to force a victory as he had forced his,
+and not to triumph.
+</p>
+    <p>
+     It is to be feared that during that week he neglected a good deal
+of his duty to the Duke, leaving Trenchard to supply his place and
+undertake tasks of a seditious nature that should have been his own.
+</p>
+    <p>
+      At heart, however, in spite of the stories current and the militia at
+      Taunton, Wilding remained convinced&mdash;as did most of the other leading
+      partisans of the Protestant Cause&mdash;that no such madness as this
+      premature landing could be in contemplation by the Duke. Besides, were it
+      so, they must unfailingly have definite word of it; and they had none.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard was less assured, but Wilding laughed at the old rake's
+      forebodings, and serenely went about the business of his marriage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the eve of the wedding he paid Ruth his last visit in the quality of a
+      lover, and was received by her in the garden. He found her looking paler
+      than her wont, and there was a cloud of sadness on her brow, a haunting
+      sadness in her eyes. It touched him to the soul, and for a moment he
+      wavered in his purpose. He stood beside her&mdash;she seated on the old
+      lichened seat&mdash;and a silence fell between them, during which Mr.
+      Wilding's conscience wrestled with his stronger passion. It was his habit
+      to be glib, talking incessantly what time he was in her company, and
+      seeing to it that his talk was shallow and touched at nothing belonging to
+      the deeps of human life. Thus was it, perhaps, that this sudden and
+      enduring silence affected her most oddly; it was as if she had absorbed
+      some notion of what was passing in his mind. She looked up suddenly into
+      his face, so white and so composed. Their eyes met, and he stooped to her
+      suddenly, his long brown ringlets tumbling forward. She feared his kiss,
+      yet never moved, staring up with fixed, dilated eyes as if fascinated by
+      his dark, brooding gaze. He paused, hovering above her upturned face as
+      hovers the hawk above the dove.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Child,&rdquo; he said at last, and his voice was soft and winning from very
+      sadness, &ldquo;child, why do you fear me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The truth of it went home to her. She feared him; she feared the strength
+      that lay behind that calm; she feared the masterfulness of his wild but
+      inscrutably hidden nature; she was afraid to surrender to such a man as
+      this, afraid that in the hot crucible of his love her own nature would be
+      dissolved, transmuted, and rendered part of his. Yet, though the truth was
+      now made plain to her, she thrust it from her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not fear you,&rdquo; said she, and her voice at least rang fearlessly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you hate me, then?&rdquo; he asked. Her glance grew troubled and fell away
+      from his; it sought the calm of the river, gleaming golden in the sunset.
+      There was a pause. Wilding sighed heavily, and straightened himself from
+      his bending posture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You should not have sought thus to compel me, she said presently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I own it,&rdquo; he answered a thought bitterly. &ldquo;I own it. Yet what hope had I
+      but in compulsion?&rdquo; She returned him no answer. &ldquo;You see,&rdquo; he said, with
+      increasing bitterness, &ldquo;you see, that had I not seized the chance that was
+      mine to win you by compulsion I had not won you at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It might,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;have been better so for both of us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Better for neither,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;Ah, think it not! In time, I swear, you
+      shall not think it. For you shall come to love me, Ruth,&rdquo; he added with a
+      note of such assurance that she turned to meet again his gaze. He answered
+      the wordless question of her eyes. &ldquo;There is,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;no love of man
+      for woman, so that the man be not wholly unworthy, so that his passion be
+      sincere and strong, that can fail in time to arouse response.&rdquo; She smiled
+      a little pitiful smile of unbelief. &ldquo;Were I a boy,&rdquo; he rejoined, his
+      earnestness vibrating now in a voice that was usually so calm and level,
+      &ldquo;offering you protestations of a callow worship, you might have cause to
+      doubt me. But I am a man, Ruth&mdash;a tried, and haply a sinful man,
+      alas!&mdash;a man who needs you, and who will have you at all costs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At all costs?&rdquo; she echoed, and her lip took on a curl. &ldquo;And you call this
+      egotism by the name of love! No doubt you are right,&rdquo; she continued with
+      an irony that stung him, &ldquo;for love it is&mdash;love of yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And is not all love of another founded upon the love of self?&rdquo; he asked
+      her, startling her with a question that revealed to her clear-sighted mind
+      a truth undreamed of. &ldquo;When some day&mdash;please Heaven&mdash;I come to
+      find favour in your eyes, and you come to love me, what will it mean but
+      that you have come to find me necessary to yourself and to your happiness?
+      Would you deny me now your love if you felt that you had need of mine? I
+      love you because I love myself, you say. I grant it you. But you'll
+      confess that if you do not love me yet, it is for the same reason, and
+      that when you do come to love me the reason will be still the same.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very sure that I shall come to love you,&rdquo; said she, shifting
+      woman-like the ground of argument now that she found insecure the place on
+      which at first she had taken her stand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Were I not, think you I should compel you to the church to-morrow?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She trembled at his calm assurance. It was as if she almost feared that
+      what he said might come to pass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Since you bear such faith in your heart,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;were it not nobler,
+      more generous, that you should set yourself to win me first and wed me
+      afterwards?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the course I should, myself, prefer,&rdquo; he answered quietly. &ldquo;But it
+      is a course denied me. I was viewed here with disfavour, almost denied
+      your house. What chance had I whilst I might not come near you, whilst
+      your mind was poisoned against me by the idle, vicious prattle that goes
+      round and round the countryside, increasing ever in bulk from constant
+      repetition?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you say that these tales are groundless?&rdquo; she asked, with a sudden
+      lifting of the eyes, a sudden keen eagerness that did not escape him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would to God I could,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;since from your manner I see that
+      would improve me in your sight. But there is just sufficient truth in them
+      to forbid me, as I am, I hope, a gentleman, from giving them a full
+      denial. Yet in what am I worse than my fellows? Are you of those who think
+      a husband should come to them as one whose youth has been the youth of
+      cloistered nun? Heaven knows, I am not one to draw parallels 'twixt myself
+      and any other, yet you compel me. Whilst you deny me, you receive this
+      fellow Blake&mdash;a London night-scourer, a broken gamester who has given
+      his creditors leg-bail, and who woos you that with your fortune he may
+      close the doors of the debtor's gaol that's open to receive him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is unworthy in you,&rdquo; she exclaimed, her tone indignant&mdash;so
+      indignant that he experienced his first pang of jealousy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would be were I his rival,&rdquo; he answered quietly. &ldquo;But I am not. I have
+      saved you from becoming the prey of such as he by forcing you to marry
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That I may become the prey of such as you, instead,&rdquo; was her retort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at her a moment, smiling sadly. Then, with pardonable
+      self-esteem when we think of what manner of man it was with whom he now
+      compared himself, &ldquo;Surely,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;it is better to become the prey of
+      the lion than the jackal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To the victim it can matter little,&rdquo; she answered, and he saw the tears
+      gathering in her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Compassion moved him. It rose in arms to batter down his will, and in a
+      weaker man had triumphed. Mr. Wilding bent his knee and went down beside
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I swear,&rdquo; he said impassionedly, &ldquo;that as my wife you shall never count
+      yourself a victim. You shall be honoured by all men, but by none more
+      deeply than by him who will ever strive to be worthy of the proud title of
+      your husband.&rdquo; He took her hand and kissed it reverentially. He rose and
+      looked at her. &ldquo;To-morrow,&rdquo; he said, and bowing low before her went his
+      way, leaving her with emotions that found their vent in tears, but defied
+      her maiden mind to understand them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The morrow came her wedding-day&mdash;a sunny day of early June, and Ruth&mdash;assisted
+      by Diana and Lady Horton&mdash;made preparation for her marriage as
+      spirited women have made preparation for the scaffold, determined to show
+      the world a brave, serene exterior. The sacrifice was necessary for
+      Richard's sake. That was a thing long since determined. Yet it would have
+      been some comfort to her to have had Richard at her side; it would have
+      lent her strength to have had his kiss of thanks for the holocaust which
+      for him she was making of all that a woman holds most dear and sacred. But
+      Richard was away&mdash;he had been absent since yesterday, and none could
+      tell her where he tarried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With Lady Horton and Diana she took her way to Saint Mary's Church at
+      noon, and there she found Mr. Wilding&mdash;very fine in a suit of
+      sky-blue satin, laced with silver&mdash;awaiting her. And with him was old
+      Lord Gervase Scoresby, his friend and cousin, the very incarnation of
+      benignity and ruddy health.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a wonder Nick Trenchard was not at Mr. Wilding's side. But Nick had
+      definitely refused to be of the party, emphasizing his refusal by certain
+      choice reflections wholly unflattering to the married state.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some idlers of the town were the only witnesses&mdash;and little did they
+      guess the extent of the tragedy they were witnessing. There was no music,
+      and the ceremony was brief and soon at an end. The only touch of joy, of
+      festiveness, was that afforded by the choice blooms with which Mr. Wilding
+      had smothered nave and choir and altar-rails. Their perfume hung heavy as
+      incense in the temple.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?&rdquo; droned the parson's
+      voice, and Wilding smiled defiantly a smile which seemed to answer him,
+      &ldquo;No man. I have taken her for myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Gervase stood forward as her sponsor, and as in a dream Ruth felt her
+      hand lying in Mr. Wilding's cool, firm grasp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ecclesiastic's voice droned on, his voice hanging like the hum of some
+      great Insect upon the scented air. It was accomplished, and they were
+      welded each to the other until death should part them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Down the festooned nave she came on his arm, her step unfaltering, her
+      face calm; black misery in her heart. Behind followed her aunt and cousin
+      and Lord Gervase. On Mr. Wilding's aquiline face a pale smile glimmered,
+      like a beam of moonlight upon tranquil waters, and it abode there until
+      they reached the porch and were suddenly confronted by Nick Trenchard, red
+      of face for once, perspiring, excited, and dust-stained from head to foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had arrived that very instant; and, urged by the fearful news that
+      brought him, he had come resolved to pluck Wilding from the altar be the
+      ceremony done or not. But in that he reckoned without Mr. Wilding&mdash;for
+      he should have known him better than to have hoped to succeed. He stepped
+      forward now, and gripped him with his dusty glove by the sleeve of his
+      shimmering bridegroom's coat. His voice came harsh with excitement and
+      smouldering rage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A word with you, Anthony!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding turned placidly to regard him. &ldquo;What now?&rdquo; he asked, his
+      bride's hand retained in the crook of his elbow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Treachery!&rdquo; snapped Trenchard in a whisper. &ldquo;Hell and damnation! Step
+      aside, man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding turned to Lord Gervase, and begged of him to take charge of
+      Mistress Wilding. &ldquo;I deplore this interruption,&rdquo; he told her, no whit
+      ruffled by what he had heard. &ldquo;But I shall rejoin you soon. Meanwhile, his
+      lordship will do the honours for me.&rdquo; This last he said with his eyes
+      moving to Lady Horton and her daughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Gervase, in some surprise, but overruled by his cousin's calm, took
+      the bride on his arm and led her from the churchyard to the waiting
+      carriage. To this he handed her, and after her her aunt and cousin. Then,
+      mounting himself, they drove away, leaving Wilding and Trenchard among the
+      tombstones, whither the messenger of evil had meanwhile led his friend.
+      Trenchard rapped out his story briefly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shenke,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;who was riding from Lyme with letters for you from the
+      Duke, was robbed of his dispatches late last night a mile or so this side
+      Taunton.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Highwaymen?&rdquo; inquired Mr. Wilding, his tone calm, though his glance had
+      hardened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Highwaymen? No! Government agents belike. There were two of them, he says&mdash;for
+      I have the tale from himself&mdash;and they met him at the Hare and Hounds
+      at Taunton, where he stayed to sup last night. One of them gave him the
+      password, and he conceived him to be a friend. But afterwards, growing
+      suspicious, he refused to tell them too much. They followed him, it
+      appears, and on the road they overtook and fell upon him; they knocked him
+      from his horse, possessed themselves of the contents of his wallet, and
+      left him for dead&mdash;with his head broken.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding drew a sharp breath. His wits worked quickly. He was, he
+      realized, in deadly peril. One thought he gave to Ruth. If the worst came
+      to pass here was one who would rejoice in her freedom. The reflection cut
+      through him like a sword. He would be loath to die until he had taught her
+      to regret him. Then his mind returned to what Trenchard had told him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You said a Government agent,&rdquo; he mused slowly. &ldquo;How would a Government
+      agent know the password?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard's mouth fell open. &ldquo;I had not thought...&rdquo; he began. Then ended
+      with an oath. &ldquo;'Tis a traitor from inside.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding nodded. &ldquo;It must be one of those who met at White Lackington three
+      nights ago,&rdquo; he answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Idlers&mdash;the witnesses of the wedding&mdash;were watching them with
+      interest from the path, and others from over the low wall of the
+      churchyard, as well they might, for Mr. Wilding's behaviour was, for a
+      bridegroom, extraordinary. Trenchard did not relish the audience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We had best away,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Indeed,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;we had best out of
+      England altogether before the hue and cry is raised. The bubble's
+      pricked.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding's hand fell on his arm, and its grasp was steady. Wilding's eyes
+      met his, and their gaze was calm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where have you bestowed this messenger?&rdquo; quoth he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is here in Bridgwater, in bed, at the Bell Inn, whence he sent for you
+      to Zoyland Chase. Suspecting trouble, I rode to him at once myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, then,&rdquo; said Wilding. &ldquo;We'll go talk with him. This matter needs
+      probing ere we decide on flight. You do not seem to have sought to
+      discover who were the thieves, nor other matters that it may be of use to
+      know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rat me!&rdquo; swore Trenchard. &ldquo;I was in haste to bring you news of it.
+      Besides, there were other things to talk of. There is news that Albemarle
+      has gone to Exeter, and that Sir Edward Phelips and Colonel Luttrell have
+      been ordered to Taunton by the King.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding stared at him with sudden dismay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Odso!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;Is King James taking fright at last?&rdquo; Then he
+      shrugged his shoulders and laughed; &ldquo;Pshaw!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;They are starting
+      at a shadow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heaven send,&rdquo; prayed Trenchard, &ldquo;that the shadow does not prove to have a
+      substance immediately behind it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Folly!&rdquo; said Wilding. &ldquo;When Monmouth comes, indeed, we shall not lack
+      forewarning. Come,&rdquo; he added briskly. &ldquo;We'll see this messenger and
+      endeavour to discover who were these fellows that beset him.&rdquo; And he drew
+      Trenchard from among the tombstones to the open path, and thus from the
+      churchyard and the eyes of the gaping onlookers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII. BRIDE AND GROOM
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      And so the bridegroom, in all his wedding finery, made his way with
+      Trenchard to the Bell Inn, in the High Street, whilst his bride, escorted
+      by Lord Gervase, was being driven to Zoyland Chase, of which she was now
+      the mistress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she was not destined just yet to cross its threshold. For scarcely
+      were they over the river when a horseman barred their way, and called upon
+      the driver to pull up. Lady Horton, in a panic, huddled herself in the
+      great coach and spoke of tobymen, whilst Lord Gervase thrust his head from
+      the window to discover that the rider who stayed their progress was
+      Richard Westmacott. His lordship hailed the boy, who, thereupon, walked
+      his horse to the carriage door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord Gervase,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;will you bid the coachman put about and drive to
+      Lupton House?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+<p>
+Lord Gervase stared at him in hopeless bewilderment. &ldquo;Drive to Lupton
+House?&rdquo; he echoed. The more he saw of this odd wedding, the less he
+understood of it. It seemed to the placid old gentleman that he was
+fallen among a parcel of Bedlamites. &ldquo;Surely, sir, it is for Mistress
+Wilding to say whither she will be driven,&rdquo; and he drew in his head and
+turned to Ruth for her commands. But, bewildered herself, she had none
+to give him. It was her turn to lean from the carriage window to ask her
+brother what he meant.
+</p>
+    <p>
+     &ldquo;I mean you are to drive home again,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;There is something
+I must tell you. When you have heard me it shall be yours to decide
+whether you will proceed or not to Zoyland Chase.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+    <p>
+      Hers to decide? How was that possible? What could he mean? She pressed him
+      with some such questions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It means, in short,&rdquo; he answered impatiently, &ldquo;that I hold your salvation
+      in my hands. For the rest, this is not the time or place to tell you more.
+      Bid the fellow put about.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth sat back and looked once more at her companions. But from none did
+      she receive the least helpful suggestion. Lady Horton made great prattle
+      to little purpose; Lord Gervase followed her example, whilst Diana, whose
+      alert if trivial mind was the one that might have offered assistance, sat
+      silent. Ruth pondered. She bethought her of Trenchard's sudden arrival at
+      Saint Mary's, his dust-stained person and excited manner, and of how he
+      had drawn Mr. Wilding aside with news that seemed of moment. And now her
+      brother spoke of saving her; it was a little late for that, she thought.
+      Outside the coach his voice still urged her, and it grew peevish and
+      angry, as was usual when he was crossed. In the end she consented to do
+      his will. If she were to fathom this mystery that was thickening about her
+      there seemed to be no other course. She turned to Lord Gervase.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you do as Richard says?&rdquo; she begged him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His lordship blew out his chubby cheeks in his astonishment; he hesitated
+      a moment, thinking of his cousin Wilding; then, with a shrug, he leaned
+      from the window and gave the order she desired. The carriage turned about,
+      and with Richard following lumbered back across the bridge and through the
+      town to Lupton House. At the door Lord Gervase took his leave of them. He
+      had acted as Ruth had bidden him; but he had no wish to be further
+      involved in this affair, whatever it might portend. Rather was it his duty
+      at once to go acquaint Mr. Wilding&mdash;if he could find him&mdash;with
+      what was taking place, and leave it to Mr. Wilding to take what measures
+      might seem best to him. He told them so, and having told them, left them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard begged to be alone with his sister, and alone they passed together
+      into the library. His manner was restless; he trembled with excitement,
+      and his eyes glittered almost feverishly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may have thought, Ruth, that I was resigned to your marriage with
+      this fellow Wilding,&rdquo; he began; &ldquo;or that for other reasons I thought it
+      wiser not to interfere. If you thought that you wronged me. I&mdash;Blake
+      and I&mdash;have been at work for you during these last days, and I
+      rejoice to say our labours have not been idle.&rdquo; His manner grew assertive,
+      boastful, as he proceeded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know, of course,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;that I am married.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He made a gesture of disdain. &ldquo;No matter,&rdquo; said he exultantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It matters something, I think,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;O Richard, Richard, why
+      did you not come to me sooner if you possessed the means of sparing me
+      this thing?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He shrugged impatiently; her remonstrance seemed to throw him out of
+      temper. &ldquo;Oons!&rdquo; he cried; &ldquo;I came as soon as was ever possible, and,
+      depend upon it, I am not come too late. Indeed, I think I am come in the
+      very nick of time.&rdquo; He drew a sheet of paper from an inside pocket of his
+      coat and slapped it down upon the table. &ldquo;There is the wherewithal to hang
+      your fine husband,&rdquo; he announced in triumph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She recoiled. &ldquo;To hang him?&rdquo; she echoed. With all her aversion to Mr.
+      Wilding it was plain she did not wish him hanged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye, to hang him,&rdquo; Richard repeated, and drew himself to the full height
+      of his short stature in pride at the thing he had achieved. &ldquo;Read it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She took the paper almost mechanically, and for some moments she studied
+      the crabbed signature before realizing whose it was. Then she started.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From the Duke of Monmouth!&rdquo; she exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed. &ldquo;Read it,&rdquo; he bade her again, though there was no need for the
+      injunction, for already she was deciphering the crabbed hand and the
+      atrocious spelling&mdash;for His Grace of Monmouth's education had been
+      notoriously neglected. The letter, which was dated from The Hague, was
+      addressed &ldquo;To my good friend W., at Bridgwater.&rdquo; It began, &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; spoke of
+      the imminent arrival of His Grace in the West, and gave certain
+      instructions for the collection of arms and the work of preparing men for
+      enlistment in his Cause, ending with protestations of His Grace's
+      friendship and esteem.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth read the epistle twice before its treasonable nature was made clear
+      to her; before she understood the thing that was foreshadowed. Then she
+      raised troubled eyes to her brother's face, and in answer to the question
+      of her glance he made clear to her the shrewd means by which they had
+      become possessed of this weapon that should destroy their enemy Mr.
+      Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake and he, forewarned&mdash;he said not how&mdash;of the coming of this
+      messenger, had lain in wait for him at the Hare and Hounds, at Taunton.
+      They had sought at first to become possessed of the letter without
+      violence. But, having failed in this through having aroused the
+      messenger's suspicions, they had been forced to follow and attack him on a
+      lonely stretch of road, where they had robbed him of the contents of his
+      wallet. Richard added that the letter was, no doubt, one of several sent
+      over by Monmouth to some friend at Lyme for distribution among his
+      principal agents in the West. It was regrettable that they should have
+      endeavoured to take gentle measures with the courier, as this had
+      forewarned him, and he had apparently been led to remove the letter's
+      outer wrapper&mdash;which, no doubt, bore Wilding's full name and address&mdash;against
+      the chance of such an attack as they had made upon him. Nevertheless, as
+      it was, that letter &ldquo;to my good friend W.,&rdquo; backed by Richard's and
+      Blake's evidence of the destination intended for it, would be more than
+      enough to lay Mr. Wilding safely by the heels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would to Heaven,&rdquo; he repeated in conclusion, &ldquo;I could have come in time
+      to save you from becoming his wife. But at least it is in my power to make
+      you very speedily his widow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That,&rdquo; said Ruth, still retaining the letter, &ldquo;is what you propose to
+      do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shook her head. &ldquo;It must not be, Richard,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I'll not consent
+      to it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Taken aback, he stared at her; then laughed unpleasantly. &ldquo;Odds my life!
+      Are you in love with the man? Have you been fooling us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;But I'll be no party to his murder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Murder, quotha! Who talks of murder?&rdquo; Her shrewd eyes searched his face.
+      &ldquo;How came you by your knowledge that this courier rode to Mr. Wilding?&rdquo;
+       she asked him suddenly, and the swift change that overspread his
+      countenance showed her that she had touched him in a tender spot, assured
+      her of the thing she had suddenly come to suspect&mdash;a suspicion which
+      at the same time started from and explained much that had been mysterious
+      in Richard's ways of late. &ldquo;You had knowledge of this conspiracy,&rdquo; she
+      pursued, answering her own question before he had time to speak, &ldquo;because
+      you were one of the conspirators.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At least I am so no longer,&rdquo; he blurted out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thank Heaven for that, Richard; for your life is very dear to me. But
+      it would ill become you to make such use as this of the knowledge you came
+      by in that manner. It were a Judas's act.&rdquo; He would have interrupted her,
+      but her manner dominated him. &ldquo;You will leave this letter with me,
+      Richard,&rdquo; she continued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damn me! no...&rdquo; he began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, yes, Richard,&rdquo; she insisted. &ldquo;You will give it to me, and I shall
+      thank you for the gift. It shall prove a weapon for my salvation, never
+      fear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It shall, indeed,&rdquo; he cried, with an ugly laugh; &ldquo;when I have ridden to
+      Exeter to lay it before Albemarle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not so,&rdquo; she answered him. &ldquo;It shall be a weapon of defence&mdash;not of
+      offence. It shall stand as a buckler between me and Mr. Wilding. Trust me,
+      I shall know how to use it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But there is Blake to consider,&rdquo; he expostulated, growing angry. &ldquo;I am
+      pledged to him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your first duty is to me...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tut!&rdquo; he interrupted. &ldquo;Blake feels that he owes it to his loyalty to lay
+      this letter before the Lord-Lieutenant, and, for that matter, so do I.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir Rowland would not cross my wishes in this,&rdquo; she answered him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Folly!&rdquo; he cried, now thoroughly aroused. &ldquo;Give me that letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, Richard,&rdquo; she answered, and waved him back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he advanced nevertheless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give it me,&rdquo; he bade her, waxing fierce. &ldquo;Gad! It was folly to have told
+      you of it. I had not done so but that I never thought you such a fool as
+      to oppose yourself to the thing we intend.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen, Richard...&rdquo; she besought him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he was grown insensible to pleadings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me that letter,&rdquo; he insisted, and caught her wrist. Her other hand,
+      however&mdash;the one that held the sheet&mdash;was already behind her
+      back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The door was suddenly thrust open, and Diana appeared. &ldquo;Ruth,&rdquo; she
+      announced, &ldquo;Mr. Wilding is here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the mention of that name, Richard let her free. &ldquo;Wilding!&rdquo; he
+      ejaculated, his fierceness all blown out of him. He had imagined that
+      already Mr. Wilding would be in full flight. Was the fellow mad?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is following me,&rdquo; said Diana, and, indeed, a step could be heard in
+      the passage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The letter!&rdquo; growled Richard in a frenzy, between fear and anger now.
+      &ldquo;Give it me! Give it me, do you hear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sh! You'll betray yourself,&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;He is here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And at that same moment Mr. Wilding's tall figure, still arrayed in his
+      bridegroom's finery of sky-blue satin, loomed in the doorway. He was
+      serene and calm as ever. Neither the discovery of the plot by the
+      abstraction of the messenger's letter, nor Ruth's strange conduct&mdash;of
+      which he had heard from Lord Gervase&mdash;had sufficed to ruffle,
+      outwardly at least, the inscrutable serenity of his air and manner. He
+      paused to make his bow, then advanced into the room, with a passing glance
+      at Richard still spurred and booted and all dust-stained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You appear to have ridden far, Dick,&rdquo; said he, smiling, and Richard
+      shivered in spite of himself at the mocking note that seemed to ring
+      faintly at the words. &ldquo;I saw your friend, Sir Rowland, in the garden,&rdquo; he
+      added. &ldquo;I think he waits for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Though Richard could not fail to apprehend the implied dismissal, he was
+      minded at first to disregard it. But Mr. Wilding, turning, held the door,
+      addressing Diana.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mistress Horton,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;will you give us leave?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana curtsied and passed out, and Mr. Wilding's eye falling upon the
+      lingering Richard at that moment, Richard thought it best to follow her
+      example. But he went with rage in his heart at being forced to leave that
+      precious document behind him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Mr. Wilding, his back to her a moment, closed the door, Ruth slipped
+      the paper hurriedly into the bosom of her low-necked gown. He turned to
+      her, calm but very grave, and his dark eyes seemed to reproach her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is ill done, Ruth,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ill done, or well done,&rdquo; she answered him, &ldquo;done it is, and shall so
+      remain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He raised his brows. &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I appear, then, to have
+      misapprehended the situation. From what Gervase told me, I understood it
+      was your brother forced you to return.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not forced, sir,&rdquo; she answered him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Induced, then,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;It but remains me to induce you to repair what
+      I think was a mistake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shook her head. &ldquo;I have returned home for good,&rdquo; said she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll pardon me,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that I am so egotistical as to prefer
+      Zoyland Chase to Lupton House. Despite the manifold attractions of the
+      latter, I do not intend to take up my abode here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are not asked to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hated him for the smile, for his masterful air, which seemed to imply
+      that he humoured her because he scorned to use authority, but that when he
+      did use it, hers must it be to obey him. Again she felt that everlasting
+      calm, arguing such latent forces, was the thing she hated most in him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I had best be plain with you,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;I have fulfilled my
+      part of the bargain that we made. I intend to do no more. I promised that
+      if you spared my brother, I would go to the altar with you to-day. I have
+      carried out my contract to the letter. It is at an end.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;I think it has not yet begun.&rdquo; He advanced towards
+      her, and took her hand. She yielded it, unwilling though she was. &ldquo;This is
+      unworthy of you, madam,&rdquo; said he, his tone grave and deferential. &ldquo;You
+      think to escape fulfilling the spirit of your bargain by adhering to the
+      letter of it. Not so,&rdquo; he ended, and shook his head, smiling gently. &ldquo;The
+      carriage is still at your door. You return with me to Zoyland Chase to
+      take possession of your home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mistake,&rdquo; said she, and tore her hand from his. &ldquo;You say that what I
+      have done is unworthy. I admit it; but it is with unworthiness that we
+      must combat unworthiness. Was your attitude towards me less unworthy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll make amends for it if you'll come home,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My home is here. You cannot compel me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should be loath to,&rdquo; he admitted, sighing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You cannot,&rdquo; she insisted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I can,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;There is a law..&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A law that will hang you if you invoke it,&rdquo; she cut in quickly. &ldquo;This
+      much can I safely promise you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had need to say no more to tell him everything. At all times half a
+      word was as much to Mr. Wilding as a whole sentence to another. She saw
+      the tightening of his lips, the hardening of his eyes, beyond which he
+      gave no other sign that she had hit him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;It is another bargain that you make. I do suspect there
+      is some trader's blood in the Westmacott veins. Let us be clear. You hold
+      the wherewithal to ruin me, and you will use it if I insist upon my
+      husband's rights. Is it not so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She nodded in silence, surprised at the rapidity with which he had read
+      the situation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I admit,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that you have me between sword and wall.&rdquo; He laughed
+      shortly. &ldquo;Let me know more,&rdquo; he begged her. &ldquo;Am I to understand that so
+      long as I leave you in peace&mdash;so long as I do not insist upon your
+      becoming my wife in more than name&mdash;you will not wield the weapon
+      that you hold?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are to understand so,&rdquo; she answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took a turn in the room, very thoughtful. Not of himself was he
+      thinking now, but of the Duke of Monmouth. Trenchard had told him some
+      ugly truths that morning of how in his love-making he appeared to have
+      shipwrecked the Cause ere it was well launched. If this letter got to
+      Whitehall there was no gauging&mdash;ignorant as he was of what was in it&mdash;the
+      ruin that might follow; but they had reason to fear the worst. He saw his
+      duty to the Duke most clearly, and he breathed a prayer of thanks that
+      Richard had chosen to put that letter to such a use as this. He knew
+      himself checkmated; but he was a man who knew how to bear defeat in a
+      becoming manner. He turned suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The letter is in your hands?&rdquo; he inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is,&rdquo; she answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May I see it?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She shook her head&mdash;not daring to show it or betray its whereabouts
+      lest he should use force to become possessed of it&mdash;a thing, indeed,
+      that was very far from his purpose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He considered a moment, his mind intent now rather upon the Duke's
+      interest than his own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know,&rdquo; quoth he, &ldquo;the desperate enterprise to which I stand
+      committed. But it is a bargain between us that you do not betray me nor
+      that enterprise so long as I leave you rid of my presence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is the bargain I propose,&rdquo; said she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at her a moment with hungry eyes, and she found his glance
+      almost more than she could bear, so strong was its appeal. Besides, it may
+      be that she was a thought beglamoured by the danger in which he stood,
+      which seemed to invest him with a certain heroic dignity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ruth,&rdquo; he said at length, &ldquo;it may well be that that which you desire may
+      speedily come to pass; it may well be that in the course of this rebellion
+      that is hatching you may be widowed. But at least I know that if my head
+      falls it will not be my wife who has betrayed me to the axe. For that
+      much, believe me, I am supremely grateful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He advanced. He took her unresisting hand again and bore it to his lips,
+      bowing low before her. Then erect and graceful he turned on his heel and
+      left her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX. MR. TRENCHARD'S COUNTERSTROKE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Now, however much it might satisfy Mr. Wilding to have Ruth's word for it
+      that so long as he left her in peace neither he nor the Cause had any
+      betrayal to fear from her, Mr. Trenchard was of a very different mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He fumed and swore and worked himself into a very passion. &ldquo;Zoons, man!&rdquo;
+       he cried, &ldquo;it would mean utter ruin to you if that letter reached
+      Whitehall.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I realize it; but my mind is easy. I have her promise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A woman's promise!&rdquo; snorted Trenchard, and proceeded with great
+      circumstance of expletives to damn &ldquo;everything that daggled a petticoat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your fears are idle,&rdquo; Wilding assured him. &ldquo;What she says, she will do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And her brother?&rdquo; quoth Trenchard. &ldquo;Have you bethought you of that
+      canary-bird? He'll know the letter's whereabouts. He has cause to fear you
+      more than ever now. Are you sure he'll not be making use of it to lay you
+      by the heels?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding smiled upon the fury provoked by Trenchard's concern and love
+      for him. &ldquo;She has promised,&rdquo; he said with an insistent faith that was fuel
+      to Trenchard's anger, &ldquo;and I can depend her word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So cannot I,&rdquo; snapped his friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The thing that plagues me most,&rdquo; said Wilding, ignoring the remark, &ldquo;is
+      that we are kept in ignorance of the letter's contents at a time when we
+      most long for news. Not a doubt but it would have enabled us to set our
+      minds at ease on the score of these foolish rumours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye&mdash;or else confirmed them,&rdquo; said pessimistic Trenchard. He wagged
+      his head. &ldquo;They say the Duke has put to sea already.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Folly!&rdquo; Wilding protested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whitehall thinks otherwise. What of the troops at Taunton?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;More folly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well-I would you had that letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At least,&rdquo; said Wilding, &ldquo;I have the superscription, and we know from
+      Shenke that no name was mentioned in the letter itself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's evidence enough without it,&rdquo; Trenchard reminded him, and fell
+      soon after into abstraction, turning over in his mind a notion with which
+      he had suddenly been inspired. That notion kept Trenchard secretly
+      occupied for a couple of days; but in the end he succeeded in perfecting
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now it befell that towards dusk one evening early in the week Richard
+      Westmacott went abroad alone, as was commonly his habit, his goal being
+      the Saracen's Head, where he and Sir Rowland spent many a night over wine
+      and cards&mdash;to Sir Rowland's moderate profit, for he had not played
+      the pigeon in town so long without having acquired sufficient knowledge to
+      enable him to play the rook in the country. As Westmacott was passing up
+      the High Street, a black shadow fell athwart the light that streamed from
+      the door of the Bell Inn, and out through the doorway lurched Mr.
+      Trenchard a thought unsteadily to hurtle so violently against Richard that
+      he broke the long stem of the white clay pipe he was carrying. Now Richard
+      was not to know that Mr. Trenchard&mdash;having informed himself of Mr.
+      Westmacott's evening habits&mdash;had been waiting for the past half-hour
+      in that doorway hoping that Mr. Westmacott would not depart this evening
+      from his usual custom. Another thing that Mr. Westmacott was not to know&mdash;considering
+      his youth&mdash;was the singular histrionic ability which this old rake
+      had displayed in those younger days of his when he had been a player, and
+      the further circumstance that he had excelled in those parts in which
+      ebriety was to be counterfeited. Indeed, we have it on the word of no less
+      an authority on theatrical matters than Mr. Pepys that Mr. Nicholas
+      Trenchard's appearance as Pistol in &ldquo;Henry IV&rdquo; in the year of the blessed
+      Restoration was the talk alike of town and court.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Trenchard steadied himself from the impact, and, swearing a round and
+      awful Elizabethan oath, accused the other of being drunk, then struck an
+      attitude to demand with truculence, &ldquo;Would ye take the wall o' me, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard hastened to make himself known to this turbulent roysterer, who
+      straightway forgot his grievance to take Westmacott affectionately by the
+      hand and overwhelm him with apologies. And that done, Trenchard&mdash;who
+      affected the condition known as maudlin drunk&mdash;must needs protest
+      almost in tears how profound was his love for Richard, and insist that the
+      boy return with him to the Bell Inn, that they might pledge each other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard, himself sober, was contemptuous of Trenchard so obviously
+      obfuscated. At first it was his impulse to excuse himself, as possibly
+      Blake might be already waiting for him; but on second thoughts,
+      remembering that Trenchard was Mr. Wilding's most intimate famulus, it
+      occurred to him that by a little crafty questioning he might succeed in
+      smoking Mr. Wilding's intentions in the matter of that letter&mdash;for
+      from his sister he had failed to get satisfaction. So he permitted himself
+      to be led indoors to a table by the window which stood vacant. There were
+      at the time a dozen guests or so in the common-room. Trenchard bawled for
+      wine and brandy, and for all that he babbled in an irresponsible, foolish
+      manner of all things that were of no matter, yet not the most adroit of
+      pumping could elicit from him any such information as Richard sought.
+      Perforce young Westmacott must remain, plying him with more and more drink&mdash;and
+      being plied in his turn&mdash;to the end that he might not waste the
+      occasion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An hour later found Richard much the worse for wear, and Trenchard
+      certainly no better. Richard forgot his purpose, forgot that Blake waited
+      for him at the Saracen's Head. And now Trenchard seemed to be pulling
+      himself together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to talk to you, Richard,&rdquo; said he, and although thick, there was
+      in his voice a certain impressive quality that had been absent hitherto.
+      &ldquo;'S a rumour current.&rdquo; He lowered his voice to a whisper almost, and,
+      leaning across, took his companion by the arm. He hiccoughed noisily, then
+      began again. &ldquo;'S a rumour current, sweetheart, that you're disaffected.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard started, and his mind flapped and struggled like a trapped bird to
+      escape the meshes of the wine, to the end that he might convincingly
+      defend himself from such an imputation&mdash;so dangerously true.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'S a lie!&rdquo; he gasped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard shut one eye and owlishly surveyed his companion with the other.
+      &ldquo;They say,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;that you're for forsaking 'Duke's party.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Villainous!&rdquo; Richard protested. &ldquo;I'll sli' throat of any man 't says so.&rdquo;
+       And draining the pewter at his elbow, he smashed it down on the table to
+      emphasize his seriousness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard replenished it with the utmost promptness, then sat back in his
+      tall chair and pulled a moment at the fresh pipe with which he had
+      equipped himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I espy,&rdquo;' he quoted presently, &ldquo;'virtue and valour crouched in
+      thine eye.' And yet... and yet... if I had cause to think it true, I'd...
+      I'd run you through the vitals&mdash;jus' so,&rdquo; and he prodded Richard's
+      waistcoat with the point of his pipe-stem. His swarthy face darkened, his
+      eyes glittered fiercely. &ldquo;Are ye sure ye're norrer foul traitor?&rdquo; he
+      demanded suddenly. &ldquo;Are y' sure, for if ye're not...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He left the terrible menace unuttered, but it was none the less
+      understood. It penetrated the vinous fog that beset the brain of Richard,
+      and startled him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Swear I'm not!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;'Swear mos' solemnly I'm not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Swear?&rdquo; echoed Trenchard, and his scowl grew darker still. &ldquo;Swear? A man
+      may swear and yet lie&mdash;'a man may smile and smile and be a villain.'
+      I'll have proof of your loyalty to us. I'll have proof, or as there's a
+      heaven above and a hell below, I'll rip you up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His mien was terrific, and his voice the more threatening in that it was
+      not raised above a whisper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard sat back appalled, afraid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wha'... what proof'll satisfy you?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard considered it, pulling at his pipe again. &ldquo;Pledge me the Duke,&rdquo;
+       said he at length. &ldquo;Ther's truth 'n wine. Pledge me the Duke and confusion
+      to His Majesty the goldfinch.&rdquo; Richard reached for his pewter, glad that
+      the test was to be so light. &ldquo;Up on your feet, man,&rdquo; grumbled Trenchard.
+      &ldquo;On your feet, and see that your words have a ring of truth in them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard did as he was bidden, the little reason left him being
+      concentrated wholly on the convincing of his fellow tippler. He rose to
+      his feet, so unsteadily that his chair fell over with a bang. He never
+      heeded it, but others in the room turned at the sound, and a hush fell in
+      the chamber. Dominating this came Richard's voice, strident with
+      intensity, if thick of utterance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Down with Popery, and God save the Protestant Duke!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Down with
+      Popery!&rdquo; And he looked at Trenchard for applause, and assurance that
+      Trenchard no longer thought there was cause to quarrel with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Behind him there was a stir in the room that went unheeded by the boy. Men
+      nudged their neighbours; some looked frightened and some grinned at the
+      treasonable words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A swift change came over Trenchard. His drunkenness fell from him like a
+      discarded mantle. He sat like a man amazed. Then he heaved himself to his
+      feet in a fury, and smashed down his pipestem on the wooden table, sending
+      its fragments flying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damn me!&rdquo; he roared. &ldquo;Have I sat at table with a traitor?&rdquo; And he thrust
+      at Richard with his open palm, lightly yet with sufficient force to throw
+      Richard off his precarious balance and send him sprawling on the sanded
+      floor. Men rose from the tables about and approached them, some few
+      amused, but the majority very grave. Dodsley, the landlord, came hurrying
+      to assist Richard to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Westmacott,&rdquo; he whispered in the rash fool's ear, &ldquo;you were best
+      away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard stood up, leaning his full weight upon the arm the landlord had
+      about his waist. He passed a hand over his brow, as if to brush aside the
+      veil that obscured his wits. What had happened? What had he said? What had
+      Trenchard done? Why did these fellows stand and gape at him? He heard his
+      companion's voice, raised to address the company.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gentlemen,&rdquo; he heard him say, &ldquo;I trust there is none present will impute
+      to me any share in such treasonable sentiments as Mr. Westmacott has
+      expressed. But if there is any who questions my loyalty, I have a
+      convincing argument for him&mdash;in my scabbard.&rdquo; And he struck his
+      sword-hilt with his fist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he clapped on his hat, aslant over the locks of his golden wig, and,
+      taking up his whip, he moved with leisurely dignity towards the door. He
+      looked back with a sardonic smile at the ado he was leaving behind him,
+      listened a moment to the voices that already were being raised in
+      excitement, then closed the door and made his way briskly to the
+      stable-yard, where he called for his horse. He rode out of Bridgwater ten
+      minutes later, and took the road to Taunton as the moon was rising big and
+      yellow over the hills on his left. He reached Taunton towards ten o'clock
+      that night, having ridden hell-to-leather. His first visit was to the Hare
+      and Hounds, where Blake and Westmacott had overtaken the courier. His next
+      to the house where Sir Edward Phelips and Colonel Luttrell&mdash;the
+      gentlemen lately ordered to Taunton by His Majesty&mdash;had their
+      lodging.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fruits of Mr. Trenchard's extraordinary behaviour that night were to
+      be seen at an early hour on the following day, when a constable and three
+      tything-men came with a Lord-Lieutenant's warrant to arrest Mr. Richard
+      Westmacott on a charge of high treason. They found the young man still
+      abed, and most guilty was his panic when they bade him rise and dress
+      himself&mdash;though little did he dream of the full extent to which Mr.
+      Trenchard had enmeshed him, or indeed that Mr. Trenchard had any hand at
+      all in this affair. What time he was getting into his clothes with a
+      tything-man outside his door and another on guard under his window, the
+      constable and his third myrmidon made an exhaustive search of the house.
+      All they found of interest was a letter signed &ldquo;Monmouth,&rdquo; which they took
+      from the secret drawer of a secretary in the library; but that, it seemed,
+      was all they sought, for having found it, they proceeded no further with
+      their reckless and destructive ransacking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With that letter and the person of Richard Westmacott, the constable and
+      his men took their departure, and rode back to Taunton, leaving alarm and
+      sore distress at Lupton House. In her despair poor Ruth was all for
+      following her brother, in the hope that at least by giving evidence of how
+      that letter came into his possession she might do something to assist him.
+      But knowing, as she did, that he had had his share in the treason that was
+      hatching, she had cause to fear that his guilt would not lack for other
+      proofs. It was Diana who urged her to repair instead to the only man upon
+      whose resource she might depend, provided he were willing to exert it.
+      That man was Anthony Wilding, and whether Diana urged it from motives of
+      her own or out of concern for Richard, it would be difficult to say with
+      certainty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The very thought of going to him for aid, after all that had passed, was
+      repugnant to Ruth. And yet what choice had she? Convinced by her cousin
+      and urged by her affection and duty to Richard, she repressed her
+      aversion, and, calling for a horse, rode out to Zoyland Chase, attended by
+      a groom. Wilding by good fortune was at home, hard at work upon a mass of
+      documents in that same library where she had talked with him on the
+      occasion of her first visit to his home&mdash;to the home of which she
+      remembered that she was now, herself, the mistress. He was preparing for
+      circulation in the West a mass of libels and incendiary pamphlets
+      calculated to forward the cause of the Protestant Duke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dissembling his surprise, he bade old Walters&mdash;who left her waiting
+      in the hall whilst he went to announce her&mdash;to admit her instantly,
+      and he advanced to the door to receive and welcome her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ruth,&rdquo; said he, and his face was oddly alight, &ldquo;you have come at last.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She smiled a wan smile of self-pity. &ldquo;I have been constrained,&rdquo; said she,
+      and told him what had happened; that her brother had been arrested for
+      high treason, and that the constable in searching the house had come upon
+      the Monmouth letter she had locked away in her desk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And not a doubt,&rdquo; she ended, &ldquo;but it will be believed that it was to
+      Richard the letter was indited by the Duke. You will remember that its
+      only address was 'to my good friend, W.,' and that will stand for
+      Westmacott as well as Wilding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding was fain to laugh at the irony of this surprising turn of
+      things of which she brought him news; for he had neither knowledge nor
+      suspicion of the machinations of his friend Trenchard, to which these
+      events were due. But noting and respecting her anxiety for her brother, he
+      curbed his natural amusement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a judgment upon you,&rdquo; said he, nevertheless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you exult?&rdquo; she asked indignantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; but I cannot repress my admiration for the ways of Divine Justice. If
+      you are come to me for advice, I can but suggest that you should follow
+      your brother's captors to Taunton, and inform the lieutenants of how the
+      letter came into your power.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him in anger almost at what seemed a callousness. &ldquo;Would he
+      believe me, think you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Belike he would not,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding. &ldquo;You can but try.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I told them it was addressed to you,&rdquo; she said, eyeing him sternly,
+      &ldquo;does it not occur to you that they would send for you to question you,
+      and that if they did so, as you are a gentleman you could not lie away my
+      brother's life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, yes,&rdquo; said he quite calmly, &ldquo;it does occur to me. But does it not
+      occur to you that by the time they came here they would find me gone?&rdquo; He
+      laughed at her dismay. &ldquo;I thank you, madam, for this warning,&rdquo; he added.
+      &ldquo;I think I'll bid them saddle for me without delay. Too long already have
+      I tarried.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And must Richard hang?&rdquo; she asked him fiercely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding produced a snuffbox of tortoise shell and gold. He opened it
+      deliberately. &ldquo;If he does, you'll admit that he will hang on the gallows
+      that he has built himself&mdash;although intended for another. I'faith!
+      He's not the first booby to be caught in his own springe. There is in this
+      a measure of poetic justice. Poetry and justice! Do you know, Ruth, they
+      are two things I have ever loved?&rdquo; And he took a pinch of choice Bergamot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you be serious?&rdquo; she demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Trenchard would tell you that it were to make an exception from the rule
+      of my life,&rdquo; he assured her, smiling. &ldquo;Yet even that might I do at your
+      bidding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But this is a serious matter,&rdquo; she told him angrily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For Richard,&rdquo; he acknowledged, closing his snuffbox with a snap. &ldquo;Tell
+      me, what would you have me do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Since he asked her thus, she answered him in two words. &ldquo;Save him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At the cost of my own neck?&rdquo; quoth he. &ldquo;The price is high,&rdquo; he reminded
+      her. &ldquo;Do you think that Richard is quite worth it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And are you to save yourself at the cost of his?&rdquo; she counter-questioned.
+      &ldquo;Are you capable of such a baseness?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at her thoughtfully a moment. &ldquo;You have not reflected,&rdquo; said he
+      slowly, &ldquo;that in this affair is involved more than mine or Richard's life.
+      There is a great cause weighing in the balance against all personal
+      considerations. If I accounted Richard of more value to Monmouth than I am
+      myself, I should not hesitate in riding to set him free by taking his
+      place. As it is, however, I think I am of the greatest conceivable
+      importance to His Grace, whilst if twenty Richards perished&mdash;frankly&mdash;their
+      loss would be something of a gain, for Richard has played a traitor's part
+      already. That is with me the first of all considerations.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Am I of no consideration to you?&rdquo; she asked him. And in an agony of
+      terror for her brother she now approached him, and, obeying a sudden
+      impulse, cast herself upon her knees before him. &ldquo;Listen!&rdquo; she cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not thus,&rdquo; said he, a frown between his eyes. He took her by the elbows
+      and gently but very firmly brought her to her feet again. &ldquo;It is not
+      fitting you should kneel save at your prayers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was standing now, and very close to him, his hands still held her
+      elbows, though their touch was so light that she scarce felt it. To
+      release them was easy, and the next second her hands were on his
+      shoulders, her brave eyes raised to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; she implored him, &ldquo;you'll not let Richard be destroyed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked down at her with kindling glance, his arms slipped round her
+      lissom waist. &ldquo;It is hard to deny you, Ruth,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Yet not my love of
+      my own life compels me; but my duty, my loyalty to the cause to which I am
+      pledged. I were a traitor were I now to place myself in peril.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She pressed against him, her face so close to his that her breath fanned
+      his cheek, whither a faint colour crept in quick response. Despite herself
+      almost, instinctively, unconsciously, she exerted the weapons of her sex
+      to bend him to her will.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You say you love me,&rdquo; she whispered. &ldquo;Prove it me now, and I will believe
+      you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; he sighed. &ldquo;And believing me? What then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had himself grimly in hand, yet feared he should not prove strong
+      enough to hold himself for long.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You... you shall find me your... dutiful wife,&rdquo; she faltered, crimsoning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His arms tightened about her; he crushed her to him, he bent his head to
+      hers and his lips burnt the lips she yielded to him as though they had
+      been living fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anon, she was to weep in shame&mdash;in shame and in astonishment&mdash;at
+      that instant of surrender, but for the moment she had no thought save for
+      her brother. Exultation filled her. She accounted that she had conquered,
+      and she gloried in the power her beauty gave her, a power that had
+      sufficed to melt to water the hard-frozen purposes of this self-willed
+      man. The next instant, however, she was cold again with dismay and newborn
+      terror. He unclasped her arms, he drew back, shaking off the hands she had
+      rested upon his shoulders. His white face&mdash;the flush had faded from
+      it again&mdash;smiled a thought disdainfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You bargain with me,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But I have some knowledge of your ways of
+      trading. They are overshrewd for an honest gentleman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean,&rdquo; she gasped, her hand pressed to her heart, her face a deathly
+      white, &ldquo;you mean that you'll not save him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that I will have no further bargains with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was such hard finality in his tone that she recoiled, beaten and
+      without power, to return to the assault. She had played and lost. She had
+      yielded her lips to his kisses, and&mdash;husband though he might be in
+      name&mdash;shame was her only guerdon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One look she gave him from out of that face so white and pitiful, then
+      with a shudder turned from him and fled his presence. He sprang after her
+      as the door closed, then checked and stood in thought, very grim for one
+      who professed to bestow no seriousness on the affairs of life. Then he
+      returned slowly to his writing-table, and rummaged there among the papers
+      with which it was encumbered, seeking something of which he now had need.
+      Through the open window he heard the retreating beat of her horse's hoofs.
+      He sighed and sat down heavily, to take his long square chin in his hand
+      and stare before him at the sunlight on the lawn outside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And whilst he sat thus, Ruth made all haste back to Lupton House to tell
+      of the failure that had attended her. There was nothing left her now but
+      to embark upon the forlorn hope of following Richard to Taunton, to offer
+      her evidence of how the incriminating letter had come to be locked in the
+      drawer in which the constable had discovered it. Diana met her with a face
+      as white as her own and infinitely more startled. She had just learnt that
+      Sir Rowland Blake had been arrested also and that he had been carried to
+      Taunton together with Richard, and, as a consequence, she was as eager now
+      that Ruth should repair to Albemarle as she had erstwhile been earnest in
+      urging her to seek out Mr. Wilding; indeed, Diana went so far as to offer
+      to accompany her, an offer that Ruth gladly, gratefully accepted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Within an hour Ruth and Diana&mdash;in spite of all that poor, docile Lady
+      Horton had said to stay them&mdash;were riding to Taunton, attended by the
+      same groom who had so lately accompanied his mistress to Zoyland Chase.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X. THEIR OWN PETARD
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In a lofty, spacious room of the town hall at Taunton sat Sir Edward
+      Phelips and Colonel Luttrell to dispense justice, and with them, flanked
+      by one of them on either side of him, sat Christopher Monk, Duke of
+      Albemarle, Lord-Lieutenant of Devonshire, who had been summoned in all
+      haste from Exeter that he might be present at an examination which
+      promised to be of so vast importance. The three sat at a long table at the
+      room's end, attended by two secretaries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before them, guarded by constable and tything-men, weaponless, their hands
+      pinioned behind them&mdash;Blake's arm was healed by now&mdash;stood Mr.
+      Westmacott and his friend Sir Rowland to answer this grave charge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard, not knowing who might have betrayed him and to what extent, was
+      very fearful&mdash;having through his connection with the Cause every
+      reason so to be. Blake, on the other hand, conscious of his innocence of
+      any plotting, was impatient of his position, and a thought contemptuous.
+      It was he who, upon being ushered by the constable and his men into the
+      august presence of the Lord-Lieutenant, clamoured to know precisely of
+      what he was accused that he might straightway clear himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Albemarle reared his great massive head, smothered in a mighty black
+      peruke, and scowled upon the florid London beau. A black-visaged gentleman
+      was Christopher Monk. His pendulous cheeks, it is true, were of a sallow
+      pallor, but what with his black wig, black eyebrows, dark eyes, and the
+      blue-black tint of shaven beard on his great jaw and upper lip, he
+      presented an appearance sombrely sinister. His netherlip was thick and
+      very prominent; deep creases ran from the corners of his mouth adown his
+      heavy chin; his eyes were dull and lack-lustre, with great pouches under
+      them. In the main, the air of this son of the great Parliamentarian
+      general was stupid, dull, unprepossessing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The creases of his mouth deepened as Blake protested against what he
+      termed this outrage that had been done him; he sneered ponderously,
+      thrusting further forward his heavily undershot jowl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are informed, sir, of your antecedents,&rdquo; he staggered Blake by
+      answering. &ldquo;We have learnt the reason why you left London and your
+      creditors, and in all my life, sir, I have never known a man more ready to
+      turn his hand to treason than a broken gamester. Your kind turns by
+      instinct to such work as this, as a last resource for the mending of
+      battered fortunes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake crimsoned from chin to brow. &ldquo;I'm forejudged, it, seems,&rdquo; he made
+      answer haughtily, tossing his fair locks, his blue eyes glaring upon his
+      judges. &ldquo;May I, at least, know the name of my accuser?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall receive impartial justice at our hands,&rdquo; put in Phelips, whose
+      manner was of a dangerous mildness. &ldquo;Depend on that. Not only shall you
+      know the name of your accuser, but you shall be confronted by him.
+      Meanwhile, sirs&rdquo;&mdash;and his glance strayed from Blake's flushed and
+      angry countenance to Richard's, pale and timid&mdash;&ldquo;meanwhile, are we to
+      understand that you deny the charge?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have heard none as yet,&rdquo; said Sir Rowland insolently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Albemarle turned to one of the secretaries. &ldquo;Read them the indictment,&rdquo;
+       said he, and sank back in his chair, his dull glance upon the prisoners,
+      whilst the clerk in a droning voice read from a document which he took up.
+      It impeached Sir Rowland Blake and Mr. Richard Westmacott of holding
+      treasonable communication with James Scott, Duke of Monmouth, and of
+      plotting against His Majesty's life and throne and the peace of His
+      Majesty's realms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake listened with unconcealed impatience to the farrago of legal
+      phrases, and snorted contemptuously when the reading came to an end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Albemarle looked at him darkly. &ldquo;I do thank God,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that through
+      Mr. Westmacott's folly has this hideous plot, this black and damnable
+      treason, been brought to light in time to enable us to stamp out this fire
+      ere it is well kindled. Have you aught to say, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have to say that the whole charge a foul and unfounded lie,&rdquo; said Sir
+      Rowland bluntly: &ldquo;I never plotted in my life against anything but my own
+      prosperity, nor against any man but myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Albemarle smiled coldly at his colleagues, then turned to Westmacott. &ldquo;And
+      you, sir?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Are you as stubborn as your friend?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I incontinently deny the charge,&rdquo; said Richard, and he contrived that his
+      voice should ring bold and resolute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A charge built on air,&rdquo; sneered Blake, &ldquo;which the first breath of truth
+      should utterly dispel. We have heard the impeachment. Will Your Grace with
+      the same consideration permit us to see the proofs that we may lay bare
+      their falseness? It should not be difficult.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you say there is no such plot as is here alleged?&rdquo; quoth the Duke, and
+      smote a paper sharply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake shrugged his shoulders. &ldquo;How should I know?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;I say I have
+      no share in any, that I am acquainted with none.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Call Mr. Trenchard,&rdquo; said the Duke quietly, and an usher who had stood
+      tamely by the door at the far end of the room departed on the errand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard started at the mention of that name. He had a singular dread of
+      Mr. Trenchard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Colonel Luttrell&mdash;lean and wiry&mdash;now addressed the prisoners,
+      Blake more particularly. &ldquo;Still,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;you will admit that such a
+      plot may, indeed, exist?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It may, indeed, for aught I know&mdash;or care,&rdquo; he added incautiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Albemarle smote the table with a heavy hand. &ldquo;By God!&rdquo; he cried in that
+      deep booming voice of his, &ldquo;there spoke a traitor! You do not care, you
+      say, what plots may be hatched against His Majesty's life and crown! Yet
+      you ask me to believe you a true and loyal subject.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake was angered; he was at best a short-tempered man. Deliberately he
+      floundered further into the mire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have not asked Your Grace to believe me anything,&rdquo; he answered hotly.
+      &ldquo;It is all one to me what Your Grace believes me. I take it I have not
+      been fetched hither to be confronted with what Your Grace believes. You
+      have preferred a lying charge against me; I ask for proofs, not Your
+      Grace's beliefs and opinions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By God, sir, you are a daring rogue!&rdquo; cried Albemarle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Rowland's eyes blazed. &ldquo;Anon, Your Grace, when, having failed of your
+      proofs, you shall be constrained to restore me to liberty, I shall ask
+      Your Grace to unsay that word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Albemarle stared, confounded, and in that moment the door opened, and
+      Trenchard sauntered in, cane in hand, his hat under his arm, a wicked
+      smile on his wizened face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leaving Blake's veiled threat unanswered, the Duke turned to the old rake.
+      &ldquo;These rogues,&rdquo; said he, pointing to the prisoners, &ldquo;demand proofs ere
+      they will admit the truth of the impeachment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Those proofs,&rdquo; said Trenchard, &ldquo;are already in Your Grace's hands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye, but they have asked to be confronted with their accuser.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard bowed. &ldquo;Is it your wish, then, that I recite for them the counts
+      on which I have based the accusation I laid before Your Grace?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you will condescend so far,&rdquo; said Albemarle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Blister me...!&rdquo; roared Blake, when the Duke interrupted him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By God, sir!&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;I'll have no such disrespectful language here.
+      You'll observe the decency of speech and forbear from profanities, you
+      damned rogue, or by God! I'll commit you forthwith.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will endeavour,&rdquo; said Blake, with a sarcasm lost on Albemarle, &ldquo;to
+      follow Your Grace's lofty example.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will do well, sir,&rdquo; said the Duke, and was shocked that Trenchard
+      should laugh at such a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was about to protest, sir,&rdquo; said Blake, &ldquo;that it is monstrous I should
+      be accused by Mr. Trenchard. He has but the slightest acquaintance with
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard bowed to him across the chamber. &ldquo;Admitted, sir,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;What
+      should I be doing in bad company?&rdquo; An answer this that set Albemarle
+      bawling with laughter. Trenchard turned to the Duke. &ldquo;I will begin, an it
+      please Your Grace, with the expressions used last night in my presence at
+      the Bell Inn at Bridgwater by Mr. Richard Westmacott, and I will confine
+      myself strictly to those matters on which my testimony can be corroborated
+      by that of other witnesses.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Colonel Luttrell interrupted him to turn to Richard. &ldquo;Do you recall those
+      expressions, sir?&rdquo; he asked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard winced under the question. Nevertheless, he braced himself to make
+      the best defence he could. &ldquo;I have not yet heard,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;what those
+      expressions were; nor when I hear them must it follow that I recognize
+      them as my own. I must admit to having taken more wine, perhaps, than...
+      than...&rdquo; Whilst he sought the expression that he needed Trenchard cut in
+      with a laugh. &ldquo;In vino veritas, gentlemen,&rdquo; and His Grace and Sir Edward
+      nodded sagely; Luttrell preserved a stolid exterior. He seemed less prone
+      than his colleagues to forejudging.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you repeat the expressions used by Mr. Westmacott?&rdquo; Sir Edward
+      begged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will repeat the one that, to my mind, matters most.&rdquo; Mr. Westmacott,
+      getting to his feet and in a loud voice, exclaimed, &ldquo;God save the
+      Protestant Duke!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you admit it, sir?&rdquo; thundered Albemarle, his eyes glowering upon
+      Richard hesitated a moment, pale and trembling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will waste breath in denying it,&rdquo; said Trenchard suavely, &ldquo;for I have
+      a drawer from the Bell Inn, and two gentlemen who overheard you waiting
+      outside.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'faith, sir,&rdquo; cried Blake, &ldquo;what treason was therein that? If he...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Silence!&rdquo; thundered Albemarle. &ldquo;Let Mr. Westmacott speak for himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard, inspired by the defence Blake had begun, took the same line of
+      argument. &ldquo;I admit that in the heat of wine I may have used such words,&rdquo;
+       said he. &ldquo;But I deny their intent to be treasonable. There are many men
+      who drink to the prosperity of the late Kings's son...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Natural son, sir; natural son,&rdquo; Albemarle amended. &ldquo;It is treason to
+      speak of him otherwise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will be a treason presently to draw breath,&rdquo; sneered Blake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it be,&rdquo; said Trenchard, &ldquo;it is a treason you'll not be long
+      committing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Faith, you are right, Mr. Trenchard,&rdquo; said the Duke with a laugh. Indeed,
+      he found Mr. Trenchard a most pleasant and facetious gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Still,&rdquo; insisted Richard, endeavouring in spite of these irrelevancies to
+      make good his point, &ldquo;there be many men who drink daily to the prosperity
+      of the late King's natural son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye, sir,&rdquo; answered Albemarle; &ldquo;but not his prosperity in horrid plots
+      against the life of our beloved sovereign.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;True, Your Grace; very true,&rdquo; purred Sir Edward. &ldquo;It was not so I meant
+      to toast him,&rdquo; cried Richard. Albemarle made an impatient gesture, and
+      took up a sheet of paper. &ldquo;How, then,&rdquo; he asked, &ldquo;comes this letter&mdash;this
+      letter which makes plain the treason upon which the Duke of Monmouth is
+      embarked, just as it makes plain your participation in it&mdash;how comes
+      this letter to be found in your possession?&rdquo; And he waved the letter in
+      the air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard went the colour of ashes. He faltered a moment, then took refuge
+      in the truth, for all that he knew beforehand that the truth was bound to
+      ring more false than any lie he could invent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That letter was not addressed to me,&rdquo; he stammered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Albemarle read the subscription, &ldquo;To my good friend W., at Bridgwater.&rdquo; He
+      looked up, a heavy sneer thrusting his heavy lip still further out. &ldquo;What
+      do you say to that? Does not 'W' stand for Westmacott?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It does not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course not,&rdquo; said Albemarle with heavy sarcasm. &ldquo;It stands for
+      Wilkins, or Williams, or... or... What-not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed, I can bear witness that it does not,&rdquo; exclaimed Sir Rowland.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be silent, sir, I tell you!&rdquo; bawled the Duke at him again. &ldquo;You shall
+      bear witness soon enough, I promise you. To whom, then,&rdquo; he resumed,
+      turning again to Richard, &ldquo;do you say that this letter was addressed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To Mr. Wilding&mdash;Mr. Anthony Wilding,&rdquo; Richard answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would have Your Grace to observe,&rdquo; put in Trench ard quietly, &ldquo;that Mr.
+      Wilding, properly speaking, does not reside in Bridgwater.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tush!&rdquo; cried Albemarle; &ldquo;the rogue but mentions the first name with a 'W'
+      that occurs to him. He's not even an ingenious liar. And how, sir,&rdquo; he
+      asked Richard, &ldquo;does it come to be in your possession, having been
+      addressed, as you say, to Mr. Wilding?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye, sir,&rdquo; said Sir Edward, blinking his weak eyes. &ldquo;Tell us that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard hesitated again, and looked at Blake. Blake, who by now had come
+      to realize that his friend's affairs were not mended by his interruptions,
+      moodily shrugged his shoulders, scowling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, sir,&rdquo; said Colonel Luttrell, engagingly, &ldquo;answer the question.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye,&rdquo; roared Albemarle; &ldquo;let your invention have free rein.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again poor Richard sought refuge in the truth. &ldquo;We&mdash;Sir Rowland here
+      and I&mdash;had reason to suspect that he was awaiting such a letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell us your reasons, sir, if we are to credit you,&rdquo; said the Duke, and
+      it was plain he mocked the prisoner. It was, moreover, a request that
+      staggered Richard. Still, he sought to find a reason that should sound
+      plausible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We inferred it from certain remarks that Mr. Wilding let fall in our
+      presence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell us the remarks, sir,&rdquo; the Duke insisted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed, I do not call his precise words to mind, Your Grace. But they
+      were such that we suspicioned him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you would have me believe that hearing words which awoke in you such
+      grave suspicions, you kept your suspicions and straightway forgot the
+      words. You're but an indifferent liar.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard, who was standing by the long table, leaned forward now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It might be well, an it please Your Grace,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;to waive the point,
+      and let us come to those matters which are of greater moment. Let him tell
+      Your Grace how he came by the letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye,&rdquo; said Albemarle. &ldquo;We do but waste time. Tell us, then, how came the
+      letter into your hands?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With Sir Rowland, here, I robbed the courier as he was riding from
+      Taunton to Bridgwater.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Albemarle laughed, and Sir Edward smiled. &ldquo;You robbed him, eh?&rdquo; said His
+      Grace. &ldquo;Very well. But how did it happen that you knew he had the letter
+      upon him, or was it that you were playing the hightobymen, and that in
+      robbing him you hoped to find other matters?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not so, sir,&rdquo; answered Richard. &ldquo;I sought but the letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how knew you that he carried it? Did you learn that, too, from Mr.
+      Wilding's indiscretion?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Grace has said it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Slife! What an impudent rogue have we here!&rdquo; cried the angry Duke, who
+      conceived that Richard was purposely dealing in effrontery. &ldquo;Mr.
+      Trenchard, I do think we are wasting time. Be so good as to confound them
+      both with the truth of this matter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That letter,&rdquo; said Trenchard, &ldquo;was delivered to them at the Hare and
+      Hounds, here at Taunton, by a gentleman who put up at the inn, and was
+      there joined by Mr. Westmacott and Sir Rowland Blake. They opened the
+      conversation with certain cant phrases very clearly intended as passwords.
+      Thus: the prisoners said to the messenger, as they seated themselves at
+      the table he occupied, 'You have the air, sir, of being from overseas,' to
+      which the courier answered, 'Indeed, yes. I am from Holland. 'From the
+      land of Orange,' says one of the prisoners. 'Aye, and other things,'
+      replies the messenger. 'There is a fair wind blowing,' he adds; to which
+      one of the prisoners, I believe it was Sir Rowland, makes answer, 'Mayit
+      prosper the Protestant Duke and blow Popery to hell.' Thereupon the
+      landlord caught some mention of a letter, but these plotters, perceiving
+      that they were perhaps being overheard, sent him away to fetch them wine.
+      A half-hour later the messenger took his leave, and the prisoners followed
+      a very few minutes afterwards.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Albemarle turned to the prisoners. &ldquo;You have heard Mr. Trenchard's story.
+      How do you say&mdash;is it true or untrue?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will waste breath in denying it,&rdquo; Trenchard took it again upon
+      himself to admonish them. &ldquo;For I have with me the landlord of the Hare and
+      Hounds, who will corroborate, upon oath, what I have said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We do not deny it,&rdquo; put in Blake. &ldquo;But we submit that the matter is
+      susceptible to explanation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can keep your explanations till your trial, then,&rdquo; snapped Albemarle.
+      &ldquo;I have heard more than enough to commit the pair of you to gaol.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Your Grace,&rdquo; cried Sir Rowland, so fiercely that one of the
+      tything-men set a restraining hand upon his shoulder, &ldquo;I am ready to swear
+      that what I did, and what my friend Mr. Westmacott did, was done in the
+      interests of His Majesty. We were working to discover this plot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Which, no doubt,&rdquo; put in Trenchard slyly, &ldquo;is the reason why, having got
+      the letter, your friend Mr. Westmacott locked it in a desk, and you kept
+      silence on the matter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see,&rdquo; exclaimed Albemarle, &ldquo;how your lies do but serve further to
+      bind you in the toils. It is ever thus with traitors.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do think you are a damned traitor, Trenchard,&rdquo; began Blake; &ldquo;a foul...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But what more he would have said was checked by Albemarle, who thundered
+      forth an order for their removal, and then, scarce were the words uttered
+      than the door at the far end of the hall was opened, and through it came a
+      sound of women's voices. Richard started, for one was the voice of Ruth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An usher advanced. &ldquo;May it please Your Grace, there are two ladies here
+      beg that you will hear their evidence in the matter of Mr. Westmacott and
+      Sir Rowland Blake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Albemarle considered a moment. Trenchard stood very thoughtful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed,&rdquo; said the Duke, at last, &ldquo;I have heard as much as I need hear,&rdquo;
+       and Sir Phelips nodded in token of concurrence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not so, however, Colonel Luttrell. &ldquo;Still,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;in the interests of
+      His Majesty, perhaps, we should be doing well to receive them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Albemarle blew out his cheeks like a man wearied, and stared an instant at
+      Luttrell. Then he shrugged his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Admit them, then,&rdquo; he commanded almost peevishly, and Ruth and Diana were
+      ushered into the hall. Both were pale, but whilst Diana was fluttered with
+      excitement, Ruth was calm and cool, and it was she who spoke in answer to
+      the Duke's invitation. The burden of her speech was a clear, succinct
+      recitation&mdash;in which she spared neither Wilding nor herself&mdash;of
+      how the letter came to have remained in her hands and silence to have been
+      preserved regarding it. Albemarle heard her very patiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If what you say is true, mistress,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;and God forbid that I
+      should be so ungallant as to throw doubt upon a lady's word, it certainly
+      explains&mdash;although most strangely&mdash;how the letter was not
+      brought to us at once by your brother and his friend Sir Rowland. You are
+      prepared to swear that this letter was intended for Mr. Wilding?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am prepared to swear it,&rdquo; she replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is very serious,&rdquo; said the Duke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very serious,&rdquo; assented Sir Edward Phelips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Albemarle, a little flustered, turned to his colleagues. &ldquo;What do you say
+      to this? Were it perhaps well to order Mr. Wilding's apprehension, and to
+      have him brought hither?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It were to give yourselves useless trouble, gentlemen,&rdquo; said Trenchard,
+      with so much assurance that it was plain Albemarle hesitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beware of Mr. Trenchard, Your Grace,&rdquo; cried Ruth. &ldquo;He is Mr. Wilding's
+      friend, and if there is a plot he is sure to be in it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Albemarle, startled, looked at Trenchard. Had the accusation come from
+      either of the men the Duke would have silenced him and abused him; but
+      coming from a woman, and so comely a woman, it seemed to His Grace worthy
+      at least of consideration. But nimble Mr. Trenchard was easily master of
+      the situation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Which, of course,&rdquo; he answered, with fine sarcasm, &ldquo;is the reason why I
+      have been at work for the past four-and-twenty hours to lay proofs of this
+      plot before Your Grace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Albemarle was ashamed of his momentary hesitation.
+    </p>
+<p>
+     &ldquo;For the rest,&rdquo; said Trenchard, &ldquo;it is perfectly true that I am
+Mr. Wilding's friend. But the lady is even more intimately connected
+with him. It happens that she is his wife.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His... his wife!&rdquo; gasped the Duke, whilst Phelips chuckled, and Colonel
+      Luttrell's face grew dark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard's wicked smile flickered upon his mobile features. &ldquo;There are
+      rumours current of court paid her by Sir Rowland, there. Who knows?&rdquo; he
+      questioned most suggestively, arching his brows and tightening his lips.
+      &ldquo;Wives are strange kittle-kattle, and husbands have been known before to
+      grow inconvenient. Upon reflection, Your Grace will no doubt discern the
+      precise degree of faith to attach to what this lady may tell you against
+      Mr. Wilding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; exclaimed Ruth, her cheeks flaming crimson. &ldquo;But this is monstrous!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tis how I should myself describe it,&rdquo; answered Trenchard without shame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Spurred to it thus, Ruth poured out the entire story of her marriage, and
+      so clear and lucid was her statement that it threw upon the affair a flood
+      of light, whilst so frank and truthful was her tone, her narrative hung so
+      well together, that the Bench began to recover from the shock to its
+      faith, and was again in danger of believing her. Trenchard saw this and
+      trembled. To save Wilding for the Cause he had resorted to this desperate
+      expedient of betraying that Cause. It must be observed, however, that he
+      had not done so save under the conviction that betrayed it was bound to
+      be, and that since that was inevitable the thing had better come from him&mdash;for
+      Wilding's sake&mdash;than from Richard Westmacott. He had taken the bull
+      by the horns in a most desperate fashion when he had determined to hoist
+      Richard and Blake with their own petard, hoping that, after all, the harm
+      would reach no further than the destruction of these two&mdash;a purely
+      defensive measure. But now this girl threatened to wreck his scheme just
+      as it was being safely steered to harbour. Suddenly he swung round,
+      interrupting her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lies, lies, lies!&rdquo; he clamoured, and his interruption coming at such a
+      time served to impress the Duke most unfavourably&mdash;as well it might.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is our wish to hear this lady out, Mr. Trenchard,&rdquo; the Duke reproved
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Mr. Trenchard was undismayed. Indeed, he had just discovered a
+      hitherto neglected card, which should put an end to this dangerous game.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do abhor to hear Your Grace's patience thus abused,&rdquo; he exclaimed with
+      some show of heat. &ldquo;This lady makes a mock of you. If you'll allow me to
+      ask two questions&mdash;or perhaps three&mdash;I'll promise finally to
+      prick this bubble for you. Have I Your Grace's leave?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, well,&rdquo; said Albemarle. &ldquo;Let us hear your questions.&rdquo; And his
+      colleagues nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard turned airily to Ruth. Behind her Diana sat&mdash;an attendant
+      had fetched a chair for her&mdash;in fear and wonder at what she saw and
+      heard, her eyes ever and anon straying to Sir Rowland's back, which was
+      towards her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This letter, madam,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;for the possession of which you have
+      accounted in so... so... picturesque a manner, was intended for and
+      addressed to Mr. Wilding, you say. And you are prepared to swear to it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth turned indignantly to the Bench. &ldquo;Must I answer this man's
+      questions?&rdquo; she demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think, perhaps, it were best you did,&rdquo; said the Duke, still showing her
+      all deference.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned to Trenchard, her head high, her eyes full upon his wrinkled,
+      cynical face. &ldquo;I swear, then...&rdquo; she began, but he&mdash;consummate actor
+      that he was and versed in tricks that impress an audience&mdash;interrupted
+      her, raising one of his gnarled, yellow hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, nay,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;I would not have perjury proved against you. I do
+      not ask you to swear. It will be sufficient if you pronounce yourself
+      prepared to swear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She pouted her lip a trifle, her whole expression manifesting her contempt
+      of him. &ldquo;I am in no fear of perjuring myself,&rdquo; she answered fearlessly.
+      &ldquo;And I swear that the letter in question was addressed to Mr. Wilding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As you will,&rdquo; said Trenchard, and was careful not to ask her how she came
+      by her knowledge. &ldquo;The letter, no doubt, was in an outer wrapper, on which
+      there would be a superscription&mdash;the name of the person to whom the
+      letter was addressed?&rdquo; he half questioned, and Luttrell, who saw the drift
+      of the question, nodded gravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No doubt,&rdquo; said Ruth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now you will acknowledge, I am sure, madam, that such a wrapper would be
+      a document of the greatest importance, as important, indeed, as the letter
+      itself, since we could depend upon it finally to clear up this point on
+      which we differ. You will admit so much, I think?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, yes,&rdquo; she answered, but her voice faltered a little, and her glance
+      was not quite so fearless. She, too, saw at last the pit he had dug for
+      her. He leaned forward, smiling quietly, his voice impressively subdued,
+      and launched the bolt that was to annihilate the credibility of the story
+      she had told.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can you, then, explain how it comes that that wrapper has been
+      suppressed? Can you tell us how&mdash;the matter being as you state it&mdash;in
+      very self-defence against the dangers of keeping such a letter, your
+      brother did not also keep that wrapper?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her eyes fell away from his face, they turned to Albemarle, who sat
+      scowling again, and from him they flickered unsteadily to Phelips and
+      Luttrell, and lastly, to Richard, who, very white and with set teeth,
+      stood listening to the working of his ruin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I... I do not know,&rdquo; she faltered at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said Trenchard, drawing a deep breath. He turned to the Bench. &ldquo;Need
+      I suggest what was the need&mdash;the urgent need&mdash;for suppressing
+      that wrapper?&rdquo; quoth he. &ldquo;Need I say what name was inscribed upon it? I
+      think not. Your Grace's keen insight, and yours, gentlemen, will determine
+      what was probable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Rowland now stood forward, addressing Albemarle. &ldquo;Will Your Grace
+      permit me to offer my explanation of this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Albemarle banged the table. His patience was at an end, since he came now
+      to believe&mdash;as Trenchard had earlier suggested&mdash;that he had been
+      played upon by Ruth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Too many explanations have I heard already, sir,&rdquo; he answered. He turned
+      to one of his secretaries. In his sudden excess of choler he forgot his
+      colleagues altogether. &ldquo;The prisoners are committed for trial,&rdquo; said he
+      harshly, and Trenchard breathed freely at last. But the next instant he
+      caught his breath again, for a ringing voice was heard without demanding
+      to see His Grace of Albemarle at once, and the voice was the voice of
+      Anthony Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI. THE MARPLOT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding's appearance produced as many different emotions as there were
+      individuals present. He made the company a sweeping bow on his admission
+      by Albemarle's orders, a bow which was returned by a stare from one and
+      all. Diana eyed him in amazement, Ruth in hope; Richard averted his glance
+      from that of his brother-in-law, whilst Sir Rowland met it with a scowl of
+      enmity&mdash;they had not come face to face since the occasion of that
+      encounter in which Sir Rowland's self-love had been so rudely handled.
+      Albemarle's face expressed a sort of satisfaction, which was reflected on
+      the countenances of Phelips and Luttrell; whilst Trenchard never thought
+      of attempting to dissemble his profound dismay. And this dismay was
+      shared, though not in so deep a measure, by Wilding himself. Trenchard's
+      presence gave him pause; for he had been far, indeed, from dreaming that
+      his friend had a hand in this affair. At sight of him all was made clear
+      to Mr. Wilding. At once he saw the role which Trenchard had assumed on
+      this occasion, saw to the bottom of the motives that had inspired him to
+      take the bull by the horns and level against Richard and Blake this
+      accusation before they had leisure to level it against himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His quick wits having fathomed Trenchard's motive, Mr. Wilding was deeply
+      touched by this proof of friendship, and for a second, as deeply
+      nonplussed, at loss now how to discharge the task on which he came.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very choicely come, Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; said Albemarle. &ldquo;You will be
+      able to resolve me certain doubts which have been set on foot by these
+      traitors.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding, &ldquo;is the purpose for which I am here. News
+      reached me of the arrest that had been made. May I beg that Your Grace
+      will place me in possession of the facts that have so far transpired.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was one of his secretaries who, at Albemarle's bidding, gave Wilding
+      the information that he craved. He listened gravely; then, before
+      Albemarle had time to question him on the score of the name that might
+      have been upon the enfolding wrapper of the letter, he begged that he
+      might confer apart a moment with Mr. Trenchard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; said Colonel Luttrell, surprised not to hear the
+      immediate denial of the imputation they had expected, &ldquo;we should first
+      like to hear...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By your leave, sirs,&rdquo; Wilding interrupted, &ldquo;I should prefer that you ask
+      me nothing until I have consulted with Mr. Trenchard.&rdquo; He saw Luttrell's
+      frown, observed Sir Edward shift his wig to scratch his head in sheer
+      perplexity, and caught the fore-shadowing of denial on the Duke's face.
+      So, without giving any of them time to say him nay, he added quickly and
+      very seriously, &ldquo;I am begging this in the interests of justice. Your Grace
+      has told me that some lingering doubt still haunts your mind upon the
+      subject of this letter&mdash;the other charges can matter little, apart
+      from that treasonable document. It lies within my power to resolve such
+      doubts most clearly and finally. But I warn you, sirs, that not one word
+      will I utter in this connection until I have had speech with Mr.
+      Trenchard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was about his mien and voice a firmness that forewarned Albemarle
+      that to insist would be worse than idle. A slight pause followed his
+      words, and Luttrell leaned across to whisper in His Grace's ear; from the
+      Duke's other side Sir Edward bent his head forward till it almost touched
+      those of his companions. Blake watched, and was most foolishly impatient.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Grace will never allow this!&rdquo; he cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh?&rdquo; said Albemarle, scowling at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you allow those two villains to consort together we are all undone,&rdquo;
+       the baronet protested, and ruined what chance there was of Albemarle's not
+      consenting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the one thing needed to determine Albemarle. Like the stubborn man
+      he was, there was naught he detested so much as to have his course
+      dictated to him. More than that, in Sir Rowland's anxiety that Wilding and
+      Trenchard should not be allowed to confer apart, he smoked a fear on Sir
+      Rowland's part, based upon the baronet's consciousness of his own guilt.
+      He turned from him with a sneering smile, and without so much as
+      consulting his associates he glanced at Wilding and waved his hand towards
+      the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pray do as you suggest, Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;But I depend upon you not
+      to tax our patience.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not keep Mr. Trenchard a moment longer than is necessary,&rdquo; said
+      Wilding, giving no hint of the second meaning in his words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stepped to the door, opened it himself, and signed to Trenchard to pass
+      out. The old player obeyed him readily, if in silence. An usher closed the
+      door after them, and in silence they walked together to the end of the
+      passage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is your horse, Nick?&rdquo; quoth Wilding abruptly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a plague do you mean, where is my horse?&rdquo; flashed Trenchard. &ldquo;What
+      midsummer frenzy is this? Damn you for a marplot, Anthony! What a pox are
+      you thinking of to thrust yourself in here at such a time?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had no knowledge you were in the affair,&rdquo; said Wilding. &ldquo;You should
+      have told me.&rdquo; His manner was brisk to the point of dryness. &ldquo;However,
+      there is still time to get you out of it. Where is your horse?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damn my horse!&rdquo; answered Trenchard in a passion. &ldquo;You have spoiled
+      everything!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On the contrary,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding tartly, &ldquo;it seems you had done that
+      very thoroughly before I arrived. Whilst I am touched by the regard for me
+      which has misled you into turning the tables on Blake and Westmacott, yet
+      I do blame you for this betrayal of the Cause.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was no help for it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, no; and that is why you should have left matters where they stood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard stamped his foot; indeed, he almost danced in the excess of his
+      vexation. &ldquo;Left them where they stood!&rdquo; he echoed. &ldquo;Body o' me! Where are
+      your wits? Left them where they stood! And at any moment you might have
+      been taken unawares as a consequence of this accusation being lodged
+      against you by Richard or by Blake. Then the Cause would have been
+      betrayed, indeed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not more so than it is now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not less, at least,&rdquo; snapped the player. &ldquo;You give me credit for no more
+      wit than yourself. Do you think that I am the man to do things by halves?
+      I have betrayed the plot to Albemarle; but do you imagine I have made no
+      provision for what must follow?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Provision?&rdquo; echoed Wilding, staring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye, provision. God lack! What do you suppose Albemarle will do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dispatch a messenger to Whitehall with the letter within an hour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You perceive it, do you? And where the plague do you think Nick
+      Trenchard'll be what time that messenger rides?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding understood. &ldquo;Aye, you may stare,&rdquo; sneered Trenchard. &ldquo;A letter
+      that has once been stolen may be stolen again. The courier must go by way
+      of Walford. I had in my mind arranged the spot, close by the ford, where I
+      should fall upon him, rob him of his dispatches, and take him&mdash;bound
+      hand and foot if necessary&mdash;to Vallancey's, who lives close by; and
+      there I'd leave him until word came that the Duke had landed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That the Duke had landed?&rdquo; cried Wilding. &ldquo;You talk as though the thing
+      were imminent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And imminent it is. For aught we know he may be in England already.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding laughed impatiently. &ldquo;You must forever be building on these
+      crack-brained rumours, Nick,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rumours!&rdquo; roared the other. &ldquo;Rumours? Ha!&rdquo; He checked his wild scorn, and
+      proceeded in a different key. &ldquo;I was forgetting. You do not know the
+      Contents of that stolen letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding started. Underlying his disbelief in the talk of the countryside,
+      and even in the military measures which by the King's orders were being
+      taken in the West, was an uneasy dread lest they should prove to be well
+      founded, lest Argyle's operations in Scotland should be but the forerunner
+      of a rash and premature invasion by Monmouth. He knew the Duke was
+      surrounded by such reckless, foolhardy counsellors as Grey and Ferguson&mdash;and
+      yet he could not think the Duke would ruin all by coming before he had
+      definite word that his friends were ready. He looked at Trenchard now with
+      anxious eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you seen the letter, Nick?&rdquo; he asked, and almost dreaded the reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Albemarle showed it me an hour ago,&rdquo; said Trenchard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And it contains?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The news we fear. It is in the Duke's own hand, and intimates that he
+      will follow it in a few days&mdash;in a few days, man in person.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding clenched teeth and hands. &ldquo;God help us all, then!&rdquo; he muttered
+      grimly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Meanwhile,&rdquo; quoth Trenchard, bringing him back to the point, &ldquo;there is
+      this precious business here. I had as choice a plan as could have been
+      devised, and it must have succeeded, had you not come blundering into it
+      to mar it all at the last moment. That fat fool Albemarle had swallowed my
+      impeachment like a draught of muscadine. Do you hear me?&rdquo; he ended
+      sharply, for Mr. Wilding stood bemused, his thoughts plainly wandering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He let his hand fall upon Trenchard's shoulder. &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I wasn't
+      listening. No matter; for even had I known the full extent of your scheme
+      I still must have interfered.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For the sake of Mistress Westmacott's blue eyes, no doubt,&rdquo; sneered
+      Trenchard. &ldquo;Pah! Wherever there's a woman there's the loss of a man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For the sake of Mistress Wilding's blue eyes,&rdquo; his friend corrected him.
+      &ldquo;I'll allow no brother of hers to hang in my place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will be interesting to see how you will rescue him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By telling the truth to Albemarle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He'll not believe it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall prove it,&rdquo; said Wilding quietly. Trenchard swung round upon him
+      in mingled anger and alarm for him. &ldquo;You shall not do it!&rdquo; he snarled. &ldquo;It
+      is nothing short of treason to the Duke to get yourself laid by the heels
+      at such a time as this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope to avoid it,&rdquo; answered Wilding confidently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Avoid it? How?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not by staying longer here in talk. That will ruin all. Away with you,
+      Trenchard!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By my soul, no!&rdquo; answered Trenchard. &ldquo;I'll not leave you. If I have got
+      you into this, I'll help to get you out again, or stay in it with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bethink you of Monmouth?&rdquo; Wilding admonished him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damn Monmouth!&rdquo; was the vicious answer. &ldquo;I am here, and here I stay.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Get to horse, you fool, and ride to Walford as you proposed, there to
+      ambush the messenger. The letter will go to Whitehall none the less in
+      spite of what I shall tell Albemarle. If things go well with me, I shall
+      join you at Vallancey's before long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, if that is your intention,&rdquo; said Trenchard, &ldquo;I had better stay, and
+      we can ride together. It will make it less uncertain for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But less certain for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The more reason why I should remain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The door of the hall was suddenly flung open at the far end of the
+      corridor, and Albemarle's booming voice, impatiently raised, reached them
+      where they stood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In any case,&rdquo; added Trenchard, &ldquo;it seems there is no help for it now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding shrugged his shoulders, but otherwise dissembled his vexation.
+      Up the passage floated the constable's voice calling them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Side by side they moved down, and side by side they stepped once more into
+      the presence of Christopher Monk and his associates.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sirs, you have not been in haste,&rdquo; was the Duke's ill-humoured greeting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have tarried a little that we might make an end the sooner,&rdquo; answered
+      Trenchard dryly, and this was the first indication he gave Mr. Wilding of
+      how naturally&mdash;like the inimitable actor that he was&mdash;he had
+      slipped into his new role.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Albemarle waved the frivolous rejoinder aside. &ldquo;Come, Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; said
+      he, &ldquo;let us hear what you may have to say. You are not, I take it, about
+      to urge any reasons why these rogues should not be committed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed, Your Grace,&rdquo; said Wilding, &ldquo;that is what I am about to urge.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake and Richard looked at him suddenly, and from him to Trenchard; but
+      it was only Ruth whose eyes were shrewd enough to observe the altered
+      demeanour of the latter. Her hopes rose, founded upon this oddly assorted
+      pair. Already in anticipation she was stirred by gratitude towards
+      Wilding, and it was in impatient and almost wondering awe that she waited
+      for him to proceed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I take it, sir,&rdquo; he said, without waiting for Albemarle to express any of
+      the fresh astonishment his countenance manifested, &ldquo;that the accusation
+      against these gentlemen rests entirely upon the letter which you have been
+      led to believe was addressed to Mr. Westmacott.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke scowled a moment before replying. &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;if it could be
+      shown&mdash;irrefutably shown&mdash;that the letter was not addressed to
+      either of them, that would no doubt establish the truth of what they say&mdash;that
+      they possessed themselves of the letter in the interests of His Majesty.&rdquo;
+       He turned to Luttrell and Phelips, and they nodded their concurrence with
+      his view of the matter. &ldquo;But,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;if you are proposing to
+      prove any such thing, I think you will find it difficult.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding drew a crumpled paper from his pocket. &ldquo;When the courier whom
+      they robbed, as they have correctly informed you,&rdquo; said he quietly,
+      &ldquo;suspected their design upon the contents of his wallet, he bethought him
+      of removing the wrapper from the letter, so that in case the letter were
+      seized by them it should prove nothing against any man in particular. He
+      stuffed the wrapper into the lining of his hat, preserving it as a proof
+      of his good faith against the time when he should bring the letter to its
+      destination, or come to confess that it had been taken from him. That
+      wrapper the courier brought to me, and I have it here. The evidence it
+      will give should be more than sufficient to warrant your restoring these
+      unjustly accused gentlemen their liberty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The courier took it to you?&rdquo; echoed Albemarle, stupefaction in his
+      glance. &ldquo;But why to you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because,&rdquo; said Wilding, and with his left hand he placed the wrapper
+      before Albemarle, whilst his right dropped again to his pocket, &ldquo;the
+      letter, as you may see, was addressed to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The quiet manner in which he made the announcement conveyed almost as
+      great a shock as the announcement itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Albemarle took up the wrapper; Luttrell and Phelips craned forward to join
+      him in his scrutiny of it. They compared the two, paper with paper,
+      writing with writing. Then Monk flung one and the other down in front of
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What lies have I been hearing, then?&rdquo; he demanded furiously of Trenchard.
+      &ldquo;'Slife I'll make an example of you. Arrest me that rogue&mdash;arrest
+      them both,&rdquo; and he half rose from his seat, his trembling hand pointing to
+      Wilding and Trenchard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two of the tything-men stirred to do his bidding, but in the same instant
+      Albemarle found himself looking into the round nozzle of a pistol.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding, &ldquo;a finger is laid upon Mr. Trenchard or me I shall
+      have the extreme mortification of being compelled to shoot Your Grace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His pleasantly modulated voice was as deliberate and calm as if he were
+      offering the Bench a pinch of snuff. Albemarle's dark visage crimsoned;
+      his eyes became at once wicked and afraid. Sir Edward's cheeks turned
+      pale, his glance grew startled. Luttrell alone, vigilant and dangerous,
+      preserved his calm. But the situation baffled even him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Behind the two friends the tything-men had come to a terror-stricken halt.
+      Diana had risen from her chair in the excitement of the moment and had
+      drawn close to Ruth, who looked on with parted lips and bosom that rose
+      and fell. Even Blake could not stifle his admiration of Mr. Wilding's
+      coolness and address. Richard, on the other hand, was concerned only with
+      thoughts for himself, wondering how it would fare with him if Wilding and
+      Trenchard succeeded in getting away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nick,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding, &ldquo;will you desire those catchpolls behind us to
+      stand aside? If Your Grace raises your voice to call for help, if, indeed,
+      any measures are taken calculated to lead to our capture, I can promise
+      Your Grace&mdash;notwithstanding my profound reluctance to use violence&mdash;that
+      they will be the last measures you will take in life. Be good enough to
+      open the door, Nick, and to see that the key is on the outside.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard, who was by way of enjoying himself now, stepped briskly down
+      the hall to do as his friend bade him, with a wary eye on the tything-men.
+      But never so much as a finger did they dare to lift. Mr. Wilding's calm
+      was too deadly; they had seen a man in earnest before this, and they knew
+      his appearance now. From the doorway Trenchard called Mr. Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must be going, Your Grace,&rdquo; said the latter very courteously, &ldquo;but I
+      shall not be so wanting in deference to His Majesty's august
+      representatives as to turn my back upon you.&rdquo; Saying which, he walked
+      backwards, holding his pistol level, until he had reached Trenchard and
+      the door. There he paused and made them a deep bow, his manner the more
+      mocking in that there was no tinge of mockery perceptible. &ldquo;Your very
+      obedient servant,&rdquo; said he, and stepped outside. Trenchard turned the key,
+      withdrew it from the lock, and, standing on tiptoe, thrust it upon the
+      ledge of the lintel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Instantly a clamour arose within the chamber. But the two friends never
+      stayed to listen. Down the passage they sped at the double, and out into
+      the courtyard. Here Ruth's groom, mounted himself, was walking his
+      mistress's and Diana's horses up and down whilst he waited; yonder one of
+      Sir Edward's stable-boys was holding Mr. Wilding's roan. Two or three men
+      of the Somerset militia, in their red and yellow liveries, lounged by the
+      gates, and turned uninterested eyes upon these newcomers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding approached his wife's groom. &ldquo;Get down,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I need your
+      horse&mdash;on the King's business. Get down, I say,&rdquo; he added
+      impatiently, upon noting the fellow's stare, and, seizing his leg, he
+      helped him to dismount by almost dragging him from the saddle. &ldquo;Up with
+      you, Nick,&rdquo; said he, and Nick very promptly mounted. &ldquo;Your mistress will
+      be here presently,&rdquo; Wilding told the groom, and, turning on his heel,
+      strode to his own mare. A moment later Trenchard and he vanished through
+      the gateway with a tremendous clatter, just as the Lord-Lieutenant,
+      Colonel Luttrell, Sir Edward Phelips, the constable, the tything-men, Sir
+      Rowland, Richard, and the ladies made their appearance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth pushed her way quickly to the front. She feared lest her horse and
+      her cousin's being at hand might be used for the pursuit; so urging Diana
+      to do the same, she snatched her reins from the hands of the dumbfounded
+      groom and leapt nimbly to the saddle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After them!&rdquo; roared Albemarle, and the constable with two of his men made
+      a dash for the gateway to raise the hue and cry, whilst the militiamen
+      watched them in stupid, inactive wonder. &ldquo;Damnation, mistress!&rdquo; thundered
+      the Duke in ever-increasing passion, &ldquo;hold your nag! Hold your nag,
+      woman!&rdquo; For Ruth's horse had become unmanageable, and was caracoling about
+      the yard between the men and the gateway in such a manner that they dared
+      not attempt to win past her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have scared him with your bellowing,&rdquo; she panted, tugging at the
+      bridle, and all but backed into the constable who had been endeavouring to
+      get round behind her. The beast continued its wild prancing, and the Duke
+      abated nothing in his furious profanity, until suddenly the groom, having
+      relinquished to Diana the reins of the other horse, sprang to Ruth's
+      assistance and caught her bridle in a firm grasp which brought the animal
+      to a standstill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You fool!&rdquo; she hissed at him, and half raised her whip to strike, but
+      checked on the impulse, bethinking her in time that, after all, what the
+      poor lad had done he had done thinking her distressed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The constable and a couple of his fellows won through; others were rousing
+      the stable and getting to horse, and in the courtyard all was bustle and
+      commotion. Meanwhile, however, Mr. Wilding and Trenchard had made the most
+      of their start, and were thundering through the town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII. AT THE FORD
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      As Mr. Wilding and Nick Trenchard rode hell-to-leather through Taunton
+      streets they never noticed a horseman at the door of the Red Lion Inn. But
+      the horseman noticed them. He looked up at the sound of their wild
+      approach, started upon recognizing them, and turned in his saddle as they
+      swept past him to call upon them excitedly to stop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hi!&rdquo; he shouted. &ldquo;Nick Trenchard! Hi! Wilding!&rdquo; Then, seeing that they
+      either did not hear or did not heed him, he loosed a volley of oaths,
+      wheeled his horse about, drove home the spurs, and started in pursuit. Out
+      of the town he followed them and along the road towards Walford, shouting
+      and clamouring at first, afterwards in a grim and angry silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, despite their natural anxiety for their own safety, Wilding and
+      Trenchard had by no means abandoned their project of taking cover by the
+      ford to await the messenger whom Albemarle and the others would no doubt
+      be sending to Whitehall; and this mad fellow thundering after them seemed
+      in a fair way to mar their plan. As they reluctantly passed the spot they
+      had marked out for their ambush, splashed through the ford and breasted
+      the rising ground beyond, they took counsel. They determined to stand and
+      meet this rash pursuer. Trenchard calmly opined that if necessary they
+      must shoot him; he was, I fear, a bloody-minded fellow at bottom,
+      although, it is true he justified himself now by pointing out that this
+      was no time to hesitate at trifles. Partly because they talked and partly
+      because the gradient was steep and their horses needed breathing, they
+      slackened rein, and the horseman behind them came tearing through the
+      water of the ford and lessened the distance considerably in the next few
+      minutes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He bethought him of using his lungs once more. &ldquo;Hi, Wilding! Hold, damn
+      you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He curses you in a most intimate manner,&rdquo; quoth Trenchard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding reined in and turned in the saddle. &ldquo;His voice has a familiar
+      sound,&rdquo; said he. He shaded his eyes with his hand, and looked down the
+      slope at the pursuer, who came on crouching low upon the withers of his
+      goaded beast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait!&rdquo; the fellow shouted. &ldquo;I have news&mdash;news for you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's Vallancey!&rdquo; cried Wilding suddenly. Trenchard too had drawn rein and
+      was looking behind him. Instead of expressing relief at the discovery that
+      this was not an enemy, he swore at the trouble to which they had so
+      needlessly put themselves, and he was still at his vituperations when
+      Vallancey came up with them, red in the face and very angry, cursing them
+      roundly for the folly of their mad career, and for not having stopped when
+      he bade them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was no doubt discourteous,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding &ldquo;but we took you for some
+      friend of the Lord-Lieutenant's.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are they after you?&rdquo; quoth Vallancey, his face of a sudden very startled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Like enough,&rdquo; said Trenchard, &ldquo;if they have found their horses yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forward, then,&rdquo; Vallancey urged them in excitement, and he picked up his
+      reins again. &ldquo;You shall hear my news as we ride.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not so,&rdquo; said Trenchard. &ldquo;We have business here down yonder at the ford.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Business? What business?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They told him, and scarce had they got the words out than he cut in
+      impatiently. &ldquo;That's no matter now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet, perhaps,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding; &ldquo;but it will be if that letter gets
+      to Whitehall.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Odso!&rdquo; was the impatient retort, &ldquo;there's other news travelling to
+      Whitehall that will make small-beer of this&mdash;and belike it's well on
+      its way there already.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What news is that?&rdquo; asked Trenchard. Vallancey told them. &ldquo;The Duke has
+      landed&mdash;he came ashore this morning at Lyme.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Duke?&rdquo; quoth Mr. Wilding, whilst Trenchard merely stared. &ldquo;What
+      Duke?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What Duke! Lord, you weary me! What dukes be there? The Duke of Monmouth,
+      man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monmouth!&rdquo; They uttered the name in a breath. &ldquo;But is this really true?&rdquo;
+       asked Wilding. &ldquo;Or is it but another rumour?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Remember the letter your friends intercepted,&rdquo; Trenchard bade him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not forgetting it,&rdquo; said Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's no rumour,&rdquo; Vallancey assured them. &ldquo;I was at White Lackington three
+      hours ago when the news came to George Speke, and I was riding to carry it
+      to you, going by way of Taunton that I might drop word of it for our
+      friends at the Red Lion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard needed no further convincing; he looked accordingly dismayed.
+      But Wilding found it still almost impossible&mdash;in spite of what
+      already he had learnt&mdash;to credit this amazing news. It was hard to
+      believe the Duke of Monmouth mad enough to spoil all by this sudden and
+      unheralded precipitation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You heard the news at White Lackington?&rdquo; said he slowly. &ldquo;Who carried it
+      thither?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There were two messengers,&rdquo; answered Vallancey, with restrained
+      impatience, &ldquo;and they were Heywood Dare&mdash;who has been appointed
+      paymaster to the Duke's forces&mdash;and Mr. Chamberlain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding was observed for once to change colour. He gripped Vallancey
+      by the wrist. &ldquo;You saw them?&rdquo; he demanded, and his voice had a husky,
+      unusual sound. &ldquo;You saw them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With these two eyes,&rdquo; answered Vallancey, &ldquo;and I spoke with them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was true, then! There was no room for further doubt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding looked at Trenchard, who shrugged his shoulders and made a wry
+      face. &ldquo;I never thought but that we were working in the service of a
+      hairbrain,&rdquo; said he contemptuously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vallancey proceeded to details. &ldquo;Dare and Chamberlain,&rdquo; he informed them,
+      &ldquo;came off the Duke's own frigate at daybreak to-day. They were put ashore
+      at Seatown, and they rode straight to Mr. Speke's with the news, returning
+      afterwards to Lyme.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What men has the Duke with him, did you learn?&rdquo; asked Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not more than a hundred or so, from what Dare told us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A hundred! God help us all! And is England to be conquered with a hundred
+      men? Oh, this is midsummer frenzy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He counts on all true Protestants to flock to his banner,&rdquo; put in
+      Trenchard, and it was not plain whether he expressed a fact or sneered at
+      one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does he bring money and arms, at least?&rdquo; asked Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not ask,&rdquo; answered Vallancey. &ldquo;But Dare told us that three vessels
+      had come over, so that it is to be supposed he brings some manner of
+      provision with him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is to be hoped so, Vallancey; but hardly to be supposed,&rdquo; quoth
+      Trenchard, and then he touched Wilding on the arm and pointed with his
+      whip across the fields towards Taunton. A cloud of dust was rising from
+      between tall hedges where ran the road. &ldquo;I think it were wise to be
+      moving. At least, this sudden landing of James Scott relieves my mind in
+      the matter of that letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding, having taken a look at the floating dust that announced the
+      oncoming of their pursuers, was now lost in thought. Vallancey, who,
+      beyond excitement at the news of which he was the bearer, seemed to have
+      no opinion of his own as to the wisdom or folly of the Duke's sudden
+      arrival, looked from one to the other of these two men whom he had known
+      as the prime secret agents in the West, and waited. Trenchard moved his
+      horse a few paces nearer the hedge, &ldquo;Whither now, Anthony?&rdquo; he asked
+      suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may ask, indeed!&rdquo; exclaimed Wilding, and his voice was as bitter as
+      ever Trenchard had heard it. &ldquo;'S heart! We are in it now! We had best make
+      for Lyme&mdash;if only that we may attempt to persuade this crack-brained
+      boy to ship back to Holland again, and ship ourselves with him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's sense in you at last,&rdquo; grumbled Trenchard. &ldquo;But I misdoubt me
+      he'll turn back after having come so far. Have you any money?&rdquo; he asked.
+      He could be very practical at times.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A guinea or two. But I can get money at Ilminster.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how do you propose to reach Ilminster with these gentlemen by way of
+      cutting us off?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'll double back as far as the cross-roads,&rdquo; said Wilding promptly, &ldquo;and
+      strike south over Swell Hill for Hatch. If we ride hard we can do it
+      easily, and have little fear of being followed. They'll naturally take it
+      we have made for Bridgwater.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They acted on the suggestion there and then, Vallancey going with them;
+      for his task was now accomplished, and he was all eager to get to Lyme to
+      kiss the hand of the Protestant Duke. They rode hard, as Wilding had said
+      they must, and they reached the junction of the roads before their
+      pursuers hove in sight. Here Wilding suddenly detained them again. The
+      road ahead of them ran straight for almost a mile, so that if they took it
+      now they were almost sure to be seen presently by the messengers. On their
+      right a thickly grown coppice stretched from the road to the stream that
+      babbled in the hollow. He gave it as his advice that they should lie
+      hidden there until those who hunted them should have gone by. Obviously
+      that was the only plan, and his companions instantly adopted it. They
+      found a way through a gate into an adjacent field, and from this they
+      gained the shelter of the trees. Trenchard, neglectful of his finery and
+      oblivious of the ubiquitous brambles, left his horse in Vallancey's care
+      and crept to the edge of the thicket that he might take a peep at the
+      pursuers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They came up very soon, six militiamen in lobster coats with yellow
+      facings, and a sergeant, which was what Mr. Trenchard might have expected.
+      There was, however, something else that Mr. Trenchard did not expect;
+      something that afforded him considerable surprise. At the head of the
+      party rode Sir Rowland Blake&mdash;obviously leading it&mdash;and with him
+      was Richard Westmacott. Amongst them went a man in grey clothes, whom Mr.
+      Trenchard rightly conjectured to be the messenger riding for Whitehall. He
+      thought with a smile of what a handful he and Wilding would have had had
+      they waited to rob that messenger of the incriminating letter that he
+      bore. Then he checked his smile to consider again how Sir Rowland Blake
+      came to head that party. He abandoned the problem, as the little troop
+      swept unhesitatingly round to the left and went pounding along the road
+      that led northwards to Bridgwater, clearly never doubting which way their
+      quarry had sped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for Sir Rowland Blake's connection with this pursuit, the town gallant
+      had by his earnestness not only convinced Colonel Luttrell of his loyalty
+      and devotion to King James, but had actually gone so far as to beg that he
+      might be allowed to prove that same loyalty by leading the soldiers to the
+      capture of those self-confessed traitors, Mr. Wilding and Mr. Trenchard.
+      From his knowledge of their haunts he was confident, he assured Colonel
+      Luttrell, that he could be of service to the King in this matter. The
+      fierce sincerity of his purpose shone through his words; Luttrell caught
+      the accent of hate in Sir Rowland's tense voice, and, being a shrewd man,
+      he saw that if Mr. Wilding was to be taken, an enemy would surely be the
+      best pursuer to accomplish it. So he prevailed, and gave him the trust he
+      sought, in spite of Albemarle's expressed reluctance. And never did
+      bloodhound set out more relentlessly purposeful upon a scent than did Sir
+      Rowland follow now in what he believed to be the track of this man who
+      stood between him and Ruth Westmacott. Until Ruth was widowed, Sir
+      Rowland's hopes of her must lie fallow; and so it was with a zest that he
+      flung himself into the task of widowing her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the party passed out of view round the angle of the white road,
+      Trenchard made his way back to Wilding to tell him what he had seen and to
+      lay before him, for his enucleation, the problem of Blake's being the
+      leader of it. But Wilding thought little of Blake, and cared little of
+      what he might be the leader.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'll stay here,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;until they have passed the crest of the
+      hill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This, Trenchard told him, was his own purpose; for to leave their
+      concealment earlier would be to reveal themselves to any of the troopers
+      who might happen to glance over his shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so they waited some ten minutes or so, and then walked their horses
+      slowly and carefully forward through the trees towards the road. Wilding
+      was alongside and slightly ahead of Trenchard; Vallancey followed close
+      upon their tails. Suddenly, as Wilding was about to put his mare at the
+      low stone wall, Trenchard leaned forward and caught his bridle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ss!&rdquo; he hissed. &ldquo;Horses!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And now that they halted they heard the hoofbeats clear and close at hand;
+      the crackling of undergrowth and the rustle of the leaves through which
+      they had thrust their passage had deafened their ears to other sounds
+      until this moment. They checked and waited where they stood, barely
+      screened by the few boughs that still might intervene between them and the
+      open, not daring to advance, and not daring to retreat lest their
+      movements should draw attention to themselves. They remained absolutely
+      still, scarcely breathing, their only hope being that if these who came
+      should chance to be enemies they might ride on without looking to right or
+      left. It was so slender a hope that Wilding looked to the priming of his
+      pistols, whilst Trenchard, who had none, loosened his sword in its
+      scabbard. Nearer came the riders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are not more than three,&rdquo; whispered Trenchard, who had been
+      listening intently, and Mr. Wilding nodded, but said nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another moment and the little party was abreast of those watchers; a dark
+      brown riding-habit flashed into their line of vision, and a blue one laced
+      with gold. At sight of the first Mr. Wilding's eyelids flickered; he had
+      recognized it for Ruth's, with whom rode Diana, whilst some twenty paces
+      or so behind came Jerry, the groom. They were returning to Bridgwater.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They came along, looking neither to right nor to left, as the three men
+      had hoped they would, and they were all but past, when suddenly Wilding
+      gave his roan a touch of the spur and bounded forward. Diana's horse
+      swerved so that it nearly threw her. Ruth, slightly ahead, reined in at
+      once; so, too, did the groom in the rear, and so violently in his sudden
+      fear of highwaymen that he brought his horse on to its hind legs and had
+      it prancing and rearing madly about the road, so that he was hard put to
+      it to keep his seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth looked round as Mr. Wilding's voice greeted her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mistress Wilding,&rdquo; he called to her. &ldquo;A moment, if I may detain you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have eluded them!&rdquo; she cried, entirely off her guard in her surprise
+      at seeing him, and there echoed through her words a note of genuine
+      gladness that almost disconcerted her husband for a moment. The next
+      instant a crimson flush overspread her pale face, and her eyes were veiled
+      from him, vexation in her heart at having betrayed the lively satisfaction
+      it afforded her to see him safe when she feared him captured already or at
+      least upon the point of capture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had admired him almost unconsciously for his daring at the town hall
+      that day, when his strong calm had stood out in such sharp contrast to the
+      fluster and excitement of the men about him; of them all, indeed, it had
+      seemed to her in those stressful moments that he was the only man, and she
+      was&mdash;although she did not realize it&mdash;in danger of being proud
+      of him. Then again the thing he had done. He had come deliberately to
+      thrust his head into the lion's maw that he might save her brother. It was
+      possible that he had done it in answer to the entreaties which she had
+      earlier feared she had poured into deaf ears; or it was possible that he
+      had done it spurred by his sense of right and justice, which would not
+      permit him to allow another to suffer in his stead&mdash;however much that
+      other might be caught in the very toils that he had prepared for Mr.
+      Wilding himself. Her admiration, then, was swelled by gratitude, and it
+      was a compound of these that had urged her to hinder the tything-men from
+      winning past her until he and Trenchard should have got well away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Afterwards, when with Diana and her groom&mdash;on a horse which Sir
+      Edward Phelips insisted upon lending them&mdash;she rode homeward from
+      Taunton, there was Diana to keep alive the spark of kindness that glowed
+      at last for Wilding in Ruth's breast. Miss Horton extolled his bravery,
+      his chivalry, his nobility, and ended by expressing her envy of Ruth that
+      she should have won such a man amongst men for her husband, and wondered
+      what it might be that kept Ruth from claiming him for her own as was her
+      right. Ruth had answered little, but she had ridden very thoughtful; there
+      was that in the past she found it hard to forgive Wilding. And yet she
+      would now have welcomed an opportunity of thanking him for what he had
+      done, of expressing to him something of the respect he had won in her eyes
+      by his act of self-denunciation to save her brother. This chance, it
+      seemed, was given her, for there he stood, with head bared before her; and
+      already she thought no longer of seizing the chance, vexed as she was at
+      having been surprised into a betrayal of feelings whose warmth she had
+      until that moment scarce estimated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In answer to her cry of &ldquo;You have eluded them!&rdquo; he waved a hand towards
+      the rising ground and the road to Bridgwater.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They passed that way but a few moments since,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;and by the rate
+      at which they were travelling they should be nearing Newton by now. In
+      their great haste to catch me they could not pause to look for me so close
+      at hand,&rdquo; he added with a smile, &ldquo;and for that I am thankful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She sat her horse and answered nothing, which threw her cousin out of all
+      patience with her. &ldquo;Come, Jerry,&rdquo; Diana called to the groom. &ldquo;We will walk
+      our horses up the hill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very good, madam,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding, and he bowed to the withers
+      of his roan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth said nothing; expressed neither approval nor disapproval of Diana's
+      withdrawal, and the latter, with a word of greeting to Wilding, went ahead
+      followed by Jerry, who had regained control by now of the beast he
+      bestrode. Wilding watched them until they turned the corner, then he
+      walked his mare slowly forward until he was alongside Ruth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Before I go,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;there is something I should like to say.&rdquo; His
+      dark eyes were sombre, his manner betrayed some hesitation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The diffidence of his tone proved startling to her by virtue of its
+      unusualness. What might it portend, she wondered, and sought with grave
+      eyes to read his baffling countenance; and then a wild alarm swept into
+      her and shook her spirit in its grip; there was something of which until
+      this moment she had not thought&mdash;something connected with the fateful
+      matter of that letter. It had stood as a barrier between them, her
+      buckler, her sole defence against him. It had been to her what its sting
+      is to the bee&mdash;a thing which if once used in self-defence is
+      self-destructive. Not, indeed, that she had used it as her sting; it had
+      been forced from her by the machinations of Trenchard; but used it had
+      been, and was done with; she had it no longer that with it she might hold
+      him in defiance, and it did not occur to her that he was no longer in case
+      to invoke the law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her face grew stony, a dry glitter came to her blue eyes; she cast a
+      glance over her shoulder at Diana and her servant. Wilding observed it and
+      read what was passing in her mind; indeed, it was not to be mistaken, no
+      more than what is passing in the mind of the recruit who looks behind him
+      in the act of charging. His lips half smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of what are you afraid?&rdquo; he asked her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not afraid,&rdquo; she answered in husky accents that belied her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps to reassure her, perhaps because he thought of his companions
+      lurking in the thicket and cared not to have them for his audience, he
+      suggested they should go a little way in the direction her cousin had
+      taken. She wheeled her horse, and, side by side, they ambled up the dusty
+      road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The thing I have to tell you,&rdquo; said he presently, &ldquo;concerns myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does it concern me?&rdquo; she asked him coldly, and her coolness was urged
+      partly by her newborn fears, partly to counterbalance such impression as
+      her illjudged show of gladness at his safety might have made upon his
+      mind. He flashed her a sidelong glance, the long white fingers of his
+      right hand toying thoughtfully with a ringlet of the dark brown hair that
+      fell upon the shoulders of his scarlet coat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely, madam,&rdquo; he answered dryly, &ldquo;what concerns a man may well concern
+      his wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She bowed her head, her eyes upon the road before her. &ldquo;True,&rdquo; said she,
+      her voice expressionless. &ldquo;I had forgot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He reined in and turned to look at her; her horse moved on a pace or two,
+      then came to a halt, apparently of its own accord.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do protest,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;you treat me less kindly than I deserve.&rdquo; He
+      urged his mare forward until he had come up with her again, and then drew
+      rein once more. &ldquo;I think that I may lay some claim to&mdash;at least&mdash;your
+      gratitude for what I did to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is my inclination to be grateful,&rdquo; said she. She was very wary of him.
+      &ldquo;Forgive me, if I am still mistrustful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But of what?&rdquo; he cried, a thought impatiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of you. What ends did you seek to serve? Was it to save Richard that you
+      came?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Unless you think that it was to save Blake,&rdquo; he said ironically. &ldquo;What
+      other ends do you conceive I could have served?&rdquo; She made him no answer,
+      and so he resumed after a pause. &ldquo;I rode to Taunton to serve you for two
+      reasons; because you asked me, and because I would have no innocent men
+      suffer in my stead&mdash;not even though, as these men, they were but
+      caught in their own toils, hoist with the petard they had charged for me.
+      Beyond these two motives, I had no other thought in ruining myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ruining yourself?&rdquo; she cried. Yes, it was true; but she had not thought
+      of it until this moment; there had been so much to think of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it not ruin to be outlawed, to have a price set upon your head, as
+      will no doubt a price be set on mine when Albemarle's messenger shall have
+      reached Whitehall? Is it not ruin to have my lands and all I own made
+      forfeit to the State, to find myself a beggar, hunted and proscribed?
+      Forgive me that I harass you with this catalogue of my misfortunes. You'll
+      say, no doubt, that I have brought them upon myself by compelling you
+      against your will to marry me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll not deny that it is in my mind,&rdquo; said she, and of set purpose
+      stifled pity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sighed and looked at her again, but she would not meet his eye, else
+      its whimsical expression might have intrigued her. &ldquo;Can you deny my
+      magnanimity, I wonder?&rdquo; said he, and spoke almost as one amused. &ldquo;All I
+      had I sacrificed to do your will, to save your brother from the snare of
+      his own contriving against me. I wonder do you yet realize how much I
+      sacrificed to-day at Taunton! I wonder!&rdquo; And he paused, looking at her and
+      waiting for some word from her; but she had none for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Clearly you do not, else I think you would show me if only a pretence of
+      kindness.&rdquo; She was looking at him at last, her eyes less hard. They seemed
+      to ask him to explain. &ldquo;When you came this morning with the tale of how
+      the tables had been turned upon your brother, of how he was caught in his
+      own springe, and the letter found in his keeping was before the King's
+      folk at Taunton with every appearance of having been addressed to him, and
+      not a tittle of evidence to show that it had been meant for me, do you
+      know what news it was you brought me?&rdquo; He paused a second, looking at her
+      from narrowing eyes. Then he answered his own question. &ldquo;You brought me
+      the news that you were mine to take whensoe'er I pleased. Whilst that
+      letter was in your hands it gave you the power to make me your obedient
+      slave. You might blow upon me as you listed whilst you held it, and I was
+      a vane that must turn to your blowing for my honour's sake and for the
+      sake of the cause in which I worked. Through no rashness of mine must that
+      letter come into the hands of the King's friends, else was I dishonoured.
+      It was an effective barrier between us. So long as you possessed that
+      letter you might pipe as you pleased, and I must dance to the tune you
+      set. And then this morning what you came to tell me was that things were
+      changed; that it was mine to call the tune. Had I had the strength to be a
+      villain, you had been mine now, and your brother and Sir Rowland might
+      have hanged on the rope of their own weaving.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him in a startled, almost shamefaced manner. This was an
+      aspect of the case she had not considered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You realize it, I see,&rdquo; he said, and smiled wistfully. &ldquo;Then perhaps you
+      realize why you found me so unwilling to do the thing you craved. Having
+      treated me ungenerously, you came to cast yourself upon my generosity,
+      asking me&mdash;though I scarcely think you understood&mdash;to beggar
+      myself of life itself with all it held for me. God knows I make no
+      pretence to virtue, and yet I think I had been something more than human
+      had I not refused you and the bargain you offered&mdash;a bargain that you
+      would never be called upon to fulfil if I did the thing you asked.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At last she interrupted him; she could bear it no longer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had not thought of it!&rdquo; she cried. It was a piteous wail that broke
+      from her. &ldquo;I swear I had not thought of that. I was all distraught for
+      poor Richard's sake. Oh, Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; she turned to him, holding out a
+      hand; her eyes shone, filmed with moisture, &ldquo;I shall have a kindness for
+      you... all my days for your... generosity to-day.&rdquo; It was lamentably weak,
+      far from the hot expressions which she forced it to replace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I was generous,&rdquo; he admitted. &ldquo;We will move on as far as the
+      cross-roads.&rdquo; Again they ambled gently forward. Up the slope from the ford
+      Diana and Jerry were slowly climbing; not another human being was in sight
+      ahead or behind them. &ldquo;After you left me,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;your memory and
+      your entreaties lingered with me. I gave the matter of our position
+      thought, and it seemed to me that all was monstrously ill-done. I loved
+      you, Ruth, I needed you, and you disdained me. My love was master of me.
+      But 'neath your disdain it was transmuted oddly.&rdquo; He checked the passion
+      that was vibrating in his voice and resumed after a pause, in the calm,
+      slow tones, soft and musical, that were his own. &ldquo;There is scarce the need
+      for so much recapitulation. When the power was mine I bent you unfairly to
+      my will; you did as much by me when the power suddenly became yours. It
+      was a strange war between us, and I accepted its conditions. To-day, when
+      the power was mine again, mine to bring you at last to subjection, behold,
+      I have capitulated at your bidding, and all that I held&mdash;including
+      your own self&mdash;have I relinquished. It is perhaps fitting. Haply I am
+      punished for having wed you before I had wooed you.&rdquo; Again his tone
+      changed, it grew more cold, more matter-of-fact. &ldquo;I rode this way a little
+      while ago a hunted man, my only hope to reach home and collect what moneys
+      and valuables I could carry, and make for the coast to find a vessel bound
+      for Holland. I have been engaged, as you know, in stirring up rebellion to
+      check the iniquities and persecutions that are toward in a land I love.
+      I'll not weary you with details. Time was needed for this as for all
+      things, and by next spring, perhaps, had matters gone well, this vineyard
+      that so carefully and secretly I have been tending, would have been,
+      maybe, in condition to bear fruit. Even now, in the hour of my flight, I
+      learn that others have come to force this delicate growth into sudden
+      maturity. There! Soon ripe, soon rotten. The Duke of Monmouth has landed
+      at Lyme this morning. I am riding to him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To what end?&rdquo; she cried, and he saw in her face a dismay that amounted
+      almost to fear, and he wondered was it for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To place my sword at his service. Were I not encompassed by this ruin, I
+      should not have stirred a foot in that direction&mdash;so rash, so
+      foredoomed to failure is this invasion. As it is,&rdquo;&mdash;he shrugged and
+      laughed&mdash;&ldquo;it is the only hope&mdash;all forlorn though it may be&mdash;for
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The trammels she had imposed upon her soul fell away at that like bonds of
+      cobweb. She laid her hand upon his wrists, tears stood in her eyes; her
+      lips quivered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anthony, forgive me,&rdquo; she besought him. He trembled under her touch,
+      under the caress of her voice, and at the sound of his name for the first
+      time upon her lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What have I to forgive?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The thing that I did in the matter of that letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You poor child,&rdquo; said he, smiling gently upon her, &ldquo;you did it in
+      self-defence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet say that you forgive me&mdash;say it before you go!&rdquo; she begged him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He considered her gravely a moment. &ldquo;To what end,&rdquo; he asked, &ldquo;do you
+      imagine that I have talked so much? To the end that I might show you that
+      however I may have wronged you I have at the last made some amends; and
+      that for the sake of this, the truest proof of penitence, I may have your
+      forgiveness ere I go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was weeping softly. &ldquo;It was an ill day on which we met,&rdquo; she sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For you&mdash;aye.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay&mdash;for you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'll say for both of us, then,&rdquo; he compromised. &ldquo;See, Ruth, your cousin
+      grows weary, and I have a couple of comrades who are no doubt impatient to
+      be gone. It may not be good for us to tarry in these parts. Some amends I
+      have made; but there is one crowning wrong which I have done you for which
+      there is but one amend to make.&rdquo; He paused. He steadied himself before
+      continuing. In his attempt to render his voice cold and commonplace he
+      went near to achieving harshness. &ldquo;It may be that this crackbrained
+      rebellion of which the torch is already alight will, if it does no other
+      good in England, at least make a widow of you. When that has come to pass,
+      when I have thus repaired the wrong I did you, I hope you'll bear me as
+      kindly as may be in your thought. Good-bye, my Ruth! I would you might
+      have loved me. I sought to force it.&rdquo; He smiled ever so wanly. &ldquo;Perhaps
+      that was my mistake. It is an ill thing to eat one's hay while it is
+      grass.&rdquo; He raised to his lips the little gloved hand that still rested on
+      his wrist. &ldquo;God keep you, Ruth!&rdquo; he murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She sought to answer him, but something choked her; a sob was all she
+      achieved. Had he caught her to him in that moment there is little doubt
+      but that she had yielded. Perhaps he knew it; and knowing it kept the
+      tighter rein upon desire. She was as metal molten in the crucible, to be
+      moulded by his craftsman's hands into any pattern that he chose. But the
+      crucible was the crucible of pity, not of love; that, too, he knew, and,
+      knowing it, forbore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He dropped her hand, doffed his hat, and, wheeling his horse about,
+      touched it with the spur and rode back towards the thicket where his
+      friends awaited him. As he left her, she too wheeled about, as if to
+      follow him. She strove to command her voice that she might recall him; but
+      at that same moment Trenchard, hearing his returning hoofs, thrust out
+      into the road with Vallancey following at his heels. The old player's
+      harsh voice reached her where she stood, and it was querulous with
+      impatience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a plague do you mean, dallying here at such a time, Anthony?&rdquo; he
+      cried, to which Vallancey added: &ldquo;In God's name, let us push on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At that she checked her impulse&mdash;it may even be that she mistrusted
+      it. She paused, lingering undecided for an instant; then, turning her
+      horse once more, she ambled up the slope to rejoin Diana.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII. &ldquo;PRO RELIGIONE ET LIBERTATE&rdquo;
+     </h2>
+    <p>
+      The evening was far advanced when Mr. Wilding and his two companions
+      descended to Uplyme Common from the heights whence as they rode they had
+      commanded a clear view of the fair valley of the Axe, lying now under a
+      thin opalescent veil of evening mist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had paused at Ilminster for fresh horses, and there Wilding had paid
+      a visit to one of his agents from whom he had procured a hundred guineas.
+      Thence they had come south at a sharp pace, and with little said. Wilding
+      was moody and thoughtful, filled with chagrin at this unconscionable
+      rashness of the man upon whom all his hopes were centred. As they cantered
+      briskly across Uplyme Common in the twilight they passed several bodies of
+      countrymen, all heading for the town, and one group sent up a shout of
+      &ldquo;God save the Protestant Duke!&rdquo; as they rode past him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Amen to that,&rdquo; muttered Mr. Wilding grimly, &ldquo;for I am afraid that no man
+      can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the narrow lane by Hay Farm a horseman, going in the opposite
+      direction, passed them at the gallop; but they had met several such since
+      leaving Ilminster, for indeed the news was spreading fast, and the whole
+      countryside was alive with messengers, some on foot and some on horseback,
+      but all hurrying as if their lives depended on their haste.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They made their way to the Market-Place where Monmouth's declaration&mdash;that
+      remarkable manifesto from the pen of Ferguson&mdash;had been read some
+      hours before. Thence, having ascertained where His Grace was lodged, they
+      made their way to the George Inn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Coombe Street they found the crowd so dense that they could but with
+      difficulty open out a way for their horses through the human press. Not a
+      window but was open, and thronged with sight-seers&mdash;mostly women,
+      indeed, for the men were in the press below. On every hand resounded the
+      cries of &ldquo;A Monmouth! A Monmouth! The Protestant Religion! Religion and
+      Liberty,&rdquo; which latter were the words inscribed on the standard Monmouth
+      had set up that evening on the Church Cliffs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In truth, Wilding was amazed at what he saw, and said as much to
+      Trenchard. So pessimistic had been his outlook that he had almost expected
+      to find the rebellion snuffed out by the time they reached
+      Lyme-of-the-King. What had the authorities been about that they had
+      permitted Monmouth to come ashore, or had Vallancey's information been
+      wrong in the matter of the numbers that accompanied the Protestant
+      Champion? Wilding's red coat attracted some attention. In the dusk its
+      colour was almost all that could be discerned of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here's a militia captain for the Duke!&rdquo; cried one, and others took up the
+      cry, and if it did nothing else it opened a way for them through that
+      solid human mass and permitted them to win through to the yard of the
+      George Inn. They found the spacious quadrangle thronged with men, armed
+      and unarmed, and on the steps stood a tall, well-knit, soldierly man, his
+      hat rakishly cocked, about whom a crowd of townsmen and country fellows
+      were pressing with insistence. At a glance Mr. Wilding recognized Captain
+      Venner&mdash;raised to the rank of colonel by Monmouth on the way from
+      Holland.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard dismounted, and taking a distracted stable-boy by the arm, bade
+      him see to their horses. The fellow endeavoured to swing himself free of
+      the other's tenacious grasp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me go,&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;I am for the Duke!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so are we, my fine rebel,&rdquo; answered Trenchard, holding fast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me go,&rdquo; the lout insisted. &ldquo;I am going to enlist.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so you shall when you have stabled our nags. See to him, Vallancey;
+      he is brainsick with the fumes of war.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The fellow protested, but Trenchard's way was brisk and short; and so,
+      protesting still, he led away their cattle in the end, Vallancey going
+      with him to see that he performed this last duty as a stable-boy ere he
+      too became a champion militant of the Protestant Cause. Trenchard sped
+      after Wilding, who was elbowing his way through the yokels about the
+      steps. The glare of a newly lighted lamp from the doorway fell full upon
+      his long white face as he advanced, and Venner espied and recognized him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilding!&rdquo; he cried, and there was a glad ring in his voice, for
+      though cobblers, tailors, deserters from the militia, pot-boys,
+      stable-boys, and shuffling yokels had been coming in in numbers during the
+      past few hours since the Declaration had been read, this was the first
+      gentleman that arrived to welcome Monmouth. The soldier stretched out a
+      hand to grasp the newcomer's. &ldquo;His Grace will see you this instant, not a
+      doubt of it.&rdquo; He turned and called down the passage. &ldquo;Cragg!&rdquo; A young man
+      in a buff coat came forward, and to him Venner delivered Wilding and
+      Trenchard that he might announce them to His Grace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the room that had been set apart for him abovestairs, Monmouth still
+      sat at table. He had just supped, with but an indifferent appetite, so
+      fevered was he by the events of his landing. He was excited with hope&mdash;inspired
+      by the readiness with which the men of Lyme and its neighbourhood had
+      flocked to his banner&mdash;and fretted by anxiety that none of the gentry
+      of the vicinity should yet have followed the example of the meaner folk,
+      in answer to the messages dispatched at dawn from Seaton. The board at
+      which he sat was still cumbered with some glasses and platters and
+      vestiges of his repast. Below him on his right sat Ferguson&mdash;that
+      prince of plotters&mdash;very busy with pen and ink, his keen face almost
+      hidden by his great periwig; opposite were Lord Grey, of Werke, and Andrew
+      Fletcher, of Saltoun, whilst, standing at the foot of the table barely
+      within the circle of candlelight from the branch on the polished oak, was
+      Nathaniel Wade, the lawyer, who had fled to Holland on account of his
+      alleged complicity in the Rye House plot and was now returned a major in
+      the Duke's service. Erect and soldierly of figure, girt with a great sword
+      and with the butt of a pistol protruding from his belt, he had little the
+      air of a man whose methods of contention were forensic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You understand, then, Major Wade,&rdquo; His Grace was saying, his voice
+      pleasant and musical. &ldquo;It is decided that the guns had best be got ashore
+      forthwith and mounted.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wade bowed. &ldquo;I shall set about it at once, Your Grace. I shall not want
+      for help. Have I Your Grace's leave to go?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Monmouth nodded, and as Wade passed out, Ensign Cragg entered to announce
+      Mr. Wilding and Mr. Trenchard. The Duke rose to his feet, his glance
+      suddenly brightening. Fletcher and Grey rose with him; Ferguson paid no
+      heed, absorbed in his task, which he industriously continued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At last!&rdquo; exclaimed the Duke. &ldquo;Admit them, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When they entered, Wilding coming first, his hat under his arm, the Duke
+      sprang to meet him, a tall young figure, lithe and slender as a blade of
+      steel, and of a steely strength for all his slimness. He was dressed in a
+      suit of purple that became him marvellously well, and on his breast a star
+      of diamonds flashed and smouldered like a thing of fire. He was of an
+      exceeding beauty of face, wherein he mainly favoured that &ldquo;bold, handsome
+      woman&rdquo; that was his mother, without, however, any of his mother's
+      insipidity; fine eyes, a good nose, straight and slender, and a mouth
+      which, if sensual and indicating a lack of strength, was beautifully
+      shaped. His chin was slightly cleft, the shape of his face a delicate
+      oval, framed now in the waving masses of his brown wig. Some likeness to
+      his late Majesty was also discernible, in spite of the wart, out of which
+      his uncle James made so much capital.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a slight flush on his cheeks, an added lustre in his eye, as he
+      took Wilding's hand and shook it heartily before Wilding had time to kiss
+      His Grace's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are late,&rdquo; he said, but there was no reproach in his voice. &ldquo;We had
+      looked to find you here when we came ashore. You had my letter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had not, Your Grace,&rdquo; answered Wilding, very grave. &ldquo;It was stolen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stolen?&rdquo; cried the Duke, and behind him Grey pressed forward, whilst even
+      Ferguson paused in his writing to raise his piercing eyes and listen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is no matter,&rdquo; Wilding reassured him. &ldquo;Although stolen, it has but
+      gone to Whitehall to-day, when it can add little to the news that is
+      already on its way there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke laughed softly, with a flash of white teeth, and looked past
+      Wilding at Trenchard. Some of the light faded out of his eyes. &ldquo;They told
+      me Mr. Trenchard...&rdquo; he began, when Wilding, half turning to his friend,
+      explained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is Mr. Nicholas Trenchard&mdash;John Trenchard's cousin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I bid you welcome, sir,&rdquo; said the Duke, very agreeably, &ldquo;and I trust your
+      cousin follows you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Alas,&rdquo; said Trenchard, &ldquo;my cousin is in France,&rdquo; and in a few brief words
+      he related the matter of John Trenchard's home-coming on his acquittal and
+      the trouble there had been connected with it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke received the news in silence. He had expected good support from
+      old Speke's son-in-law. Indeed, there was a promise that when he came,
+      John Trenchard would bring fifteen hundred men from Taunton. He took a
+      turn in the room deep in thought, and there was a pause until Ferguson,
+      rubbing his great Roman nose, asked suddenly had Mr. Wilding seen the
+      Declaration. Mr. Wilding had not, and thereupon the plotting parson, who
+      was proud of his composition, would have read it to him there and then,
+      but that Grey sourly told him the matter would keep, and that they had
+      other things to discuss with Mr. Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This the Duke himself confirmed, stating that there were matters on which
+      he would be glad to have their opinion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He invited the newcomers to draw chairs to the table; glasses were called
+      for, and a couple of fresh bottles of Canary went round the board. The
+      talk was desultory for a few moments, whilst Wilding and Trenchard washed
+      the dust from their throats; then Monmouth broke the ice by asking them
+      bluntly what they thought of his coming thus, earlier than was at first
+      agreed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding never hesitated in his reply. &ldquo;Frankly, Your Grace,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I
+      like it not at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fletcher looked up sharply, his clear intelligent eyes full upon Wilding's
+      calm face, his countenance expressing as little as did Wilding's. Ferguson
+      seemed slightly taken aback. Grey's thick lips were twisted in a sneering
+      smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Faith,&rdquo; said the latter with elaborate sarcasm, &ldquo;in that case it only
+      remains for us to ship again, heave anchor, and back to Holland.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is what I should advise,&rdquo; said Wilding slowly and quietly, &ldquo;if I
+      thought there was a chance of my advice being taken.&rdquo; He had a calm,
+      almost apathetic way of uttering startling things which rendered them
+      doubly startling. The sneer seemed to freeze on Lord Grey's lips; Fletcher
+      continued to stare, but his eyes had grown more round; Ferguson scowled
+      darkly. The Duke's boyish face&mdash;it was still very youthful despite
+      his six-and-thirty years&mdash;expressed a wondering consternation. He
+      looked at Wilding, and from Wilding to the others, and his glance seemed
+      to entreat them to suggest an answer to him. It was Grey at last who took
+      the matter up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall explain your meaning, sir, or we must hold you a traitor,&rdquo; he
+      exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;King James does that already,&rdquo; answered Wilding with a quiet smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;D'ye mean the Duke of York?&rdquo; rumbled Ferguson's Scottish accent with
+      startling suddenness, and Monmouth nodded approval of the correction. &ldquo;If
+      ye mean that bloody papist and fratricide, it were well so to speak of
+      him. Had ye read the Declaration...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Fletcher cropped his speech in mid-growth. He was ever a
+      short-tempered man, intolerant of irrelevancies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It were well, perhaps,&rdquo; said he, his accent abundantly proclaiming him a
+      fellow countryman of Ferguson's, &ldquo;to keep to the matter before us. Mr.
+      Wilding, no doubt, will state the reasons that exist, or that he fancies
+      may exist, for giving advice which is hardly worthy of the cause to which
+      he stands committed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye, Fletcher,&rdquo; said Monmouth, &ldquo;there is sense in you. Tell us what is in
+      your mind, Mr. Wilding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is in my mind, Your Grace, that this invasion is rash, premature, and
+      ill-advised.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Odds life!&rdquo; cried Grey, and he swung angrily round fully to face the
+      Duke, the nostrils of his heavy nose dilating. &ldquo;Are we to listen to this
+      milksop prattle?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nick Trenchard, who had hitherto been silent, cleared his throat so
+      noisily that he drew all eyes to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Grace,&rdquo; Mr. Wilding pursued, his air calm and dignified, and
+      gathering more dignity from the circumstance that he proceeded as if there
+      had been no interruption, &ldquo;when I had the honour of conferring with you at
+      The Hague two months ago, it was agreed that you should spend the summer
+      in Sweden&mdash;away from politics and scheming, leaving the work of
+      preparation to your accredited agents here. That work I have been slowly
+      but surely pushing forward. It was not to be hurried; men of position are
+      not to be won over in a day; men with anything to lose need some guarantee
+      that they are not wantonly casting their possessions to the winds. By next
+      spring, as was agreed, all would have been ready. Delay could not have
+      hurt you. Indeed, with every day by which you delayed your coming you did
+      good service to your cause, you strengthened its prospects of success; for
+      every day the people's burden of oppression and persecution grows more
+      heavy, and the people's temper more short; every day, by the methods that
+      he is pursuing, King James brings himself into deeper hatred. This hatred
+      is spreading. It was the business of myself and those others to help it
+      on, until from the cottage of the ploughman the infection of anger should
+      have spread to the mansion of the squire. Had Your Grace but given me
+      time, as I entreated you, and as you promised me, you might have marched
+      to Whitehall with scarce the shedding of a drop of blood; had Your Grace
+      but waited until we were ready, England would have so trembled at your
+      landing that your uncle's throne would have toppled over 'neath the shock.
+      As it is...&rdquo; He shrugged his shoulders, sighed and spread his hands,
+      leaving his sentence uncompleted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monmouth sat sobered by these sober words; the intoxication that had come
+      to him from the little measure of success that had attended the opening of
+      the listing on Church Cliffs, deserted him now; he saw the thing stark and
+      in its true proportions, and not even the shouting of the folk in the
+      streets below, crying his name and acclaiming him their champion, served
+      to lighten the gloom that Wilding's words cast like a cloud over his
+      volatile heart. Alas, poor Monmouth! He was ever a weathercock, and even
+      as Wilding's words seemed to strike the courage out of him, so did Grey's
+      short contemptuous answer restore it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As it is, we'll thrust that throne over with our hands,&rdquo; said he after a
+      moment's pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye,&rdquo; cried Monmouth. &ldquo;We'll do it, God helping us!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our dependence and trust is in the Lord of Hosts, in Whose Name we go
+      forth,&rdquo; boomed the voice of Ferguson, quoting from his precious
+      Declaration. &ldquo;The Lord will do that which seemeth good unto Him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An unanswerable argument,&rdquo; said Wilding, smiling. &ldquo;But the Lord, I am
+      told by the gentlemen of your cloth, works in His own good time, and my
+      fears are all lest, finding us unprepared of ourselves, the Lord's good
+      time be not yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Out on ye, sir,&rdquo; cried Ferguson. &ldquo;Ye want for reverence!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Common sense will serve us better at the moment,&rdquo; answered Wilding with a
+      touch of sharpness. He turned to the frowning and perplexed Duke&mdash;whose
+      mind was being tossed this way and that, like a shuttlecock upon the
+      battledore of these men's words. &ldquo;Your Grace,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;forgive me that I
+      speak it if hear it you will, or forbid me to say it if your resolve is
+      unalterable in this matter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is unalterable,&rdquo; answered Grey for the Duke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Monmouth gently overruled him for once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nevertheless, speak by all means, Mr. Wilding. Whatever you may say, you
+      need have no fear that any of us can doubt your good intentions to
+      ourselves.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thank Your Grace. What I have to say is but a repetition of the first
+      words I uttered at this table. I would urge Your Grace even now to
+      retreat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What? Are you mad?&rdquo; It was Lord Grey who asked the impatient question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I doubt it's over-late for that,&rdquo; said Fletcher slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not so sure,&rdquo; answered Wilding. &ldquo;But I am sure that to attempt it
+      were the safer course&mdash;the surer in the end. I myself may not linger
+      to push forward the task of stirring up the people, for I am already
+      something more than under suspicion. But there are others who will remain
+      to carry on the work after I have departed with Your Grace, if Your Grace
+      thinks well. From the Continent by correspondence we can mature our plans.
+      In a twelvemonth things will be very different, and we can return with
+      confidence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Grey shrugged and turned his shoulder upon Wilding, but said no word.
+      There was silence of some few moments. Andrew Fletcher leaned his elbow on
+      the table and took his brow in his great bony hand. Wilding's words seemed
+      an echo of those he himself had spoken a week or two ago, only to be
+      overruled by Grey, who swayed the Duke more than did any other&mdash;and
+      that he did not do so of fell purpose, and seeking deliberately to work
+      Monmouth's ruin, no man will ever be able to say with certainty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ferguson rose, a tall, spare, stooping figure, and smote the board with
+      his fist. &ldquo;It is a good cause,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;and God will not leave us
+      unless we leave Him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Henry the Seventh landed with fewer men than did Your Grace,&rdquo; said Grey,
+      &ldquo;and he succeeded.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;True,&rdquo; put in Fletcher. &ldquo;But Henry the Seventh was sure of the support of
+      not a few of the nobility, which does not seem to be our case.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ferguson and Grey stared at him in horror; Monmouth sat biting his lip,
+      more bewildered than thoughtful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O man of little faith!&rdquo; roared Ferguson in a passion. &ldquo;Are ye to be
+      swayed like a straw in the wind?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am no' swayed. Ye ken this was ever my own view. I feel, in my heart,
+      that what Mr. Wilding says is right. It is but what I said myself, and
+      Captain Matthews with me, before we embarked upon this expedition. We were
+      in danger of ruining all by a needless precipitancy. Nay, man, never stare
+      so,&rdquo; he said to Grey, &ldquo;I am in it now and I am no' the man to draw back,
+      nor do I go so far as Mr. Wilding in counselling such a course. We've set
+      our hands to the plough; let us go forward in God's name. Yet I would
+      remind you that what Mr. Wilding says is true. Had we waited until next
+      year, we had found the usurper's throne tottering under him, and, on our
+      landing, it would have toppled o'er of itself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have said already that we'll overset it with our hands,&rdquo; Grey answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How many hands have you?&rdquo; asked a new voice, a crisp, discordant voice,
+      much steeped in mockery. It was Nick Trenchard's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have we another here of Mr. Wilding's mind?&rdquo; cried Grey, staring at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am seldom of any other,&rdquo; answered Trenchard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall no' want for hands,&rdquo; Ferguson assured him. &ldquo;Had ye arrived
+      earlier ye might have seen how readily men enlisted.&rdquo; He had risen and
+      approached the window as he spoke; he pulled it open, to let in the full
+      volume of sound that rose from the street below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A Monmouth! A Monmouth!&rdquo; voices shouted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ferguson struck a theatrical posture, one long, lean arm stretched outward
+      from the shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye hear them, sirs,&rdquo; he cried, and there was a gleam of triumph in his
+      eye. &ldquo;That is answer enough to those who want for faith, to the feckless
+      ones that think the Lord will abandon those that have set out to serve
+      Him,&rdquo; and his glance comprehended Fletcher, Trenchard, and Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke stirred in his chair, stretched a hand for the bottle and filled
+      a glass. His mercurial spirits were rising again. He smiled at Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you are answered, sir,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;and I hope that like Fletcher
+      there, who shared your doubts, you will come to agree that since we have
+      set our hands to the plough we must go forward.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have said that which I had it on my conscience to say. Your Grace may
+      have found me over-ready with my counsel; at least you shall find me no
+      less ready with my sword.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Odso! That is better.&rdquo; Grey applauded, and his manner was almost
+      pleasant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never doubted it, Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; His Grace replied; &ldquo;but I should like
+      to hear you say that you are convinced&mdash;at least in part,&rdquo; and he
+      waved his hand towards the window. It was almost as if he pleaded for
+      encouragement. In common with most men who came in contact with Wilding,
+      he had felt the latent force of this man's nature, the strength that was
+      hidden under that calm surface, and the acuteness of the judgment that
+      must be wedded to it. He longed to have the word of such a man that his
+      enterprise was not as desperate as Wilding had seemed at first to paint
+      it. But Wilding made no concession to hopes or desires when he dealt with
+      facts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Men will flock to you, no doubt; persecution has wearied many of the
+      country-folk, and they are ready for revolt. But they are all untrained in
+      arms; they are rustics, not soldiers. If any of the men of position were
+      to rally round your standard they would bring the militia, and others in
+      their train; they would bring arms, horses, and money, all of which Your
+      Grace must be sorely needing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They will come,&rdquo; answered the Duke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some, no doubt,&rdquo; Wilding agreed; &ldquo;but had it been next year, I would have
+      answered for it that it would have been no handful had ridden in to
+      welcome you. Scarce a gentleman of Devon or Somerset, of Dorset or
+      Hampshire, of Wiltshire or Cheshire but would have hastened to your side.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They will come as it is,&rdquo; the Duke repeated with an almost womanish
+      insistence, persisting in believing what he hoped, all evidence apart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The door opened and Ensign Cragg made his appearance. &ldquo;May it please Your
+      Grace,&rdquo; he announced, &ldquo;Mr. Battiscomb has just arrived, and asks will Your
+      Grace receive him to-night?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Battiscomb!&rdquo; cried the Duke. Again his cheek flushed and his eye
+      sparkled. &ldquo;Aye, in Heaven's name, show him up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And may the Lord refresh us with good tidings!&rdquo; prayed Ferguson devoutly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monmouth turned to Wilding. &ldquo;It is the agent I sent ahead of me from
+      Holland to stir up the gentry from here to the Mersey.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know,&rdquo; said Wilding; &ldquo;we conferred together some weeks since.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now you shall see how idle are your fears,&rdquo; the Duke promised him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Wilding, who was better informed on that score, kept silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV. HIS GRACE' IN COUNSEL
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Christopher Battiscomb, that mild-mannered Dorchester gentleman, who,
+      like Wade, was by vocation a lawyer, was ushered into the Duke's presence.
+      He was dressed in black, and, like Ferguson, was almost smothered in a
+      great periwig, which he may have adopted for purposes of disguise rather
+      than adornment. Certainly he had none of that air of the soldier of
+      fortune which distinguished his brother of the robe. He advanced, hat in
+      hand, towards the table, greeting the company about it, and Wilding
+      observed that he wore silk stockings and shoes, upon which there rested
+      not a speck of dust. Mr. Battiscomb was plainly a man who loved his ease,
+      since on such a day he had travelled to Lyme in a coach. The lawyer bent
+      low to kiss the Duke's hand, and scarce was that formal homage paid than
+      questions poured upon him from Grey, from Fletcher, and from Ferguson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gentlemen, gentlemen,&rdquo; the Duke entreated them, smiling; and remembering
+      their manners they fell silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Wilding afterwards told Trenchard, they reminded him of a parcel of
+      saucy lacqueys who take liberties with an upstart master for whom they are
+      wanting in respect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad to see you, Battiscomb,&rdquo; said Monmouth, when quiet was
+      restored, &ldquo;and I trust I behold in you a bearer of good tidings.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The lawyer's full face was usually pale; to-night it was, in addition,
+      solemn, and the smile that haunted his lips was a courtesy smile that
+      expressed neither mirth nor satisfaction. He cleared his throat, as if
+      nervous. He avoided the Duke's question as to the quality of the news he
+      brought by answering that he had made all haste to come to Lyme upon
+      hearing of His Grace's landing. He was surprised, he said; as well he
+      might be, for the arrangement was that having done his work he was to
+      return to Holland and report to Monmouth upon the feeling of the gentry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But your news, Battiscomb,&rdquo; the Duke insisted. &ldquo;Aye,&rdquo; put in Grey; &ldquo;in
+      Heaven's name, let us hear that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again there was the little nervous cough from Battiscomb. &ldquo;I have scarce
+      had time to complete my round of visits,&rdquo; he temporized. &ldquo;Your Grace has
+      taken us so by surprise. I... I was with Sir Walter Young at Colyton when
+      the news of your landing came some few hours ago.&rdquo; His voice faltered and
+      seemed to die away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; cried the Duke. His brows were drawn together. Already he realized
+      that Battiscomb's tidings were not good, else would he be hesitating less
+      in uttering them. &ldquo;Is Sir Walter with you, at least?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I grieve to say that he is not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not?&rdquo; It was Grey who spoke, and he followed the ejaculation by an oath.
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is following, no doubt?&rdquo; suggested Fletcher.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We may hope, sirs,&rdquo; answered Battiscomb, &ldquo;that in a few days&mdash;when
+      he shall have seen the zeal of the countryside&mdash;he will be cured of
+      his present luke-warmness.&rdquo; Thus, discreetly, did the man of law break the
+      bad news he bore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monmouth sank back into his chair like one who has lost some of his
+      strength. &ldquo;Lukewarmness?&rdquo; he repeated dully. &ldquo;Sir Walter Young lukewarm!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Even so, Your Grace&mdash;alas!&rdquo; and Battiscomb sighed audibly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ferguson's voice boomed forth again to startle them. &ldquo;The ox knoweth his
+      owner,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;the ass his master's crib; but Israel doth not know, my
+      people doth not consider.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Grey pushed the bottle contemptuously across the table to the parson.
+      &ldquo;Drink, man, and get sense, said he, and turned aside to question
+      Battiscomb touching others of the neighbourhood upon whom they had
+      depended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What of Sir Francis Rolles?&rdquo; he inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Battiscomb answered the question, addressing himself to the Duke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Alas! Sir Francis, no doubt, would have been faithful to Your Grace, but,
+      unfortunately, Sir Francis is in prison already.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Deeper grew Monmouth's frown; his fingers drummed the table absently.
+      Fletcher poured himself wine, his face inscrutable. Grey threw one leg
+      over the other and in a voice that was carefully careless he inquired,
+      &ldquo;And what of Sidney Clifford?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is considering,&rdquo; said Battiscomb. &ldquo;I was to have seen him again at the
+      end of the month; meanwhile, he would take no resolve.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord Gervase Scoresby?&rdquo; questioned Grey, less carelessly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Battiscomb half turned to him, then faced the Duke again as he made
+      answer, &ldquo;Mr. Wilding there, can tell you more concerning Lord Gervase.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All eyes swept round to Wilding who sat in silence, listening; Monmouth's
+      were laden with inquiry and some anxiety. Wilding shook his head slowly,
+      sadly. &ldquo;You must not depend upon him,&rdquo; he answered; &ldquo;Lord Gervase was not
+      yet ripe. A little longer and I think I must have won him for Your Grace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heaven help us!&rdquo; exclaimed the Duke in petulant vexation. &ldquo;Is no one
+      coming in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ferguson swung a hand towards the still open window, drawing attention to
+      the sounds without.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does Your Grace not hear, that ye can ask?&rdquo; he cried, almost
+      reproachfully; but they scarce heeded him, for Grey was inquiring if Mr.
+      Strode might be depended upon to join, and that was a matter that claimed
+      the greater attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; said Battiscomb, &ldquo;that he might have been depended upon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Might have been?&rdquo; questioned Fletcher, speaking now for the first time
+      since Battiscomb's arrival.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Like Sir Francis Rolles, he is in prison,&rdquo; the lawyer explained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monmouth leaned forward, and his young face looked careworn now; he thrust
+      a slender hand under the brown curls upon his brow. &ldquo;Will you tell us, Mr.
+      Battiscomb, upon what friends you think that we may count?&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Battiscomb pursed his lips a second, pondering. &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that
+      you may count upon Mr. Legge and Mr. Hooper, and possibly upon Colonel
+      Churchill, though I cannot say what following they will bring, if any. Mr.
+      Trenchard, upon whom we counted for fifteen hundred men of Taunton, has
+      been obliged to fly the country to escape arrest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have heard that from Mr. Trenchard's cousin,&rdquo; answered the Duke. &ldquo;What
+      of Prideaux, of Ford? Is he lukewarm?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was unable to elicit a definite promise from him. But he was favourably
+      disposed to Your Grace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His Grace made a gesture that seemed to dismiss Prideaux from their
+      calculations. &ldquo;And Mr. Hucker, of Taunton?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Battiscomb's manner grew yet more ill at ease. &ldquo;Mr. Hucker himself, I am
+      sure, would place his sword at your disposal. But his brother is a red-hot
+      Tory.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, well,&rdquo; sighed the Duke, &ldquo;I take it we must not make certain of Mr.
+      Hucker. Are there any others besides Legge and Hooper upon whom you think
+      that we may reckon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord Wiltshire, perhaps,&rdquo; said Battiscomb, but with a lack of assurance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A plague on perhaps!&rdquo; exclaimed Monmouth, growing irritable; &ldquo;I want you
+      to name the men of whom you are certain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Battiscomb stood silent for a moment, pondering. He looked almost foolish,
+      like a schoolboy who hesitates to confess his ignorance of the answer to a
+      question set him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fletcher swung round, his grey eyes flashing angrily, his accent more
+      Scottish than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it that ye're certain o' none, Mr. Battiscomb?&rdquo; he exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed,&rdquo; said Battiscomb, &ldquo;I think we may be fairly certain of Mr. Legge
+      and Mr. Hooper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And of none besides?&rdquo; questioned Fletcher again. &ldquo;Be these the only
+      representatives of the flower of England's nobility that is to flock to
+      the banner of the cause of England's freedom and religion?&rdquo; Scorn was
+      stamped on every word of his question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Battiscomb spread his hands, raised his brows, and said nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Lord knows I do not say it exulting,&rdquo; said Fletcher; &ldquo;but I told Your
+      Grace yours was hardly the case of Henry the Seventh, as my Lord Grey
+      would have you believe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall see,&rdquo; snapped Grey, scowling at the Scot. &ldquo;The people are coming
+      in hundreds&mdash;aye, in thousands&mdash;the gentry will follow; they
+      must.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Make not too sure, Your Grace&mdash;oh, make not too sure,&rdquo; Wilding
+      besought the Duke. &ldquo;As I have said, these hinds have nothing to lose but
+      their lives.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Faith, can a man lose more?&rdquo; asked Grey contemptuously. He disliked
+      Wilding by instinct, which was but a reciprocation of the feeling with
+      which Wilding was inspired by him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think he can,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding quietly. &ldquo;A man may lose honour, he may
+      plunge his family into ruin. These are things of more weight with a
+      gentleman than life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Odds death!&rdquo; blazed Grey, giving a free rein to his dislike of this calm
+      gentleman. &ldquo;Do you suggest that a man's honour is imperilled in His
+      Grace's service?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suggest nothing,&rdquo; answered Wilding, unmoved. &ldquo;What I think, I state. If
+      I thought a man's honour imperilled in this service, you would not see me
+      at this table now. I can make you no more convincing answer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Grey laughed unpleasantly, and Wilding, a faint tinge on his cheek-bones,
+      measured him with a stern, intrepid look before which his lordship's
+      shifty glance was observed to fall. Wilding's eye, having achieved that
+      much, passed from him to the Duke, and its expression softened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Grace sees,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;how well founded were the fears I expressed
+      that your coming has been premature.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In God's name, what would you have me do?&rdquo; cried the Duke, and petulance
+      made his voice unsteady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding rose, moved out of his habitual calm by the earnestness that
+      pervaded him. &ldquo;It is not for me to say again what I would have Your Grace
+      do. Your Grace has heard my views, and those of these gentlemen. It is for
+      Your Grace to decide.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean whether I will go forward with this thing? What alternative have
+      I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No alternative,&rdquo; put in Grey with finality. &ldquo;Nor is alternative needed.
+      We'll carry this through in spite of timorous folk and birds of ill-omen
+      that croak to affright us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our service is the service of the Lord,&rdquo; cried Ferguson, returning from
+      the window in the embrasure of which he had been standing; &ldquo;the Lord
+      cannot but destine it to prevail.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye said so before,&rdquo; quoth Fletcher testily. &ldquo;We need here men, money, and
+      weapons&mdash;not divinity.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are plainly infected with Mr. Wilding's disease,&rdquo; sneered Grey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ford,&rdquo; cried the Duke, who saw Wilding's eyes flash fire; &ldquo;you go too
+      fast. Mr. Wilding, you will not heed his lordship.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should not be likely to do so, Your Grace,&rdquo; answered Wilding, who had
+      resumed his seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What shall that mean?&rdquo; quoth Grey, leaping to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Make it quite clear to him, Tony,&rdquo; whispered Trenchard coaxingly; but Mr.
+      Wilding was not as lost as were these immediate followers of the Duke's to
+      all sense of the respect due to His Grace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; said Wilding quietly, &ldquo;that you have forgotten something.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forgotten what?&rdquo; bawled Grey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His Grace's presence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His lordship turned crimson, his anger swelled to think that the very
+      terms of the rebuke precluded his allowing his feelings a free rein.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monmouth leaned forward. &ldquo;Sit down,&rdquo; he said to Grey, and Grey, so lately
+      called to the respect he owed His Grace, obeyed him. &ldquo;You will both
+      promise me that this affair shall go no further. I know you will do it if
+      I ask you, particularly when you remember how few are the followers upon
+      whom I may depend. I am not in case to lose either of you through foolish
+      words uttered in a heat which, in both your hearts, is born, I know, of
+      your loyalty to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Grey's coarse, elderly face took on a sulky look, his heavy lips were
+      pouted, his glance sullen. Mr. Wilding, on the contrary, smiled across the
+      table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For my part I very gladly give Your Grace the undertaking,&rdquo; said he, and
+      took care not to observe the sneer that altered the line of Lord Grey's
+      lips. His lordship, too, was forced to give the same pledge, and he
+      followed it up by inveighing sturdily against the suggestion that they
+      should retreat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do protest,&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;that those who advise Your Grace to do
+      anything but go forward boldly now, are evil counsellors. If you put back
+      to Holland, you may leave every hope behind. There will be no second
+      coming for you. Your influence will have been dissipated. Men will not
+      trust you another time. I do not think that even Mr. Wilding can deny the
+      truth of this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am by no means sure,&rdquo; said Wilding, and Fletcher looked at him with
+      eyes that were full of understanding. This sturdy Scot, the only soldier
+      worthy of the name in the Duke's following, who, ever since the project
+      had first been mooted, had held out against it, counselling delay, was in
+      sympathy with Mr. Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monmouth rose, his face anxious, his voice fretful. &ldquo;There can be no
+      retreat for me, gentlemen. Though many that we depended upon are not here
+      to join us, yet let us remember that Heaven is on our side, and that we
+      are come to fight in the sacred cause of religion and a nation's
+      emancipation from the thraldom of popery, oppression, and superstition.
+      Let this dispel such doubts as yet may linger in our minds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His words had a brave sound, but, when analysed, they but formed a
+      paraphrase of what Grey and Ferguson had said. It was his destiny to be a
+      mere echo of the minds of other men, just as he was now the tool of these
+      two, one of whom plotted, seemingly, because plotting was a disease that
+      had got into his blood; the other for reasons that may have been of
+      ambition or of revenge&mdash;no man will ever know for certain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the chamber they shared, Trenchard and Mr. Wilding reviewed that night
+      the scene so lately enacted, in which one had taken an active part, the
+      other been little more than a spectator. Trenchard had come from the
+      Duke's presence entirely out of conceit with Monmouth and his cause,
+      contemptuous of Ferguson, angry with Grey, and indifferent towards
+      Fletcher.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am committed, and I'll not draw back,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;but I tell you,
+      Anthony, my heart is not confederate with my hand in this. Bah!&rdquo; he
+      railed. &ldquo;We serve a man of straw, a Perkin, a very pope of a fellow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding sighed. &ldquo;He's scarce the man for such an undertaking,&rdquo; said
+      he. &ldquo;I fear we have been misled.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard was drawing off his boots. He paused in the act. &ldquo;Aye,&rdquo; said he,
+      &ldquo;misled by our blindness. What else, after all, should we have expected of
+      him?&rdquo; he cried contemptuously. &ldquo;The Cause is good; but its leader&mdash;-Pshaw!
+      Would you have such a puppet as that on the throne of England?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He does not aim so high.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be not so sure. We shall hear more of the black box anon, and of the
+      marriage certificate it contains. 'Twould not surprise me if they were to
+      produce forgeries of the one and the other to prove his father's marriage
+      to Lucy Walters. Anthony, Anthony! To what a business are we wedded?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding, already abed, turned impatiently. &ldquo;Things cried aloud to be
+      redressed; a leader was necessary, and none other offered. That is the
+      whole story. But our chance is slender, and it might have been great.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That rake-hell, Ford, Lord Grey has made it so,&rdquo; grumbled Trenchard, busy
+      with his stockings. &ldquo;This sudden coming is his work. You heard what
+      Fletcher said&mdash;how he opposed it when first it was urged.&rdquo; He paused,
+      and looked up suddenly. &ldquo;Blister me!&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;is it his lordship's
+      purpose, think you, to work the ruin of Monmouth?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you saying, Nick?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are certain rumours current touching His Grace and Lady Grey. A man
+      like Grey might well resort to some such scheme of vengeance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Get to sleep, Nick,&rdquo; said Wilding, yawning; &ldquo;you are dreaming already.
+      Such a plan would be over elaborate for his lordship's mind. It would ask
+      a villainy parallel with your own.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard climbed into bed, and settled himself under the coverlet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Maybe,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;and maybe not; but I think that were it not for that
+      cursed business of the letter Richard Westmacott stole from us, I should
+      be going my ways to-morrow and leaving His Grace of Monmouth to go his.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye, and I'd go with you,&rdquo; answered Wilding. &ldquo;I've little taste for
+      suicide; but we are in it now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Twas a sad pity you meddled this morning in that affair at Taunton,&rdquo;
+       mused Trenchard wistfully. &ldquo;A sadder pity you were bitten with a taste for
+      matrimony,&rdquo; he added thoughtfully, and blew out the rushlight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XV. LYME OF THE KING
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On the next day, which was Friday, the country folk continued to come in,
+      and by evening Monmouth's forces amounted to a thousand foot and a hundred
+      and fifty horse. The men were armed as fast as they were enrolled, and
+      scarce a field or quiet avenue in the district but resounded to the tramp
+      of feet, the rattle of weapons, and the sharp orders of the officers who,
+      by drilling, were converting this raw material into soldiers. On the
+      Saturday the rally of the Duke's standard was such that Monmouth threw off
+      at last the gloomy forebodings that had burdened his soul since that
+      meeting on Thursday night. Wade, Holmes, Foulkes, and Fox were able to set
+      about forming the first four regiments&mdash;the Duke's, and the Green,
+      the White, and the Yellow. Monmouth's spirits continued to rise, for he
+      had been joined by now by Legge and Hooper&mdash;the two upon whom
+      Battiscomb had counted&mdash;and by Colonel Joshua Churchill, of whom
+      Battiscomb had been less certain. Captain Matthews brought news that Lord
+      Wiltshire and the gentlemen of Hampshire might be expected if they could
+      force their way through Albemarle's militia, which was already closing
+      round Lyme.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Long before evening willing fellows were being turned away in hundreds for
+      lack of weapons. In spite of Monmouth's big talk on landing, and of the
+      rumour that had gone out, that he could arm thirty thousand men, his stock
+      of arms was exhausted by a mere fifteen hundred. Trenchard, who now held a
+      Major's rank in the horse attached to the Duke's own regiment, was loud in
+      his scorn of this state of things; Mr. Wilding was sad, and his depression
+      again spread to the Duke after a few words had passed between them towards
+      evening. Fletcher was for heroic measures. He looked only ahead now, like
+      the good soldier that he was; and, already, he began to suggest a bold
+      dash for Exeter, for weapons, horses, and possibly the militia as well,
+      for they had ample evidence that the men composing it might easily be
+      induced to desert to the Duke's side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The suggestion was one that instantly received Mr. Wilding's heartiest
+      approval. It seemed to fill him suddenly with hope, and he spoke of it,
+      indeed, as an inspiration which, if acted upon, might yet save the
+      situation. The Duke was undecided as ever; he was too much troubled
+      weighing the chances for and against, and he would decide upon nothing
+      until he had consulted Grey and the others. He would summon a council that
+      night, he promised, and the matter should be considered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But that council was never to be called, for Andrew Fletcher's association
+      with the rebellion was drawing rapidly to its close, and there was that to
+      happen in the next few hours which should counteract all the encouragement
+      with which the Duke had been fortified that day. Towards evening little
+      Heywood Dare, the Taunton goldsmith, who had landed at Seatown and gone
+      out with the news of the Duke's arrival, rode into Lyme with forty horse,
+      mounted, himself, upon a beautiful charger which was destined to be the
+      undoing of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      News came, too, that the Dorset militia were at Bridport, eight miles
+      away, whereupon Wilding and Fletcher postponed all further suggestion of
+      the dash for Exeter, proposing that in the mean time a night attack upon
+      Bridport might result well. For once Lord Grey was in agreement with them,
+      and so the matter was decided. Fletcher went down to arm and mount, and
+      all the world knows the story of the foolish, ill-fated quarrel which
+      robbed Monmouth of two of his most valued adherents. By ill-luck the
+      Scot's eyes lighted upon the fine horse that Dare had brought from Ford
+      Abbey. It occurred to him that nothing could be more fitting than that the
+      best man should sit upon the best horse, and he forthwith led the beast
+      from the stables and was about to mount when Dare came forth to catch him
+      in the very act. The goldsmith was a rude, peppery fellow, who did not
+      mince his words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a plague are you doing with that horse?&rdquo; he cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fletcher paused, one foot in the stirrup, and looked the fellow up and
+      down. &ldquo;I am mounting it,&rdquo; said he, and proceeded to do as he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Dare caught him by the tails of his coat and brought him back to
+      earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are making a mistake, Mr. Fletcher,&rdquo; he cried angrily. &ldquo;That horse is
+      mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fletcher, whose temper was by no means of the most peaceful, kept himself
+      with difficulty in hand at the indignity Dare offered him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yours?&rdquo; quoth he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye, mine. I brought it from Ford Abbey myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For the Duke's service,&rdquo; Fletcher reminded him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For my own, sir; for my own I would have you know.&rdquo; And brushing the Scot
+      aside, he caught the bridle, and sought to wrench it from Fletcher's hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Fletcher maintained his hold. &ldquo;Softly, Mr. Dare,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Ye're a
+      trifle o'er true to your name, as you once told his late Majesty
+      yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take your hands from my horse,&rdquo; Dare shouted, very angry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Several loiterers in the yard gathered round to watch the scene, culling
+      diversion from it and speculating upon the conclusion it might have. One
+      rash young fellow offered audibly to lay ten to one that Paymaster Dare
+      would have the best of the argument.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dare overheard, and was spurred on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will, by God!&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;Come, Mr. Fletcher!&rdquo; And he shook the
+      bridle again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a dull flush showing through the tan of Fletcher's skin. &ldquo;Mr.
+      Dare,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;this horse is no more yours than mine. It is the Duke's,
+      and I, as one o' the leaders, claim it in the Duke's service.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye, sir,&rdquo; cried an onlooker, encouraging Fletcher, and did the mischief.
+      It so goaded Dare to have his antagonist in this trifling matter supported
+      that he utterly lost his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have said the horse is mine, and I repeat it. Let go the bridle&mdash;let
+      it go!&rdquo; Still, Fletcher, striving hard to keep his calm, clung to the
+      reins. &ldquo;Let it go, you damned, thieving Scot!&rdquo; screamed Dare in a fury,
+      and struck Fletcher with his whip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was unfortunate for them both that he should have had that switch in
+      his hand at such a time, but more unfortunate still was it that Fletcher
+      should have had a pistol in his belt. The Scot dropped the bridle at last;
+      dropped it to pluck forth the weapon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hi! I did not...&rdquo; began Dare, who had stood appalled by what he had done
+      in the second or two that had passed since he had delivered the blow. The
+      rest of his sentence was drowned in the report of Fletcher's pistol, and
+      Dare dropped dead on the rough cobbles of the yard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ferguson has left it on record&mdash;and, presumably, he had Fletcher's
+      word for it&mdash;that it was no part of the Scot's intent to do Mr. Dare
+      a mischief. He had but drawn the pistol to intimidate him into better
+      manners, but in his haste he accidentally pulled the trigger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However that may be, there was Dare as dead as the stones on which he lay,
+      and Fletcher with a smoking pistol in his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After that all was confusion. Fletcher was seized by those who had
+      witnessed the deed; there was none thought it an accident; indeed, they
+      were all ready enough to say that Fletcher had received excessive
+      provocation. He was haled to the presence of the Duke with whom were Grey
+      and Wilding at the time; and old Dare's son&mdash;an ensign in
+      Goodenough's company&mdash;came clamouring for vengeance backed by such
+      goodly numbers that the distraught Duke was forced to show at least the
+      outward seeming of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding, who knew the value of this Scottish soldier of fortune who had
+      seen so much service, strenuously urged his enlargement. It was not a time
+      to let the fortunes of a cause suffer through such an act as this,
+      deplorable though it might be. The evidence showed that Fletcher had been
+      provoked; he had been struck, a thing that might well justify the anger in
+      the heat of which he had done this thing. Grey was stolid and silent,
+      saying nothing either for or against the man who had divided with him
+      under the Duke the honours of the supreme command.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monmouth, white and horror-stricken, sat and listened first to Wilding,
+      then to Dare, and lastly to Fletcher himself. But it was young Dare&mdash;Dare
+      and his followers, who prevailed. They were too numerous and turbulent,
+      and they must at all costs be conciliated, or there was no telling to what
+      extremes they might not go. And so there was an end to the share of Andrew
+      Fletcher of Saltoun in this undertaking&mdash;the end of the only man who
+      was of any capacity to pilot it through the troubled waters that lay
+      before it. Monmouth placed him under arrest and sent him aboard the
+      frigate again, ordering her captain to sail at once. That was the utmost
+      Monmouth could do to save him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding continued to plead with the Duke after Fletcher's removal, and to
+      such good purpose that at last Monmouth determined that Fletcher should
+      rejoin them later, when the affair should have blown over, and he sent
+      word accordingly to the Scot. Even in this there were manifestations of
+      antagonism between Mr. Wilding and Lord Grey, and it almost seemed enough
+      that Wilding should suggest a course for Lord Grey instantly to oppose it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The effects of Fletcher's removal were not long in following. On the
+      morrow came the Bridport affair, and Grey's shameful conduct when, had he
+      stood his ground, victory must have been assured the Duke's forces instead
+      of just that honourable retreat by which Colonel Wade so gallantly saved
+      the situation. Mr. Wilding did not mince his words in putting it that Grey
+      had run away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In his room at the George Inn, Monmouth, deeply distressed, asked Wilding
+      and Colonel Matthews what action he should take in the matter&mdash;how
+      deal with Grey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no other general in Europe would ask that, Your Grace,&rdquo; answered
+      Matthews gravely, and Mr. Wilding added without an instant's hesitation
+      that His Grace's course was plain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would be an unwise thing to expose the troops to the chance of more
+      such happenings.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Monmouth dismissed them and sent for Grey, and he seemed resolved to deal
+      with him as he deserved. Yet an hour later, when Wilding, Matthews, Wade,
+      and the others were ordered to attend the Duke in council, there was his
+      lordship seemingly on as good terms as ever with His Grace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were assembled to discuss the next step which it might be advisable
+      to take, for the militia was closing in around them, and to remain longer
+      in Lyme would be to be caught there as in a trap. It was Grey who advanced
+      the first suggestion, his assurance no whit abated by the shameful thing
+      that had befallen, by the cowardice which he had betrayed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That we must quit Lyme we are all agreed,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;I would propose that
+      Your Grace march north to Gloucester, where our Cheshire friends will
+      assemble to meet us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Colonel Matthews reminded the Duke of Andrew Fletcher's proposal that they
+      should make a raid upon Exeter with a view to seizing arms, of which they
+      stood so sorely in need.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This Mr. Wilding was quick to support. &ldquo;Not only that, Your Grace,&rdquo; he
+      said, &ldquo;but I am confident that with very little inducement the greater
+      portion of the militia will desert to us as soon as we appear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What assurance can you give of that?&rdquo; asked Grey, his heavy lip
+      protruded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I take it,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding, &ldquo;that in such matters no man can give an
+      assurance of anything. I speak with knowledge of the country and the folk
+      from which the militia is enlisted. I offer it as my opinion that the
+      militia is favourably disposed to Your Grace. I can do no more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If Mr. Wilding says so, Your Grace,&rdquo; put in Matthews, &ldquo;I have no doubt he
+      has sound reasons upon which to base his opinion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No doubt,&rdquo; said Monmouth. &ldquo;Indeed, I had already thought of the step that
+      you suggest, Colonel Matthews, and what Mr. Wilding says causes me to look
+      upon it still more favourably.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Grey frowned. &ldquo;Consider, Your Grace,&rdquo; he said earnestly, &ldquo;that you are in
+      no case to fight at present.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What fighting do you suggest there would be?&rdquo; asked the Duke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is Albemarle between us and Exeter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But with the militia,&rdquo; Wilding reminded him; &ldquo;and if the militia deserts
+      him for Your Grace, in what case will Albemarle find himself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if the militia does not desert? If you should be proven wrong, sir?
+      What then? What then?&rdquo; asked Grey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye&mdash;true&mdash;what then, Mr. Wilding?&rdquo; quoth the Duke, already
+      wavering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding considered a moment, all eyes upon him. &ldquo;Even then,&rdquo; said he
+      presently, &ldquo;I do maintain that in this dash for Exeter lies Your Grace's
+      greatest chance of success. We can deliver battle if need be. Already we
+      are three thousand strong...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Grey interrupted him rudely. &ldquo;Nay,&rdquo; he insisted. &ldquo;You must not presume
+      upon that. We are not yet fit to fight. It is His Grace's business at
+      present to drill and discipline his troops and induce more friends to join
+      him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Already we are turning men away because we have no weapons to put into
+      their hands,&rdquo; Wilding reminded them, and a murmur of approval ran round,
+      which but served to anger Grey the more, to render more obstinate his
+      opposition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But all that come in are not unprovided,&rdquo; was his lordship's retort.
+      &ldquo;There are the Hampshire gentry and their friends. They will come armed,
+      and so will others if we have patience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye,&rdquo; said Wilding, &ldquo;and if you have patience enough there will be troops
+      the Parliament will send against us. They, too, will be armed, I can
+      assure your lordship.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In God's name let us keep from wrangling,&rdquo; the Duke besought them. &ldquo;It is
+      difficult enough to determine for the best. If the dash to Exeter were
+      successful...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It cannot be,&rdquo; Grey interrupted again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The liberties he took with Monmouth and which Monmouth permitted him might
+      well be a source of wonder to all who heard them. Monmouth paused now in
+      his interrupted speech and looked about him a trifle wearily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It seems idle to insist,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding; &ldquo;such is the temper of Your
+      Grace's counsellors, that we get no further than contradictions.&rdquo; Grey's
+      bold eyes were upon Wilding as he spoke. &ldquo;I would remind Your Grace, and I
+      am sure that many present will agree with me, that in a desperate
+      enterprise a sudden unexpected movement will often strike terror.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is true,&rdquo; said Monmouth, but apparently without enthusiasm, and
+      having approved what was urged on one side, he looked at Grey, as if
+      waiting to hear what might be said on the other. His indecision was
+      pitiful&mdash;tragical, indeed, in the leader of so bold an enterprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We should do better, I think,&rdquo; said Grey, &ldquo;to deal with the facts as we
+      know them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is what I am endeavouring to do, Your Grace,&rdquo; protested Wilding, a
+      note of despair in his voice. &ldquo;Perhaps some other gentleman will put
+      forward better counsel than mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye! In Heaven's name let us hope so,&rdquo; snorted Grey; and Monmouth,
+      catching the sudden flash of Mr. Wilding's eye, set a hand upon his
+      lordship's arm as if to urge him to be gentler. But he continued, &ldquo;When
+      men talk of striking terror by sudden movements they build on air.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had hardly thought to hear that from your lordship,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding,
+      and he permitted himself that tight-lipped smile that gave his face so
+      wicked a look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And why not?&rdquo; asked Grey, stupidly unsuspicious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I had thought you might have concluded otherwise from your own
+      experience at Bridport this morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Grey got angrily to his feet, rage and shame flushing his face, and it
+      needed Ferguson and the Duke to restore him to some semblance of calm.
+      Indeed, it may well be that it was to complete this that His Grace decided
+      there and then that they should follow Grey's advice and go by way of
+      Taunton, Bridgwater, and Bristol to Gloucester. He was, like all weak men,
+      of conspicuous mental short-sightedness. The matter of the moment was ever
+      of greater importance to him than any result that might attend it in the
+      future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He insisted that Wilding and Grey should shake hands before the breaking
+      up of that most astounding council, and as he had done last night, he now
+      again imposed upon them his commands that they must not allow this matter
+      to go further.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding paved the way for peace by making an apology within
+      limitations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If, in my zeal to serve Your Grace to the best of my ability, I have said
+      that which Lord Grey thinks fit to resent, I would bid him consider my
+      motive rather than my actual words.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But when all had gone save Ferguson, the chaplain approached the
+      preoccupied and distressed Duke with counsel that Mr. Wilding should be
+      sent away from the army.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Else there'll be trouble 'twixt him and Grey,&rdquo; the plotting parson
+      foretold. &ldquo;We'll be having a repetition of the unfortunate Fletcher and
+      Dare affair, and I think that has cost Your Grace enough already.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you suggest that I dismiss Wilding?&rdquo; cried the Duke. &ldquo;You know his
+      influence, and the bad impression his removal would leave.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ferguson stroked his long lean jaw. &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;all I suggest is
+      that you find Mr. Wilding work to do elsewhere.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Elsewhere?&rdquo; the Duke questioned. &ldquo;Where else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have thought of that, too. Send him to London to see Danvers and to
+      stir up your friends there. And,&rdquo; he added, lowering his voice, &ldquo;give him
+      discretion to see Sunderland if he thinks well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The proposition pleased Monmouth, and it seemed to please Mr. Wilding no
+      less when, having sent for him, the Duke communicated it to him in
+      Ferguson's presence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon this mission Mr. Wilding set out that very night, leaving Nick
+      Trenchard in despair at being separated from him at a time when there
+      seemed to be every chance that such a separation might be eternal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monmouth and Ferguson may have conceived they did a wise thing in removing
+      a man who was instinctively spoiling for a little sword-play with my Lord
+      Grey. It is odds that had he remained, the brewing storm between the pair
+      would have come to a head. Had it done so, it is more than likely, from
+      what we know of Mr. Wilding's accomplishments, that he had given Lord Grey
+      his quietus. And had that happened, it is to be inferred from history that
+      it is possible the Duke of Monmouth's rebellion might have had a less
+      disastrous issue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVI. PLOTS AND PLOTTERS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding left Monmouth's army at Lyme on Sunday, the 14th of June, and
+      rejoined it at Bridgwater exactly three weeks later. In the meanwhile a
+      good deal had happened, yet the happenings on every hand had fallen far
+      short of the expectations aroused in Mr. Wilding's mind, now by one
+      circumstance, now by another. In reaching London he had experienced no
+      difficulty. Men travelling in that direction were not subjected to the
+      scrutiny that fell to the share of those travelling from it towards the
+      West, or, rather, to the scrutiny ordained by the Government; for Wilding
+      had more than one opportunity of observing how very lax and indifferent
+      were the constables and tything-men&mdash;particularly in Somerset and
+      Wiltshire&mdash;in the performance of this duty. Wayfarers were questioned
+      as a matter of form, but in no case did Wilding hear of any one being
+      detained upon suspicion. This was calculated to raise his drooping hopes,
+      pointing as it did to the general favouring of Monmouth that was toward.
+      He grew less despondent on the score of the Duke's possible ultimate
+      success, and he came to hope that the efforts he went to exert would not
+      be fruitless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But rude were the disappointments that awaited him in town. London, like
+      the rest of the country, was not ready. There were not wanting men who
+      favoured Monmouth; but no rising had been organized, and the Duke's
+      partisans were not disposed to rashness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding lodged at Covent Garden, in a house recommended to him by Colonel
+      Danvers, and there&mdash;an outlaw himself&mdash;he threw himself with a
+      will into his task. He heard of the burning of Monmouth's Declaration by
+      the common hangman at the Royal Exchange, and of the bill passed by the
+      Commons to make it treason for any to assert that Lucy Walters was married
+      to the late King. He attended meetings at the &ldquo;Bull's Head,&rdquo; in
+      Bishopsgate, where he met Disney and Danvers, Payton and Lock; but though
+      they talked and argued at prodigious length, they did naught besides.
+      Danvers, who was their hope in town, definitely refused to have a hand in
+      anything that was not properly organized, and in common with the others
+      urged that they should wait until Cheshire had risen, as was reported that
+      it must.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, troops had gone west under Kirke and Churchill, and the
+      Parliament had voted nearly half a million for the putting down of the
+      rebellion. London was flung into a fever of excitement by the news that
+      was reaching it. The position was not quite as Monmouth's advisers&mdash;before
+      coming over from Holland&mdash;had represented that it would be. They had
+      thought that out of fear of tumults about his own person, King James would
+      have been compelled to keep near him what troops he had, sparing none to
+      be sent against Monmouth. This, King James had not done; he had all but
+      emptied London of soldiery, and, considering the general disaffection, no
+      moment could have been more favourable than this for a rising in London
+      itself. The confusion that must have resulted from the recalling of troops
+      would have given Monmouth not only a mighty grip of the West, but would
+      have heartened those who&mdash;like Sunderland himself&mdash;were sitting
+      on the wall, to declare themselves for the Protestant Champion. This
+      Wilding saw, and almost frenziedly did he urge it upon Danvers that all
+      London needed at the moment was a resolute leader. But the Colonel still
+      held back; indeed, he had neither truth nor valour; he was timid, and used
+      deceit to mask his timidity; he urged frivolous reasons for inaction, and
+      when Wilding waxed impatient with him, he suggested that Wilding himself
+      should head the rising if he were so confident of its success. And Wilding
+      would have done it but that, being unknown in London, he had no reason to
+      suppose that men would flock to him if he raised the Duke's banner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Later, when the excitement grew and rumours ran through town that Monmouth
+      had now a following of twenty thousand men and that the King's forces were
+      falling back before him, and discontent was rife at the commissioning of
+      Catholic lords to levy troops, Wilding again pressed the matter upon
+      Danvers. Surely no moment could be more propitious. But again he received
+      the same answer, that Danvers had lacked time to organize matters
+      sufficiently; that the Duke's coming had taken him by surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lastly came the news that Monmouth had been crowned at Taunton amid the
+      wildest enthusiasm, and that there were now in England two men each of
+      whom called himself King James the Second. This was the excuse that
+      Danvers needed to be rid of a business he had not the courage to transact
+      to a finish. He swore that he washed his hands of Monmouth's affairs; that
+      the latter had broken faith with him and the promise he had made him in
+      having himself proclaimed King. He protested that Monmouth had done ill,
+      and prophesied that his act would alienate from him the numerous
+      republicans who, like Danvers, had hitherto looked to him for the
+      country's salvation. Wilding himself was appalled at the news for Monmouth
+      was indeed going further than men had been given to understand.
+      Nevertheless, for his own sake, in very self-defence now, if out of no
+      motives of loyalty to the Duke, he must urge forward the fortunes of this
+      man. He had high words with Danvers, and the two might have quarrelled
+      before long but for the sudden arrest of Disney, which threw Danvers into
+      such a panic that he fled incontinently, abandoning in body, as he already
+      appeared to have abandoned in spirit, the Monmouth Cause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The arrest of Disney struck a chill into Wilding. From his lodging at
+      Covent Garden he had communicated cautiously with Sunderland a few days
+      after his arrival, building upon certain information he had received from
+      the Duke at parting as to Sunderland's attachment to the Cause. He had
+      carefully chosen his moment for making this communication, having a
+      certain innate mistrust of a man who so obviously as Sunderland was
+      running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. He had sent a letter to
+      the Secretary of State when London was agog with the Axminster affair, and
+      the tale&mdash;of which Sir Edward Phelips wrote to Colonel Berkeley as
+      &ldquo;the shamefullest story that you ever heard&rdquo;&mdash;of how Albemarle's
+      forces and the Somerset militia had run before Monmouth in spite of their
+      own overwhelming numbers. This promised ill for James, particularly when
+      it was perceived as perceived it was&mdash;that this running away was not
+      all cowardice, not all &ldquo;the shamefullest story&rdquo; that Phelips accounted it.
+      It was an expression of good-will towards Monmouth on the part of the
+      militia of the West, and it was confidently expected that the next news
+      would be that these men who had decamped before him would presently be
+      found to have ranged themselves under his banner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sunderland had given no sign that he had received Wilding's communication.
+      And Wilding drew his own contemptuous conclusions of the Secretary of
+      State's cautious policy. It was a fortnight later&mdash;when London was
+      settling down again from the diversion of excitement created by the news
+      of Argyle's defeat in Scotland&mdash;before Mr. Wilding attempted to
+      approach Sunderland again. He awaited a favourable opportunity, and this
+      he had when London was thrown into consternation by the alarming news of
+      the Duke of Somerset's urgent demand for reinforcements. Unless he had
+      them, he declared, the whole country was lost, as he could not get the
+      militia to stand, whilst Lord Stawell's regiment were all fled and mostly
+      gone over to the rebels at Bridgwater.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was grave news, but it was followed in a few days by graver. The
+      affair at Philips Norton was exaggerated by report into a wholesale defeat
+      of the loyal army, and it was reported&mdash;on, apparently, such good
+      authority that it received credence in quarters that might have waited for
+      official news&mdash;that the Duke of Albemarle had been slain by the
+      militia which had mutinied and deserted to Monmouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was while this news was going round that Sunderland&mdash;in a moment
+      of panic&mdash;at last vouchsafed an answer to Mr. Wilding's letters, and
+      he vouchsafed it in person, just as Wilding&mdash;particularly since
+      Disney's arrest&mdash;was beginning to lose all hope. He came one evening
+      to Mr. Wilding's lodgings in Covent Garden, unattended and closely
+      muffled, and he remained closeted with the Duke's ambassador for nigh upon
+      an hour, at the end of which he entrusted Mr. Wilding with a letter for
+      the Duke, very brief but entirely to the point, which expressed him
+      Monmouth's most devoted servant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may well judge, sir,&rdquo; he had said at parting, &ldquo;that this is not such
+      a letter as I should entrust to any man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding had bowed gravely, and gravely he had expressed himself
+      sensible of the exceptional honour his lordship did him by such a trust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I depend upon you, sir, as you are a man of honour, to take such
+      measures as will ensure against its falling into any but the hands for
+      which it is intended.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As I am a man of honour, you may depend upon me,&rdquo; Mr. Wilding solemnly
+      promised. &ldquo;Will your lordship give me three lines above your signature
+      that will save me from molestation; thus you will facilitate the
+      preservation of this letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had already thought of that,&rdquo; was Sunderland's answer, and he placed
+      before Mr. Wilding three lines of writing signed and sealed which enjoined
+      all, straitly, in the King's name to suffer the bearer to pass and repass
+      and to offer him no hindrance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On that they shook hands and parted, Sunderland to return to Whitehall and
+      his obedience to the King James whom he was ready to betray as soon as he
+      saw profit for himself in the act, Mr. Wilding to return to Somerset to
+      the King James in whom his faith was scant, indeed, but with whom his
+      fortunes were irrevocably bound up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, Monmouth was back in Bridgwater, his second occupation of which
+      town was not being looked upon with unmixed favour. The inhabitants had
+      suffered enough already from his first visit; his return there, after the
+      Philips Norton affair of which such grossly exaggerated reports had
+      reached London, and which, in point of fact, had been little better than a
+      drawn battle&mdash;had been looked upon with dread by some, with disfavour
+      by others, and with dismay by not a few who viewed in this an augury of
+      failure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now Sir Rowland Blake, who since his pursuit of Mr. Wilding and Trenchard
+      on the occasion of their flight from Taunton had&mdash;in spite of his
+      failure on that occasion&mdash;been more or less in the service of
+      Albemarle and the loyal army, saw in this indisposition towards Monmouth
+      of so many of Bridgwater's inhabitants great possibilities of profit to
+      himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was at Lupton House, the guest of his friend Richard Westmacott, and
+      the open suitor of Ruth, entirely ignoring the circumstance that she was
+      nominally the wife of Mr. Wilding&mdash;this to the infinite chagrin of
+      Miss Horton, who saw all her scheming likely to go for nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In his heart of hearts it was a matter of not the slightest consequence to
+      Sir Rowland whether James Stuart or James Scott occupied the throne of
+      England. His own affairs gave him more than enough to think of, and these
+      disturbances in the West were very welcome to him, since they rendered
+      difficult any attempt to trace him on the part of his London creditors. It
+      happens, however, very commonly that enmity to an individual will lead to
+      enmity to the cause which that individual espouses. Thus may it have been
+      with Sir Rowland. His hatred of Wilding and his keen desire to see Wilding
+      destroyed had made him a zealous partisan of the loyal cause. Richard
+      Westmacott, easily swayed and overborne by the town rake, whose vices made
+      him seem to Richard the embodiment of all that is splendid and enviable in
+      man, had become practically the baronet's tool, now that he had abandoned
+      Monmouth's Cause. Sir Rowland had not considered it beneath the dignity of
+      his name and station to discharge in Bridgwater certain functions that
+      made him more or less a spy. And so reliable had been the information he
+      had sent Feversham and Albemarle during Monmouth's first occupation of the
+      town, that he had won by now their complete confidence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The second occupation and its unpopularity with many of those who earlier&mdash;if
+      lukewarm&mdash;had been partisans of the Duke, swelled the number of
+      loyally inclined people in Bridgwater, and suddenly inspired Sir Rowland
+      with a scheme by which at a blow he might snuff out the rebellion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This scheme involved the capture of the Duke, and the reward of success
+      should mean far more to Blake than the five thousand pounds at which the
+      value of the Duke's head had already been fixed by Parliament. He needed a
+      tool for this, and he even thought of Westmacott and Lupton House, but
+      afterwards preferred a Mr. Newlington, who was in better case to assist
+      him. This Newlington, an exceedingly prosperous merchant and one of the
+      richest men perhaps in the whole West of England, looked with extreme
+      disfavour upon Monmouth, whose advent had paralyzed his industries to an
+      extent that was costing him a fine round sum of money weekly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was now in alarm lest the town of Bridgwater should be made to pay
+      dearly for having harboured the Protestant Duke&mdash;he had no faith
+      whatever in the Protestant Duke's ultimate prevailing&mdash;and that he,
+      as one of the town's most prominent and prosperous citizens, might be
+      amongst the heaviest sufferers in spite of his neutrality. This neutrality
+      he observed because it was hardly safe in that disaffected town for a man
+      to proclaim himself a loyalist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To him Sir Rowland expounded his audacious plan... He sought out the
+      merchant in his handsome mansion on the night of that Friday which had
+      witnessed Monmouth's return, and the merchant, honoured by the visit of
+      this gallant&mdash;ignorant as he was of the gentleman's fame in town&mdash;placed
+      himself entirely and instantly at his disposal, though the hour was late.
+      Sounding him carefully, and finding the fellow most amenable to any scheme
+      that should achieve the salvation of his purse and industries, Blake
+      boldly laid his plan before him. Startled at first, Mr. Newlington upon
+      considering it became so enthusiastic that he hailed Sir Rowland as his
+      deliverer, and heartily promised his cooperation. Indeed, it was Mr.
+      Newlington who was, himself, to take the first step.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well pleased with his evening's work, Sir Rowland went home to Lupton
+      House and to bed. In the morning he broached the matter to Richard. He had
+      all the vanity of the inferior not only to lessen the appearance of his
+      inferiority, but to clothe himself in a mantle of importance; and it was
+      this vanity urged him to acquaint Richard with his plans in the very
+      presence of Ruth.
+    </p>
+<p>
+They had broken their fast, and they still lingered in the dining-room,
+the largest and most important room in Lupton House. It was cool and
+pleasant here in contrast to the heat of the July sun, which, following
+upon the late wet weather, beat fiercely on the lawn, the window-doors
+to which stood open. The cloth had been raised, and Diana and her mother
+had lately left the room. Ruth, in the window-seat, at a small oval
+table, was arranging a cluster of roses in an old bronze bowl. Sir
+Rowland, his stiff short figure carefully dressed in a suit of brown
+camlet, his fair wig very carefully curled, occupied a tall-backed
+armchair near the empty fireplace. Richard, perched on the table's edge,
+swung his shapely legs idly backwards and forwards and cogitated upon a
+pretext to call for a morning draught of last October's ale.
+</p>
+    <p>
+ Ruth completed her task with the roses and turned her eyes upon her
+brother.
+</p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are not looking well, Richard,&rdquo; she said, which was true enough, for
+      much hard drinking was beginning to set its stamp on Richard, and young as
+      he was, his insipidly fair face began to display a bloatedness that was
+      exceedingly unhealthy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I am well enough,&rdquo; he answered almost peevishly, for these allusions
+      to his looks were becoming more frequent than he savoured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gad!&rdquo; cried Sir Rowland's deep voice, &ldquo;you'll need to be well. I have
+      work for you to-morrow, Dick.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dick did not appear to share his enthusiasm. &ldquo;I am sick of the work you
+      discover for us, Rowland,&rdquo; he answered ungraciously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Blake showed no resentment. &ldquo;Maybe you'll find the present task more
+      to your taste. If it's deeds of derring-do you pine for, I am the man to
+      satisfy you.&rdquo; He smiled grimly, his bold grey eyes glancing across at
+      Ruth, who was observing him, listening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard sneered, but offered him no encouragement to proceed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see,&rdquo; said Blake, &ldquo;that I shall have to tell you the whole story before
+      you'll credit me. Shalt have it, then. But...&rdquo; and he checked on the word,
+      his face growing serious, his eye wandering to the door, &ldquo;I would not have
+      it overheard&mdash;not for a king's ransom,&rdquo; which was more literally true
+      than he may have intended it to be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard looked over his shoulder carelessly at the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have no eavesdroppers,&rdquo; he said, and his voice bespoke his contempt of
+      the gravity of this news of which Sir Rowland made so much in
+      anticipation. He was acquainted with Sir Rowland's ways, and the
+      importance of them. &ldquo;What are you considering?&rdquo; he inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To end the rebellion,&rdquo; answered Blake, his voice cautiously lowered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard laughed outright. &ldquo;There are several others considering that&mdash;notably
+      His Majesty King James, the Duke of Albemarle, and the Earl of Feversham.
+      Yet they don't appear to achieve it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is in that particular,&rdquo; said Blake complacently, &ldquo;that I shall differ
+      from them.&rdquo; He turned to Ruth, eager to engage her in the conversation, to
+      flatter her by including her in the secret. Knowing the loyalist
+      principles she entertained, he had no reason to fear that his plans could
+      other than meet her approval. &ldquo;What do you say, Mistress Ruth?&rdquo; Presuming
+      upon his friendship with her brother, he had taken to calling her by that
+      name in preference to the other which he could not bring himself to give
+      her. &ldquo;Is it not an object worthy of a gentleman's endeavour?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you can save so many poor people from encompassing their ruin by
+      following that rash young man the Duke of Monmouth, you will indeed be
+      doing a worthy deed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake rose, and made her a leg. &ldquo;Madam,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;had aught been wanting
+      to cement my resolve, your words would supply it to me. My plan is
+      simplicity itself. I propose to capture Monmouth and his principal agents,
+      and deliver them over to the King. And that is all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A mere nothing,&rdquo; croaked Richard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Could more be needed?&rdquo; quoth Blake. &ldquo;Once the rebel army is deprived of
+      its leaders it will melt and dissolve of itself. Once the Duke is in the
+      hands of his enemies there will be nothing left to fight for. Is it not
+      shrewd?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are telling us the object rather than the plan,&rdquo; Ruth reminded him.
+      &ldquo;If the plan is as good as the object...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As good?&rdquo; he echoed, chuckling. &ldquo;You shall judge.&rdquo; And briefly he
+      sketched for her the springe he was setting with the help of Mr.
+      Newlington. &ldquo;Newlington is rich; the Duke is in straits for money.
+      Newlington goes to-day to offer him twenty thousand pounds; and the Duke
+      is to do him the honour of supping at his house to-morrow night to fetch
+      the money. It is a reasonable request for Mr. Newlington to make under the
+      circumstances, and the Duke cannot&mdash;dare not refuse it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But how will that advance your project?&rdquo; Ruth inquired, for Blake had
+      paused again, thinking that the rest must be obvious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In Mr. Newlington's orchard I propose to post a score or so of men, well
+      armed. Oh! I shall run no risks of betrayal by engaging Bridgwater folk.
+      I'll get the fellows I need from General Feversham. We take Monmouth at
+      supper, as quietly as may be, with what gentlemen happen to have
+      accompanied him. We bind and gag the Duke, and we convey him with all
+      speed and quiet out of Bridgwater. Feversham shall send a troop to await
+      me a mile or so from the town on the road to Weston Zoyland. We shall join
+      them with our captive, and thus convey him to the Royalist General. Could
+      aught be simpler or more infallible?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard had slipped from the table. He had changed his mind on the subject
+      of the importance of the business Blake had in view. Excited by it, he
+      clapped his friend on the back approvingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A great plan!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Is it not, Ruth?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It should be the means of saving hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives,&rdquo;
+       said she, &ldquo;and so it deserves to prosper. But what of the officers who may
+      be with the Duke?&rdquo; she inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are not likely to be many&mdash;half a dozen, say. We shall have to
+      make short work of them, lest they should raise an alarm.&rdquo; He saw her
+      glance clouding. &ldquo;That is the ugly part of the affair,&rdquo; he was quick to
+      add, himself assuming a look of sadness. He sighed. &ldquo;What help is there?&rdquo;
+       he asked. &ldquo;Better that those few should suffer than that, as you yourself
+      have said, there should be some thousands of lives lost before this
+      rebellion is put down. Besides,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;Monmouth's officers are
+      far-seeing, ambitious men, who have entered into this affair to promote
+      their own personal fortunes. They are gamesters who have set their lives
+      upon the board against a great prize, and they know it. But these other
+      poor misguided people who have gone out to fight for liberty and religion&mdash;it
+      is these whom I am striving to rescue.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His words sounded fervent, his sentiments almost heroic. Ruth looked at
+      him, and wondered had she misjudged him in the past. She sighed. Then she
+      thought of Wilding. He was on the other side, but where was he? Rumour ran
+      that he was dead; that he and Grey had quarrelled at Lyme, and that
+      Wilding had been killed as a result. Had it not been for Diana, who
+      strenuously bade her attach no credit to these reports, she would readily
+      have believed them. As it was she waited, wondering, thinking of him
+      always as she had seen him on that day at Walford when he had taken his
+      leave of her, and more than once, when she pondered the words he had said,
+      the look that had invested his drooping eyes, she found herself with tears
+      in her own. They welled up now, and she rose hastily to her feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked a moment at Blake who was watching her keenly, speculating upon
+      this emotion of which she betrayed some sign, and wondering might not his
+      heroism have touched her, for, as we have seen, he had arrayed a deed of
+      excessive meanness, a deed worthy, almost, of the Iscariot, in the panoply
+      of heroic achievement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;that you are setting your hand to a very worthy and
+      glorious enterprise, and I hope, nay, I am sure, that success must attend
+      your efforts.&rdquo; He was still bowing his thanks when she passed out through
+      the open window-doors into the sunshine of the garden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Rowland swung round upon Richard. &ldquo;A great enterprise, Dick,&rdquo; he
+      cried; &ldquo;I may count upon you for one?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye,&rdquo; said Dick, who had found at last the pretext that he needed, &ldquo;you
+      may count on me. Pull the bell, we'll drink to the success of the
+      venture.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVII. MR. WILDING'S RETURN
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The preparations to be made for the momentous coup Sir Rowland meditated
+      were considerable. Mr. Newlington was yet to be concerted with and
+      advised, and, that done, Sir Rowland had to face the difficulty of eluding
+      the Bridgwater guards and make his way to Feversham's camp at Somerton to
+      enlist the general's cooperation to the extent that we have seen he looked
+      for. That done, he was to return and ripen his preparations for the
+      business he had undertaken. Nevertheless, in spite of all that lay before
+      him, he did not find it possible to leave Lupton House without stepping
+      out into the garden in quest of Ruth. Through the window, whilst he and
+      Richard were at their ale, he had watched her between whiles, and had
+      lingered, waiting; for Diana was with her, and it was not his wish to seek
+      her whilst Diana was at hand. Speak with her, ere he went, he must. He was
+      an opportunist, and now, he fondly imagined, was his opportunity. He had
+      made that day, at last, a favourable impression upon Richard's sister; he
+      had revealed himself in an heroic light, and egregiously misreading the
+      emotion she had shown before withdrawing, he was satisfied that did he
+      strike now victory must attend him. He sighed his satisfaction and
+      pleasurable anticipation. He had been wary and he had known how to wait;
+      and now, it seemed to him, he was to be rewarded for his patience. Then he
+      frowned, as another glance showed him that Diana still lingered with her
+      cousin; he wished Diana at the devil. He had come to hate this fair-haired
+      doll to whom he had once paid court. She was too continually in his way, a
+      constant obstacle in his path, ever ready to remind Ruth of Anthony
+      Wilding when Sir Rowland most desired Anthony Wilding to be forgotten; and
+      in Diana's feelings towards himself such a change had been gradually
+      wrought that she had come to reciprocate his sentiments&mdash;to hate him
+      with all the bitter hatred into which love can be by scorn transmuted. At
+      first her object in keeping Ruth's thoughts on Mr. Wilding, in pleading
+      his cause, and seeking to present him in a favourable light to the lady
+      whom he had constrained to become his wife, had been that he might stand a
+      barrier between Ruth and Sir Rowland to the end that Diana might hope to
+      see revived&mdash;faute de mieux, since possible in no other way&mdash;the
+      feelings that once Sir Rowland had professed for herself. The situation
+      was rich in humiliations for poor, vain, foolishly crafty Diana, and these
+      humiliations were daily rendered more bitter by Sir Rowland's unwavering
+      courtship of her cousin in spite of all that she could do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the end the poison of them entered her soul, corroded her sentiments
+      towards him, dissolved the love she had borne him, and transformed it into
+      venom. She would not have him now if he did penitence for his disaffection
+      by going in sackcloth and crawling after her on his knees for a full
+      twelvemonth. But neither should he have Ruth if she could thwart his
+      purpose. On that she was resolved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had she but guessed that he watched them from the windows, waiting for her
+      to take her departure, she had lingered all the morning, and all the
+      afternoon if need be, at Ruth's side. But being ignorant of the
+      circumstance&mdash;believing that he had already left the house&mdash;she
+      presently quitted Ruth to go indoors, and no sooner was she gone than
+      there was Blake replacing her at Ruth's elbow. Mistress Wilding met him
+      with unsmiling, but not ungentle face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet gone, Sir Rowland?&rdquo; she asked him, and a less sanguine man had
+      been discouraged by the words.
+    </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;It may be forgiven me that I tarry at such a time,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;when we
+consider that I go, perhaps&mdash;to return no more.&rdquo; It was an inspiration
+on his part to assume the role of the hero going forth to a possible
+death. It invested him with noble, valiant pathos which could not, he
+thought, fail of its effect upon a woman's mind. But he looked in vain
+for a change of colour, be it ever so slight, or a quickening of the
+breath. He found neither; though, indeed, her deep blue eyes seemed to
+soften as they observed him.
+</p>
+    <p>
+     &ldquo;There is danger in this thing that you are undertaking?&rdquo; said she,
+between question and assertion.
+</p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not my wish to overstate it; yet I leave you to imagine what the
+      risk may be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a good cause,&rdquo; said she, thinking of the poor, deluded, humble folk
+      that followed Monmouth's banner, whom Blake's fine action was to rescue
+      from impending ruin and annihilation, &ldquo;and surely Heaven will be on your
+      side.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We must prevail,&rdquo; cried Blake with kindling eye, and you had thought him
+      a fanatic, not a miserable earner of blood-money. &ldquo;We must prevail, though
+      some of us may pay dearly for the victory. I have a foreboding...&rdquo; He
+      paused, sighed, then laughed and flung back his head, as if throwing off
+      some weight that had oppressed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was admirably played; Nick Trenchard, had he observed it, might have
+      envied the performance; and it took effect with her, this adding of a
+      prospective martyr's crown to the hero's raiment he had earlier donned. It
+      was a master-touch worthy of one who was deeply learned&mdash;from the
+      school of foul experience&mdash;in the secret ways that lead to a woman's
+      favour. In a pursuit of this kind there was no subterfuge too mean, no
+      treachery too base for Sir Rowland Blake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you walk, mistress?&rdquo; he said, and she, feeling that it were an
+      unkindness not to do his will, assented gravely. They moved down the
+      sloping lawn, side by side, Sir Rowland leaning on his cane, bareheaded,
+      his feathered hat tucked under his arm. Before them the river's smooth
+      expanse, swollen and yellow with the recent rains, glowed like a sheet of
+      copper, so that it blurred the sight to look upon it long.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few steps they took with no word uttered, then Sir Rowland spoke. &ldquo;With
+      this foreboding that is on me,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I could not go without seeing
+      you, without saying something that I may never have another chance of
+      saying; something that&mdash;who knows?&mdash;but for the emprise to which
+      I am now wedded you had never heard from me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He shot her a furtive, sidelong glance from under his heavy, beetling
+      brows, and now, indeed, he observed a change ripple over the composure of
+      her face like a sudden breeze across a sheet of water. The deep lace
+      collar at her throat rose and fell, and her fingers toyed nervously with a
+      ribbon of her grey bodice. She recovered in an instant, and threw up
+      entrenchments against the attack she saw he was about to make.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You exaggerate, I trust,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;Your forebodings will be proved
+      groundless. You will return safe and sound from this venture, as indeed I
+      hope you may.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was his cue. &ldquo;You hope it?&rdquo; he cried, arresting his step, turning,
+      and imprisoning her left hand in his right. &ldquo;You hope it? Ah, if you hope
+      for my return, return I will; but unless I know that you will have some
+      welcome for me such as I desire from you, I think...&rdquo; his voice quivered
+      cleverly, &ldquo;I think, perhaps, it were well if... if my forebodings were not
+      as groundless as you say they are. Tell me, Ruth...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But she interrupted him. It was high time, she thought. Her face he saw
+      was flushed, her eyes had hardened somewhat. Calmly she disengaged her
+      hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is't you mean?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;Speak, Sir Rowland, speak plainly, that
+      I may give you a plain answer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a challenge in which another man had seen how hopeless was his
+      case, and, accepting defeat, had made as orderly a retreat as still was
+      possible. But Sir Rowland, stricken in his vanity, went headlong on to
+      utter rout.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Since you ask me in such terms I will be plain, indeed,&rdquo; he answered her.
+      &ldquo;I mean...&rdquo; He almost quailed before the look that met him from her
+      intrepid eyes. &ldquo;Do you not see my meaning, Ruth?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That which I see,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;I do not believe, and as I would not wrong
+      you by any foolish imaginings, I would have you plain with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet the egregious fool went on. &ldquo;And why should you not believe your
+      senses?&rdquo; he asked her, between anger and entreaty. &ldquo;Is it wonderful that I
+      should love you? Is it...?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop!&rdquo; She drew back a pace from him. There was a moment's silence,
+      during which it seemed she gathered her forces to destroy him, and, in the
+      spirit, he bowed his head before the coming storm. Then, with a sudden
+      relaxing of the stiffness her lissom figure had assumed, &ldquo;I think you had
+      better leave me, Sir Rowland,&rdquo; she advised him. She half turned and moved
+      a step away; he followed with lowering glance, his upper lip lifting and
+      laying bare his powerful teeth. In a stride he was beside her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you hate me, Ruth?&rdquo; he asked her hoarsely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why should I hate you?&rdquo; she counter-questioned, sadly. &ldquo;I do not even
+      dislike you,&rdquo; she continued in a more friendly tone, adding, as if by way
+      of explaining this phenomenon, &ldquo;You are my brother's friend. But I am
+      disappointed in you, Sir Rowland. You had, I know, no intention of
+      offering me disrespect; and yet it is what you have done.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As how?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Knowing me another's wife...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He broke in tempestuously. &ldquo;A mock marriage! If it is but that scruple
+      stands between us...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think there is more,&rdquo; she answered him. &ldquo;You compel me to hurt you; I
+      do so as the surgeon does&mdash;that I may heal you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, thanks for nothing,&rdquo; he made answer, unable to repress a sneer.
+      Then, checking himself, and resuming the hero-martyr posture, &ldquo;I go,
+      mistress,&rdquo; he told her sadly, &ldquo;and if I lose my life to-night, or
+      to-morrow, in this affair...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall pray for you,&rdquo; said she; for she had found him out at last,
+      perceived the nature of the bow he sought to draw across her
+      heart-strings, and, having perceived it, contempt awoke in her. He had
+      attempted to move her by unfair, insidious means.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He fell back, crimson from chin to brow. He stifled the wrath that welled
+      up, threatening to choke him. He was a short-necked man, of the sort&mdash;as
+      Trenchard had once reminded him&mdash;that falls a prey to apoplexy, and
+      surely he was never nearer it than at that moment. He made her a profound
+      bow, bending himself almost in two before her in a very irony of
+      deference; then, drawing himself up again, he turned and left her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The plot which with some pride he had hatched and the reward he looked to
+      cull from it, were now to his soul as ashes to his lips. What could it
+      profit him to destroy Monmouth so that Anthony Wilding lived? For whether
+      she loved Wilding or not, she was Wilding's wife. Wilding, nominally, at
+      least, was master of that which Sir Rowland coveted; not her heart,
+      indeed, but her ample fortune. Wilding had been a stumbling-block to him
+      since he had come to Bridgwater; but for Wilding he might have run a
+      smooth course; he was still fool enough to hug that dear illusion to his
+      soul. Somewhere in England&mdash;if not dead already&mdash;this Wilding
+      lurked, an outlaw, whom any might shoot down at sight. Sir Rowland swore
+      he would not rest until he knew that Anthony Wilding cumbered the earth no
+      more&mdash;leastways, not the surface of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He went forth to seek Newlington. The merchant had sent his message to the
+      rebel King, and had word in answer that His Majesty would be graciously
+      pleased to sup at Mr. Newlington's at nine o'clock on the following
+      evening, attended by a few gentlemen of his immediate following. Sir
+      Rowland received the news with satisfaction, and sighed to think that Mr.
+      Wilding&mdash;still absent, Heaven knew where&mdash;would not be of the
+      party. It was reported that on the Monday Monmouth was to march to
+      Gloucester, hoping there to be joined by his Cheshire friends, so that it
+      seemed Sir Rowland had not matured his plan a day too soon. He got to
+      horse, and contriving to win out of Bridgwater, rode off to Somerton to
+      concert with Lord Feversham concerning the men he would need for his undertaking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That night Richard made free talk of the undertaking to Diana and to Ruth,
+      loving, as does the pusillanimous, to show himself engaged in daring
+      enterprises. Emulating his friend Sir Rowland, he held forth with
+      prolixity upon the great service he was to do the State, and Ruth,
+      listening to him, was proud of his zeal, the sincerity of which it never
+      entered her mind to doubt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana listened, too, but without illusions concerning Master Richard, and
+      she kept her conclusions to herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the afternoon of the morrow, which was Sunday, Sir Rowland returned
+      to Bridgwater, his mission to Feversham entirely successful, and all
+      preparations made. He completed his arrangements, and towards eight
+      o'clock that night the twenty men sent by Feversham&mdash;they had slipped
+      singly into the town&mdash;began to muster in the orchard at the back of
+      Mr. Newlington's house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was just about that same hour that Mr. Wilding, saddle-worn and
+      dust-clogged in every pore, rode into Bridgwater, and made his way to the
+      sign of The Ship in the High Street, overlooking the Cross where Trenchard
+      was lodged. His friend was absent&mdash;possibly gone with his men to the
+      sermon Ferguson was preaching to the army in the Castle Fields. Having put
+      up his horse, Mr. Wilding, all dusty as he was, repaired straight to the
+      Castle to report himself to Monmouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was informed that His Majesty was in council. Nevertheless, urging that
+      his news was of importance, he begged to be instantly announced. After a
+      pause, he was ushered into a lofty, roomy chamber where, in the fading
+      daylight, King Monmouth sat in council with Grey and Wade, Matthews,
+      Speke, Ferguson, and others. At the foot of the table stood a sturdy
+      country-fellow, unknown to Wilding. It was Godfrey, the spy, who was to
+      act as their guide across Sedgemoor that night; for the matter that was
+      engaging them just then was the completion of their plans for the attack
+      that was to be made that very night upon Feversham's unprepared camp&mdash;a
+      matter which had been resolved during the last few hours as an alternative
+      preferable to the retreat towards Gloucester that had at first been
+      intended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding was shocked at the change that had been wrought in Monmouth's
+      appearance during the few weeks since last he had seen him. His face was
+      thin, pale, and haggard, his eyes were more sombre, and beneath them there
+      were heavy, dark stains of sleeplessness and care, his very voice, when
+      presently he spoke, seemed to have lost the musical timbre that had
+      earlier distinguished it; it was grown harsh and rasping. Disappointment
+      after disappointment, set down to ill-luck, but in reality the fruit of
+      incompetence, had served to sour him. The climax had been reached in the
+      serious desertions after the Philips Norton fight, and the flight of
+      Paymaster Goodenough with the funds for the campaign. The company sat
+      about the long oak table on which a map was spread, and Colonel Wade was
+      speaking when Wilding entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On his appearance Wade ceased, and every eye was turned upon the messenger
+      from London. Ferguson, fresh from his sermon, sat with elbows resting on
+      the table, his long chin supported by his hands, his eyes gleaming sharply
+      under the shadow of his wig which was pulled down in front to the level of
+      his eyebrows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the Duke who addressed Mr. Wilding, and the latter's keen ears were
+      quick to catch the bitterness that underlay his words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are glad to see you, sir; we had not looked to do so again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not looked to do so, Your Gr... Majesty!&rdquo; he echoed, plainly not
+      understanding, and it was observed that he stumbled over the Duke's new
+      title.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We had imagined that the pleasures of the town were claiming your entire
+      attention.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding looked from one to the other of the men before him, and on the
+      face of all he saw a gravity that amounted to disapproval of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The pleasures of the town?&rdquo; said he, frowning, and again&mdash;&ldquo;the
+      pleasures of the town? There is something in this that I fear I do not
+      understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you bring us news that London has risen?&rdquo; asked Grey suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would I could,&rdquo; said Wilding, smiling wistfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it a laughing matter?&rdquo; quoth Grey angrily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A smiling matter, my lord,&rdquo; answered Wilding, nettled. &ldquo;Your lordship
+      will observe that I did but smile.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; said Monmouth darkly, &ldquo;we are not pleased with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In that case,&rdquo; returned Wilding, more and more irritated, &ldquo;Your Majesty
+      expected of me more than was possible to any man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have wasted your time in London, sir,&rdquo; the Duke explained. &ldquo;We sent
+      you thither counting upon your loyalty and devotion to ourselves. What
+      have you done?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As much as a man could...&rdquo; Wilding began, when Grey again interrupted
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As little as a man could,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;Were His Grace not the most
+      foolishly clement prince in Christendom, a halter would be your reward for
+      the fine things you have done in London.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding stiffened visibly, his long white face grew set, and his
+      slanting eyes looked wicked. He was not a man readily moved to anger, but
+      to be greeted in such words as these by one who constituted himself the
+      mouthpiece of him for whom Wilding had incurred ruin was more than he
+      could bear with equanimity; that the risks to which he had exposed himself
+      in London&mdash;where, indeed, he had been in almost hourly expectation of
+      arrest and such short shrift as poor Disney had&mdash;should be
+      acknowledged in such terms as these, was something that turned him almost
+      sick with disgust. To what manner of men had he leagued himself? He looked
+      Grey steadily between the eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mind me of an occasion on which such a charge of foolish clemency
+      might, indeed&mdash;and with greater justice&mdash;have been levelled
+      against His Majesty,&rdquo; said he and his calm was almost terrible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His lordship grew pale at the obvious allusion to Monmouth's mild
+      treatment of him for his cowardice at Bridport, and his eyes were as
+      baleful as Wilding's own at that moment. But before he could speak,
+      Monmouth had already answered Mr. Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are wanting in respect to us, sir,&rdquo; he admonished him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding bowed to the rebuke in a submission that seemed ironical. The
+      blood mounted slowly to Monmouth's cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; put in Wade, who was anxious for peace, &ldquo;Mr. Wilding has some
+      explanation to offer us of his failure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His failure! They took too much for granted. Stitched in the lining of his
+      boot was the letter from the Secretary of State. To have achieved that was
+      surely to have achieved something.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thank you, sir, for supposing it,&rdquo; answered Wilding, his voice hard
+      with self-restraint; &ldquo;I have indeed an explanation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will hear it,&rdquo; said Monmouth condescendingly, and Grey sneered,
+      thrusting out his bloated lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have to offer the explanation that Your Majesty is served in London by
+      cowards; self-sufficient and self-important cowards who have hindered me
+      in my task instead of helping me. I refer particularly to Colonel
+      Danvers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Grey interrupted him. &ldquo;You have a rare effrontery, sir&mdash;aye, by God!
+      Do you dare call Danvers a coward?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not I who so call him; but the facts. Colonel Danvers has run away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Danvers gone?&rdquo; cried Ferguson, voicing the consternation of all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding shrugged and smiled; Grey's eye was offensively upon him. He
+      elected to answer the challenge of that glance. &ldquo;He has followed the
+      illustrious example set him by other of Your Majesty's devoted followers,&rdquo;
+       said Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Grey rose suddenly. This was too much. &ldquo;I'll not endure it from this
+      knave!&rdquo; he cried, appealing to Monmouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monmouth wearily waved him to a seat; but Grey disregarded the command.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What have I said that should touch your lordship?&rdquo; asked Wilding, and,
+      smiling sardonically, he looked into Grey's eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not what you have said. It is what you have inferred.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And to call me knave!&rdquo; said Wilding in a mocking horror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The repression of his anger lent him a rare bitterness, and an almost
+      devilishly subtle manner of expressing wordlessly what was passing in his
+      mind. There was not one present but gathered from his utterance of those
+      five words that he did not hold Grey worthy the honour of being called to
+      account for that offensive epithet. He made just an exclamatory protest,
+      such as he might have made had a woman applied the term to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Grey turned from him slowly to Monmouth. &ldquo;It might be well,&rdquo; said he, in
+      his turn controlling himself at last, &ldquo;to place Mr. Wilding under arrest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding's manner quickened on the instant from passive to active
+      anger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Upon what charge, sir?&rdquo; he demanded sharply. In truth it was the only
+      thing wanting that, after all that he had undergone, he should be
+      arrested. His eyes were upon the Duke's melancholy face, and his anger was
+      such that in that moment he vowed that if Monmouth acted upon this
+      suggestion of Grey's he should not have so much as the consolation of
+      Sunderland's letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have been wanting in respect to us, sir,&rdquo; the Duke answered him. He
+      seemed able to do little more than repeat himself. &ldquo;You return from London
+      empty-handed, your task unaccomplished, and instead of a becoming
+      contrition, you hector it here before us in this manner.&rdquo; He shook his
+      head. &ldquo;We are not pleased with you, Mr. Wilding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Your Grace,&rdquo; exclaimed Wilding, &ldquo;is it my fault that your London
+      agents had failed to organize the rising? That rising should have taken
+      place, and it would have taken place had Your Majesty been more ably
+      represented there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You were there, Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; said Grey with heavy sarcasm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would it no' be better to leave Mr. Wilding's affair until afterwards?&rdquo;
+       suggested Ferguson at that moment. &ldquo;It is already past eight, Your
+      Majesty, and there be still some details of this attack to settle that
+      your officers may prepare for it, whilst Mr. Newlington awaits Your
+      Majesty to supper at nine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;True,&rdquo; said Monmouth, ever ready to take a solution offered by another.
+      &ldquo;We will confer with you again later, Mr. Wilding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding bowed, accepting his dismissal. &ldquo;Before I go, Your Majesty, there
+      are certain things I would report...&rdquo; he began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have heard, sir,&rdquo; Grey broke in. &ldquo;Not now. This is not the time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed, no. This is not the time, Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; echoed the Duke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding set his teeth in the intensity of his vexation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What I have to tell Your Majesty is of importance,&rdquo; he exclaimed, and
+      Monmouth seemed to waver, whilst Grey looked disdainful unbelief of the
+      importance of any communication Wilding might have to make.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have little time, Your Majesty,&rdquo; Ferguson reminded Monmouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; put in friendly Wade, &ldquo;Your Majesty might see Mr. Wilding at
+      Mr. Newlington's.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it really necessary?&rdquo; quoth Grey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This treatment of him inspired Mr. Wilding with malice. The mere mention
+      of Sunderland's letter would have changed their tone. But he elected by no
+      such word to urge the importance of his business. It should be entirely as
+      Monmouth should elect or be constrained by these gentlemen about his
+      council-table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would serve two purposes,&rdquo; said Wade, whilst Monmouth still
+      considered. &ldquo;Your Majesty will be none too well attended, your officers
+      having this other matter to prepare for. Mr. Wilding would form another to
+      swell your escort of gentlemen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you are right, Colonel Wade,&rdquo; said Monmouth. &ldquo;We sup at Mr.
+      Newlington's at nine o'clock, Mr. Wilding. We shall expect you to attend
+      us there. Lieutenant Cragg,&rdquo; said His Grace to the young officer who had
+      admitted Wilding, and who had remained at attention by the door, &ldquo;you may
+      reconduct Mr. Wilding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding bowed, his lips tight to keep in the anger that craved expression.
+      Then, without another word spoken, he turned and departed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An insolent, overbearing knave!&rdquo; was Grey's comment upon him after he had
+      left the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us attend to this, your lordship,&rdquo; said Speke, tapping the map. &ldquo;Time
+      presses,&rdquo; and he invited Wade to continue the matter that Wilding's advent
+      had interrupted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVIII. BETRAYAL
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Still smarting under the cavalier treatment he had received, Mr. Wilding
+      came forth from the Castle to find Trenchard awaiting him among the crowd
+      of officers and men that thronged the yard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nick linked his arm through his friend's and led him away. They quitted
+      the place in silence, and in silence took their way south towards the High
+      Street, Nick waiting for Mr. Wilding to speak, Mr. Wilding's mind still in
+      turmoil at the things he had endured. At last Nick halted suddenly and
+      looked keenly at his friend in the failing light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a plague ails you, Tony?&rdquo; said he sharply. &ldquo;You are as silent as I
+      am impatient for your news.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding told him in brief, disdainful terms of the reception they had
+      given him at the Castle, and of how they had blamed him for the
+      circumstance that London had failed to proclaim itself for Monmouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard snarled viciously. &ldquo;'Tis that mongrel Grey,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Oh,
+      Anthony, to what an affair have we set our hands? Naught can prosper with
+      that fellow in it.&rdquo; He laid his hand on Wilding's arm and lowered his
+      voice. &ldquo;As I have hinted before, 'twould not surprise me if time proved
+      him a traitor. Failure attends him everywhere, and so unfailingly that one
+      wonders is not failure invited by him. And that fool Monmouth! Pshaw! See
+      what it is to serve a weakling. With another in his place and the country
+      disaffected as it is, we had been masters of England by now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Two ladies passed them at that moment, cloaked and hooded, walking
+      briskly. One of them turned to look at Trenchard, who, waving his arms in
+      wild gesticulation, was a conspicuous object. She checked in her walk,
+      arresting her companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilding!&rdquo; she exclaimed. It was Lady Horton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilding!&rdquo; cried Diana, her companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding doffed his hat and bowed, Trenchard following his example.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We had scarce looked to see you in Bridgwater again,&rdquo; said the mother,
+      her mild, pleasant countenance reflecting the satisfaction it gave her to
+      behold him safe and sound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There have been moments,&rdquo; answered Wilding, &ldquo;when myself I scarce
+      expected to return. Your ladyship's greeting shows me what I had lost had
+      I not done so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are but newly arrived?&rdquo; quoth Diana, scanning him in the gloaming.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From London, an hour since.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An hour?&rdquo; she echoed, and observed that he was still booted and
+      dust-stained. &ldquo;You will have been to Lupton House?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A shadow crossed his face, his glance seemed to grow clouded, all of which
+      watchful Diana did not fail to observe. &ldquo;Not yet,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a laggard,&rdquo; she laughed at him, and he felt the blood driven back
+      upon his heart. What did she mean? Was it possible she suggested that he
+      should be welcome, that his wife's feelings towards him had undergone a
+      change? His last parting from her on the road near Walford had been ever
+      in his mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have had weighty business to transact, he replied, and Trenchard
+      snorted, his mind flying back to the council-room at the Castle, and what
+      his friend had told him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But now that you have disposed of that you will sup with us,&rdquo; said Lady
+      Horton, who was convinced that since Ruth had gone to the altar with him
+      he was Ruth's lover in spite of the odd things she had heard. Appearances
+      with Lady Horton counted for everything, and all that glittered was gold
+      to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would,&rdquo; he answered, &ldquo;but that I am to sup at Mr. Newlington's with His
+      Majesty. My visit must wait until to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us hope,&rdquo; said Trenchard, &ldquo;that it waits no longer.&rdquo; He was already
+      instructed touching the night attack on Feversham's camp on Sedgemoor, and
+      thought it likely Wilding would accompany them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are going to Mr. Newlington's?&rdquo; said Diana, and Trenchard thought she
+      had turned singularly pale. Her hand was over her heart, her eyes wide.
+      She seemed about to add something, but checked herself. She took her
+      mother's arm. &ldquo;We are detaining Mr. Wilding, mother,&rdquo; said she, and her
+      voice quivered as if her whole being were shaken by some gusty agitation.
+      They spoke their farewells briefly, and moved on. A second later Diana was
+      back at their side again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are you lodged, Mr. Wilding?&rdquo; she inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With my friend Trenchard&mdash;at the sign of The Ship, by the Cross.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She briefly acknowledged the information, rejoined her mother, and hurried
+      away with her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard stood staring after them a moment. &ldquo;Odd!&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;did you mark
+      that girl's discomposure?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Wilding's thoughts were elsewhere. &ldquo;Come, Nick! If I am to render
+      myself fit to sit at table with Monmouth, we'll need to hasten.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They went their way, but not so fast as went Diana, urging with her her
+      protesting and short-winded mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is your mistress?&rdquo; the girl asked excitedly of the first servant
+      she met at Lupton House.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In her room, madam,&rdquo; the man replied, and to Ruth's room went Diana
+      breathlessly, leaving Lady Horton gaping after her and understanding
+      nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth, who was seated pensive by her window, rose on Diana's impetuous
+      entrance, and in the deepening twilight she looked almost ghostly in her
+      gown of shimmering white satin, sewn with pearls about the neck of the
+      low-cut bodice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Diana!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;You startled me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not so much as I am yet to do,&rdquo; answered Diana, breathing excitement. She
+      threw back the wimple from her head, and pulling away her cloak, tossed it
+      on to the bed. &ldquo;Mr. Wilding is in Bridgwater,&rdquo; she announced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a faint rustle from the stiff satin of Ruth's gown. &ldquo;Then...&rdquo;
+       her voice shook slightly. &ldquo;Then... he is not dead,&rdquo; she said, more because
+      she felt that she must say something than because her words fitted the
+      occasion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet,&rdquo; said Diana grimly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He sups to-night at Mr. Newlington's,&rdquo; Miss Horton exclaimed in a voice
+      pregnant with meaning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; It was a cry from Ruth, sharp as if she had been stabbed. She sank
+      back to her seat by the window, smitten down by this sudden news.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a pause, which fretted Diana, who now craved knowledge of what
+      might be passing in her cousin's mind. She advanced towards Ruth and laid
+      a trembling hand on her shoulder, where the white gown met the ivory neck.
+      &ldquo;He must be warned,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But... but how?&rdquo; stammered Ruth. &ldquo;To warn him were to betray Sir
+      Rowland.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir Rowland?&rdquo; cried Diana in high scorn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And... and Richard,&rdquo; Ruth continued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, and Mr. Newlington, and all the other knaves that are engaged in
+      this murderous business. Well?&rdquo; she demanded. &ldquo;Will you do it, or must I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do it?&rdquo; Ruth's eyes sought her cousin's white, excited face in the
+      quasi-darkness. &ldquo;But have you thought of what it will mean? Have you
+      thought of the poor people that will perish unless the Duke is taken and
+      this rebellion brought to an end?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thought of it?&rdquo; repeated Diana witheringly. &ldquo;Not I. I have thought that
+      Mr. Wilding is here and like to have his throat cut before an hour is
+      past.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me, are you sure of this?&rdquo; asked Ruth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have it from your husband's own lips,&rdquo; Diana answered, and told her in
+      a few words of her meeting with Mr. Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth sat with hands folded in her lap, her eyes on the dim violet
+      after-glow in the west, and her mind wrestling with this problem that
+      Diana had brought her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Diana,&rdquo; she cried at last, &ldquo;what am I to do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do?&rdquo; echoed Diana. &ldquo;Is it not plain? Warn Mr. Wilding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Richard?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilding saved Richard's life...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know. I know. My duty is to warn him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then why hesitate?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My duty is also to keep faith with Richard, to think of those poor
+      misguided folk who are to be saved by this,&rdquo; cried Ruth in an agony. &ldquo;If
+      Mr. Wilding is warned, they will all be ruined.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana stamped her foot impatiently. &ldquo;Had I thought to find you in this
+      mind, I had warned him myself,&rdquo; said she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! Why did you not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That the chance of doing so might be yours. That you might thus repay him
+      the debt in which you stand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Diana, I can't!&rdquo; The words broke from her in a sob.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But whatever her interest in Mr. Wilding for her own sake, Diana's prime
+      intent was the thwarting of Sir Rowland Blake. If Wilding were warned of what
+      manner of feast was spread at Newlington's, Sir Rowland would be indeed
+      undone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You think of Richard,&rdquo; she exclaimed, &ldquo;and you know that Richard is to
+      have no active part in the affair&mdash;that he will run no risk. They
+      have assigned him but a sentry duty that he may warn Blake and his
+      followers if any danger threatens them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not of Richard's life I am thinking, but of his honour, of his
+      trust in me. To warn Mr. Wilding were... to commit an act of betrayal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And is Mr. Wilding to be slaughtered with his friends?&rdquo; Diana asked her.
+      &ldquo;Resolve me that. Time presses. In half an hour it will be too late.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That allusion to the shortness of the time brought Ruth an inspiration.
+      Suddenly she saw a way. Wilding should be saved, and yet she would not
+      break faith with Richard nor ruin those others. She would detain him, and
+      whilst warning him at the last moment, in time for him to save himself;
+      not do so until it must be too late for him to warn the others. Thus she
+      would do her duty by him, and yet keep faith with Richard and Sir Rowland.
+      She had resolved, she thought, the awful difficulty that had confronted
+      her. She rose suddenly, heartened by the thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me your cloak and wimple,&rdquo; she bade Diana, and Diana flew to do her
+      bidding. &ldquo;Where is Mr. Wilding lodged?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At the sign of The Ship&mdash;overlooking the Cross, with Mr. Trenchard.
+      Shall I come with you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; answered Ruth without hesitation. &ldquo;I will go alone.&rdquo; She drew the
+      wimple well over her head, so that in its shadows her face might lie
+      concealed, and hid her shimmering white dress under Diana's cloak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She hastened through the ill-lighted streets, never heeding the rough
+      cobbles that hurt her feet, shod in light indoor wear, never heeding the
+      crowds that thronged her way. All Bridgwater was astir with Monmouth's
+      presence; moreover, there had been great incursions from Taunton and the
+      surrounding country, the women-folk of the Duke-King's followers having
+      come that day to Bridgwater to say farewell to father and son, husband and
+      brother, before the army marched&mdash;as was still believed&mdash;to
+      Gloucester.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The half-hour was striking from Saint Mary's&mdash;the church in which she
+      had been married&mdash;as Ruth reached the door of the sign of The Ship.
+      She was about to knock, when suddenly it opened, and Mr. Wilding himself,
+      with Trenchard immediately behind him, stood confronting her. At sight of
+      him a momentary weakness took her. He had changed from his hard-used
+      riding-garments into a suit of roughly corded black silk, which threw into
+      relief the steely litheness of his spare figure. His dark brown hair was
+      carefully dressed, diamonds gleamed in the cravat of snowy lace at his
+      throat. He was uncovered, his hat under his arm, and he stood aside to
+      make way for her, imagining that she was some woman of the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; said she, her heart fluttering in her throat. &ldquo;May I... may
+      I speak with you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He leaned forward, seeking to pierce the shadows of her wimple; he had
+      thought he recognized the voice, as his sudden start had shown; and yet he
+      disbelieved his ears. She moved her head at that moment, and the light
+      streaming out from a lamp in the passage beat upon her white face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ruth!&rdquo; he cried, and came quickly forward. Trenchard, behind him, looked
+      on and scowled with sudden impatience. Mr. Wilding's philanderings with
+      this lady had never had the old rake's approval. Too much trouble already
+      had resulted from them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must speak with you at once. At once!&rdquo; she urged him, her tone fearful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you in need of me?&rdquo; he asked concernedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In very urgent need,&rdquo; said she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thank God,&rdquo; he answered without flippancy. &ldquo;You shall find me at your
+      service. Tell me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not here; not here,&rdquo; she answered him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where else?&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Shall we walk?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no.&rdquo; Her repetitions marked the deep excitement that possessed her.
+      &ldquo;I will go in with you.&rdquo; And she signed with her head towards the door
+      from which he was barely emerged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Twere scarce fitting,&rdquo; said he, for being confused and full of
+      speculation on the score of her need, he had for the moment almost
+      overlooked the relations in which they stood. In spite of the ceremony
+      through which they had gone together, Mr. Wilding still mostly thought of
+      her as of a mistress very difficult to woo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fitting?&rdquo; she echoed, and then after a pause, &ldquo;Am I not your wife?&rdquo; she
+      asked him in a low voice, her cheeks crimsoning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha! 'Pon honour, I had almost forgot,&rdquo; said he, and though the burden of
+      his words seemed mocking, their tone was sad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the passers-by that jostled them a couple had now paused to watch a
+      scene that had an element of the unusual in it. She pulled her wimple
+      closer to her face, took him by the arm, and drew him with her into the
+      house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Close the door,&rdquo; she bade him, and Trenchard, who had stood aside that
+      they might pass in, forestalled him in obeying her. &ldquo;Now lead me to your
+      room, said she, and Wilding in amaze turned to Trenchard as if asking his
+      consent, for the lodging, after all, was Trenchard's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll wait here,&rdquo; said Nick, and waved his hand towards an oak bench that
+      stood in the passage. &ldquo;You had best make haste,&rdquo; he urged his friend; &ldquo;you
+      are late already. That is, unless you are of a mind to set the lady's
+      affairs before King Monmouth's. And were I in your place, Anthony, faith
+      I'd not scruple to do it. For after all,&rdquo; he added under his breath,
+      &ldquo;there's little choice in rotten apples.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth waited for some answer from Wilding that might suggest he was
+      indifferent whether he went to Newlington's or not; but he spoke no word
+      as he turned to lead the way above-stairs to the indifferent parlour which
+      with the adjoining bedroom constituted Mr. Trenchard's lodging&mdash;and
+      his own, for the time being.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having assured herself that the curtains were closely drawn, she put by
+      her cloak and hood, and stood revealed to him in the light of the three
+      candles, burning in a branch upon the bare oak table, dazzlingly beautiful
+      in her gown of ivory-white.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stood apart, cogitating her with glowing eyes, the faintest smile
+      between question and pleasure hovering about his thin mouth. He had closed
+      the door, and stood in silence waiting for her to make known to him her
+      pleasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilding...&rdquo; she began, and straightway he interrupted her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But a moment since you did remind me that I have the honour to be your
+      husband,&rdquo; he said with grave humour. &ldquo;Why seek now to overcloud that fact?
+      I mind me that the last time we met you called me by another name. But it
+      may be,&rdquo; he added as an afterthought, &ldquo;you are of opinion that I have
+      broken faith with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Broken faith? As how?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So!&rdquo; he said, and sighed. &ldquo;My words were of so little account that they
+      have been, I see, forgotten. Yet, so that I remember them, that is what
+      chiefly matters. I promised then&mdash;or seemed to promise&mdash;that I
+      would make a widow of you, who had made a wife of you against your will.
+      It has not happened yet. Do not despair. This Monmouth quarrel is not yet
+      fought out. Hope on, my Ruth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him with eyes wide open&mdash;lustrous eyes of sapphire in a
+      face of ivory. A faint smile parted her lips, the reflection of the
+      thought in her mind that had she, indeed, been eager for his death she
+      would not be with him at this moment; had she desired it, how easy would
+      her course have been.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do me wrong to bid me hope for that,&rdquo; she answered him, her tones
+      level. &ldquo;I do not wish the death of any man, unless...&rdquo; She paused; her
+      truthfulness urged her too far.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Unless?&rdquo; said he, brows raised, polite interest on his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Unless it be His Grace of Monmouth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He considered her with suddenly narrowed eyes. &ldquo;You have not by chance
+      sought me to talk politics?&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Or...&rdquo; and he suddenly caught his
+      breath, his nostrils dilating with rage at the bare thought that leapt
+      into his mind. Had Monmouth, the notorious libertine, been to Lupton House
+      and persecuted her with his addresses? &ldquo;Is it that you are acquainted with
+      His Grace?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have never spoken to him!&rdquo; she answered, with no suspicion of what was
+      in his thoughts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In his relief he laughed, remembering now that Monmouth's affairs were too
+      absorbing just at present to leave him room for dalliance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you are standing,&rdquo; said he, and he advanced a chair. &ldquo;I deplore that
+      I have no better hospitality to offer you. I doubt if I ever shall again.
+      I am told that Albemarle did me the honour to stable his knackers in my
+      hall at Zoyland.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She took the chair he offered her, sinking to it like one physically
+      weary, a thing he was quick to notice. He watched her, his body eager, his
+      soul trammelling it with a steely restraint. &ldquo;Tell me, now,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;in
+      what you need me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was silent a moment, pondering, hesitation and confusion seeming to
+      envelop her. A pink flush rose to colour the beautiful pillar of neck and
+      overspread the delicate half-averted face. He watched it, wondering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How long,&rdquo; she asked him, her whole intent at present being to delay him
+      and gain time. &ldquo;How long have you been in Bridgwater?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two hours at most,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two hours! And yet you never came to... to me. I heard of your presence,
+      and I feared you might intend to abstain from seeking me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He almost held his breath while she spoke, caught in amazement. He was
+      standing close beside her chair, his right hand rested upon its tall back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you so intend?&rdquo; she asked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told you even now,&rdquo; he answered with hard-won calm, &ldquo;that I had made
+      you a sort of promise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I... I would not have you keep it,&rdquo; she murmured. She heard his sharply
+      indrawn breath, felt him leaning over her, and was filled with an
+      unaccountable fear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was it to tell me this you came?&rdquo; he asked her, his voice reduced to a
+      whisper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No... yes,&rdquo; she answered, an agony in her mind, which groped for some
+      means to keep him by her side until his danger should be overpast. That
+      much she owed him in honour if in nothing else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;yes?&rdquo; he echoed, and he had drawn himself erect again. &ldquo;What
+      is't you mean, Ruth?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean that it was that, yet not quite only that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; Disappointment vibrated faintly in his clamation. &ldquo;What else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would have you abandon Monmouth's following,&rdquo; she told him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stared a moment, moved away and round where he could confront her. The
+      flush had now faded from her face. This he observed and the heave of her
+      bosom in its low bodice. He knit his brows, perplexed. Here was surely
+      more than at first might seem.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why so?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For your own safety's sake,&rdquo; she answered him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are oddly concerned for that, Ruth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Concerned&mdash;not oddly.&rdquo; She paused an instant, swallowed hard, and
+      then continued. &ldquo;I am concerned too for your honour, and there is no
+      honour in following his banner. He has crowned himself King, and so proved
+      himself a self-seeker who came dissembled as the champion of a cause that
+      he might delude poor ignorant folk into flocking to his standard and
+      helping him to his ambitious ends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are wondrously well schooled,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Whose teachings do you
+      recite me? Sir Rowland Blake's?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At another time the sneer might have cut her. At the moment she was too
+      intent upon gaining time. The means to it mattered little. The more she
+      talked to no purpose, the more at random was their discourse, the better
+      would her ends be served.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir Rowland Blake?&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;What is he to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, what? Let me set you the question rather.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Less than nothing,&rdquo; she assured him, and for some moments afterwards it
+      was this Sir Rowland who served them as a topic for their odd interview.
+      On the overmantel the pulse of time beat on from a little wooden clock.
+      His eyes strayed to it; it marked the three-quarters. He bethought him
+      suddenly of his engagement. Trenchard, below-stairs, supremely indifferent
+      whether Wilding went to Newlington's or not, smoked on, entirely
+      unconcerned by the flight of time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mistress,&rdquo; said Wilding suddenly, &ldquo;you have not yet told me in what you
+      seek my service. Indeed, we seem to have talked to little purpose. My time
+      is very short.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are you going?&rdquo; she asked him, and fearfully she shot a sidelong
+      glance at the timepiece. It was still too soon, by at least five minutes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled, but his smile was singular. He began to suspect at last that
+      her only purpose&mdash;to what end he could not guess&mdash;was to detain
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis a singularly sudden interest in my doings, this,&rdquo; said he quietly.
+      &ldquo;What is't you seek of me?&rdquo; He reached for the hat he had cast upon the
+      table when they had entered. &ldquo;Tell me briefly. I may stay no longer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose, her agitation suddenly increasing, afraid that after all he
+      would escape her. &ldquo;Where are you going?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;Answer me that, and I
+      will tell you why I came.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am to sup at Mr. Newlington's in His Majesty's company.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His Majesty's?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;King Monmouth's,&rdquo; he explained impatiently. &ldquo;Come, Ruth. Already I am
+      late.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I were to ask you not to go,&rdquo; she said slowly, and she held out her
+      hands to him, her glance most piteous&mdash;and that was not acting&mdash;as
+      she raised it to meet his own, &ldquo;would you not stay to pleasure me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He considered her from under frowning eyes. &ldquo;Ruth,&rdquo; he said, and he took
+      her hands, &ldquo;there is here something that I do not understand. What is't
+      you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Promise me that you will not go to Newlington's, and I will tell you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what has Newlington to do with...? Nay, I am pledged already to go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She drew closer to him, her hands upon his shoulders. &ldquo;Yet if I ask you&mdash;I,
+      your wife?&rdquo; she pleaded, and almost won him to her will.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But suddenly he remembered another occasion on which, for purposes of her
+      own, she had so pleaded. He laughed softly, mockingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you woo me, Ruth, who, when I wooed you, would have none of me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She drew back from him, crimsoning. &ldquo;I think I had better go,&rdquo; said she.
+      &ldquo;You have nothing but mockery for me. It was ever so. Who knows?&rdquo; she
+      sighed as she took up her mantle. &ldquo;Had you but observed more gentle ways,
+      you... you...&rdquo; She paused, needing to say no more. &ldquo;Good-night!&rdquo; she
+      ended, and made shift to leave. He watched her, deeply mystified. She had
+      gained the door when suddenly he moved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait!&rdquo; he cried. She paused, and turned to look over her shoulder, her
+      hand apparently upon the latch. &ldquo;You shall not go until you have told me
+      why you besought me to keep away from Newlington's. What is it?&rdquo; he asked,
+      and paused suddenly, a flood of light breaking in upon his mind. &ldquo;Is there
+      some treachery afoot?&rdquo; he asked her, and his eye went wildly to the clock.
+      A harsh, grating sound rang through the room. &ldquo;What are you doing?&rdquo; he
+      cried. &ldquo;Why have you locked the door?&rdquo; She was tugging and fumbling
+      desperately to extract the key, her hands all clumsy in her nervous haste.
+      He leapt at her, but in that moment the key came away in her hand. She
+      wheeled round to face him, erect, defiant almost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here is some devilry!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Give me that key.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had no need for further questions. Here was a proof more eloquent than
+      words to his ready wit. Sir Rowland or Richard, or both, were in some plot
+      for the Duke's ruin&mdash;perhaps assassination. Had not her very words
+      shown that she herself was out of all sympathy with Monmouth? He was out
+      of sympathy himself. But not to the extent of standing by to see his
+      throat cut. She would have the plot succeed&mdash;whatever it might be and
+      yet that he himself be spared. There his thoughts paused; but only for a
+      moment. He saw suddenly in this, not a proof of concern born of love but
+      of duty towards him who had imperilled himself once&mdash;and for all
+      time, indeed&mdash;that he might save her brother and Sir Rowland.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He told her what had been so suddenly revealed to him, taxing her with it.
+      She acknowledged it, her wits battling to find some way by which she might
+      yet gain a few moments more. She would cling to the key, and though he
+      should offer her violence, she would not let it go without a struggle, and
+      that struggle must consume the little time yet wanting to make it too late
+      for him to save the Duke, and&mdash;what imported more&mdash;thus save
+      herself from betraying her brother's trust. Another fear leapt at her
+      suddenly. If through deed of hers Monmouth was spared that night, Blake,
+      in his despair and rage, might slake his vengeance upon Richard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me that key,&rdquo; he demanded, his voice cold and quiet, his face set.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; she cried, setting her hand behind her. &ldquo;You shall not go,
+      Anthony. You shall not go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must,&rdquo; he insisted, still cold, but oh! so determined. &ldquo;My honour's in
+      it now that I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll go to your death,&rdquo; she reminded him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sneered. &ldquo;What signifies a day or so? Give me the key.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I love you, Anthony!&rdquo; she cried, livid to the lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lies!&rdquo; he answered her contemptuously. &ldquo;The key!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she answered, and her firmness matched his own. &ldquo;I will not have you
+      slain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis not my purpose&mdash;not just yet. But I must save the others. God
+      forgive me if I offer violence to a woman,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;and lay rude hands
+      upon her. Do not compel me to it.&rdquo; He advanced upon her, but she, lithe
+      and quick, evaded him, and sprang for the middle of the room. He wheeled
+      about, his self-control all slipping from him now. Suddenly she darted to
+      the window, and with the hand that clenched the key she smote a pane with
+      all her might. There was a smash of shivering glass, followed an instant
+      later by a faint tinkle on the stones below, and the hand that she still
+      held out covered itself all with blood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O God!&rdquo; he cried, the key and all else forgotten. &ldquo;You are hurt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you are saved,&rdquo; she cried, overwrought, and staggered, laughing and
+      sobbing, to a chair, sinking her bleeding hand to her lap, and smearing
+      recklessly her spotless, shimmering gown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He caught up a chair by its legs, and at a single blow smashed down the
+      door&mdash;a frail barrier after all. &ldquo;Nick!&rdquo; he roared. &ldquo;Nick!&rdquo; He tossed
+      the chair from him and vanished into the adjoining room to reappear a
+      moment later carrying basin and ewer, and a shirt of Trenchard's&mdash;the
+      first piece of linen he could find.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was half fainting, and she let him have his swift, masterful way. He
+      bathed her hand, and was relieved to find that the injury was none so
+      great as the flow of blood had made him fear. He tore Trenchard's fine
+      cambric shirt to shreds&mdash;a matter on which Trenchard afterwards
+      commented in quotations from at least three famous Elizabethan dramatists.
+      He bound up her hand, just as Nick made his appearance at the splintered
+      door, his mouth open, his pipe, gone out, between his fingers. He was
+      followed by a startled serving-wench, the only other person in the house,
+      for every one was out of doors that night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Into the woman's care Wilding delivered his wife, and without a word to
+      her he left the room, dragging Trenchard with him. It was striking nine as
+      they went down the stairs, and the sound brought as much satisfaction to
+      Ruth above as dismay to Wilding below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIX. THE BANQUET
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It was striking nine. Therefore, Ruth thought that she had achieved her
+      object, Wilding imagined that all was lost. It needed the more tranquil
+      mind of Nicholas Trenchard to show him the fly in madam's ointment, after
+      Wilding, in half a dozen words, had made him acquainted with the
+      situation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you going to do?&rdquo; asked Trenchard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Run to Newlington's and warn the Duke&mdash;if still in time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And thereby precipitate the catastrophe? Oh, give it thought. It is all
+      it needs. You are taking it for granted that nine o'clock is the hour
+      appointed for King Monmouth's butchery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What else?&rdquo; asked Wilding, impatient to be off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were standing in the street under the sign of The Ship, by which
+      Jonathan Edney&mdash;Mr. Trenchard's landlord&mdash;distinguished his
+      premises and the chandler's trade he drove there. Trenchard set a
+      detaining hand on Mr. Wilding's arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nine o'clock is the hour appointed for supper. It is odds the Duke will
+      be a little late, and it is more than odds that when he does arrive, the
+      assassins will wait until the company is safely at table and lulled by
+      good eating and drinking. You had overlooked that, I see. It asks an old
+      head for wisdom, after all. Look you, Anthony. Speed to Colonel Wade as
+      fast as your legs can carry you, and get a score of men. Then find some
+      fellow to lead you to Newlington's orchard, and if only you do not arrive
+      too late you may take Sir Rowland and his cut-throats in the rear and
+      destroy them to a man before they realize themselves attacked. I'll
+      reconnoitre while you go, and keep an eye on the front of the house. Away
+      with you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ordinarily Wilding was a man of a certain dignity, but you had not thought
+      it had you seen him running in silk stockings and silver-buckled shoes at
+      a headlong pace through the narrow streets of Bridgwater, in the direction
+      of the Castle. He overset more than one, and oaths followed him from these
+      and from others whom he rudely jostled out of his path. Wade was gone with
+      Monmouth, but he came upon Captain Slape, who had a company of scythes and
+      musketeers incorporated in the Duke's own regiment, and to him Wilding
+      gasped out the news and his request for a score of men with what breath
+      was left him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Time was lost&mdash;and never was time more precious&mdash;in convincing
+      Slape that this was no old wife's tale. At last, however, he won his way
+      and twenty musketeers; but the quarter-past the hour had chimed ere they
+      left the Castle. He led them forth at a sharp run, with never a thought
+      for the circumstance that they would need their breath anon, perhaps for
+      fighting, and he bade the man who guided them take them by back streets
+      that they might attract as little attention as possible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Within a stone's-throw of the house he halted them, and sent one forward
+      to reconnoitre, following himself with the others as quietly and
+      noiselessly as possible. Mr. Newlington's house was all alight, but from
+      the absence of uproar&mdash;sounds there were in plenty from the main
+      street, where a dense throng had collected to see His Majesty go in&mdash;Mr.
+      Wilding inferred with supreme relief that they were still in time. But the
+      danger was not yet past. Already, perhaps, the assassins were penetrating&mdash;or
+      had penetrated&mdash;to the house; and at any moment such sounds might
+      greet them as would announce the execution of their murderous design.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Mr. Trenchard, having relighted his pipe, and set his hat
+      rakishly atop his golden wig, strolled up the High Street, swinging his
+      long cane very much like a gentleman taking the air in quest of an
+      appetite for supper. He strolled past the Cross and on until he came to
+      the handsome mansion&mdash;one of the few handsome houses in Bridgwater&mdash;where
+      opulent Mr. Newlington had his residence. A small crowd had congregated
+      about the doors, for word had gone forth that His Majesty was to sup
+      there. Trenchard moved slowly through the people, seemingly uninterested,
+      but, in fact, scanning closely every face he encountered. Suddenly, out of
+      the corner of his eye, he espied in the indifferent light Mr. Richard
+      Westmacott.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard passed him, jostling him as he went, and strolled on some few
+      paces, then turned, and came slowly back, and observed that Richard had
+      also turned and was now watching him as he approached. He was all but upon
+      the boy when suddenly his wrinkled face lighted with recognition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Westmacott!&rdquo; he cried, and there was surprise in his voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard, conscious that Trenchard must no doubt regard him as a
+      turn-tippet, flushed, and stood aside to give passage to the other. But
+      Mr. Trenchard was by no means minded to pass. He clapped a hand on
+      Richard's shoulder. &ldquo;Nay,&rdquo; he cried, between laughter and feigned
+      resentment. &ldquo;Do you bear me ill-will, lad?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard was somewhat taken aback. &ldquo;For what should I bear you ill-will,
+      Mr. Trenchard?&rdquo; quoth he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard laughed frankly, and so uproariously that his hat over-jauntily
+      cocked was all but shaken from his head. &ldquo;I mind me the last time we met,
+      I played you an unfair trick,&rdquo; said he. His tone bespoke the very highest
+      good-humour. He slipped his arm through Richard's. &ldquo;Never bear an old man
+      malice, lad,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I assure you that I bear you none,&rdquo; said Richard, relieved to find that
+      Trenchard apparently knew nothing of his defection, yet wishing that
+      Trenchard would go his ways, for Richard's task was to stand sentry there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll not believe you till you afford me proof,&rdquo; Trenchard replied. &ldquo;You
+      shall come and wash your resentment down in the best bottle of Canary the
+      White Cow can furnish us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not now, I thank you,&rdquo; answered Richard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are thinking of the last occasion on which I drank with you,&rdquo; said
+      Trenchard reproachfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not so. But... but I am not thirsty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not thirsty?&rdquo; echoed Trenchard. &ldquo;And is that a reason? Why, lad, it is
+      the beast that drinks only when he thirsts. And in that lies one of the
+      main differences between beast and man. Come on&rdquo;&mdash;and his arm
+      effected a gentle pressure upon Richard's, to move him thence. But at that
+      moment, down the street with a great rumble of wheels, cracking of whips
+      and clatter of hoofs, came a coach, bearing to Mr. Newlington's King
+      Monmouth escorted by his forty life-guards. Cheering broke from the crowd
+      as the carriage drew up, and the Duke-King as he alighted turned his
+      handsome face, on which shone the ruddy glow of torches, to acknowledge
+      these loyal acclamations. He passed up the steps, at the top of which Mr.
+      Newlington&mdash;fat and pale and monstrously overdressed&mdash;stood
+      bowing to welcome his royal visitor. Host and guest vanished, followed by
+      some six officers of Monmouth's, among whom were Grey and Wade. The
+      sight-seers flattened themselves against the walls as the great lumbering
+      coach put about and went off again the way it had come, the life-guards
+      following after.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard fancied that he caught a sigh of relief from Richard, but the
+      street was noisy at the time and he may well have been mistaken.
+    </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come,&rdquo; said he, renewing his invitation, &ldquo;we shall both be the better
+for a little milk of the White Cow.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+    <p>
+Richard wavered almost by instinct. The White Cow, he knew, was
+famous for its sack; on the other hand, he was pledged to Sir Rowland
+to stand guard in the narrow lane at the back where ran the wall of Mr.
+Newlington's garden. Under the gentle suasion of Trenchard's arm, he
+moved a few steps up the street; then halted, his duty battling with his
+inclination.
+</p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;If you will excuse me...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not I,&rdquo; said Trenchard, drawing from his hesitation a shrewd inference as
+      to Richard's business. &ldquo;To drink alone is an abomination I'll not be
+      guilty of.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But...&rdquo; began the irresolute Richard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shalt urge me no excuses, or we'll quarrel. Come,&rdquo; and he moved on,
+      dragging Richard with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few steps Richard took unwillingly under the other's soft compulsion;
+      then, having given the matter thought&mdash;he was always one to take the
+      line of least resistance&mdash;he assured himself that his sentryship was
+      entirely superfluous; the matter of Blake's affair was an entire secret,
+      shared only by those who had a hand in it. Blake was quite safe from all
+      surprises; Trenchard was insistent and it was difficult to deny him; and
+      the sack at the White Cow was no doubt the best in Somerset. He gave
+      himself up to the inevitable and fell into step alongside his companion
+      who babbled aimlessly of trivial matters. Trenchard felt the change from
+      unwilling to willing companionship, and approved it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They mounted the three steps and entered the common room of the inn. It
+      was well thronged at the time, but they found places at the end of a long
+      table, and there they sat and discussed the landlady's Canary for the best
+      part of a half-hour, until a sudden spatter of musketry, near at hand,
+      came to startle the whole room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a momentary stillness in the tavern, succeeded by an excited
+      clamouring, a dash for the windows and a storm of questions, to which none
+      could return any answer. Richard had risen with a sudden exclamation, very
+      pale and scared of aspect. Trenchard tugged at his sleeve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sit down,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Sit down. It will be nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing?&rdquo; echoed Richard, and his eyes were suddenly bent on Trenchard in
+      a look in which suspicion was now blent with terror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A second volley of musketry crackled forth at that moment, and the next
+      the whole street was in an uproar. Men were running and shots resounded on
+      every side, above all of which predominated the cry that His Majesty was
+      murdered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In an instant the common room of the White Cow was emptied of every
+      occupant save two&mdash;Trenchard and Westmacott. Neither of them felt the
+      need to go forth in quest of news. They knew how idle was the cry in the
+      streets. They knew what had taken place, and knowing it, Trenchard smoked
+      on placidly, satisfied that Wilding had been in time, whilst Richard stood
+      stricken and petrified by dismay at realizing, with even greater
+      certainty, that something had supervened to thwart, perhaps to destroy,
+      Sir Rowland. For he knew that Blake's party had gone forth armed with
+      pistols only, and intent not to use even these save in the last extremity;
+      to avoid noise they were to keep to steel. This knowledge gave Richard
+      positive assurance that the volleys they had heard must have been fired by
+      some party that had fallen upon Blake's men and taken them by surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And it was his fault! He was the traitor to whom perhaps a score of men
+      owed their deaths at that moment! He had failed to keep watch as he had
+      undertaken. His fault it was&mdash;No! not his, but this villain's who sat
+      there smugly taking his ease and pulling at his pipe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At a blow Richard dashed the thing from his companion's mouth and fingers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard looked up startled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What the devil...?&rdquo; he began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is your fault, your fault!&rdquo; cried Richard, his eyes blazing, his lips
+      livid. &ldquo;It was you who lured me hither.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard stared at him in bland surprise. &ldquo;Now, what a plague is't you're
+      saying?&rdquo; he asked, and brought Richard to his senses by awaking in him the
+      instinct of self-preservation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How could he explain his meaning without betraying himself?&mdash;and
+      surely that were a folly, now that the others were no doubt disposed of.
+      Let him, rather, bethink him of his own safety. Trenchard looked at him
+      keenly, with well-assumed intent to read what might be passing in his
+      mind, then rose, paid for the wine, and expressed his intention of going
+      forth to inquire into these strange matters that were happening in
+      Bridgwater.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, those volleys fired in Mr. Newlington's orchard had caused&mdash;as
+      well may be conceived&mdash;an agitated interruption of the superb feast
+      Mr. Newlington had spread for his noble and distinguished guests. The Duke
+      had for some days been going in fear of his life, for already he had been
+      fired at more than once by men anxious to earn the price at which his head
+      was valued; instantly he surmised that whatever that firing might mean, it
+      indicated some attempt to surprise him with the few gentlemen who attended
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The whole company came instantly to its feet, and Colonel Wade stepped to
+      a window that stood open&mdash;for the night was very warm. The Duke
+      turned for explanation to his host; the trader, however, professed himself
+      entirely unable to offer any. He was very pale and his limbs were visibly
+      trembling, but then his agitation was most natural. His wife and daughter
+      supervened at that moment, in their alarm entering the room
+      unceremoniously, in spite of the august presence, to inquire into the
+      meaning of this firing, and to reassure themselves that their father and
+      his illustrious guests were safe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the windows they could observe a stir in the gardens below. Black
+      shadows of men flitted to and fro, and a loud, rich voice was heard
+      calling to them to take cover, that they were betrayed. Then a sheet of
+      livid flame blazed along the summit of the low wall, and a second volley
+      of musketry rang out, succeeded by cries and screams from the assailed and
+      the shouts of the assailers who were now pouring into the garden through
+      the battered doorway and over the wall. For some moments steel rang on
+      steel, and pistol-shots cracked here and there to the accompaniment of
+      voices, raised some in anger, some in pain. But it was soon over, and a
+      comparative stillness succeeded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A voice called up from the darkness under the windows to know if His
+      Majesty was safe. There had been a plot to take him; but the ambuscaders
+      had been ambuscaded in their turn, and not a man of them remained&mdash;which
+      was hardly exact, for under a laurel bush, scarce daring to breathe, lay
+      Sir Rowland Blake, livid with fear and fury, and bleeding from a rapier
+      scratch in the cheek, but otherwise unhurt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the room above, Monmouth had sunk wearily into his chair upon hearing
+      of the design there had been against his life. A deep, bitter melancholy
+      enwrapped his spirit. Lord Grey's first thoughts flew to the man he most
+      disliked&mdash;the one man missing from those who had been bidden to
+      accompany His Majesty, whose absence had already formed the subject of
+      comment. Grey remembered this bearing before the council that same
+      evening, and his undisguised resentment of the reproaches levelled against
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is Mr. Wilding?&rdquo; he asked suddenly, his voice dominating the din of
+      talk that filled the room. &ldquo;Do we hold the explanation of his absence?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Monmouth looked up quickly, his beautiful eyes ineffably sad, his weak
+      mouth drooping at the corners. Wade turned to confront Grey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your lordship does not suggest that Mr. Wilding can have a hand in this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Appearances would seem to point in that direction,&rdquo; answered Grey, and in
+      his wicked heart he almost hoped it might be so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then appearances speak truth for once,&rdquo; came a bitter, ringing voice.
+      They turned, and there on the threshold stood Mr. Wilding. Unheard he had
+      come upon them. He was bareheaded and carried his drawn sword. There was
+      blood upon it, and there was blood on the lace that half concealed the
+      hand that held it; otherwise&mdash;and saving that his shoes and stockings
+      were sodden with the dew from the long grass in the orchard&mdash;he was
+      as spotless as when he had left Ruth in Trenchard's lodging; his face,
+      too, was calm, save for the mocking smile with which he eyed Lord Grey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monmouth rose on his appearance, and put his hand to his sword in alarm.
+      Grey whipped his own from the scabbard, and placed himself slightly in
+      front of his master as if to preserve him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mistake, sirs,&rdquo; said Wilding quietly. &ldquo;The hand I have had in this
+      affair has been to save Your Majesty from your enemies. At the moment I
+      should have joined you, word was brought me of the plot that was laid, of
+      the trap that was set for you. I hastened to the Castle and obtained a
+      score of musketeers of Slape's company. With those I surprised the
+      murderers lurking in the garden there, and made an end of them. I greatly
+      feared I should not come in time; but it is plain that Heaven preserves
+      Your Majesty for better days.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the revulsion of feeling, Monmouth's eyes shone moist. Grey sheathed
+      his sword with an awkward laugh, and a still more awkward word of apology
+      to Wilding. The Duke, moved by a sudden impulse to make amends for his
+      unworthy suspicions, for his perhaps unworthy reception of Wilding earlier
+      that evening in the council-room, drew the sword on which his hand still
+      rested. He advanced a step.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kneel, Mr. Wilding,&rdquo; he said in a voice stirred by emotion. But Wilding's
+      stern spirit scorned this all too sudden friendliness of Monmouth's as
+      much as he scorned the accolade at Monmouth's hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are more pressing matters to demand Your Majesty's attention,&rdquo; said
+      Mr. Wilding coldly, advancing to the table as he spoke, and taking up a
+      napkin to wipe his blade, &ldquo;than the reward of an unworthy servant.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Monmouth felt his sudden enthusiasm chilled by that tone and manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Newlington,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding, after the briefest of pauses, and the
+      fat, sinful merchant started forward in alarm. It was like a summons of
+      doom. &ldquo;His Majesty came hither, I am informed, to receive at your hands a
+      sum of money&mdash;twenty thousand pounds&mdash;towards the expenses of
+      the campaign. Have you the money at hand?&rdquo; And his eye, glittering between
+      cruelty and mockery, fixed itself upon the merchant's ashen face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It... it shall be forthcoming by morning,&rdquo; stammered Newlington.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By morning?&rdquo; cried Grey, who, with the others, watched Mr. Newlington
+      what time they all wondered at Mr. Wilding's question and the manner of
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You knew that I march to-night,&rdquo; Monmouth reproached the merchant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And it was to receive the money that you invited His Majesty to do you
+      the honours of supping with you here,&rdquo; put in Wade, frowning darkly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The merchant's wife and daughter stood beside him watching him, and
+      plainly uneasy. Before he could make any reply, Mr. Wilding spoke again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The circumstance that he has not the money by him is a little odd&mdash;or
+      would be were it not for what has happened. I would submit, Your Majesty,
+      that you receive from Mr. Newlington not twenty thousand pounds as he had
+      promised you, but thirty thousand, and that you receive it not as a loan
+      as was proposed, but as a fine imposed upon him in consequence of... his
+      lack of care in the matter of his orchard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Monmouth looked at the merchant very sternly. &ldquo;You have heard Mr.
+      Wilding's suggestion,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;You may thank the god of traitors it was
+      made, else we might have thought of a harsher course. You shall pay the
+      money by ten o'clock to-morrow to Mr. Wilding, whom I shall leave behind
+      for the sole purpose of collecting it.&rdquo; He turned from Newlington in plain
+      disgust. &ldquo;I think, sirs, that here is no more to be done. Are the streets
+      safe, Mr. Wilding?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not only safe, Your Majesty, but the twenty men of Slape's and your own
+      life-guards are waiting to escort you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then in God's name let us be going,&rdquo; said Monmouth, sheathing his sword
+      and moving towards the door. Not a second time did he offer to confer the
+      honour of knighthood upon his saviour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding turned and went out to marshal his men. The Duke and his
+      officers followed more leisurely. As they reached the door, a woman's cry
+      broke the silence behind them. Monmouth turned. Mr. Newlington, purple of
+      face and his eyes protruding horridly, was beating the air with his hands.
+      Suddenly he collapsed, and crashed forward with arms flung out amid the
+      glass and silver of the table all spread with the traitor's banquet to
+      which he had bidden his unsuspecting victim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His wife and daughter ran to him and called him by name, Monmouth pausing
+      a moment to watch them from the doorway with eyes unmoved. But Mr.
+      Newlington answered not their call, for he was dead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XX. THE RECKONING
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Ruth had sped home through the streets unattended, as she had come,
+      heedless of the rude jostlings and ruder greetings she met with from those
+      she passed; heedless, too, of the smarting of her injured hand, for the
+      agony of her soul was such that it whelmed all minor sufferings of the
+      flesh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the dining-room at Lupton House she came upon Diana and Lady Horton at
+      supper, and her appearance&mdash;her white and distraught face and
+      blood-smeared gown&mdash;brought both women to their feet in alarmed
+      inquiry, no less than it brought Jasper, the butler, to her side with
+      ready solicitude. Ruth answered him that there was no cause for fear, that
+      she was quite well&mdash;had scratched her hand, no more; and with that
+      dismissed him. When she was alone with her aunt and cousin, she sank into
+      a chair and told them what had passed 'twixt her husband and herself and
+      most of what she said was Greek to Lady Horton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilding has gone to warn the Duke,&rdquo; she ended, and the despair of her
+      tone was tragical. &ldquo;I sought to detain him until it should be too late&mdash;I
+      thought I had done so, but... but... Oh, I am afraid, Diana!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Afraid of what?&rdquo; asked Diana. &ldquo;Afraid of what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And she came to Ruth and set an arm in comfort about her shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Afraid that Mr. Wilding might reach the Duke in time to be destroyed with
+      him,&rdquo; her cousin answered. &ldquo;Such a warning could but hasten on the blow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Horton begged to be enlightened, and was filled with horror when&mdash;from
+      Diana&mdash;enlightenment was hers. Her sympathies were all with the
+      handsome Monmouth, for he was beautiful and should therefore be
+      triumphant; poor Lady Horton never got beyond externals. That her nephew
+      and Sir Rowland, whom she had esteemed, should be leagued in this
+      dastardly undertaking against that lovely person horrified her beyond
+      words. She withdrew soon afterwards, having warmly praised Ruth's action
+      in warning Mr. Wilding&mdash;unable to understand that it should be no
+      part of Ruth's design to save the Duke&mdash;and went to her room to pray
+      for the preservation of the late King's handsome son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Left alone with her cousin, Ruth gave expression to the fears for Richard
+      by which she was being tortured. Diana poured wine for her and urged her
+      to drink; she sought to comfort and reassure her. But as moments passed
+      and grew to hours and still Richard did not appear, Ruth's fears that he
+      had come to harm were changed to certainty. There was a moment when, but
+      for Diana's remonstrances, she had gone forth in quest of news. Bad news
+      were better than this horror of suspense. What if Wilding's warning should
+      have procured help, and Richard were slain in consequence? Oh, it was
+      unthinkable! Diana, white of face, listened to and shared her fears. Even
+      her shallow nature was stirred by the tragedy of Ruth's position, by dread
+      lest Richard should indeed have met his end that night. In these moments
+      of distress, she forgot her hopes of triumphing over Blake, of punishing
+      him for his indifference to herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, at something after midnight, there came a fevered rapping at the
+      outer door. Both women started up, and with arms about each other, in
+      their sudden panic, stood there waiting for the news that must be here at
+      last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The door of the dining-room was flung open; the women recoiled in their
+      dread of what might come; then Richard entered, Jasper's startled
+      countenance showing behind him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He closed the door, shutting out the wondering servant, and they saw that,
+      though his face was ashen and his limbs all a-tremble, he showed no sign
+      of any hurt or effort. His dress was as meticulous as when last they had
+      seen him. Ruth flew to him, flung her arms about his neck, and pressed him
+      to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Richard, Richard!&rdquo; she sobbed in the immensity of her relief. &ldquo;Thank
+      God! Thank God!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He wriggled peevishly in her embrace, disengaged her arms, and put her
+      from him almost roughly. &ldquo;Have done!&rdquo; he growled, and, lurching past her,
+      he reached the table, took up a bottle, and brimmed himself a measure. He
+      gulped the wine avidly, set down the cup, and shivered. &ldquo;Where is Blake?&rdquo;
+       he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Blake?&rdquo; echoed Ruth, her lips white. Diana sank into a chair, watchful,
+      fearful and silent, taking now no glory in the thing she had encompassed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard beat his hands together in a passion of dismay. &ldquo;Is he not here?&rdquo;
+       he asked, and groaned, &ldquo;O God!&rdquo; He flung himself all limp into a chair.
+      &ldquo;You have heard the news, I see,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not all of it,&rdquo; said Diana hoarsely, leaning forward. &ldquo;Tell us what
+      passed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He moistened his lips with his tongue. &ldquo;We were betrayed,&rdquo; he said in a
+      quivering voice. &ldquo;Betrayed! Did I but know by whom...&rdquo; He broke off with a
+      bitter laugh and shrugged, rubbing his hands together and shivering till
+      his shoulders shook. &ldquo;Blake's party was set upon by half a company of
+      musketeers. Their corpses are strewn about old Newlington's orchard. Not
+      one of them escaped. They say that Newlington himself is dead.&rdquo; He poured
+      himself more wine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth listened, her eyes burning, the rest of her as cold as ice.
+      &ldquo;But...but... oh, thank God that you at least are safe, Dick!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How did you escape?&rdquo; quoth Diana.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How?&rdquo; He started as if he had been stung. He laughed in a high, cracked
+      voice, his eyes wild and bloodshot. &ldquo;How? Perhaps it is just as well that
+      Blake has gone to his account. Perhaps...&rdquo; He checked on the word, and
+      started to his feet; Diana screamed in sheer affright. Behind her the
+      windows had been thrust open so violently that one of the panes was
+      shivered. Blake stood under the lintel, scarce recognizable, so smeared
+      was his face with the blood escaping from the wound his cheek had taken.
+      His clothes were muddied, soiled, torn, and disordered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Framed there against the black background of the night, he stood and
+      surveyed them for a moment, his aspect terrific. Then he leapt forward,
+      baring his sword as he came. An incoherent roar burst from his lips as he
+      bore straight down upon Richard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You damned, infernal traitor!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Draw, draw! Or die like the
+      muckworm that you are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Intrepid, her terror all vanished now that there was the need for courage,
+      Ruth confronted him, barring his passage, a buckler to her palsied
+      brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Out of my way, mistress, or I'll be doing you a mischief.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are mad, Sir Rowland,&rdquo; she told him in a voice that did something
+      towards restoring him to his senses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His fierce eyes considered her a moment, and he controlled himself to
+      offer an explanation. &ldquo;The twenty that were with me lie stark under the
+      stars in Newlington's garden,&rdquo; he told her, as Richard had told her
+      already. &ldquo;I escaped by a miracle, no less, but for what? Feversham will
+      demand of me a stern account of those lives, whilst if I am found in
+      Bridgwater there will be a short shrift for me at the rebel hands&mdash;for
+      my share in this affair is known, my name on every lip in the town. And
+      why?&rdquo; he asked with a sudden increase of fierceness. &ldquo;Why? Because that
+      craven villain there betrayed me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He did not,&rdquo; she answered in so assured a voice that not only did it give
+      him pause, but caused Richard, cowering behind her, to raise his head in
+      wonder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Rowland smiled his disbelief, and that smile, twisting his
+      blood-smeared countenance, was grotesque and horrible. &ldquo;I left him to
+      guard our backs and give me warning if any approached,&rdquo; he informed her.
+      &ldquo;I knew him for too great a coward to be trusted in the fight; so I gave
+      him a safe task, and yet in that he failed me-failed me because he had
+      betrayed and sold me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He had not. I tell you he had not,&rdquo; she insisted. &ldquo;I swear it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stared at her. &ldquo;There was no one else for it,&rdquo; he made answer, and bade
+      her harshly stand aside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana, huddled together, watched and waited in horror for the end of these
+      consequences of her work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake made a sudden movement to win past Ruth. Richard staggered to his
+      feet intent on defending himself; but he was swordless; retreat to the
+      door suggested itself, and he had half turned to attempt to gain it, when
+      Ruth's next words arrested him, petrified him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was some one else for it, Sir Rowland,&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;It was not
+      Richard who betrayed you. It... it was I.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You?&rdquo; The fierceness seemed all to drop away from him, whelmed in the
+      immensity of his astonishment. &ldquo;You?&rdquo; Then he laughed loud in scornful
+      disbelief. &ldquo;You think to save him,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Should I lie?&rdquo; she asked him, calm and brave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stared at her stupidly; he passed a hand across his brow, and looked at
+      Diana. &ldquo;Oh, it is impossible!&rdquo; he said at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall hear,&rdquo; she answered, and told him how at the last moment she
+      had learnt not only that her husband was in Bridgwater, but that he was to
+      sup at Newlington's with the Duke's party.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had no thought of betraying you or of saving the Duke,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I
+      knew how justifiable was what you intended. But I could not let Mr.
+      Wilding go to his death. I sought to detain him, warning him only when I
+      thought it would be too late for him to warn others. But you delayed
+      overlong, and...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A hoarse inarticulate cry from him came to interrupt her at that point.
+      One glimpse of his face she had and of the hand half raised with sword
+      pointing towards her, and she closed her eyes, thinking that her sands
+      were run. And, indeed, Blake's intention was just then to kill her. That
+      he should owe his betrayal to her was in itself cause enough to enrage
+      him, but that her motive should have been her desire to save Wilding&mdash;Wilding
+      of all men!&mdash;that was the last straw.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had he been forewarned that Wilding was to be one of Monmouth's party at
+      Mr. Newlington's, his pulses would have throbbed with joy, and he would
+      have flung himself into his murderous task with twice the zest he had
+      carried to it. And now he learnt that not only had she thwarted his
+      schemes against Monmouth, but had deprived him of the ardently sought
+      felicity of widowing her. He drew back his arm for the thrust; Diana
+      huddled into her chair too horror-stricken to speak or move: Richard&mdash;immediately
+      behind his sister&mdash;saw nothing of what was passing, and thought of
+      nothing but his own safety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Blake paused, stepped back, returned his sword to its scabbard, and
+      bending himself&mdash;but whether to bow or not was not quite plain&mdash;he
+      took some paces backwards, then turned and went out by the window as he
+      had come. But there was a sudden purposefulness in the way he did it that
+      might have warned them this withdrawal was not quite the retreat it
+      seemed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They watched him with many emotions, predominant among which was relief,
+      and when he was gone Diana rose and came to Ruth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come,&rdquo; she said, and sought to lead her from the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But there was Richard now to be reckoned with, Richard from whom the palsy
+      was of a sudden fallen, now that the cause of it had withdrawn. He had his
+      back to the door, and his weak mouth was pursed up into a semblance of
+      resolution, his pale eyes looked stern, his white eyebrows bent together
+      in a frown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait,&rdquo; he said. They looked at him, and the shadow of a smile almost
+      flitted across Diana's face. He stepped to the door, and, opening it, held
+      it wide. &ldquo;Go, Diana,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Ruth and I must understand each other.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Diana hesitated. &ldquo;You had better go, Diana,&rdquo; said her cousin, whereupon
+      Mistress Horton went.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hot and fierce came the recriminations from Richard's lips when he and his
+      sister were alone, and Ruth weathered the storm bravely until it was
+      stemmed again by fresh fear in Richard. For Blake had suddenly reappeared.
+      He came forward from his window; his manner composed and full of
+      resolution. Young Westmacott recoiled, the heat all frozen out of him. But
+      Blake scarce looked at him, his smouldering glance was all for Ruth, who
+      watched him with incipient fear, despite herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;'tis not to be supposed a mind holding so much thought
+      for a husband's safety could find room for any concern as to another's. I
+      will ask you, natheless, to consider what tale I am to bear Lord
+      Feversham.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What tale?&rdquo; said she.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye&mdash;that will account for what has chanced; for my failure to
+      discharge the task entrusted me, and for the slaughter of an officer of
+      his and twenty men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why ask me this?&rdquo; she demanded half angrily; then suddenly bethinking her
+      of how she had ruined his enterprise, and of the position in which she had
+      placed him, she softened. Her clear mind held justice very dear. She
+      approached. &ldquo;Oh, I am sorry&mdash;sorry, Sir Rowland,&rdquo; she cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sneered. He had wiped some of the blood from his face, but still looked
+      terrible enough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sorry!&rdquo; said he, and laughed unpleasantly. &ldquo;You'll come with me to
+      Feversham and tell him what you did,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I?&rdquo; She recoiled in fear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At once&rdquo; he informed her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wha... what's that?&rdquo; faltered Richard, calling up his manhood, and coming
+      forward. &ldquo;What are you saying, Blake?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Rowland disdained to heed him. &ldquo;Come, mistress,&rdquo; he said, and putting
+      forward his hand he caught her wrist and pulled her roughly towards him.
+      She struggled to free herself, but he leered evilly upon her, no whit
+      discomposed by her endeavours. Though short of stature, he was a man of
+      considerable bodily strength, and she, though tall, was slight of frame.
+      He released her wrist, and before she realized what he was about he had
+      stooped, passed an arm behind her knees, another round her waist, and,
+      swinging her from her feet, took her up bodily in his arms. He turned
+      about, and a scream broke from her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hold!&rdquo; cried Richard. &ldquo;Hold, you madman!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Keep off, or I'll make an end of you before I go,&rdquo; roared Blake over his
+      shoulder, for already he had turned about and was making for the window,
+      apparently no more hindered by his burden than had she been a doll.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard sprang to the door. &ldquo;Jasper!&rdquo; he bawled. &ldquo;Jasper!&rdquo; He had no
+      weapons, as we have seen, else it may be that he had made an attempt to
+      use them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth got a hand free and caught at the windowframe as Blake was leaping
+      through. It checked their progress, but did not sensibly delay it. It was
+      unfortunately her wounded hand with which she had sought to cling, and
+      with an angry, brutal wrench Sir Rowland compelled her to unclose her
+      grasp. He sped down the lawn towards the orchard, where his horse was
+      tethered. And now she knew in a subconscious sort of way why he had
+      earlier withdrawn. He had gone to saddle for this purpose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She struggled now, thinking that he would be too hampered to compel her to
+      his will. He became angry, and set her down beside his horse, one arm
+      still holding her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look you, mistress,&rdquo; he told her fiercely, &ldquo;living or dead, you come with
+      me to Feversham. Choose now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His tone was such that she never doubted he would carry out his threat.
+      And so in dull despair she submitted, hoping that Feversham might be a
+      gentleman and would recognize and respect a lady. Half fainting, she
+      allowed him to swing her to the withers of his horse. Thus they threaded
+      their way in the dim starlit night through the trees towards the gate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It stood open, and they passed out into the lane. There Sir Rowland put
+      his horse to the trot, which he increased to a gallop when he was over the
+      bridge and clear of the town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXI. THE SENTENCE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding, as we know, was to remain at Bridgwater for the purpose of
+      collecting from Mr. Newlington the fine which had been imposed upon him.
+      It is by no means clear whether Monmouth realized the fullness of the
+      tragedy at the merchant's house, and whether he understood that, stricken
+      with apoplexy at the thought of parting with so considerable a portion of
+      his fortune, Mr. Newlington had not merely fainted, but had expired under
+      His Grace's eyes. If he did realize it he was cynically indifferent, and
+      lest we should be doing him an injustice by assuming this we had better
+      give him the benefit of the doubt, and take it that in the subsequent
+      bustle of departure, his mind filled with the prospect of the night attack
+      to be delivered upon his uncle's army at-Sedgemoor, he thought no more
+      either of Mr. Newlington or of Mr. Wilding. The latter, as we know, had no
+      place in the rebel army; although a man of his hands, he was not a trained
+      soldier, and notwithstanding that he may fully have intended to draw his
+      sword for Monmouth when the time came, yet circumstances had led to his
+      continuing after Monmouth's landing the more diplomatic work of
+      movement-man, in which he had been engaged for the months that had
+      preceded it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So it befell that when Monmouth's army marched out of Bridgwater at eleven
+      o'clock on that Sunday night, not to make for Gloucester and Cheshire, as
+      was generally believed, but to fall upon the encamped Feversham at
+      Sedgemoor and slaughter the royal army in their beds, Mr. Wilding was left
+      behind. Trenchard was gone, in command of his troop of horse, and Mr.
+      Wilding had for only company his thoughts touching the singular happenings
+      of that busy night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He went back to the sign of The Ship overlooking the Cross, and, kicking
+      off his sodden shoes, he supped quietly in the room of which shattered
+      door and broken window reminded him of his odd interview with Ruth, and of
+      the comedy of love she had enacted to detain him there. The thought of it
+      embittered him; the part she had played seemed to his retrospective mind
+      almost a wanton's part&mdash;for all that in name she was his wife. And
+      yet, underlying a certain irrepressible nausea, came the reflection that,
+      after all, her purpose had been to save his life. It would have been a
+      sweet thought, sweet enough to have overlaid that other bitterness, had he
+      not insisted upon setting it down entirely to her gratitude and her sense
+      of justice. She intended to repay the debt in which she had stood to him
+      since, at the risk of his own life and fortune, he had rescued her brother
+      from the clutches of the Lord-Lieutenant at Taunton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sighed heavily as he thought of the results that had attended his
+      compulsory wedding of her. In the intensity of his passion, in the
+      blindness of his vanity, which made him confident&mdash;gloriously
+      confident&mdash;that did he make himself her husband, she herself would
+      make of him her lover before long, he had committed an unworthiness of
+      which it seemed he might never cleanse himself in life. There was but one
+      amend, as he had told her. Let him make it, and perhaps she would&mdash;out
+      of gratitude, if out of no other feeling&mdash;come to think more kindly
+      of him; and that night it seemed to him as he sat alone in that mean
+      chamber that it were a better and a sweeter thing to earn some measure of
+      her esteem by death than to continue in a life that inspired her hatred
+      and resentment. From which it will be seen how utterly he disbelieved the
+      protestations she had uttered in seeking to detain him. They were&mdash;he
+      was assured&mdash;a part of a scheme, a trick, to lull him while Monmouth
+      and his officers were being butchered. And she had gone the length of
+      saying she loved him! He regretted that, being as he was convinced of its
+      untruth. What cause had she to love him? She hated him, and because she
+      hated him she did not scruple to lie to him&mdash;once with suggestions
+      and this time with actual expression of affection&mdash;that she might
+      gain her ends: ends that concerned her brother and Sir Rowland Blake. Sir
+      Rowland Blake! The name was a very goad to his passion and despair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He rose from the table and took a turn in the room, moving noiselessly in
+      his stockinged feet. He felt the need of air and action; the weariness of
+      his flesh incurred in his long ride from London was cast off or forgotten.
+      He must go forth. He picked up his fine shoes of Spanish leather, but as
+      luck would have it&mdash;little though he guessed the extent just then&mdash;he
+      found them hardening, though still damp from the dews of Mr. Newlington's
+      garden. He cast them aside, and, taking a key from his pocket, unlocked an
+      oak cupboard and withdrew the heavy muddy boots in which he had ridden
+      from town. He drew them on and, taking up his hat and sword, went down the
+      creaking stairs and out into the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bridgwater had fallen quiet by now; the army was gone and townsfolk were
+      in their beds. Moodily, unconsciously, yet as if guided by a sort of
+      instinct, he went down the High Street, and then turned off into the
+      narrower lane that led in the direction of Lupton House. By the gates of
+      this he paused, recalled out of his abstraction and rendered aware of
+      whither his steps had led him by the sight of the hall door standing open,
+      a black figure silhouetted against the light behind it. What was happening
+      here? Why were they not abed like all decent folk?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The figure called to him in a quavering voice. &ldquo;Mr. Wilding! Mr. Wilding!&rdquo;
+       for the light beating upon his face and figure from the open door had
+      revealed him. The form came swiftly forward, its steps pattering down the
+      walk, another slenderer figure surged in its place upon the threshold,
+      hovered there an instant, then plunged down into the darkness to come
+      after it. But the first was by now upon Mr. Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it, Jasper?&rdquo; he asked, recognizing the old servant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mistress Ruth!&rdquo; wailed the fellow, wringing his hands. &ldquo;She... she has
+      been... carried off.&rdquo; He got it out in gasps, winded by his short run and
+      by the excitement that possessed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No word said Wilding. He just stood and stared, scarcely understanding,
+      and in that moment they were joined by Richard. He seized Wilding by the
+      arm. &ldquo;Blake has carried her off,&rdquo; he cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Blake?&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding, and wondered with a sensation of nausea was it
+      an ordinary running away. But Richard's next words made it plain to him
+      that it was no amorous elopement, nor even amorous abduction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has carried her to Feversham... for her betrayal of his to-night's
+      plan to seize the Duke.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That stirred Mr. Wilding. He wasted no time in idle questions or idler
+      complainings. &ldquo;How long since?&rdquo; he asked, and it was he who clutched
+      Richard now, by the shoulder and with a hand that hurt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not ten minutes ago,&rdquo; was the quavering answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you were at hand when it befell?&rdquo; cried Wilding, the scorn in his
+      voice rising superior to his agitation and fears for Ruth. &ldquo;You were at
+      hand, and could neither prevent nor follow him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll go with you now, if you'll give chase,&rdquo; whimpered Richard, feeling
+      himself for once the craven that he was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If?&rdquo; echoed Wilding scornfully, and dragged him past the gate and up
+      towards the house even as he spoke. &ldquo;Is there room for a doubt of it? Have
+      you horses, at least?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To spare,&rdquo; said Richard as they hurried on. They skirted the house and
+      found the stable door open as Blake had left it. Old Jasper followed with
+      a lamp which burned steadily, so calm was the air of that July night. In
+      three minutes they had saddled a couple of nags; in five they were riding
+      for the bridge and the road to Weston Zoyland.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a miracle you remained in Bridgwater,&rdquo; said Richard as they rode.
+      &ldquo;How came you to be left behind?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had a task assigned me in the town against the Duke's return
+      to-morrow,&rdquo; Wilding explained, and he spoke almost mechanically, his mind
+      full of&mdash;anguished by&mdash;thoughts of Ruth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Against the Duke's return?&rdquo; cried Richard, first surprised and then
+      thinking that Wilding spoke at random. &ldquo;Against the Duke's return?&rdquo; he
+      repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is what I said?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the Duke is marching to Gloucester.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Duke is marching by circuitous ways to Sedgemoor,&rdquo; answered Wilding,
+      never dreaming that at this time of day there could be the slightest
+      imprudence in saying so much, indeed, taking little heed of what he said,
+      his mind obsessed by the other, to him, far weightier matter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To Sedgemoor?&rdquo; gasped Westmacott.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye&mdash;to take Feversham by surprise&mdash;to destroy King James's
+      soldiers in their beds. He should be near upon the attack by now. But
+      there! Spur on and save your breath if we are to overtake Sir Rowland.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They pounded on through the night at a breakneck pace which they never
+      slackened until, when within a quarter of a mile or so of Penzoy Pound,
+      where the army was encamped and slumbering by now, they caught sight of
+      the musketeers' matches glowing in the dark ahead of them. An outpost
+      barred their progress; but Richard had the watchword, and he spurred ahead
+      shouting &ldquo;Albemarle,&rdquo; and the soldiers fell back and gave them passage. On
+      they galloped, skirting Penzoy Pound and the army sleeping in utter
+      unconsciousness of the fate that was creeping stealthily upon it out of
+      the darkness and mists across the moors; they clattered on past Langmoor
+      Stone and dashed straight into the village, Richard never drawing rein
+      until he reached the door of the cottage where Feversham was lodged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had come not only at a headlong pace, but in a headlong manner,
+      without quite considering what awaited them at the end of their ride in
+      addition to their object of finding Ruth. It was only now, as he drew rein
+      before the lighted house and caught the sound of Blake's raised voice
+      pouring through an open window on the ground floor, that Richard fully
+      realized what manner of rashness he was committing. He was too late to
+      rescue Ruth from Blake. What more could he look to achieve? His hope had
+      been that with Wilding's help he might snatch her from Sir Rowland before
+      the latter reached his destination. But now&mdash;to enter Feversham's
+      presence and in association with so notorious a rebel as Mr. Wilding were
+      a piece of folly of the heroic kind that Richard did not savour. Indeed,
+      had it not been for Wilding's masterful presence, it is more than odds he
+      had turned tail, and ridden home again to bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Wilding, who had leapt nimbly to the ground, stood waiting for Richard
+      to dismount, impatient now that from the sound of Sir Rowland's voice he
+      had assurance that Richard had proved an able guide. The young man got
+      down, but might yet have hesitated had not Wilding caught him by the arm
+      and whirled him up the steps, through the open door, past the two soldiers
+      who kept it, and who were too surprised to stay him, straight into the
+      long, low-ceilinged chamber where Feversham, attended by a captain of
+      horse, was listening to Blake's angry narrative of that night's failure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding's entrance was decidedly sensational. He stepped quickly
+      forward, and, taking Blake who was still talking, all unconscious of those
+      behind him, by the collar of his coat, he interrupted him in the middle of
+      an impassioned period, wrenched him backwards off his feet, and dashed him
+      with a force almost incredible into a heap in a corner of the room. There
+      for some moments the baronet lay half dazed by the shock of his fall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A long table, which seemed to divide the chamber in two, stood between
+      Lord Feversham and his officer and Mr. Wilding and Ruth&mdash;by whose
+      side he had now come to stand in Blake's room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was an exclamation, half anger, half amazement, at Mr. Wilding's
+      outrage upon Sir Rowland, and the captain of horse sprang forward. But
+      Wilding raised his hand, his face so composed and calm that it was
+      impossible to think him conceiving any violence, as indeed he protested at
+      that moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be assured, gentlemen,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that I have no further rudeness to
+      offer any so that this lady is suffered to withdraw with me.&rdquo; And he took
+      in his own a hand that Ruth, amazed and unresisting, yielded up to him.
+      That touch of his seemed to drive out her fears and to restore her
+      confidence; the mortal terror in which she had been until his coming
+      dropped from her now. She was no longer alone and abandoned to the
+      vindictiveness of rude and violent men. She had beside her one in whom
+      experience had taught her to have faith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Louis Duras, Marquis de Blanquefort, and Earl of Feversham, coughed with
+      mock discreetness under cover of his hand. &ldquo;Ahem!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was a comely man with a long nose, good low-lidded eyes, a humorous
+      mouth, and a weak chin; at a glance he looked what he was, a weak,
+      good-natured sensualist. He was resplendent at the moment in a blue satin
+      dressing-gown stiff with gold lace, for he had been interrupted by Blake's
+      arrival in the very act of putting himself to bed, and his head&mdash;divested
+      of his wig&mdash;was bound up in a scarf of many colours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At his side, the red-coated captain, arrested by the general's sardonic
+      cough, stood, a red-faced, freckled boy, looking to his superior for
+      orders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I t'ink you 'ave 'urt Sare Rowland,&rdquo; said Feversham composedly in his bad
+      English. &ldquo;Who are you, sare?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This lady's husband,&rdquo; answered Wilding, whereupon the captain stared and
+      Feversham's brows went up in surprised amusement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So-ho! T'at true?&rdquo; quoth the latter in a tone suggesting that it
+      explained everything to him. &ldquo;T'is gif a differen' colour to your story,
+      Sare Rowlan'.&rdquo; Then he added in a chuckle, &ldquo;Ho, ho&mdash;l'amour!&rdquo; and
+      laughed outright.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake, gathering together his wits and his limbs at the same time, made
+      shift to rise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a plague does their relationship matter?&rdquo; he began. He would have
+      added more, but the Frenchman thought this question one that needed
+      answering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Parbleu!&rdquo; he swore, his amusement rising. &ldquo;It seem to matter somet'ing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damn me!&rdquo; swore Blake, red in the face from pale that he had been. &ldquo;Do
+      you conceive that if I had run away with his wife for her own sake I had
+      fetched her to you?&rdquo; He lurched forward as he spoke, but kept his distance
+      from Wilding, who stood between Ruth and him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham bowed sardonically. &ldquo;You are a such flatterer, Sare Rowlan',&rdquo;
+       said he, laughter bubbling in his words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake looked his scorn of this trivial Frenchman, who, upon scenting what
+      appeared to be the comedy of an outraged husband overtaking the man who
+      had carried off his wife, forgot the serious business, a part of which Sir
+      Rowland had already imparted to him. Captain Wentworth&mdash;a
+      time-serving gentleman&mdash;smiled with this French general of a British
+      army that he might win the great man's favour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have told your lordship,&rdquo; said Blake, froth on his lips, &ldquo;that the
+      twenty men I had from you, as well as Ensign Norris, are dead in
+      Bridgwater, and that my plan to carry off King Monmouth has come to ruin,
+      all because we were betrayed by this woman. It is now my further privilege
+      to point out to your lordship the man to whom she sold us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham misliked Sir Rowland's arrogant tone, misliked his angry,
+      scornful glance. His eyes narrowed, the laughter faded slowly from his
+      face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes, I remember,&rdquo; said he; &ldquo;t'is lady, you have tole us, betray you.
+      Ver' well. But you have not tole us who betray you to t'is lady.&rdquo; And he
+      looked inquiringly at Blake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The baronet's jaw dropped; his face lost some of its high colour. He was
+      stunned by the question as the bird is stunned that flies headlong against
+      a pane of glass. He had crashed into an obstruction so transparent that he
+      had not seen it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So!&rdquo; said Feversham, and he stroked the cleft of his chin. &ldquo;Captain
+      Wentwort', be so kind as to call t'e guard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wentworth moved to obey, but before he had gone round the table, Blake had
+      looked behind him and espied Richard shrinking by the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By heaven!&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;I can more than answer your lordship's question.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wentworth stopped, looking at Feversham.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Voyons,&rdquo; said the General.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can place you in possession of the man who has wrought our ruin. He is
+      there,&rdquo; and he pointed theatrically to Richard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham looked at the limp figure in some bewilderment. Indeed, he was
+      having a most bewildering evening&mdash;or morning, rather, for it was
+      even then on the stroke of one o'clock. &ldquo;An' who are you, sare?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard came forward, nerving himself for what was to follow. It had just
+      occurred to him that he held a card which should trump any trick of Sir
+      Rowland's vindictiveness, and the prospect heartened and comforted him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am this lady's brother, my lord,&rdquo; he answered, and his voice was fairly
+      steady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tiens!&rdquo; said Feversham, and, smiling, he turned to Wentworth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite a family party, sir,&rdquo; said the captain, smiling back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! mais tout&mdash;fait,&rdquo; said the General, laughing outright, and then
+      Wilding created a diversion by leading Ruth to a chair that stood at the
+      far end of the table, and drawing it forward for her. &ldquo;Ah, yes,&rdquo; said
+      Feversham airily, &ldquo;let Madame sit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very good, sir,&rdquo; said Ruth, her voice brave and calm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But somewhat lacking in spontaneity,&rdquo; Wilding criticized, which set
+      Wentworth staring and the Frenchman scowling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I call the guard, my lord?&rdquo; asked Wentworth crisply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I t'ink yes,&rdquo; said Feversham, and the captain gained the door, and spoke
+      a word to one of the soldiers without.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, my lord,&rdquo; exclaimed Blake in a tone of protest, &ldquo;I vow you are too
+      ready to take this fellow's word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He 'as spoke so few,&rdquo; said Feversham.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know who he is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You 'af 'eard 'im say&mdash;t'e lady's 'usband.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye&mdash;but his name,&rdquo; cried Blake, quivering with anger. &ldquo;Do you know
+      that it is Wilding?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The name certainly made an impression that might have flattered the man to
+      whom it belonged. Feversham's whole manner changed; the trivial air of
+      persiflage that he had adopted hitherto was gone on the instant, and his
+      brow grew dark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;T'at true?&rdquo; he asked sharply. &ldquo;Are you Mistaire Wildin'&mdash;Mistaire
+      Antoine Wildin'?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your lordship's most devoted servant,&rdquo; said Wilding suavely, and made a
+      leg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wentworth in the background paused in the act of reclosing the door to
+      stare at this gentleman whose name Albemarle had rendered so excellently
+      well known.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you to dare come 'ere?&rdquo; thundered Feversham, thoroughly roused by the
+      other's airy indifference. &ldquo;You to dare come 'ere&mdash;into my ver'
+      presence?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding smiled conciliatingly. &ldquo;I came for my wife, my lord,&rdquo; he
+      reminded him. &ldquo;It grieves me to intrude upon your lordship at so late an
+      hour, and indeed it was far from my intent. I had hoped to overtake Sir
+      Rowland before he reached you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nom de Dieu!&rdquo; swore Feversham. &ldquo;Ho! A so great effrontery!&rdquo; He swung
+      round upon Blake again. &ldquo;Sare Rowlan',&rdquo; he bade him angrily, &ldquo;be so kind
+      to tell me what 'appen in Breechwater&mdash;everyt'ing!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake, his face purple, seemed to struggle for breath and words. Mr.
+      Wilding answered for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir Rowland is so choleric, my lord,&rdquo; he said in his pleasant, level
+      voice, &ldquo;that perhaps the tale would come more intelligibly from me.
+      Believe me that he has served you to the best of his ability.
+      Unfortunately for the success of your choice plan of murder, I had news of
+      it at the eleventh hour, and with a party of musketeers I was able to
+      surprise and destroy your cut-throats in Mr. Newlington's garden. You see,
+      my lord, I was to have been one of the victims myself, and I resented the
+      attentions that were intended me. I had no knowledge that Sir Rowland had
+      contrived to escape, and, frankly, it is a thing I deplore more than I can
+      say, for had that not happened much trouble might have been saved and your
+      lordship's rest had not been disturbed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But t'e woman?&rdquo; cried Feversham impatiently. &ldquo;How is she come into this
+      galare?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was she who warned him,&rdquo; Blake got out, &ldquo;as already I have had the
+      honour to inform your lordship.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And your lordship cannot blame her for that,&rdquo; said Wilding. &ldquo;The lady is
+      a most loyal subject of King James; but she is also, as you observe, a
+      dutiful wife. I will add that it was her intention to warn me only when
+      too late for interference. Sir Rowland, as it happened, was slow in...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Silence!&rdquo; blazed the Frenchman. &ldquo;Now t'at I know who you are, t'at make a
+      so great difference. Where is t'e guard, Wentwort'?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hear them,&rdquo; answered the captain, and from the street came the tramp of
+      their marching feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham turned again to Blake. &ldquo;T'e affaire 'as 'appen' so,&rdquo; he said,
+      between question and assertion, summing up the situation as he understood
+      it. &ldquo;T'is rogue,&rdquo; and he pointed to Richard, &ldquo;'ave betray your plan to 'is
+      sister, who betray it to 'er 'usband, who save t'e Duc de Monmoot'.
+      N'est-ce pas?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is so,&rdquo; said Blake, and Ruth scarcely thought it worth while to add
+      that she had heard of the plot not only from her brother, but from Blake
+      as well. After all, Blake's attitude in the matter, his action in bringing
+      her to Feversham for punishment, and to exculpate himself, must suffice to
+      cause any such statement of hers to be lightly received by the General.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She sat in an anguished silence, her eyes wide, her face pale, and waited
+      for the end of this strange business. In her heart she did permit herself
+      to think that it would be difficult to assemble a group of men less worthy
+      of respect. Choleric and vindictive Blake, foolish Feversham, stupid
+      Wentworth, and timid Richard&mdash;even Richard did not escape the
+      unfavourable criticism they were undergoing in her subconscious mind. Only
+      Wilding detached in that assembly&mdash;as he had detached in another that
+      she remembered&mdash;and stood out in sharp relief a very man, calm,
+      intrepid, self-possessed; and if she was afraid, she was more afraid for
+      him than for herself. This was something that, perhaps, she scarcely
+      realized just then; but she was to realize it soon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham was speaking again, asking Blake a fresh question. &ldquo;And who
+      betray you to t'is rogue?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To Westmacott?&rdquo; cried Blake. &ldquo;He was in the plot with me. He was left to
+      guard the rear, to see that we were not taken by surprise, and he deserted
+      his post. Had he not done that, there had been no disaster, in spite of
+      Mr. Wilding's intervention.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham's brow was dark, his eyes glittered as they rested on the
+      traitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;T'at true, sare?&rdquo; he asked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not quite,&rdquo; put in Mr. Wilding. &ldquo;Mr. Westmacott, I think, was constrained
+      away. He did not intend...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tais-toi!&rdquo; blazed Feversham. &ldquo;Did I interrogate you? It is for Mistaire
+      Westercott to answer.&rdquo; He set a hand on the table and leaned forward
+      towards Wilding, his face very malign. &ldquo;You shall to answer for yourself,
+      Mistaire Wildin'; I promise you you shall to answer for yourself.&rdquo; He
+      turned again to Richard. &ldquo;Eh, bien?&rdquo; he snapped. &ldquo;Will you speak?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard came forward a step; he was certainly nervous, and certainly pale;
+      but neither as pale nor as nervous as from our knowledge of Richard we
+      might have looked to see him at that moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is in a measure true,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But what Mr. Wilding has said is more
+      exact. I was induced away. I did not dream any could know of the plan, or
+      that my absence could cause this catastrophe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you went, eh, vaurien? You t'ought t'at be to do your duty, eh? And it
+      was you who tole your sistaire?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I may have told her, but not before she had the tale already from Blake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham sneered and shrugged. &ldquo;Natural you will not speak true. A
+      traitor I 'ave observe' is always liar.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard drew himself up; he seemed invested almost with a new dignity.
+      &ldquo;Your lordship is pleased to account me a traitor?&rdquo; he inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A dam' traitor,&rdquo; said his lordship, and at that moment the door opened,
+      and a sergeant, with six men following him, stood at the salute upon the
+      threshold. &ldquo;A la bonne heure!&rdquo; his lordship hailed them. &ldquo;Sergean', you
+      will arrest t'is rogue and t'is lady,&rdquo;&mdash;he waved his hand from
+      Richard to Ruth&mdash;&ldquo;and you will take t'em to lock..up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sergeant advanced towards Richard, who drew a step away from him. Ruth
+      rose to her feet in agitation. Mr. Wilding interposed himself between her
+      and the guard, his hand upon his sword.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;do they teach no better courtesy in France?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham scowled at him, smiling darkly. &ldquo;I shall talk wit' you soon,
+      sare,&rdquo; said he, his words a threat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, my lord...&rdquo; began Richard. &ldquo;I can make it very plain I am no
+      traitor...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In t'e mornin',&rdquo; said Feversham blandly, waving his hand, and the
+      sergeant took Richard by the shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Richard twisted from his grasp. &ldquo;In the morning will be too late,&rdquo; he
+      cried. &ldquo;I have it in my power to render you such a service as you little
+      dream of.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take 'im away,&rdquo; said Feversham wearily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can save you from destruction,&rdquo; bawled Richard, &ldquo;you and your army.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps even now Feversham had not heeded him but for Wilding's sudden
+      interference.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Silence, Richard!&rdquo; he cried to him. &ldquo;Would you betray...?&rdquo; He checked on
+      the word; more he dared not say; but he hoped faintly that he had said
+      enough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham, however, chanced to observe that this man who had shown himself
+      hitherto so calm looked suddenly most singularly perturbed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh?&rdquo; quoth the General. &ldquo;An instan', Sergean'. What is t'is, eh?&rdquo;&mdash;and
+      he looked from Wilding to Richard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your lordship shall learn at a price,&rdquo; cried Richard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Me, I not bargain wit' traitors,&rdquo; said his lordship stiffly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well, then,&rdquo; answered Richard, and he folded his arms dramatically.
+      &ldquo;But no matter what your lordship's life may be hereafter, you will never
+      regret anything more bitterly than you shall regret this by sunrise if
+      indeed you live to see it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham shifted uneasily on his feet. &ldquo;'What you say?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;What
+      you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall know at a price,&rdquo; said Richard again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding, realizing the hopelessness of interfering now, stood gloomily
+      apart, a great bitterness in his soul at the indiscretion he had committed
+      in telling Richard of the night attack that was afoot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your lordship shall hear my price, but you need not pay it me until you
+      have had an opportunity of verifying the information I have to give you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me,&rdquo; said Feversham after a brief pause, during which he scrutinized
+      the young man's face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If your lordship will promise liberty and safe-conduct to my sister and
+      myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me,&rdquo; Feversham repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When you have promised to grant me what I ask in return for my
+      information.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, if I t'ink your information is wort'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am content,&rdquo; said Richard. He inclined his head and loosed the quarrel
+      of his news. &ldquo;Your camp is slumbering, your officers are all abed with the
+      exception of the outpost on the road to Bridgwater. What should you say if
+      I told you that Monmouth and all his army are marching upon you at this
+      very moment, will probably fall upon you before another hour is past?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding uttered a groan, and his hands fell to his sides. Had Feversham
+      observed this he might have been less ready with his sneering answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A lie!&rdquo; he answered, and laughed. &ldquo;My fren', I 'ave myself been to-night,
+      at midnight, on t'e moore, and I 'ave 'eard t'e army of t'e Duc de
+      Monmoot' marching to Bristol on t'e road&mdash;what you call t'e road,
+      Wentwort'?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Eastern Causeway, my lord,&rdquo; answered the captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Voil!&rdquo; said Feversham, and spread his hands. &ldquo;What you say now, eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That that is part of Monmouth's plan to come at you across the moors, by
+      way of Chedzoy, avoiding your only outpost, and falling upon you in your
+      beds, all unawares. Lord! sir, do not take my word for it. Send out your
+      scouts, and I dare swear they'll not need go far before they come upon the
+      enemy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham looked at Wentworth. His lordship's face had undergone a change.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What you t'ink?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed, my lord, it sounds so likely,&rdquo; answered Wentworth, &ldquo;that...
+      that... I marvel we did not provide against such a contingency.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I 'ave provide'!&rdquo; cried this nephew of the great Turenne. &ldquo;Ogelt'orpe
+      is on t'e moor and Sare Francis Compton. If t'is is true, 'ow can t'ey
+      'ave miss Monmoot'? Send word to Milor' Churchill at once, Wentwort'. Let
+      t'e matter be investigate'&mdash;at once, Wentwort'&mdash;at once!&rdquo; The
+      General was dancing with excitement. Wentworth saluted and turned to leave
+      the room. &ldquo;If you 'ave tole me true,&rdquo; continued Feversham, turning now to
+      Richard, &ldquo;you shall 'ave t'e price you ask, and t'e t'anks of t'e King's
+      army. But if not...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, it's true enough,&rdquo; broke in Wilding, and his voice was like a groan,
+      his face over-charged with gloom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham looked at him; his sneering smile returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Me, I not remember,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that Mr. Westercott 'ave include you in
+      t'e bargain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing had been further from Wilding's thoughts than such a suggestion.
+      And he snorted his disdain. The sergeant had fallen back at Feversham's
+      words, and his men lined the wall of the chamber. The General bade Richard
+      be seated whilst he waited. Sir Rowland stood apart, leaning wearily
+      against the wainscot, waiting also, his dull wits not quite clear how
+      Richard might have come by so valuable a piece of information, his evil
+      spirit almost wishing it untrue, in his vindictiveness, to the end that
+      Richard might pay the price of having played him false and Ruth the price
+      of having scorned him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham meanwhile was seeking&mdash;with no great success&mdash;to
+      engage Mr. Wilding in talk of Monmouth, against whom Feversham harboured
+      in addition to his political enmity a very deadly personal hatred; for
+      Feversham had been a suitor to the hand of the Lady Henrietta Wentworth,
+      the woman for whom Monmouth&mdash;worthy son of his father&mdash;had
+      practically abandoned his own wife; the woman with whom he had run off, to
+      the great scandal of court and nation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Despairing of drawing any useful information from Wilding, his lordship
+      was on the point of turning to Blake, when quick steps and the rattle of a
+      scabbard sounded without; the door was thrust open without ceremony, and
+      Captain Wentworth reappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord,&rdquo; he cried, his manner excited beyond aught one could have
+      believed possible in so phlegmatic-seeming a person, &ldquo;it is true. We are
+      beset.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beset!&rdquo; echoed Feversham. &ldquo;Beset already?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We can hear them moving on the moor. They are crossing the Langmoor
+      Rhine. They will be upon us in ten minutes at the most. I have roused
+      Colonel Douglas, and Dunbarton's regiment is ready for them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham exploded. &ldquo;What else 'ave you done?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;Where is Milor'
+      Churchill?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord Churchill is mustering his men as quietly as may be that they may be
+      ready to surprise those who come to surprise us. By Heaven, sir, we owe a
+      great debt to Mr. Westmacott. Without his information we might have had
+      all our throats cut whilst we slept.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be so kind to call Belmont,&rdquo; said Feversham. &ldquo;Tell him to bring my
+      clot'es.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wentworth turned and went out again to execute the General's orders.
+      Feversham spoke to Richard. &ldquo;We are oblige', Mr. Westercott,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;We
+      are ver' much oblige'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly from a little distance came the roll of drums. Other sounds began
+      to stir in the night outside to tell of a waking army.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham stood listening. &ldquo;It is Dunbarton's,&rdquo; he murmured. Then, with
+      some show of heat, &ldquo;Ah, pardieu!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;But it was a dirty t'ing t'is
+      Monmoot' 'ave prepare'. It is murder; it is not t'e war.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And yet,&rdquo; said Wilding critically, &ldquo;it is a little more like war than the
+      Bridgwater affair to which your lordship gave your sanction.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham pursed his lips and considered the speaker. Wentworth reentered,
+      followed by the Earl's valet carrying an armful of garments. His lordship
+      threw off his dressing-gown and stood forth in shirt and breeches.
+    </p>
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mais duche-toi, donc, Belmont!&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Nous nous battons! Ii faut
+que je m'habille.&rdquo; Belmont, a little wizened fellow who understood
+nothing of this topsy-turveydom, hastened forward, deposited his armful
+on the table, and selected a finely embroidered waistcoat, which he
+proceeded to hold for his master. Wriggling into it, Feversham rapped
+out his orders.
+</p>
+    <p>
+&ldquo;Captain Wentwort', you will go to your regimen at once. But
+first, ah&mdash;wait. Take t'ose six men and Mistaire Wilding. 'Ave 'im shot
+at once; you onderstan', eh? Good. Allons, Belmont! my cravat.&rdquo;
+ </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXII. THE EXECUTION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Captain Wentworth clicked his heels together and saluted. Blake, in the
+      background, drew a deep breath&mdash;unmistakably of satisfaction, and his
+      eyes glittered. A muffled cry broke from Ruth, who rose instantly from her
+      chair, her hand on her bosom. Richard stood with fallen jaw, amazed, a
+      trifle troubled even, whilst Mr. Wilding started more in surprise than
+      actual fear, and approached the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You heard, sir,&rdquo; said Captain Wentworth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I heard,&rdquo; answered Mr. Wilding quietly. &ldquo;But surely not aright. One
+      moment, sir,&rdquo; and he waved his hand so compellingly that, despite the
+      order he had received, the phlegmatic captain hesitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham, who had taken the cravat&mdash;a yard of priceless Dutch lace&mdash;from
+      the hands of his valet, and was standing with his back to the company at a
+      small and very faulty mirror that hung by the overmantel, looked peevishly
+      over his shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord,&rdquo; said Wilding, and Blake, for all his hatred of this man,
+      marvelled at a composure that did not forsake him even now, &ldquo;you are
+      surely not proposing to deal with me in this fashion&mdash;not seriously,
+      my lord?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, ca!&rdquo; said the Frenchman. &ldquo;T'ink it a jest if you please. What for you
+      come 'ere?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Assuredly not for the purpose of being shot,&rdquo; said Wilding, and actually
+      smiled. Then, in the tones of one discussing a matter that is grave but
+      not of surpassing gravity, he continued: &ldquo;It is not that I fail to
+      recognize that I may seem to have incurred the rigour of the law; but
+      these matters must be formally proved against me. I have affairs to set in
+      order against such a consummation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ta, ta!&rdquo; snapped Feversham. &ldquo;T'at not regard me Weutwort', you 'ave
+      'eard my order.&rdquo; And he returned to his mirror and the nice adjustment of
+      his neckwear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, my lord,&rdquo; insisted Wilding, &ldquo;you have not the right&mdash;you have
+      not the power so to proceed against me. A man of my quality is not to be
+      shot without a trial.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can 'ang if you prefer,&rdquo; said Feversham indifferently, drawing out
+      the ends of his cravat and smoothing them down upon his breast. He faced
+      about briskly. &ldquo;Give me t'at coat, Belmont. His Majesty 'ave empower me to
+      'ang or shoot any gentlemens of t'e partie of t'e Duc t'e Monmoot' on t'e
+      spot. I say t'at for your satisfaction. And look, I am desolate' to be so
+      quick wit' you, but please to consider t'e circumstance. T'e enemy go to
+      attack. Wentwort' must go to his regimen', and my ot'er officers are all
+      occupi'. You comprehen' I 'ave not t'e time to spare you&mdash;n'est-ce-pas?&rdquo;&mdash;Wentworth's
+      hand touched Wilding on the shoulder. He was standing with head slightly
+      bowed, his brows knit in thought. He looked round at the touch, sighed and
+      smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Belmont held the coat for his master, who slipped into it, and flung at
+      Wilding what was intended for a consolatory sop. &ldquo;It is fortune de guerre,
+      Mistaire Wilding. I am desolate'; but it is fortune of t'e war.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May it be less fortunate for your lordship, then,&rdquo; said Wilding dryly,
+      and was on the point of turning, when Ruth's voice came in a loud cry to
+      startle him and to quicken his pulses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord!&rdquo; It was a cry of utter anguish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Feversham, settling his gold-laced coat comfortably to his figure, looked
+      at her. &ldquo;Madame?&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she had nothing to say. She stood, deathly white, slightly bent
+      forward, one hand wringing the other, her eyes almost wild, her bosom
+      heaving frantically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hum!&rdquo; said Feversham, and he loosened and removed the scarf from his
+      head. He shrugged slightly and looked at Wentworth. &ldquo;Finissons!&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The word and the look snapped the trammels that bound Ruth's speech.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Five minutes, my lord!&rdquo; she cried imploringly. &ldquo;Give him five minutes&mdash;and
+      me, my lord!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding, deeply shaken, trembled now as he awaited Feversham's reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Frenchman seemed to waver. &ldquo;Bien,&rdquo; he began, spreading his hands. And
+      in that moment a shot rang out in the night and startled the whole
+      company. Feversham threw back his head; the signs of yielding left his
+      face. &ldquo;Ha!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;T'ey are arrive.&rdquo; He snatched his wig from his
+      lacquey's hands, donned it, and turned again an instant to the mirror to
+      adjust the great curls. &ldquo;Quick, Wentwort'! T'ere is no more time now. Make
+      Mistaire Wilding be shot at once. T'en to your regimen'.&rdquo; He faced about
+      and took the sword his valet proffered. &ldquo;Au revoir, messieurs!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Serviteur, madame!&rdquo; And, buckling his sword-belt as he went, he swept
+      out, leaving the door wide open, Belmont following, Wentworth saluting and
+      the guards presenting arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, sir,&rdquo; said the captain in a subdued voice, his eyes avoiding Ruth's
+      face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am ready,&rdquo; answered Wilding firmly, and he turned to glance at his
+      wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was bending towards him, her hands held out, such a look on her face
+      as almost drove him mad with despair, reading it as he did. He made a
+      sound deep in his throat before he found words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me one minute, sir&mdash;one minute,&rdquo; he begged Wentworth. &ldquo;I ask no
+      more than that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wentworth was a gentleman and not ill-natured. But he was a soldier and
+      had received his orders. He hesitated between the instincts of the two
+      conditions. And what time he did so there came a clatter of hoofs without
+      to resolve him. It was Feversham departing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall have your minute, sir,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;More I dare not give you, as
+      you can see.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From my heart I thank you,&rdquo; answered Mr. Wilding, and from the gratitude
+      of his tone you might have inferred that it was his life Wentworth had
+      accorded him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The captain had already turned aside to address his men. &ldquo;Two of you
+      outside, guard that window,&rdquo; he ordered. &ldquo;The rest of you, in the passage.
+      Bestir there!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take your precautions, by all means, sir,&rdquo; said Wilding; &ldquo;but I give you
+      my word of honour I shall attempt no escape.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wentworth nodded without replying. His eye lighted on Blake&mdash;who had
+      been seemingly forgotten in the confusion&mdash;and on Richard. A
+      kindliness for the man who met his end so unflinchingly, a respect for so
+      worthy an enemy, actuated the red-faced captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You had better take yourself off, Sir Rowland,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;And you, Mr.
+      Westmacott&mdash;you can wait in the passage with my men.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They obeyed him promptly enough, but when outside Sir Rowland made bold to
+      remind the captain that he was failing in his duty, and that he should
+      make a point of informing the General of this anon. Wentworth bade him go
+      to the devil, and so was rid of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alone, inside that low-ceilinged chamber, stood Ruth and Wilding face to
+      face. He advanced towards her, and with a shuddering sob she flung herself
+      into his arms. Still, he mistrusted the emotion to which she was a prey&mdash;dreading
+      lest it should have its root in pity. He patted her shoulder soothingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, nay, little child,&rdquo; he whispered in her ear. &ldquo;Never weep for me that
+      have not a tear for myself. What better resolution of the difficulties my
+      folly has created?&rdquo; For only answer she clung closer, her hands locked
+      about his neck, her slender body shaken by her silent weeping. &ldquo;Don't pity
+      me,&rdquo; he besought her. &ldquo;I am content it should be so. It is the amend I
+      promised you. Waste no pity on me, Ruth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She raised her face, her eyes wild and blurred with tears, looked up to
+      his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not pity!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;I want you, Anthony! I love you, Anthony,
+      Anthony!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His face grew ashen. &ldquo;It is true, then!&rdquo; he asked her. &ldquo;And what you said
+      to-night was true! I thought you said it only to detain me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, it is true, it is true!&rdquo; she wailed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sighed; he disengaged a hand to stroke her face. &ldquo;I am happy,&rdquo; he said,
+      and strove to smile. &ldquo;Had I lived, who knows...?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no, no,&rdquo; she interrupted him passionately, her arms tightening about
+      his neck. He bent his head. Their lips met and clung. A knock fell upon
+      the door. They started, and Wilding raised his hands gently to disengage
+      her pinioning arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must go, sweet,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God help me!&rdquo; she moaned, and clung to him still. &ldquo;It is I who am killing
+      you&mdash;I and your love for me. For it was to save me you rode hither
+      to-night, never pausing to weigh your own deadly danger. Oh, I am punished
+      for having listened to every voice but the voice of my own heart where you
+      were concerned. Had I loved you earlier&mdash;had I owned it earlier...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It had still been too late,&rdquo; he said, more to comfort her than because he
+      knew it to be so. &ldquo;Be brave for my sake, Ruth. You can be brave, I know&mdash;so
+      well. Listen, sweet. Your words have made me happy. Mar not this happiness
+      of mine by sending me out in grief at your grief.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her response to his prayer was brave, indeed. Through her tears came a
+      faint smile to overspread her face so white and pitiful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall meet soon again,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye&mdash;think on that,&rdquo; he bade her, and pressed her to him. &ldquo;Good-bye,
+      sweet! God keep you till we meet!&rdquo; he added, his voice infinitely tender.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilding!&rdquo; Wentworth's voice called him, and the captain thrust the
+      door open a foot or so. &ldquo;Mr. Wilding!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am coming,&rdquo; he answered steadily. He kissed her again, and on that kiss
+      of his she sank against him, and he felt her turn all limp. He raised his
+      voice. &ldquo;Richard!&rdquo; he shouted wildly. &ldquo;Richard!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the note of alarm in his voice, Wentworth flung wide the door and
+      entered, Richard's ashen face showing over his shoulder. In her brother's
+      care Wilding delivered his mercifully unconscious wife. &ldquo;See to her,
+      Dick,&rdquo; he said, and turned to go, mistrusting himself now. But he paused
+      as he reached the door, Wentworth waxing more and more impatient at his
+      elbow. He turned again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dick,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;we might have been better friends. I would we had been.
+      Let us part so at least,&rdquo; and he held out his hand, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before so much gallantry Richard was conquered almost to the point of
+      worship; a weak man himself, there was no virtue he could more admire than
+      strength. He left Ruth in the high-backed chair in which Wilding's tender
+      hands had placed her, and sprang forward, tears in his eyes. He wrung
+      Wilding's hands in wordless passion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be good to her, Dick,&rdquo; said Wilding, and went out with Wentworth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was marched down the street in the centre of that small party of
+      musketeers of Dunbarton's regiment, his thoughts all behind him rather
+      than ahead, a smile on his lips. He had conquered at the last. He thought
+      of that other parting of theirs, nearly a month ago, on the road by
+      Walford. Now, as then, circumstance was the fire that had melted her. But
+      the crucible was no longer&mdash;as then of pity; it was the crucible of
+      love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And in that same crucible, too, Anthony Wilding's nature had undergone a
+      transmutation; his love for Ruth had been purified of that base alloy of
+      desire which had driven him into the unworthiness of making her his own at
+      all costs; there was no carnal grossness in his present passion; it was
+      pure as a religion&mdash;the love that takes no account of self, the love
+      that makes for joyous and grateful martyrdom. And a joyous and grateful
+      martyr would Anthony Wilding have been could he have thought that his
+      death would bring her happiness or peace. In such a faith as that he had
+      marched&mdash;or so he thought blithely to his end, and the smile on his
+      lips had been less wistful than it was. Thinking of the agony in which he
+      had left her, he almost came to wish&mdash;so pure was his love grown&mdash;that
+      he had not conquered. The joy that at first was his was now all dashed.
+      His death would cause her pain. His death! O God! It is an easy thing to
+      be a martyr; but this was not martyrdom; having done what he had done he
+      had not the right to die. The last vestige of the smile that he had worn
+      faded from his tight-pressed lips, tight-pressed as though to endure some
+      physical suffering. His face greyed, and deep lines furrowed his brow.
+      Thus he marched on, mechanically, amid his marching escort, through the
+      murky, fog-laden night, taking no heed of the stir about them, for all
+      Weston Zoyland was aroused by now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ahead of them, and over to the east, the firing blazed and crackled,
+      volley upon volley, to tell them that already battle had been joined in
+      earnest. Monmouth's surprise had aborted, and it passed through Wilding's
+      mind that to a great extent he was to blame for this. But it gave him
+      little care.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At least his indiscretion had served the purpose of rescuing Ruth from
+      Lord Feversham's unclean clutches. For the rest, knowing that Monmouth's
+      army by far outnumbered Feversham's, he had no doubt that the advantage
+      must still lie with the Duke, in spite of Feversham's having been warned
+      in the eleventh hour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Louder grew the sounds of battle. Above the din of firing a swelling
+      chorus rose upon the night, startling and weird in such a time and place.
+      Monmouth's pious infantry went into action singing hymns, and Wentworth,
+      impatient to be at his post, bade his men go faster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The night was by now growing faintly luminous, and the deathly grey light
+      of approaching dawn hung in the mists upon the moor. Objects grew visible
+      in bulk at least, if not in form and shape, by the time the little company
+      had reached the end of Weston village and come upon the deep mud dyke
+      which had been Wentworth's objective&mdash;a ditch that communicated with
+      the great rhine that served the King's forces so well on that night of
+      Sedgemoor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Within some twenty paces of this Wentworth called a halt, and would have
+      had Wilding's hands pinioned behind him, and his eyes blindfolded, but
+      that Wilding begged him this might not be done. Wentworth was, as we know,
+      impatient; and between impatience and kindliness, perhaps, he acceded to
+      Wilding's prayer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He even hesitated a moment at the last. It was in his mind to speak some
+      word of comfort to the doomed man. Then a sudden volley, more terrific
+      than any that had preceded it, followed by hoarse cheering away to
+      eastward, quickened his impatience. He bade the sergeant lead Mr. Wilding
+      forward and stand him on the edge of the ditch. His object was that thus
+      the man's body would be disposed of without waste of time. This Wilding
+      realized, his soul rebelling against this fate which had come upon him in
+      the very hour when he most desired to live. Mad thoughts of escape crossed
+      his mind&mdash;of a leap across the dyke, and a wild dash through the fog.
+      But the futility of it was too appalling. The musketeers were already
+      blowing their matches. He would suffer the ignominy of being shot in the
+      back, like a coward, if he made any such attempt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so, despairing but not resigned, he took his stand on the very edge of
+      the ditch. In an irony of obligingness he set half of his heels over the
+      void, so that he was nicely balanced upon the edge of the cutting, and
+      must go backwards and down into the mud when hit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was this position he had taken that gave him an inspiration in that
+      last moment. The sergeant had moved away out of the line of fire, and he
+      stood there alone, waiting, erect and with his head held high, his eyes
+      upon the grey mass of musketeers&mdash;blurred alike by mist and
+      semi-darkness&mdash;some twenty paces distant along the line of which
+      glowed eight red fuses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wentworth's voice rang out with the words of command.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Blow your matches!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Brighter gleamed the points of light, and under their steel pots the faces
+      of the musketeers, suffused by a dull red glow, sprang for a moment out of
+      the grey mass, to fade once more into the general greyness at the word,
+      &ldquo;Cock your matches!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Guard your pans!&rdquo; came a second later the captain's voice, and then:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Present!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a stir and rattle, and the dark, indistinct figure standing on
+      the lip of the ditch was covered by the eight muskets. To the eyes of the
+      firing-party he was no more than a blurred shadowy form, showing a little
+      darker than the encompassing dark grey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give fire!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On the word Mr. Wilding lost the delicate, precarious balance he had been
+      sustaining on the edge of the ditch, and went over backwards, at the
+      imminent risk&mdash;as he afterwards related&mdash;of breaking his neck.
+      At the same instant a jagged, eight-pointed line of flame slashed the
+      darkness, and the thunder of the volley pealed forth to lose itself in the
+      greater din of battle on Penzoy Pound, hard by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIII. MR. WILDING'S BOOTS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In the filth of the ditch, Mr. Wilding rolled over and lay prone. He threw
+      out his left arm, and rested his brow upon it to keep his face above the
+      mud. He strove to hold his breath, not that he might dissemble death, but
+      that he might avoid being poisoned by the foul gases that, disturbed by
+      his weight, bubbled up to choke him. His body half sank and settled in the
+      mud, and seen from above, as he was presently seen by Wentworth&mdash;who
+      ran forward with the sergeant's lanthorn to assure himself that the work
+      had been well done&mdash;he had all the air of being not only dead but
+      already half buried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now, for a second, Mr. Wilding was in his greatest danger, and this
+      from the very humaneness of the sergeant. The fellow advanced to the
+      captain's side, a pistol in his hand. Wentworth held the light aloft and
+      peered down into that six feet of blackness at the jacent figure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I give him an ounce of lead to make sure, Captain?&rdquo; quoth the
+      sergeant. But Wentworth, in his great haste, had already turned about, and
+      the light of his lanthorn no longer revealed the form of Mr. Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is not the need. The ditch will do what may remain to be done, if
+      anything does. Come on, man. We are wanted yonder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The light passed, steps retreated, the sergeant muttering, and then
+      Wentworth's voice was heard by Wilding some little distance off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bring up your muskets!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shoulder!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By the right&mdash;turn! March!&rdquo; And the tramp, tramp of feet receded
+      rapidly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding was already sitting up, endeavouring to get a breath of purer air.
+      He rose to his feet, sinking almost to the top of his boots in the oozy
+      slime. Foul gases were belched up to envelop him. He seized at
+      irregularities in the bank, and got his head above the level of the
+      ground. He thrust forward his chin and took great greedy breaths in a very
+      gluttony of air&mdash;and never came Muscadine sweeter to a drunkard's
+      lips. He laughed softly to himself. He was alone and safe. Wentworth and
+      his men had disappeared. Away in the direction of Penzoy Pound the sounds
+      of battle swelled ever to a greater volume. Cannons were booming now, and
+      all was uproar&mdash;flame and shouting, cheering and shrieking, the
+      thunder of hastening multitudes, the clash of steel, the pounding of
+      horses, all blent to make up the horrid din of carnage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilding listened, and considered what to do. His first impulse was to
+      join the fray. But, bethinking him that there could be little place for
+      him in the confusion that must prevail by now, he reconsidered the matter,
+      and his thoughts returning to Ruth&mdash;the wife for whom he had been at
+      such pains to preserve himself on the very brink of death&mdash;he
+      resolved to endanger himself no further for that night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He dropped back into the ditch, and waded, ankle deep in slime, to the
+      other side. There he crawled out, and gaining the moor lay down awhile to
+      breathe his lungs. But not for long. The dawn was creeping pale and
+      ghostly across the solid earth, and a faint fresh breeze was stirring and
+      driving the mist in wispy shrouds before it. If he lingered there he might
+      yet be found by some party of Royalist soldiers, and that would be to undo
+      all that he had done. He rose, and struck out across the peaty ground.
+      None knew the moors better than did he, and had he been with Grey's horse
+      that night, it is possible things had fared differently, for he had proved
+      a surer guide than did Godfrey, the spy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first he thought of making for Bridgwater and Lupton House. By now
+      Richard would be on his way thither with Ruth, and Wilding was in haste
+      that she should be reassured that he had not fallen to the muskets of
+      Wentworth's firing-party. But Bridgwater was far, and he began to realize,
+      now that all excitement was past, that he was utterly exhausted. Next he
+      thought of Scoresby Hall and his cousin Lord Gervase. But he was by no
+      means sure that he might count upon a welcome. Gervase had shown no
+      sympathy for Monmouth or his partisans, and whilst he would hardly go so
+      far as to refuse Mr. Wilding shelter, still Wilding felt an aversion to
+      seeking what might be grudged him. At last he bethought him of home.
+      Zoyland Chase was near at hand; but he had not been there since his
+      wedding-day, and in the mean time he knew that it had been used as a
+      barrack for the militia, and had no doubt that it had been wrecked and
+      plundered. Still, it must have walls and a roof, and that, for the time,
+      was all he craved, that he might rest awhile and recuperate his wasted
+      forces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A half-hour later he dragged himself wearily up the avenue between the
+      elms&mdash;looking white as snow in the pale July dawn&mdash;to the
+      clearing in front of his house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Desertion was stamped upon the face of it. Shattered windows and hanging
+      shutters everywhere. How wantonly they had wrecked it! It might have been
+      a church, and the militia a regiment of Cromwell's iconoclastic Puritans.
+      The door was locked, but going round he found a window&mdash;one of the
+      door-windows of his library&mdash;hanging loose upon its hinges. He pushed
+      it wide, and entered with a heavy heart. Instantly something stirred in a
+      corner; a fierce growl was followed by a furious bark, and a lithe brown
+      body leapt from the greater into the lesser shadows to attack the
+      intruder. But at one word of his the hound checked suddenly, crouched an
+      instant, then with a queer, throaty sound bounded forward in a wild
+      delight that robbed it on the instant of its voice. It found it anon and
+      leapt about him, barking furious joy in spite of all his vain endeavours
+      to calm it. He grew afraid lest the dog should draw attention. He knew not
+      who&mdash;if any&mdash;might be in possession of his house. The library,
+      as he looked round, showed a scene of wreckage that excellently matched
+      the exterior. Not a picture on the walls, not an arras, but had been rent
+      to shreds. The great lustre that had hung from the centre of the ceiling
+      was gone. Disorder reigned along the bookshelves, and yet there and
+      elsewhere there was a certain orderliness, suggesting an attempt to
+      straighten up the place after the ravagers had departed. It was these
+      signs made him afraid the house might be tenanted by such as might prove
+      his enemies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Down, Jack,&rdquo; he said to the dog for the twentieth time, patting its sleek
+      head. &ldquo;Down, down!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But still the dog bounded about him, barking wildly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sh!&rdquo; he hissed suddenly. Steps sounded in the hall. It was as he feared.
+      The door was suddenly thrown open, and the grey morning light gleamed upon
+      the long barrel of a musket. After it, bearing it, entered a white-haired
+      old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused on the threshold, measuring the tall disordered stranger who
+      stood there, his figure a black silhouette against the window by which he
+      had entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What seek you here, sir, in this house of desolation?&rdquo; asked the voice of
+      Mr. Wilding's old servant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He answered but one word. &ldquo;Walters!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The musket dropped with a clatter from the old man's hands. He sank back
+      against the doorpost and leaned there an instant; then, whimpering and
+      laughing, he came tottering forward&mdash;his old legs failing him in this
+      excess of unexpected joy&mdash;and sank on his knees to kiss his master's
+      hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding patted the old head, as he had patted the dog's a little while
+      ago. He was oddly moved; there was a knot in his throat. No home-coming
+      could well have been more desolate. And yet, what home-coming could have
+      brought him such a torturing joy as was now his? Oh, it is good to be
+      loved, if it be by no more than a dog and an old servant!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a moment Walters was himself again. He was on his feet, scrutinizing
+      Wilding's haggard face and disordered, filthy clothes. He broke into
+      exclamations between dismay and reproach, but these Wilding interrupted to
+      ask the old man how it happened that he had remained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My son John was a sergeant in the troop that quartered itself here, sir,&rdquo;
+       Walters explained, &ldquo;and so they left me alone. But even had it not been
+      for that, I scarcely think they would have harmed an old man. They were
+      brave fellows for all the mischief they did here, and they seemed to have
+      little heart in the service of the Popish King. It was the officers drove
+      them on to all this damage, and once they'd started&mdash;well, there were
+      rogues amongst them saw a chance of plunder, and they took it. I have
+      sought to put the place to rights; but they did some woeful, wanton
+      mischief.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding sighed. &ldquo;It's little matter, perhaps, as the place is no longer
+      mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No... no longer yours, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm an attainted outlaw, Walters,&rdquo; he explained. &ldquo;They'll bestow it on
+      some Popish time-server, unless King Monmouth can follow up by greater
+      victories to-night's. Have you aught a man may eat or drink?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Meat and wine, fresh linen and fresh garments did old Walters find him;
+      and when he had washed, eaten, and drunk, Mr. Wilding wrapped himself in a
+      dressing-gown and laid himself down to sleep on a settle in the library,
+      his servant and his dog on guard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not above an hour, however, was he destined to enjoy his hard-earned rest.
+      The light had grown, meanwhile, and from grey it had turned golden, the
+      heralds of the sun being already in the east. In the distance the firing
+      had died down to a mere occasional boom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly old Walters raised his head to listen. The beat of hoofs was
+      drawing rapidly near, so near that presently he rose in alarm, for a
+      horseman was pounding up the avenue, had drawn rein at the main entrance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Walters knit his brows in perplexity, and glanced at his master who slept
+      on utterly worn out. A silent pause followed, lasting some minutes. Then
+      it was the dog that rose with a growl, his coat bristling, and an instant
+      later there came a sharp rapping at the hall door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sh! Down, Jack!&rdquo; whispered Walters, afraid of rousing Mr. Wilding. He
+      tiptoed softly across the room, picked up his musket, and, calling the
+      dog, went out, a great fear in his heart, but not for himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rapping continued, growing every instant more urgent, so urgent that
+      Walters was almost reassured. Here was no enemy, but surely some one in
+      need. Walters opened at last, and Mr. Trenchard, grimy of face and hands,
+      his hat shorn of its plumes, his clothes torn, staggered with an oath
+      across the threshold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Walters!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Thank God! I thought you'd be here, but I wasn't
+      certain. Down, Jack!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The hound was barking madly again, having recognized an old friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Plague on the dog!&rdquo; growled Walters. &ldquo;He'll wake Mr. Wilding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilding?&rdquo; said Trenchard, and checked midway across the hall. &ldquo;Mr.
+      Wilding?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He arrived here a couple of hours ago, sir...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wilding here? Oddsheart! I was more than well advised to come. Where is
+      he, man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sh, sir! He's asleep in the library. You'll wake him, you'll wake him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Trenchard never paused. He crossed the hall at a bound, and flung wide
+      the library door. &ldquo;Anthony!&rdquo; he shouted. &ldquo;Anthony!&rdquo; And in the background
+      Walters cursed him for a fool. Wilding leapt to his feet, awake and
+      startled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wha... Nick!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oons!&rdquo; roared Nick. &ldquo;You're choicely found. I came to send to Bridgwater
+      for you. We must away at once, man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How&mdash;away? I thought you were in the fight, Nick.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And don't I look as if I had been?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But then...
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The fight is fought and lost; there's an end to the garboil. Monmouth is
+      in full flight with what's left him of his horse. When I quitted the
+      field, he was riding hard for Polden Hill.&rdquo; He dropped into a chair, his
+      accents grim and despairing, his eyes haggard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lost?&rdquo; gasped Wilding, and his conscience pricked him for a moment,
+      remembering how much it had been his fault&mdash;however indirectly&mdash;that
+      Feversham had been forewarned. &ldquo;But how lost?&rdquo; he cried a moment later.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ask Grey,&rdquo; snapped Trenchard. &ldquo;Ask his craven, numskulled lordship. He
+      had as good a hand in losing it as any. Oh, it was all most infernally
+      mishandled, as has been everything in this ill-starred rising. Grey sent
+      back Godfrey, the guide, and attempted in the dark to find his own way
+      across the rhine. He missed the ford. What else could the fool have hoped?
+      And when he was discovered and Dunbarton's guns began to play on us&mdash;hell
+      and fire! we ran as if Sedgemoor had been a race-course.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The rest was but the natural sequel. The foot, seeing our confusion,
+      broke. They were rallied again; broke again; and again were rallied; but
+      all too late. The enemy was up, and with that damned ditch between us
+      there was no getting to close quarters with them. Had Grey ridden round,
+      and sought to turn their flank, things might have been&mdash;O God!&mdash;they
+      would have been entirely different. I did suggest it. But for my pains
+      Grey threatened to pistol me if I presumed to instruct him in his duty. I
+      would to Heaven I had pistolled him where he stood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Walters, at gaze in the doorway, listened to the bitter tirade. Wilding,
+      on the settle, sat silent a moment, his elbows on his knees, his chin in
+      his hands, his eyes set and grim as Trenchard's own. Then he mastered
+      himself, and waved a hand towards the table where stood food and wine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eat and drink, Nick,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and we'll discuss what's to be done.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It'll need little discussing,&rdquo; was Nick's savage answer as he rose and
+      went to pour himself a cup of wine. &ldquo;There's but one course open to us
+      &mdash;instant flight. I am for Minehead to join Hewling's horse, which
+      went there yesterday for guns. We might seize a ship somewhere on the
+      coast, and thus get out of this infernal country of mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They discussed the matter in spite of Trenchard's having said that there
+      was nothing to discuss, and in the end Wilding agreed to go with him. What
+      choice had he? But first he must go to Bridgwater to reassure his wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To Bridgwater?&rdquo; blazed Trenchard, in a passion at the folly of the
+      suggestion. &ldquo;You're clearly mad! All the King's forces will be there in an
+      hour or two.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No matter,&rdquo; said Wilding, &ldquo;I must go. I am dead already, as it happens.&rdquo;
+       And he related his singular adventure in Feversham's camp last night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard heard him in amazement. If any suspicion crossed his mind that
+      his friend's love affairs had had anything to do with rousing Feversham
+      prematurely, he showed no sign of it. But he shook his head at Wilding's
+      insistence that he must first go to Lupton House.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shalt send a message, Anthony. Walters will find some one to bear it. But
+      you must not go yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the end Mr. Trenchard prevailed upon him to adopt this course, however
+      reluctant he might be. Thereafter they proceeded to make their
+      preparations. There were still a couple of nags in the stables, in spite
+      of the visitation of the militia, and Walters was able to find fresh
+      clothes for Mr. Trenchard above-stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A half-hour later they were ready to set out on this forlorn hope of
+      escape; the horses were at the door, and Mr. Wilding was in the act of
+      drawing on the fresh pair of boots which Walters had fetched him. Suddenly
+      he paused, his foot in the leg of his right boot, and sat bemused a
+      moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard, watching him, waxed impatient. &ldquo;What ails you now?&rdquo; he croaked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without answering him, Wilding turned to Walters. &ldquo;Where are the boots I
+      wore last night?&rdquo; he asked, and his voice was sharp&mdash;oddly sharp,
+      considering how trivial the matter of his speech.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the kitchen,&rdquo; answered Walters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fetch me them.&rdquo; And he kicked off again the boot he had half drawn on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But they are all befouled with mud, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Clean them, Walters; clean them and let me have them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Still Walters hesitated, pointing out that the boots he had brought his
+      master were newer and sounder. Wilding interrupted him impatiently. &ldquo;Do as
+      I bid you, Walters.&rdquo; And the old man, understanding nothing, went off on
+      the errand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A pox on your boots!&rdquo; swore Trenchard. &ldquo;What does this mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding seemed suddenly to have undergone a transformation. His gloom had
+      fallen from him. He looked up at his old friend and, smiling, answered
+      him. &ldquo;It means, Nick, that whilst these excellent boots that Walters would
+      have me wear might be well enough for a ride to the coast such as you
+      propose, they are not at all suited to the journey I intend to make.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Maybe,&rdquo; said Nick with a sniff, &ldquo;you're intending to journey to Tower
+      Hill?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In that direction,&rdquo; answered Mr. Wilding suavely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am for London, Nick. And you shall come with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God save us! Do you keep a fool's egg under that nest of hair?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilding explained, and by the time Walters returned with the boots
+      Trenchard was walking up and down the room in an odd agitation. &ldquo;Odds my
+      life, Tony!&rdquo; he cried at last. &ldquo;I believe it is the best thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The only thing, Nick.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And since all is lost, why...&rdquo; Trenchard blew out his cheeks and smacked
+      fist into palm. &ldquo;I am with you,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIV. JUSTICE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It has fallen to my lot in the course of this veridical chronicle of Mr.
+      Anthony Wilding's connection with the Rebellion in the West, and of his
+      wedding and post-nuptial winning of Ruth Westmacott, to relate certain
+      matters of incident and personality that may be accounted strange. But the
+      strangest yet remains to be related. For in spite of all that had passed
+      between Sir Rowland Blake and the Westmacotts on that memorable night of
+      Sunday to Monday, on which the battle of Sedgemoor was lost and won,
+      towards the end of that same month of July we find him not only back at
+      Lupton House, but once again the avowed suitor of Mr. Wilding's widow. For
+      effrontery this is a matter of which it is to be doubted whether history
+      furnishes a parallel. Indeed, until the circumstances are sifted it seems
+      wild and incredible. So let us consider these.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the morrow of Sedgemoor, the town of Bridgwater became invested&mdash;infested
+      were no whit too strong a word&mdash;by the King's forces under Feversham
+      and the odious Kirke, and there began a reign of terror for the town. The
+      prisons were choked with attainted and suspected rebels. From Bridgwater
+      to Weston Zoyland the road was become an avenue of gallows, each bearing
+      its repulsive grimace-laden burden; for the King's commands were
+      unequivocal, and hanging was the order of the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is not my desire at this stage to surfeit you with the horrors that
+      were perpetrated during that hideous week of July, when no man's life was
+      safe from the royal butchers. The awful campaign of Jeffries and his four
+      associates was yet to follow, but it is doubtful if it could compare in
+      ruthlessness with that of Feversham and Kirke. At least, when Jeffries
+      came, men were given a trial&mdash;or what looked like it&mdash;and there
+      remained them a chance, however slender, of acquittal, as many lived to
+      prove thereafter. With Feversham there was no such chance. And it was of
+      this circumstance that Sir Rowland Blake took the fullest and the
+      cowardliest advantage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There can be no doubt that Sir Rowland was a villain. It might be urged
+      for him that he was a creature of circumstance, and that had circumstances
+      been other it is possible he had been a credit to his name. But he was
+      weak in character, and out of that weakness he had developed a Herculean
+      strength in villainy. Failure had dogged him in everything he undertook.
+      Broken at the gaming-tables, hounded out of town by creditors, he was in
+      desperate straits to repair his fortunes and, as we have seen, he was not
+      nice in his endeavours to achieve that end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth Westmacott's fair inheritance had seemed an easy thing to conquer,
+      and to its conquest he had applied himself to suffer defeat as he had
+      suffered it in all things else. But Sir Rowland did not yet acknowledge
+      himself beaten, and the Bridgwater reign of terror dealt him a fresh hand&mdash;a
+      hand of trumps. With this he came boldly to renew the game.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was as smooth as oil at first, a very penitent, confessing himself mad
+      in what he had done on that Sunday night&mdash;mad with despair and rage
+      at having been defeated in the noble task to which he had turned his
+      hands. His penitence might have had little effect upon the Westmacotts had
+      he not known how to insinuate that it might be best for them to lend an
+      ear to it&mdash;and a forgiving one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will tell Mr. Westmacott, Jasper,&rdquo; he had said, when Jasper told him
+      that they could not receive him, &ldquo;that he would be unwise not to see me,
+      and the same to Mistress Wilding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And old Jasper had carried his message, and had told Richard of the wicked
+      smile that had been on Sir Rowland's lips when he had uttered it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now Richard was in many ways a changed man since that night at Weston
+      Zoyland. A transformation seemed to have been wrought in him as odd as it
+      was sudden, and it dated from the moment when with tears in his eyes he
+      had wrung Wilding's hand in farewell. Where precept had failed, Richard
+      found himself converted by example. He contrasted himself in that
+      stressful hour with great-souled Anthony Wilding, and saw himself as he
+      was, a weakling, strong only in vicious ways. Repentance claimed him;
+      repentance and a fine ambition to be worthier, to resemble as nearly as
+      his nature would allow him this Anthony Wilding whom he took for pattern.
+      He changed his ways, abandoned drink and gaming, and gained thereby a
+      healthier countenance. Then in his zeal he overshot his mark. He developed
+      a taste for Scripture-reading, bethought him of prayers, and even took to
+      saying grace to his meat. Indeed&mdash;for conversion, when it comes, is a
+      furious thing&mdash;the swing of his soul's pendulum threatened now to
+      carry him to extremes of virtue and piety. &ldquo;O Lord!&rdquo; he would cry a score
+      of times a day, &ldquo;Thou hast brought up my soul from the grave; Thou hast
+      kept me alive that I should not go down to the pit!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But underlying all this remained unfortunately the inherent weakness of
+      his nature&mdash;indeed, it was that very weakness and malleability made
+      this sudden and wholesale conversion possible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon hearing Sir Rowland's message his heart fainted, despite his good
+      intentions, and he urged that perhaps they had better hear what the
+      baronet might have to say.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was three days after Sedgemoor Fight, and poor Ruth was worn and
+      exhausted with her grief&mdash;believing Wilding dead, for he had sent no
+      message to inform her of his almost miraculous preservation. The thing he
+      went to do in London was fraught with such peril that he foresaw but the
+      slenderest chance of escaping with his life. Therefore, he had argued, why
+      console her now with news that he lived, when in a few days the headsman
+      might prove that his end had been but postponed? To do so might be to give
+      her cause to mourn him twice. Again he was haunted by the thought that, in
+      spite of all, it may have been pity that had so grievously moved her at
+      their last meeting. Better, then, to wait; better for both their sakes. If
+      he came safely through his ordeal it would be time enough to bear her news
+      of his preservation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In deepest mourning, very white, with dark stains beneath her eyes to tell
+      the tale of anguished vigils, she received Sir Rowland in the
+      withdrawing-room, her brother at her side. To his expressions of deep
+      penitence he found them cold; so he passed on to show them what disastrous
+      results might ensue upon a stubborn maintaining of this attitude of theirs
+      towards him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have come,&rdquo; he said, his eyes downcast, his face long-drawn, for he
+      could play the sorrowful with any hypocrite in England, &ldquo;to do something
+      more than speak of my grief and regret. I have come to offer proof of it
+      by service.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We ask no service of you, sir,&rdquo; said Ruth, her voice a sword of
+      sharpness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sighed, and turned to Richard. &ldquo;This were folly,&rdquo; he assured his whilom
+      friend. &ldquo;You know the influence I wield.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do I?&rdquo; quoth Richard, his tone implying doubt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You think that the bungled matter at Newlington's may have shaken it?&rdquo;
+       quoth Blake. &ldquo;With Feversham, perhaps. But Albemarle, remember, trusts me
+      very fully. There are ugly happenings in the town here. Men are being hung
+      like linen on a washing-day. Be not too sure that yourself are free from
+      all danger.&rdquo; Richard paled under the baronet's baleful, half-sneering
+      glance. &ldquo;Be not in too great haste to cast me aside, for you may find me
+      useful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you threaten, sir?&rdquo; cried Ruth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Threaten?&rdquo; quoth he. He turned up his eyes and showed the whites of them.
+      &ldquo;Is it to threaten to promise you my protection; to show you how I can
+      serve you?&mdash;than which I ask no sweeter boon of heaven. A word from
+      me, and Richard need fear nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He need fear nothing without that word,&rdquo; said Ruth disdainfully. &ldquo;Such
+      service as he did Lord Feversham the other night...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is soon forgotten,&rdquo; Blake cut in adroitly. &ldquo;Indeed, 'twill be most
+      convenient to his lordship to forget it. Think you he would care to have
+      it known that 'twas to such a chance he owes the preservation of his
+      army?&rdquo; He laughed, and added in a voice of much sly meaning, &ldquo;The times
+      are full of peril. There's Kirke and his lambs. And there's no saying how
+      Kirke might act did he chance to learn what Richard failed to do that
+      night when he was left to guard the rear at Newlington's!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you inform him of it?&rdquo; cried Richard, between anger and alarm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake thrust out his hands in a gesture of horrified repudiation.
+      &ldquo;Richard!&rdquo; he cried in deep reproof and again, &ldquo;Richard!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What other tongue has he to fear?&rdquo; asked Ruth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Am I the only one who knows of it?&rdquo; cried Blake. &ldquo;Oh, madam, why will you
+      ever do me such injustice? Richard has been my friend&mdash;my dearest
+      friend. I wish him so to continue, and I swear that he shall find me his,
+      as you shall find me yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a boon I could dispense with,&rdquo; she assured him, and rose. &ldquo;This
+      talk can profit little, Sir Rowland,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;You seek to bargain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall see how unjust you are,&rdquo; he cried with deep sorrow. &ldquo;It is but
+      fitting, perhaps, after what has passed. It is my punishment. But you
+      shall come to acknowledge that you have done me wrong. You shall see how I
+      shall befriend and protect him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That said, he took his leave and went, but he left behind him a shrewd
+      seed of fear in Richard's mind, and of the growth that sprang from it
+      Richard almost unconsciously transplanted something in the days that
+      followed into the heart of Ruth. As a result, to make sure that no harm
+      should come to her brother, the last of his name and race, she resolved to
+      receive Sir Rowland, resolved in spite of Diana's outspoken scorn, in
+      spite of Richard's protests&mdash;for though afraid, yet he would not have
+      it so&mdash;in spite even of her own deep repugnance of the man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Days passed and grew to weeks. Bridgwater was settling down to peace again&mdash;to
+      peace and mourning; the Royalist scourge had spread to Taunton, and Blake
+      lingered on at Lupton House, an unwelcome but an undeniable guest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His presence was as detestable to Richard now as it was to Ruth, for
+      Richard had to submit to the mockery with which the town rake lashed his
+      godly bearing and altered ways. More than once in gusts of sudden valour
+      the boy urged his sister to permit him to drive the baronet from the house
+      and let him do his worst. But Ruth, afraid for Richard, bade him wait
+      until the times were more settled. When the royal vengeance had slaked its
+      lust for blood it might matter little, perhaps, what tales Sir Rowland
+      might elect to carry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so Sir Rowland remained and waited. He assured himself that he knew
+      how to be patient, and congratulated himself upon that circumstance.
+      Wilding dead, a little time must now suffice to blunt the sharp edge of
+      his widow's grief; let him but await that time, and the rest should be
+      easy, the battle his. With Richard he did not so much as trouble himself
+      to reckon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus he determined, and thus no doubt he would have acted but for an
+      unforeseen contingency. A miserable, paltry creditor had smoked him out in
+      his Somerset retreat, and got a letter to him full of dark hints of a
+      debtor's gaol. The fellow's name was Swiney, and Sir Rowland knew him for
+      fierce and pertinacious where a defaulting creditor was concerned. One
+      only course remained him: to force matters with Wilding's widow. For days
+      he refrained, fearing that precipitancy might lose him all; it was his
+      wish to do the thing without too much coercion; some, he was not coxcomb
+      enough to think&mdash;coxcomb though he was&mdash;might be dispensed with.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last one Sunday evening he decided to be done with dallying, and to
+      bring Ruth between the hammer and the anvil of his will. It was the last
+      Sunday in July, exactly three weeks after Sedgemoor, and the odd
+      coincidence of his having chosen such a day and hour you shall appreciate
+      anon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were on the lawn taking the cool of the evening after an oppressively
+      hot day. By the stone seat, now occupied by Lady Horton and Diana, Richard
+      lay on the sward at their feet in talk with them, and their talk was of
+      Sir Rowland. Diana&mdash;gall in her soul to see the baronet by way of
+      gaining yet his ends&mdash;chid Richard in strong terms for his weakness
+      in submitting to Blake's constant presence at Lupton House. And Richard
+      meekly took her chiding and promised that, if Ruth would but sanction it,
+      things should be changed upon the morrow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Rowland, all unconscious&mdash;reckless, indeed&mdash;of this,
+      sauntered with Ruth some little distance from them, having contrived
+      adroitly to draw her aside. He broke a spell of silence with a dolorous
+      sigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ruth,&rdquo; said he pensively, &ldquo;I mind me of the last evening on which you and
+      I walked here alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She flashed him a glance of fear and aversion, and stood still. Under his
+      brow he watched the quick heave of her bosom, the sudden flow and abiding
+      ebb of blood in her face&mdash;grown now so thin and wistful&mdash;and he
+      realized that before him lay no easy task. He set his teeth for battle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you never have a kindness for me, Ruth?&rdquo; he sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned about, her intent to join the others, a dull anger in her soul.
+      He sat a hand upon her arm. &ldquo;Wait!&rdquo; said he, and the tone in which he
+      uttered that one word kept her beside him. His manner changed a little. &ldquo;I
+      am tired of this,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, so am I,&rdquo; she answered bitterly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Since we are agreed so far, let us agree to end it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is all I ask.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but&mdash;alas!&mdash;in a different way. Listen now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will not listen. Let me go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I were your enemy did I do so, for you would know hereafter a sorrow and
+      repentance for which nothing short of death could offer you escape.
+      Richard is under suspicion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you hark back to that?&rdquo; The scorn of her voice was deadly. Had it been
+      herself he desired, surely that tone had quenched all passion in him, or
+      else transformed it into hatred. But Blake was playing for a fortune, for
+      shelter from a debtor's prison.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It has become known,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;that Richard was one of the early
+      plotters who paved the way for Monmouth's coming. I think that that, in
+      conjunction with his betrayal of his trust that night at Newlington's,
+      thereby causing the death of some twenty gallant fellows of King James's,
+      will be enough to hang him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her hand clutched at her heart. &ldquo;What is't you seek?&rdquo; she cried. It was
+      almost a moan. &ldquo;What is't you want of me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yourself,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;I love you, Ruth,&rdquo; he added, and stepped close up to
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O God!&rdquo; she cried aloud. &ldquo;Had I a man at hand to kill you for that
+      insult!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then&mdash;miracle of miracles!&mdash;a voice from the shrubs by which
+      they stood bore to her ears the startling words that told her her prayer
+      was answered there and then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam, that man is here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stood frozen. Not more of a statue was Lot's wife in the moment of
+      looking behind her than she who dared not look behind. That voice! A voice
+      from the dead, a voice she had heard for the last time in the cottage that
+      was Feversham's lodging at Weston Zoyland. Her wild eyes fell upon Sir
+      Rowland's face. It showed livid; the nether-lip sucked in and caught in
+      the strong teeth, as if to prevent an outcry; the eyes wild with fright.
+      What did it mean? By an effort she wrenched herself round at last, and a
+      scream broke from her to rouse her aunt, her cousin, and her brother, and
+      bring them hastening towards her across the sweep of lawn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before her, on the edge of the shrubbery, a grey figure stood erect and
+      graceful, and the face, with its thin lips faintly smiling, its dark eyes
+      gleaming, was the face of Anthony Wilding. And as she stared he moved
+      forward, and she heard the fall of his foot upon the turf, the clink of
+      his spurs, the swish of his scabbard against the shrubs, and reason told
+      her that this was no ghost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She held out her arms to him. &ldquo;Anthony! Anthony!&rdquo; She staggered forward,
+      and he was no more than in time to catch her as she swayed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He held her fast against him and kissed her brow. &ldquo;Sweet,&rdquo; he said,
+      &ldquo;forgive me that I frightened you. I came by the orchard gate, and my
+      coming was so timely that I could not hold in my answer to your cry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her eyelids fluttered, she drew a long sighing breath, and nestled closer
+      to him. &ldquo;Anthony!&rdquo; she murmured again, and reached up a hand to stroke his
+      face, to feel that it was truly living flesh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Sir Rowland, realizing, too, by now that here was no ghost, recovered
+      his lost courage. He put a hand to his sword, then withdrew it, leaving
+      the weapon sheathed. Here was a hangman's job, not a swordsman's, he
+      opined&mdash;and wisely, for he had had earlier experience of Mr.
+      Wilding's play of steel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He advanced a step. &ldquo;O fool!&rdquo; he snarled. &ldquo;The hangman waits for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And a creditor for you, Sir Rowland,&rdquo; came the voice of Mr. Trenchard,
+      who now pushed forward through those same shrubs that had masked his
+      friend's approach. &ldquo;A Mr. Swiney. 'Twas I sent him from town. He's lodged
+      at the Bull, and bellows like one when he speaks of what you owe him.
+      There are three messengers with him, and they tell of a debtor's gaol for
+      you, sweetheart.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A spasm of fury crossed the face of Blake. &ldquo;They may have me, and welcome,
+      when I've told my tale,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Let me but tell of Anthony Wilding's
+      lurking here, and not only Anthony Wilding, but all the rest of you are
+      doomed for harbouring him. You know the law, I think,&rdquo; he mocked them, for
+      Lady Horton, Diana, and Richard, who had come up, stood now a pace or so
+      away in deepest wonder. &ldquo;You shall know it better before the night is out,
+      and better still before next Sunday's come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tush!&rdquo; said Trenchard, and quoted, &ldquo;'There's none but Anthony may conquer
+      Anthony.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis clear,&rdquo; said Wilding, &ldquo;you take me for a rebel. An odd mistake! For
+      it chances, Sir Rowland, that you behold in me an accredited servant of
+      the Secretary of State.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Blake stared, then fell a prey to ironic laughter. He would have spoken,
+      but Mr. Wilding plucked a paper from his pocket, and handed it to
+      Trenchard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Show it him,&rdquo; said he, and Blake's face grew white again as he read the
+      lines above Sunderland's signature and observed the seals of office. He
+      looked from the paper to the hated smiling face of Mr. Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You were a spy?&rdquo; he said, his tone making a question of the odious
+      statement. &ldquo;A dirty spy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your incredulity is flattering, at least,&rdquo; said Wilding pleasantly as he
+      repocketed the parchment, &ldquo;and it leads you in the right direction. I
+      neither was nor am a spy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That paper proves it!&rdquo; cried Blake contemptuously. Having been a spy
+      himself, he was a good judge of the vileness of the office.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;See to my wife, Nick,&rdquo; said Wilding sharply, and made as if to transfer
+      her to the care of his friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay,&rdquo; said Trenchard, &ldquo;'tis your own duty that. Let me discharge the
+      other for you.&rdquo; And he stepped up to Blake and tapped him briskly on the
+      shoulder. &ldquo;Sir Rowland,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;you're a knave.&rdquo; Sir Rowland stared at
+      him. &ldquo;You're a foul thing&mdash;a muckworm&mdash;Sir Rowland,&rdquo; added
+      Trenchard amiably, &ldquo;and you've been discourteous to a lady, for which may
+      Heaven forgive you&mdash;I can't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stand aside,&rdquo; Blake bade him, hoarse with passion, blind to all risks.
+      &ldquo;My affair is with Mr. Wilding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aye,&rdquo; said Trenchard, &ldquo;but mine is with you. If you survive it, you can
+      settle what other affairs you please&mdash;including, belike, your
+      business with Mr. Swiney.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not so, Nick,&rdquo; said Wilding suddenly, and turned to Richard. &ldquo;Here,
+      Richard! Take her,&rdquo; he bade his brother-in-law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anthony, you damned shirk-duty, see to your wife. Leave me to my own
+      diversions. Sir Rowland,&rdquo; he reminded the baronet, &ldquo;I have called you a
+      knave and a foul thing, and faith! if you want it proven, you need but
+      step down the orchard with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He saw hesitation lingering in Sir Rowland's face, and he uncurled the
+      last of the whip he carried. &ldquo;I'd grieve to do a violent thing before the
+      ladies,&rdquo; he murmured deprecatingly. &ldquo;I'd never respect myself again if I
+      had to drive a gentleman of your quality to the ground of honour with a
+      horsewhip. But, as God's my life, if you don't go willingly this instant,
+      'tis what will happen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard's newborn righteousness prompted him to interfere, to seek to
+      avert this threatened bloodshed; his humanity urged him to let matters be,
+      and his humanity prevailed. Diana watched this foreshadowing of tragedy
+      with tight lips, pale cheeks. Justice was to be done at last, it seemed,
+      and as her frightened eye fell upon Sir Rowland she knew not whether to
+      exult or weep. Her mother&mdash;understanding nothing&mdash;plied her
+      meanwhile with whispered questions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for Sir Rowland, he looked into the old rake's eyes agleam with wicked
+      mirth, and rage welled up to choke him. He must kill this man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;I'll see to your fine friend Wilding afterwards.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excellent,&rdquo; said Trenchard, and led the way through the shrubbery to the
+      orchard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruth, reviving, looked up. Her glance met Mr. Wilding's; it quickened into
+      understanding, and she stirred. &ldquo;Is it true? Is it really true?&rdquo; she
+      cried. &ldquo;I am being tortured by this dream again!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, sweet, it is true; it is true. I am here. Say, shall I stay?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She clung to him for answer. &ldquo;And you are in no danger?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In none, sweet. I am Mr. Wilding of Zoyland Chase, free to come and go as
+      best shall seem to me.&rdquo; He begged the others to leave them a little while,
+      and he led her to the stone seat by the river. He set her at his side
+      there and told her the story of his escape from the firing-party, and of
+      the inspiration that had come to him on the morrow to make use of the
+      letter in his boot which Sunderland had given him for Monmouth in the hour
+      of panic. Monmouth's cavalier treatment of him when he had arrived in
+      Bridgwater had precluded his delivering that letter at the council. There
+      was never another opportunity, nor did he again think of the package in
+      the stressful hours that followed. It was not until the following morning
+      that he suddenly remembered it lay undelivered, and bethought him that it
+      might prove a weapon to win him delivery from the dangers that encompassed
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was a slender chance,&rdquo; he told her, &ldquo;but I employed it. I waited in
+      London, in hiding, close upon a fortnight ere I had an opportunity of
+      seeing Sunderland. He laughed me to scorn at first, and threatened me with
+      the Tower. But I told him the letter was in safe hands and would remain
+      there in earnest of his good behaviour, and that did he have me arrested
+      it would instantly be laid before the King and bring his own head to the
+      block more surely even than my own. It frightened him; but it had scarcely
+      done so, sweet, had he known that that precious letter was still in my
+      boot, for my boot was on my leg, and my leg was in the room with the rest
+      of me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He surrendered at last, and gave me papers proving that Trenchard and I&mdash;for
+      I stipulated for old Nick's safety too&mdash;were His Majesty's accredited
+      agents in the West. I loathed the title. But...&rdquo;&mdash;he spread his hands
+      and smiled&mdash;&ldquo;it was that or widowing you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She took his face in her hands and stroked it fondly, and they sat thus
+      until a dry cough behind them roused them from their joyous silence. Mr.
+      Trenchard was sauntering towards them, his left eye tucked farther under
+      his hat than usual, his hands behind him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis a thirsty evening,&rdquo; he informed them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go, tell Richard so,&rdquo; said Wilding, who knew naught of Richard's altered
+      ways.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've thought of it; but haply he's sensitive on the score of drinking
+      with me again. He has done it twice to his undoing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He'll do it a third time, no doubt,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilding curtly, and
+      Trenchard, taking the hint, turned with a shrug, and went up the lawn
+      towards the house. He found Richard in the porch, where he had lingered
+      fearfully, waiting for news. At sight of Mr. Trenchard's grim,
+      weather-beaten countenance he came forward suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How has it sped?&rdquo; he asked, his lips twitching on the words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yonder they sit,&rdquo; said Trenchard, pointing down the lawn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no. I mean... Sir Rowland.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Sir Rowland?&rdquo; cried the old sinner, as though Sir Rowland were some
+      matter long forgotten. He sighed. &ldquo;Alas, poor Swiney! I fear I've cheated
+      him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Art slow at inference, Dick. Sir Rowland has passed away in the odour of
+      villainy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard clasped nervous hands together and raised his colourless eyes to
+      heaven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May the Lord have mercy on his soul!&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May He, indeed!&rdquo; said Trenchard, when he had recovered from his surprise.
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; he added pessimistically, &ldquo;I doubt the rogue's in hell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Richard's eyes kindled suddenly, and he quoted from the thirtieth Psalm,
+      &ldquo;'I will extol thee, O Lord; for Thou hast lifted me up, and hast not made
+      my foes to rejoice over me.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dumbfounded, wondering, indeed, was Westmacott's mind unhinged, Trenchard
+      scanned him narrowly. Richard caught the glance and misinterpreted it for
+      one of reproof. He bethought him that his joy was unrighteous. He stifled
+      it, and forced his lips to sigh &ldquo;Poor Blake!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor, indeed!&rdquo; quoth Trenchard, and adapted a remembered line of his
+      play-acting days to suit the case. &ldquo;The tears live in an onion that shall
+      water his grave. Though, perhaps, I am forgetting Swiney.&rdquo; Then, in a
+      brisker tone, &ldquo;Come, Richard. What like is the muscadine you keep at
+      Lupton House?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have abjured all wine,&rdquo; said Richard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A plague you have!&rdquo; quoth Trenchard, understanding less and less. &ldquo;Have
+      you turned Mussulman, perchance?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; answered Richard sternly; &ldquo;Christian.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Trenchard hesitated, rubbing his nose thoughtfully. &ldquo;Hum,&rdquo; said he at
+      length. &ldquo;Peace be with you, then. I'll leave you here to bay the moon to
+      your heart's content. Perhaps Jasper will know where to find me a
+      brain-wash.&rdquo; And with a final suspicious, wondering look at the whilom
+      bibber, he passed into the house, much exercised on the score of the
+      sanity of this family into which his friend Anthony had married.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Outside, the twilight shadows were deepening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall we home, sweet?&rdquo; whispered Mr. Wilding. The shadows befriended her,
+      a veil for her sudden confusion. She breathed something that seemed no
+      more than a sigh, though more it seemed to Anthony Wilding.
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 6em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mistress Wilding, by Rafael Sabatini
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost
+no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use
+it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
+eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Mistress Wilding
+
+Author: Rafael Sabatini
+
+Release Date: September, 1998 [EBook #1457]
+
+Last Updated: August 24, 2013
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISTRESS WILDING ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+MISTRESS WILDING
+
+By Rafael Sabatini
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I -- POT-VALIANCE
+
+CHAPTER II -- SIR ROWLAND TO THE RESCUE
+
+CHAPTER III -- DIANA SCHEMES
+
+CHAPTER IV -- TERMS OF SURRENDER
+
+CHAPTER V -- THE ENCOUNTER
+
+CHAPTER VI -- THE CHAMPION
+
+CHAPTER VII -- THE NUPTIALS OF RUTH WESTMACOTT
+
+CHAPTER VIII -- BRIDE AND GROOM
+
+CHAPTER IX -- MR. TRENCHARD'S COUNTERSTROKE
+
+CHAPTER X -- THEIR OWN PETARD
+
+CHAPTER XI -- THE MARPLOT
+
+CHAPTER XII -- AT THE FORD
+
+CHAPTER XIII -- "PRO RELIGIONE ET LIBERTATE"
+
+CHAPTER XIV -- HIS GRACE' IN COUNSEL
+
+CHAPTER XV -- LYME OF THE KING
+
+CHAPTER XVI -- PLOTS AND PLOTTERS
+
+CHAPTER XVII -- MR. WILDING'S RETURN
+
+CHAPTER XVIII -- BETRAYAL
+
+CHAPTER XIX -- THE BANQUET
+
+CHAPTER XX -- THE RECKONING
+
+CHAPTER XXI -- THE SENTENCE
+
+CHAPTER XXII -- THE EXECUTION
+
+CHAPTER XXIII -- MR. WILDING'S BOOTS
+
+CHAPTER XXIV -- JUSTICE
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. POT-VALIANCE
+
+Then drink it thus, cried the rash young fool, and splashed the contents
+of his cup full into the face of Mr. Wilding even as that gentleman, on
+his feet, was proposing to drink to the eyes of the young fool's sister.
+
+The moments that followed were full of interest. A stillness, a
+brooding, expectant stillness, fell upon the company--and it numbered
+a round dozen--about Lord Gervase's richly appointed board. In the soft
+candlelight the oval table shone like a deep brown pool, in which were
+reflected the gleaming silver and sparkling crystal that seemed to float
+upon it.
+
+Blake sucked in his nether-lip, his florid face a thought less florid
+than its wont, his prominent blue eyes a thought more prominent. Under
+its golden periwig old Nick Trenchard's wizened countenance was darkened
+by a scowl, and his fingers, long, swarthy, and gnarled, drummed
+fretfully upon the table. Portly Lord Gervase Scoresby--their host, a
+benign and placid man of peace, detesting turbulence--turned crimson now
+in wordless rage. The others gaped and stared--some at young Westmacott,
+some at the man he had so grossly affronted--whilst in the shadows of
+the hall a couple of lacqueys looked on amazed, all teeth and eyes.
+
+Mr. Wilding stood, very still and outwardly impassive, the wine
+trickling from his long face, which, if pale, was no paler than its
+habit, a vestige of the smile with which he had proposed the toast still
+lingering on his thin lips, though departed from his eyes. An elegant
+gentleman was Mr. Wilding, tall, and seeming even taller by virtue of
+his exceeding slenderness. He had the courage to wear his own hair,
+which was of a dark brown and very luxuriant; dark brown too were his
+sombre eyes, low-lidded and set at a downward slant. From those odd eyes
+of his, his countenance gathered an air of superciliousness tempered by
+a gentle melancholy. For the rest, it was scored by lines that stamped
+it with the appearance of an age in excess of his thirty years.
+
+Thirty guineas' worth of Mechlin at his throat was drenched, empurpled
+and ruined beyond redemption, and on the breast of his blue satin coat a
+dark patch was spreading like a stain of blood.
+
+Richard Westmacott, short, sturdy, and fair-complexioned to the point
+of insipidity, watched him sullenly out of pale eyes, and waited. It
+was Lord Gervase who broke at last the silence--broke it with an oath, a
+thing unusual in one whose nature was almost woman-mild.
+
+"As God's my life!" he spluttered wrathfully, glowering at Richard. "To
+have this happen in my house! The young fool shall make apology!"
+
+"With his dying breath," sneered Trenchard, and the old rake's words,
+his tone, and the malevolent look he bent upon the boy increased the
+company's malaise.
+
+"I think," said Mr. Wilding, with a most singular and excessive
+sweetness, "that what Mr. Westmacott has done he has done because he
+apprehended me amiss."
+
+"No doubt he'll say so," opined Trenchard with a shrug, and had caution
+dug into his ribs by Blake's elbow, whilst Richard made haste to prove
+him wrong by saying the contrary.
+
+"I apprehended you exactly, sir," he answered, defiance in his voice and
+wine-flushed face.
+
+"Ha!" clucked Trenchard, irrepressible. "He's bent on self-destruction.
+Let him have his way, in God's name."
+
+But Wilding seemed intent upon showing how long-suffering he could
+be. He gently shook his head. "Nay, now," said he. "You thought, Mr.
+Westmacott, that in mentioning your sister, I did so lightly. Is it not
+so?"
+
+"You mentioned her, and that is all that matters," cried Westmacott.
+"I'll not have her name on your lips at any time or in any place--no,
+nor in any manner." His speech was thick from too much wine.
+
+"You are drunk," cried indignant Lord Gervase with finality.
+
+"Pot-valiant," Trenchard elaborated.
+
+Mr. Wilding set down at last the glass which he had continued to
+hold until that moment. He rested his hands upon the table, knuckles
+downward, and leaning forward he spoke impressively, his face very
+grave; and those present--knowing him as they did--were one and all lost
+in wonder at his unusual patience.
+
+"Mr. Westmacott," said he, "I do think you are wrong to persist in
+affronting me. You have done a thing that is beyond forgiveness, and
+yet, when I offer you this opportunity of honourably retrieving..." He
+shrugged his shoulders, leaving the sentence incomplete.
+
+The company might have spared its deep surprise at so much mildness.
+There was but the semblance of it. Wilding proceeded thus of purpose
+set, and under the calm mask of his long white face his mind worked
+wickedly and deliberately. The temerity of Westmacott, whose nature was
+notoriously timid, had surprised him for a moment. But anon, reading the
+boy's mind as readily as though it had been a scroll unfolded for his
+instruction, he saw that Westmacott, on the strength of his position
+as his sister's brother, conceived himself immune. Mr. Wilding's avowed
+courtship of the lady, the hopes he still entertained of winning her,
+despite the aversion she was at pains to show him, gave Westmacott
+assurance that Mr. Wilding would never elect to shatter his all too
+slender chances by embroiling himself in a quarrel with her brother.
+And--reading him, thus, aright--Mr. Wilding put on that mask of
+patience, luring the boy into greater conviction of the security of
+his position. And Richard, conceiving himself safe in his entrenchment
+behind the bulwarks of his brothership to Ruth Westmacott, and heartened
+further by the excess of wine he had consumed, persisted in insults he
+would never otherwise have dared to offer.
+
+"Who seeks to retrieve?" he crowed offensively, boldly looking up into
+the other's face. "It seems you are yourself reluctant." And he laughed
+a trifle stridently, and looked about him for applause, but found none.
+
+"You are overrash," Lord Gervase disapproved him harshly.
+
+"Not the first coward I've seen grow valiant at a table," put in
+Trenchard by way of explanation, and might have come to words with Blake
+on that same score, but that in that moment Wilding spoke again.
+
+"Reluctant to do what?" he questioned amiably, looking Westmacott
+so straightly between the eyes that the boy shifted uneasily on his
+high-backed chair.
+
+Nevertheless, still full of confidence in the unassailability of his
+position, the mad youth answered, "To cleanse yourself of what I threw
+at you."
+
+"Fan me, ye winds!" gasped Nick Trenchard, and looked with expectancy at
+his friend Wilding.
+
+Now there was one factor with which, in basing with such craven
+shrewdness his calculations upon Mr. Wilding's feelings for his sister,
+young Richard had not reckoned. He was not to know that Wilding,
+bruised and wounded by Miss Westmacott's scorn of him, had reached that
+borderland where love and hate are so merged that they are scarce to be
+distinguished. Embittered by the slights she had put upon him--slights
+which his sensitive, lover's fancy had magnified a hundredfold--Anthony
+Wilding's frame of mind was grown peculiar. Of his love she would have
+none; his kindness she seemingly despised. So be it; she should taste
+his cruelty. If she scorned his wooing and forbade him to pursue it, at
+least it was not hers to deny him the power to hurt; and in hurting
+her that would not be loved by him some measure of fierce and bitter
+consolation seemed to await him.
+
+He realized, perhaps, not quite all this--and to the unworthiness of it
+all he gave no thought. But he realized enough as he toyed, as cat with
+mouse, with Richard Westmacott, to know that in striking at her through
+the worthless person of this brother whom she cherished--and who
+persisted in affording him this opportunity--a wicked vengeance would be
+his.
+
+Peace-loving Lord Gervase had heaved himself suddenly to his feet at
+Westmacott's last words, still intent upon saving the situation.
+
+"In Heaven's name..." he began, when Mr. Wilding, ever calm and smiling,
+though now a trifle sinister, waved him gently into silence. But that
+persisting calm of Mr. Wilding's was too much for old Nick Trenchard. He
+rose abruptly, drawing all eyes upon himself. It was time, he thought,
+he took a hand in this.
+
+In addition to his affection for Wilding and his contempt for
+Westmacott, he was filled with a fear that the latter might become
+dangerous if not crushed at once. Gifted with a shrewd knowledge of
+men, acquired during a chequered life of much sour experience, old
+Nick instinctively mistrusted Richard. He had known him for a fool,
+a weakling, a babbler, and a bibber of wine. Out of such elements a
+villain is soon compounded, and Trenchard had cause to fear the form
+of villainy that lay ready to Richard's hand. For it chanced that Mr.
+Trenchard was second cousin to that famous John Trenchard, so lately
+tried for treason and acquitted to the great joy of the sectaries of the
+West, and still more lately--but yesterday, in fact--fled the country to
+escape the rearrest ordered in consequence of that excessive joy. Like
+his more famous cousin, Nick Trenchard was one of the Duke of Monmouth's
+most active agents; and Westmacott, like Wilding, Vallancey, and one
+or two others at that board, stood, too, committed to the cause of the
+Protestant Champion.
+
+Out of his knowledge of the boy Trenchard was led to fear that if he
+were leniently dealt with now, tomorrow, when, sober, he came to realize
+the grossness of the thing he had done and the unlikelihood of its being
+forgiven him, there was no saying but that to protect himself he might
+betray Wilding's share in the plot that was being hatched. That in
+itself would be bad enough; but there might be worse, for he could
+scarcely betray Wilding without betraying others and--what mattered
+most--the Cause itself. He must be dealt with out of hand, Trenchard
+opined, and dealt with ruthlessly.
+
+"I think, Anthony," said he, "that we have had words enough. Shall you
+be disposing of Mr. Westmacott to-morrow, or must I be doing it for
+you?"
+
+With a gasp of dismay young Richard twisted in his chair to confront
+this fresh and unsuspected antagonist. What danger was this that he had
+overlooked? Then, even as he turned, Wilding's voice fell on his ear,
+and each word of the few he spoke was like a drop of icy water on
+Westmacott's overheated brain.
+
+"I protest you are vastly kind, Nick. But I intend, myself, to have the
+pleasure of killing Mr. Westmacott." And his smile fell now in mockery
+upon the disillusioned lad.
+
+Crushed by that bolt from the blue, Richard sat as if stunned, the flush
+receding from his face until his very lips were livid. The shock had
+sobered him, and, sobered, he realized in terror what he had done. And
+yet even sober he was amazed to find that the staff upon which with such
+security he had leaned should have proved rotten. True he had put much
+strain upon it; but then he had counted that it would stand much strain.
+
+He would have spoken, but he lacked words, so stricken was he. And even
+had he done so it is odds none would have heard him, for the late calm
+was of a sudden turned to garboil. Every man of that company--with
+the sole exception of Richard himself--was on his feet, and all were
+speaking at once, in clamouring, excited chorus.
+
+Wilding alone--the butt of their expostulations--stood quietly smiling,
+and wiped his face at last with a kerchief of finest lawn. Dominating
+the others in the Babel rose the voice of Sir Rowland Blake--impecunious
+Blake; Blake lately of the Guards, who had sold his commission as the
+only thing remaining him upon which he could raise money; Blake, that
+other suitor for Miss Westmacott's hand, the suitor favoured by her
+brother.
+
+"You shall not do it, Mr. Wilding," he shouted, his face crimson. "No,
+by God! You were shamed forever. He is but a lad, and drunk."
+
+Trenchard eyed the short, powerfully built man beside him, and laughed
+unpleasantly. "You should get yourself bled one of these days, Sir
+Rowland," he advised. "There may be no great danger yet; but a man can't
+be too careful when he wears a narrow neckcloth."
+
+Blake--a short, powerfully built man--took no heed of him, but looked
+straight at Mr. Wilding, who, smiling ever, calmly returned the gaze of
+those prominent blue eyes.
+
+"You will suffer me, Sir Rowland," said he sweetly, "to be the judge of
+whom I will and whom I will not meet."
+
+Sir Rowland flushed under that mocking glance and caustic tone. "But he
+is drunk," he repeated feebly.
+
+"I think," said Trenchard, "that he is hearing something that will make
+him sober."
+
+Lord Gervase took the lad by the shoulder, and shook him impatiently.
+"Well?" quoth he. "Have you nothing to say? You did a deal of prating
+just now. I make no doubt but that even at this late hour if you were to
+make apology..."
+
+"It would be idle," came Wilding's icy voice to quench the gleam of hope
+kindling anew in Richard's breast. The lad saw that he was lost, and he
+is a poor thing, indeed, who cannot face the worst once that worst is
+shown to be irrevocable. He rose with some semblance of dignity.
+
+"It is as I would wish," said he, but his livid face and staring eyes
+belied the valour of his words. He cleared his huskiness from his
+throat. "Sir Rowland," said he, "will you act for me?"
+
+"Not I!" cried Blake with an oath. "I'll be no party to the butchery of
+a boy unfledged."
+
+"Unfledged?" echoed Trenchard. "Body o' me! 'Tis a matter Wilding will
+amend to-morrow. He'll fledge him, never fear. He'll wing him on his
+flight to heaven."
+
+Of set purpose did Trenchard add this fuel to the blazing fire. It was
+no part of his views that this encounter should be avoided. If Richard
+Westmacott were allowed to live after what had passed, there were too
+many tall fellows might go in peril of their lives.
+
+Richard, meanwhile, had turned to the man on his left--young Vallancey,
+a notorious partisan of the Duke of Monmouth's, a hair-brained gentleman
+who was his own worst enemy.
+
+"May I count on you, Ned?" he asked.
+
+"Aye--to the death," said Vallancey magniloquently.
+
+"Mr. Vallancey," said Trenchard with a wry twist of his sharp features,
+"you grow prophetic."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. SIR ROWLAND TO THE RESCUE
+
+From Scoresby Hall, near Weston Zoyland, young Westmacott rode home that
+Saturday night to his sister's house in Bridgwater, a sobered man and an
+anguished. He had committed a folly which was like to cost him his life
+to-morrow. Other follies had he committed in his twenty-five years--for
+he was not quite the babe that Blake had represented him, although he
+certainly looked nothing like his age. But to-night he had contrived to
+set the crown to all. He had good cause to blame himself and to curse
+the miscalculation that had emboldened him to launch himself upon
+a course of insult against this Wilding, whom he hated with all the
+currish and resentful hatred of the worthless for the man of parts.
+
+But there was more than hate in the affront that he had offered;
+there was calculation--to an even greater extent than we have seen. It
+happened that through his own fault young Richard was all but penniless.
+The pious, nonconformist soul of Sir Geoffrey Lupton--the wealthy uncle
+from whom he had had great expectations--had been so stirred to anger by
+Richard's vicious and besotted ways that he had left every guinea that
+was his, every perch of land, and every brick of edifice to Richard's
+half-sister Ruth. At present things were not so bad for the worthless
+boy. Ruth worshipped him. He was a sacred charge to her from their dead
+father, who, knowing the stoutness of her soul and the feebleness of
+Richard's, had in dying imposed on her the care and guidance of her
+graceless brother. But Ruth, in all things strong, was weak with Richard
+out of her very fondness for him. To what she had he might help himself,
+and thus it was that things were not so bad with him at present. But
+when Richard's calculating mind came to give thought to the future he
+found that this occasioned him some care. Rich ladies, even when they
+do not happen to be equipped in addition with Ruth's winsome beauty and
+endearing nature, are not wont to go unmarried. It would have pleased
+Richard best to have had her remain a spinster. But he well knew that
+this was a matter in which she might have a voice of her own, and it
+behoved him betimes to take wise measures where possible husbands were
+concerned.
+
+The first that came in a suitor's obvious panoply was Anthony Wilding,
+of Zoyland Chase, and Richard watched his advent with foreboding.
+Wilding's was a personality to dazzle any woman, despite--perhaps even
+because of--the reputation for wildness that clung to him. That he was
+known as Wild Wilding to the countryside is true; but it were unfair--as
+Richard knew--to attach to this too much importance; for the adoption
+of so obvious an alliteration the rude country minds needed but a slight
+encouragement. From the first it looked as if Ruth might favour him, and
+Richard's fears assumed more definite shape. If Wilding married her--and
+he was a bold, masterful fellow who usually accomplished what he aimed
+at--her fortune and estate must cease to be a pleasant pasture land for
+bovine Richard. The boy thought at first of making terms with Wilding;
+the idea was old; it had come to him when first he had counted the
+chances of his sister's marrying. But he found himself hesitating to
+lay his proposal before Mr. Wilding. And whilst he hesitated Mr.
+Wilding made obvious headway. Still Richard dared not do it. There was
+a something in Wilding's eye that cried him danger. Thus, in the end,
+since he could not attempt a compromise with this fine fellow, the only
+course remaining was that of direct antagonism--that is to say, direct
+as Richard understood directness. Slander was the weapon he used in
+that secret duel; the countryside was well stocked with stories of Mr.
+Wilding's many indiscretions. I do not wish to suggest that these were
+unfounded. Still, the countryside, cajoled by its primitive sense of
+humour into that alliteration I have mentioned, found that having given
+this dog its bad name, it was under the obligation of keeping up his
+reputation. So it exaggerated. Richard, exaggerating those exaggerations
+in his turn, had some details, as interesting and unsavoury as they were
+in the main untrue, to lay before his sister.
+
+Now established love, it is well known, thrives wondrously on slander.
+The robust growth of a maid's feelings for her accepted suitor is but
+further strengthened by malign representations of his character. She
+seizes with joy the chance of affording proof of her great loyalty, and
+defies the world and its evil to convince her that the man to whom she
+has given her trust is not most worthy of it. Not so, however, with the
+first timid bud of incipient interest. Slander nips it like a frost; in
+deadliness it is second only to ridicule.
+
+Ruth Westmacott lent an ear to her brother's stories, incredulous only
+until she remembered vague hints she had caught from this person and
+from that, whose meaning was now made clear by what Richard told her,
+which, incidentally, they served to corroborate. Corroboration, too, did
+the tale of infamy receive from the friendship that prevailed between
+Mr. Wilding and Nick Trenchard, the old ne'er-dowell, who in his
+time--as everybody knew--had come so low, despite his gentle birth, as
+to have been one of a company of strolling players. Had Mr. Wilding
+been other than she now learnt he was, he would surely not cherish an
+attachment for a person so utterly unworthy. Clearly, they were birds of
+a plumage.
+
+And so, her maiden purity outraged at the thought that she had been in
+danger of lending a willing ear to the wooing of such a man, she
+had crushed this love which she blushed to think was on the point of
+throwing out roots to fasten on her soul, and was sedulous thereafter in
+manifesting the aversion which she accounted it her duty to foster for
+Mr. Wilding.
+
+Richard had watched and smiled in secret, taking pride in the cunning
+way he had wrought this change--that cunning which so often is given
+to the stupid by way of compensation for the intelligence that has been
+withheld them.
+
+And now what time discountenanced, Wilding fumed and fretted all in
+vain, Sir Rowland Blake, fresh from London and in full flight from his
+creditors, flashed like a comet into the Bridgwater heavens. He dazzled
+the eyes and might have had for the asking the heart and hand of Diana
+Horton--Ruth's cousin. Her heart, indeed, he had without the asking, for
+Diana fell straightway in love with him and showed it, just as he showed
+that he was not without response to her affection. There were some
+tender passages between them; but Blake, for all his fine exterior, was
+a beggar, and Diana far from rich, and so he rode his feelings with
+a hard grip upon the reins. And then, in an evil hour for poor Diana,
+young Westmacott had taken him to Lupton House, and Sir Rowland had his
+first glimpse of Ruth, his first knowledge of her fortune. He went down
+before Ruth's eyes like a man of heart; he went down more lowly still
+before her possessions like a man of greed; and poor Diana might console
+herself with whom she could.
+
+Her brother watched him, appraised him, and thought that in this broken
+gamester he had a man after his own heart; a man who would be ready
+enough for such a bargain as Richard had in mind; ready enough to
+sell what rags might be left him of his honour so that he came by the
+wherewithal to mend his broken fortunes.
+
+The twain made terms. They haggled like any pair of traders out of
+Jewry, but in the end it was settled--by a bond duly engrossed and
+sealed--that on the day that Sir Rowland married Ruth he should make
+over to her brother certain values that amounted to perhaps a quarter of
+her possessions. There was no cause to think that Ruth would be greatly
+opposed to this--not that that consideration would have weighed with
+Richard.
+
+But now that all essentials were so satisfactorily determined a vexation
+was offered Westmacott by the circumstance that his sister seemed nowise
+taken with Sir Rowland. She suffered him because he was her brother's
+friend; on that account she even honoured him with some measure of her
+own friendship; but to no greater intimacy did her manner promise to
+admit him. And meanwhile, Mr. Wilding persisted in the face of all
+rebuffs. Under his smiling mask he hid the smart of the wounds she dealt
+him, until it almost seemed to him that from loving her he had come to
+hate her.
+
+It had been well for Richard had he left things as they were and waited.
+Whether Blake prospered or not, leastways it was clear that Wilding
+would not prosper, and that, for the season, was all that need have
+mattered to young Richard.
+
+But in his cups that night he had thought in some dim way to precipitate
+matters by affronting Mr. Wilding, secure, as I have shown, in his
+belief that Wilding would perish sooner than raise a finger against
+Ruth's brother. And his drunken astuteness, it seemed, had been to
+his mind as a piece of bottle glass to the sight, distorting the image
+viewed through it.
+
+With some such bitter reflection rode he home to his sleepless couch.
+Some part of those dark hours he spent in bitter reviling of Wilding, of
+himself, and even of his sister, whom he blamed for this awful situation
+into which he had tumbled; at other times he wept from self-pity and
+sheer fright.
+
+Once, indeed, he imagined that he saw light, that he saw a way out
+of the peril that hemmed him in. His mind turned for a moment in the
+direction that Trenchard had feared it might. He bethought him of his
+association with the Monmouth Cause--into which he had been beguiled by
+the sordid hope of gain--and of Wilding's important share in that same
+business. He was even moved to rise and ride that very night for Exeter
+to betray to Albemarle the Cause itself, so that he might have Wilding
+laid by the heels. But if Trenchard had been right in having little
+faith in Richard's loyalty, he had, it seems, in fearing treachery
+made the mistake of giving Richard credit for more courage than was his
+endowment. For when, sitting up in bed, fired by his inspiration, young
+Westmacott came to consider the questions the Lord-Lieutenant of Devon
+would be likely to ask him, he reflected that the answers he must return
+would so incriminate himself that he would be risking his own neck in
+the betrayal. He flung himself down again with a curse and a groan, and
+thought no more of the salvation that might lie for him that way.
+
+The morning of that last day of May found him pale and limp and all
+a-tremble. He rose betimes and dressed, but stirred not from his chamber
+till in the garden under his window he heard his sister's voice, and
+that of Diana Horton, joined anon by a man's deeper tones, which he
+recognized with a start as Blake's. What did the baronet here so
+early? Assuredly it must concern the impending duel. Richard knew no
+mawkishness on the score of eavesdropping. He stole to his window and
+lent an ear, but the voices were receding, and to his vexation he caught
+nothing of what was said. He wondered how soon Vallancey would come, and
+for what hour the encounter had been appointed. Vallancey had remained
+behind at Scoresby Hall last night to make the necessary arrangements
+with Trenchard, who was to act for Mr. Wilding.
+
+Now it chanced that Trenchard and Wilding had business--business of
+Monmouth's--to transact in Taunton that morning; business which might
+not be delayed. There were odd rumours afloat in the West; persistent
+rumours which had come fast upon the heels of the news of Argyle's
+landing in Scotland; rumours which maintained that Monmouth himself was
+coming over from Holland. These tales Wilding and his associates had
+ignored. The Duke, they knew, was to spend the summer in retreat in
+Sweden, with (it was alleged) the Lady Henrietta Wentworth to bear him
+company, and in the mean time his trusted agents were to pave the way
+for his coming in the following spring. Of late the lack of direct news
+from the Duke had been a source of mystification to his friends in the
+West, and now, suddenly, the information went abroad--it was something
+more than rumour this time--that a letter of the greatest importance
+had been intercepted. From whom that letter proceeded or to whom it was
+addressed, could not yet be discovered. But it seemed clear that it
+was connected with the Monmouth Cause, and it behoved Mr. Wilding to
+discover what he could. With this intent he rode with Trenchard that
+Sunday morning to Taunton, hoping that at the Red Lion Inn--that
+meeting-place of dissenters--he might cull reliable information.
+
+It was in consequence of this that the meeting with Richard Westmacott
+was not to take place until the evening, and therefore Vallancey came
+not to Lupton House as early as Richard thought he should expect him.
+Blake, however--more no doubt out of a selfish fear of losing a valued
+ally in the winning of Ruth's hand than out of any excessive concern for
+Richard himself--had risen early and hastened to Lupton House, in the
+hope, which he recognized as all but forlorn, of yet being able to avert
+the disaster he foresaw for Richard.
+
+Peering over the orchard wall as he rode by, he caught a glimpse,
+through an opening between the trees, of Ruth herself and Diana on the
+lawn beyond. There was a wicket gate that stood unlatched, and availing
+himself of this Sir Rowland tethered his horse in the lane and threading
+his way briskly through the orchard came suddenly upon the girls.
+Their laughter reached him as he advanced, and told him they could know
+nothing yet of Richard's danger.
+
+On his abrupt and unexpected apparition, Diana paled and Ruth flushed
+slightly, whereupon Sir Rowland might have bethought him, had he been
+book-learned, of the axiom, "Amour qui rougit, fleurette; amour qui
+plit, drame du coeur."
+
+He doffed his hat and bowed, his fair ringlets tumbling forward till
+they hid his face, which was exceeding grave.
+
+Ruth gave him good morning pleasantly. "You London folk are earlier
+risers than we are led to think," she added.
+
+"'Twill be the change of air makes Sir Rowland matutinal," said Diana,
+making a gallant recovery from her agitation.
+
+"I vow," said he, "that I had grown matutinal earlier had I known what
+here awaited me."
+
+"Awaited you?" quoth Diana, and tossed her head archly disdainful. "La!
+Sir Rowland, your modesty will be the death of you." Archness became
+this lady of the sunny hair, tip-tilted nose, and complexion that
+outvied the apple-blossoms. She was shorter by a half-head than her
+darker cousin, and made up in sprightliness what she lacked of Ruth's
+gentle dignity. The pair were foils, each setting off the graces of the
+other.
+
+"I protest I am foolish," answered Blake, a shade discomfited. "But I
+want not for excuse. I have it in the matter that brings me here."
+So solemn was his air, so sober his voice, that both girls felt a
+premonition of the untoward message that he bore. It was Ruth who asked
+him to explain himself.
+
+"Will you walk, ladies?" said Blake, and waved the hand that still held
+his hat riverwards, adown the sloping lawn. They moved away together,
+Sir Rowland pacing between his love of yesterday and his love of to-day,
+pressed with questions from both. He shaded his eyes to look at the
+river, dazzling in the morning sunlight that came over Polden Hill, and,
+standing thus, he unburdened himself at last.
+
+"My news concerns Richard and--Mr. Wilding." They looked at him.
+Miss Westmacott's fine level brows were knit. He paused to ask, as if
+suddenly observing his absence, "Is Richard not yet risen?"
+
+"Not yet," said Ruth, and waited for him to proceed.
+
+"It does credit to his courage that he should sleep late on such a day,"
+said Blake, and was pleased with the adroitness wherewith he broke the
+news. "He quarrelled last night with Anthony Wilding."
+
+Ruth's hand went to her bosom; fear stared at Blake from out her eyes,
+blue as the heavens overhead; a grey shade overcast the usual warm
+pallor of her face.
+
+"With Mr. Wilding?" she cried. "That man!" And though she said no more
+her eyes implored him to go on, and tell her what more there might be.
+He did so, and he spared not Wilding. The task, indeed, was one to which
+he applied himself with a certain zest; whatever might be the outcome
+of the affair, there was no denying that he was by way of reaping profit
+from it by the final overthrow of an acknowledged rival. And when he
+told her how Richard had flung his wine in Wilding's face when Wilding
+stood to toast her, a faint flush crept to her cheeks.
+
+"Richard did well," said she. "I am proud of him."
+
+The words pleased Sir Rowland vastly; but he reckoned without Diana.
+Miss Horton's mind was illumined by her knowledge of herself. In the
+light of that she saw precisely what capital this tale-bearer sought to
+make. The occasion might not be without its opportunities for her; and
+to begin with, it was no part of her intention that Wilding should be
+thus maligned and finally driven from the lists of rivalry with Blake.
+Upon Wilding, indeed, and his notorious masterfulness did she found what
+hopes she still entertained of winning back Sir Rowland.
+
+"Surely," said she, "you are a little hard on Mr. Wilding. You speak as
+if he were the first gallant that ever toasted lady's eyes."
+
+"I am no lady of his, Diana," Ruth reminded her, with a faint show of
+heat.
+
+Diana shrugged her shoulders. "You may not love him, but you can't
+ordain that he shall not love you. You are very harsh, I think. To me it
+rather seems that Richard acted like a boor."
+
+"But, mistress," cried Sir Rowland, half out of countenance, and
+stifling his vexation, "in these matters it all depends upon the
+manner."
+
+"Why, yes," she agreed; "and whatever Mr. Wilding's manner, if I know
+him at all, it would be nothing but respectful to the last degree."
+
+"My own conception of respect," said he, "is not to bandy a lady's name
+about a company of revellers."
+
+"Bethink you, though, you said just now, it all depended on the manner,"
+she rejoined. Sir Rowland shrugged and turned half from her to her
+listening cousin. When all is said, poor Diana appears--despite her
+cunning--to have been short-sighted. Aiming at a defined advantage
+in the game she played, she either ignored or held too lightly the
+concomitant disadvantage of vexing Blake.
+
+"It were perhaps best to tell us the exact words he used, Sir Rowland,"
+she suggested, "that for ourselves we may judge how far he lacked
+respect."
+
+"What signify the words!" cried Blake, now almost out of temper.
+"I don't recall them. It is the air with which he pledged Mistress
+Westmacott."
+
+"Ah yes--the manner," quoth Diana irritatingly. "We'll let that be.
+Richard threw his wine in Mr. Wilding's face? What followed then? What
+said Mr. Wilding?"
+
+Sir Rowland remembered what Mr. Wilding had said, and bethought him
+that it were impolitic in him to repeat it. At the same time, not having
+looked for this cross-questioning, he was all unprepared with any likely
+answer. He hesitated, until Ruth echoed Diana's question.
+
+"Tell us, Sir Rowland," she begged him, "what Mr. Wilding said."
+
+Being forced to say something, and being by nature slow-witted and
+sluggish of invention, Sir Rowland was compelled, to his unspeakable
+chagrin, to fall back upon the truth.
+
+"Is not that proof?" cried Diana in triumph. "Mr. Wilding was reluctant
+to quarrel with Richard. He was even ready to swallow such an affront
+as that, thinking it might be offered him under a misconception of his
+meaning. He plainly professed the respect that filled him for Mistress
+Westmacott, and yet, and yet, Sir Rowland, you tell us that he lacked
+respect!"
+
+"Madam," cried Blake, turning crimson, "that matters nothing. It was not
+the place or time to introduce your cousin's name.
+
+"You think, Sir Rowland," put in Ruth, her air grave, judicial almost,
+"that Richard behaved well?"
+
+"As I would like to behave myself, as I would have a son of mine behave
+on the like occasion," Blake protested. "But we waste words," he cried.
+"I did not come to defend Richard, nor just to bear you this untoward
+news. I came to consult with you, in the hope that we might find some
+way to avert this peril from your brother."
+
+"What way is possible?" asked Ruth, and sighed. "I would not... I would
+not have Richard a coward."
+
+"Would you prefer him dead?" asked Blake, sadly grave.
+
+"Sooner than craven--yes," Ruth answered him, very white.
+
+"There is no question of that," was Blake's rejoinder. "The question
+is that Wilding said last night that he would kill the boy, and what
+Wilding says he does. Out of the affection that I bear Richard is born
+my anxiety to save him despite himself. It is in this that I come to
+seek your aid or offer mine. Allied we might accomplish what singly
+neither of us could."
+
+He had at once the reward of his cunning speech. Ruth held out her
+hands. "You are a good friend, Sir Rowland," she said, with a pale
+smile; and pale too was the smile with which Diana watched them. No more
+than Ruth did she suspect the sincerity of Blake's protestations.
+
+"I am proud you should account me that," said the baronet, taking Ruth's
+hands and holding them a moment; "and I would that I could prove myself
+your friend in this to some good purpose. Believe me, if Wilding would
+consent that I might take your brother's place, I would gladly do so."
+
+It was a safe boast, knowing as he did that Wilding would consent to
+no such thing; but it earned him a glance of greater kindliness from
+Ruth--who began to think that hitherto perhaps she had done him some
+injustice--and a look of greater admiration from Diana, who saw in him
+her beau-ideal of the gallant lover.
+
+"I would not have you endanger yourself so," said Ruth.
+
+"It might," said Blake, his blue eyes very fierce, "be no great danger,
+after all." And then dismissing that part of the subject as if, like
+a brave man, the notion of being thought boastful were unpleasant, he
+passed on to the discussion of ways and means by which the coming duel
+might be averted. But when they came to grips with facts, it seemed that
+Sir Rowland had as little idea of what might be done as had the ladies.
+True, he began by making the obvious suggestion that Richard should
+tender Wilding a full apology. That, indeed, was the only door of
+escape, and Blake shrewdly suspected that what the boy had been
+unwilling to do last night--partly through wine, and partly through
+the fear of looking fearful in the eyes of Lord Gervase Scoresby's
+guests--he might be willing enough to do to-day, sober and upon
+reflection. For the rest Blake was as far from suspecting Mr. Wilding's
+peculiar frame of mind as had Richard been last night. This his words
+showed.
+
+"I am satisfied," said he, "that if Richard were to go to-day to Wilding
+and express his regret for a thing done in the heat of wine, Wilding
+would be forced to accept it as satisfaction, and none would think that
+it did other than reflect credit upon Richard."
+
+"Are you very sure of that?" asked Ruth, her tone dubious, her glance
+hopefully anxious.
+
+"What else is to be thought?"
+
+"But," put in Diana shrewdly, "it were an admission of Richard's that he
+had done wrong."
+
+"No less," he agreed, and Ruth caught her breath in fresh dismay.
+
+"And yet you have said that he did as you would have a son of yours do,"
+Diana reminded him.
+
+"And I maintain it," answered Blake; his wits worked slowly ever. It was
+for Ruth to reveal the flaw to him.
+
+"Do you not understand, then," she asked him sadly, "that such an
+admission on Richard's part would amount to a lie--a lie uttered to save
+himself from an encounter, the worst form of lie, a lie of cowardice?
+Surely, Sir Rowland, your kindly anxiety for his life outruns your
+anxiety for his honour."
+
+Diana, having accomplished her task, hung her head in silence,
+pondering.
+
+Sir Rowland was routed utterly. He glanced from one to the other of his
+companions, and grew afraid that he--the town gallant--might come to
+look foolish in the eyes of these country ladies. He protested again
+his love for Richard, and increased Ruth's terror by his mention of
+Wilding's swordsmanship; but when all was said, he saw that he had best
+retreat ere he spoiled the good effect which he hoped his solicitude had
+created. And so he spoke of seeking counsel with Lord Gervase Scoresby,
+and took his leave, promising to return by noon.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. DIANA SCHEMES
+
+Notwithstanding the brave face Ruth Westmacott had kept during his
+presence, when he departed Sir Rowland left behind him a distress
+amounting almost to anguish in her mind. Yet though she might suffer,
+there was no weakness in Ruth's nature. She knew how to endure. Diana,
+bearing Richard not a tenth of the affection his sister consecrated to
+him, was alarmed for him. Besides, her own interests urged the averting
+of this encounter. And so she held in accents almost tearful that
+something must be done to save him.
+
+This, too, appeared to be Richard's own view, when presently--within a
+few minutes of Blake's departure--he came to join them. They watched
+his approach in silence, and both noted--though with different eyes and
+different feelings--the pallor of his fair face, the dark lines under
+his colourless eyes. His condition was abject, and his manners, never
+of the best--for there was much of the spoiled child about Richard--were
+clearly suffering from it.
+
+He stood before his sister and his cousin, moving his eyes shiftily from
+one to the other, rubbing his hands nervously together.
+
+"Your precious friend Sir Rowland has been here," said he, and it was
+not clear from his manner which of them he addressed. "Not a doubt but
+he will have brought you the news." He seemed to sneer.
+
+Ruth advanced towards him, her face grave, her sweet eyes full of
+pitying concern. She placed a hand upon his sleeve. "My poor Richard..."
+she began, but he shook off her kindly touch, laughing angrily--a mere
+cackle of irritability.
+
+"Odso!" he interrupted her. "It is a thought late for this mock
+kindliness!"
+
+Diana, in the background, arched her brows, then with a shrug turned
+aside and seated herself on the stone seat by which they had been
+standing. Ruth shrank back as if her brother had struck her.
+
+"Richard!" she cried, and searched his livid face with her eyes.
+"Richard!"
+
+He read a question in the interjection, and he answered it. "Had you
+known any real care, any true concern for me, you had not given cause
+for this affair," he chid her peevishly.
+
+"What are you saying?" she cried, and it occurred to her at last that
+Richard was afraid. He was a coward! She felt as she would faint.
+
+"I am saying," said he, hunching his shoulders, and shivering as he
+spoke, yet, his glance unable to meet hers, "that it is your fault that
+I am like to get my throat cut before sunset."
+
+"My fault?" she murmured. The slope of lawn seemed to wave and swim
+about her. "My fault?"
+
+"The fault of your wanton ways," he accused her harshly. "You have so
+played fast and loose with this fellow Wilding that he makes free of
+your name in my very presence, and puts upon me the need to get myself
+killed by him to save the family honour."
+
+He would have said more in this strain, but something in her glance gave
+him pause. There fell a silence. From the distance came the melodious
+pealing of church bells. High overhead a lark was pouring out its song;
+in the lane at the orchard end rang the beat of trotting hoofs. It
+was Diana who spoke presently. Just indignation stirred her, and, when
+stirred, she knew no pity, set no limits to her speech.
+
+"I think, indeed," said she, her voice crisp and merciless, "that the
+family honour will best be saved if Mr. Wilding kills you. It is in
+danger while you live. You are a coward, Richard."
+
+"Diana!" he thundered--he could be mighty brave with women--whilst Ruth
+clutched her arm to restrain her.
+
+But she continued, undeterred: "You are a coward--a pitiful coward," she
+told him. "Consult your mirror. It will tell you what a palsied thing
+you are. That you should dare so speak to Ruth..."
+
+"Don't!" Ruth begged her, turning.
+
+"Aye," growled Richard, "she had best be silent."
+
+Diana rose, to battle, her cheeks crimson. "It asks a braver man than
+you to compel my obedience," she told him. "La!" she fumed, "I'll swear
+that had Mr. Wilding overheard what you have said to your sister, you
+would have little to fear from his sword. A cane would be the weapon
+he'd use on you."
+
+Richard's pale eyes flamed malevolently; a violent rage possessed him
+and flooded out his fear, for nothing can so goad a man as an offensive
+truth. Ruth approached him again; again she took him by the arm, seeking
+to soothe his over-troubled spirit; but again he shook her off. And then
+to save the situation came a servant from the house. So lost in anger
+was all Richard's sense of decency that the mere supervention of the
+man would not have been enough to have silenced him could he have found
+adequate words in which to answer Mistress Horton. But even as he racked
+his mind, the footman's voice broke the silence, and the words the
+fellow uttered did what his presence alone might not have sufficed to
+do.
+
+"Mr. Vallancey is asking for you, sir," he announced.
+
+Richard started. Vallancey! He had come at last, and his coming was
+connected with the impending duel. The thought was paralyzing to young
+Westmacott. The flush of anger faded from his face; its leaden hue
+returned and he shivered as with cold. At last he mastered himself
+sufficiently to ask:
+
+"Where is he, Jasper?"
+
+"In the library, sir," replied the servant. "Shall I bring him hither?"
+
+"Yes--no," he answered. "I will come to him." He turned his back upon
+the ladies, paused a moment, still irresolute. Then, as by an effort,
+he followed the servant across the lawn and vanished through the ivied
+porch.
+
+As he went Diana flew to her cousin. Her shallow nature was touched with
+transient pity. "My poor Ruth..." she murmured soothingly, and set her
+arm about the other's waist. There was a gleam of tears in the eyes Ruth
+turned upon her. Together they came to the granite seat and sank to it
+side by side, fronting the placid river. There Ruth, her elbows on her
+knees, cradled her chin in her hands, and with a sigh of misery stared
+straight before her.
+
+"It was untrue!" she said at last. "What Richard said of me was untrue."
+
+"Why, yes," Diana snapped, contemptuous. "The only truth is that Richard
+is afraid."
+
+Ruth shivered. "Ah, no," she pleaded--she knew how true was the
+impeachment. "Don't say it, Diana."
+
+"It matters little that I say it," snorted Diana impatiently. "It is a
+truth proclaimed by the first glance at him."
+
+"He is in poor health, perhaps," said Ruth, seeking miserably to excuse
+him.
+
+"Aye," said Diana. "He's suffering from an ague--the result of a lack
+of courage. That he should so have spoken to you! Give me patience,
+Heaven!"
+
+Ruth crimsoned again at the memory of his words; a wave of indignation
+swept through her gentle soul, but was gone at once, leaving an
+ineffable sadness in its room. What was to be done? She turned to Diana
+for counsel. But Diana was still whipping up her scorn.
+
+"If he goes out to meet Mr. Wilding, he'll shame himself and every man
+and woman that bears the name of Westmacott," said she, and struck a new
+fear with that into the heart of Ruth.
+
+"He must not go!" she answered passionately. "He must not meet him!"
+
+Diana flashed her a sidelong glance. "And if he doesn't, will things be
+mended?" she inquired. "Will it save his honour to have Mr. Wilding come
+and cane him?"
+
+"He'd not do that?" said Ruth.
+
+"Not if you asked him--no," was Diana's sharp retort, and she caught her
+breath on the last word of it, for just then the Devil dropped the seed
+of a suggestion into the fertile soil of her lovesick soul.
+
+"Diana!" Ruth exclaimed in reproof, turning to confront her cousin. But
+Diana's mind started upon its scheming journey was now travelling fast.
+Out of that devil's seed there sprang with amazing rapidity a tree-like
+growth, throwing out branches, putting forth leaves, bearing already--in
+her fancy--bloom and fruit.
+
+"Why not?" quoth she after a breathing space, and her voice was gentle,
+her tone innocent beyond compare. "Why should you not ask him?" Ruth
+frowned, perplexed and thoughtful, and now Diana turned to her with
+the lively eye of one into whose mind has leapt a sudden inspiration.
+"Ruth!" she exclaimed. "Why, indeed, should you not ask him to forgo
+this duel?"
+
+"How, how could I?" faltered Ruth.
+
+"He'd not deny you; you know he'd not."
+
+"I do not know it," answered Ruth. "But if I did, how could I ask it?"
+
+"Were I Richard's sister, and had I his life and honour at heart as you
+have, I'd not ask how. If Richard goes to that encounter he loses both,
+remember--unless between this and then he undergoes some change. Were I
+in your place, I'd straight to Wilding."
+
+"To him?" mused Ruth, sitting up. "How could I go to him?"
+
+"Go to him, yes," Diana insisted. "Go to him at once--while there is yet
+time."
+
+Ruth rose and moved away a step or two towards the water, deep in
+thought. Diana watched her furtively and slyly, the rapid rise and fall
+of her maiden breast betraying the agitation that filled her as she
+waited--like a gamester--for the turn of the card that would show her
+whether she had won or lost. For she saw clearly how Ruth might be so
+compromised that there was something more than a chance that Diana would
+no longer have cause to account her cousin a barrier between herself and
+Blake.
+
+"I could not go alone," said Ruth, and her tone was that of one still
+battling with a notion that is repugnant.
+
+"Why, if that is all," said Diana, "then I'll go with you."
+
+"I can't! I can't! Consider the humiliation."
+
+"Consider Richard rather," the fair temptress made answer eagerly. "Be
+sure that Mr. Wilding will save you all humiliation. He'll not deny you.
+At a word from you, I know what answer he will make. He will refuse to
+push the matter forward--acknowledge himself in the wrong, do whatever
+you may ask him. He can do it. None will question his courage. It has
+been proved too often." She rose and came to Ruth. She set her arm
+about her waist again, and poured shrewd persuasion over her cousin's
+indecision. "To-night you'll thank me for this thought," she assured
+her. "Why do you pause? Are you so selfish as to think more of the
+little humiliation that may await you than of Richard's life and
+honour?"
+
+"No, no," Ruth protested feebly.
+
+"What, then? Is Richard to go out and slay his honour by a show of fear
+before he is slain, himself, by the man he has insulted?"
+
+"I'll go," said Ruth. Now that the resolve was taken, she was brisk,
+impatient. "Come, Diana. Let Jerry saddle for us. We'll ride to Zoyland
+Chase at once."
+
+They went without a word to Richard who was still closeted with
+Vallancey, and riding forth they crossed the river and took the road
+that, skirting Sedgemoor, runs south to Weston Zoyland. They rode with
+little said until they came to the point where the road branches on the
+left, throwing out an arm across the moor towards Chedzoy, a mile or so
+short of Zoyland Chase. Here Diana reined in with a sharp gasp of pain.
+Ruth checked, and cried to know what ailed her.
+
+"It is the sun, I think," muttered Diana, her hand to her brow. "I am
+sick and giddy." And she slipped a thought heavily to the ground. In an
+instant Ruth had dismounted and was beside her. Diana was pale, which
+lent colour to her complaint, for Ruth was not to know that the pallor
+sprang from her agitation in wondering whether the ruse she attempted
+would succeed or not.
+
+A short stone's-throw from where they had halted stood a cottage back
+from the road in a little plot of ground, the property of a kindly old
+woman known to both. There Diana expressed the wish to rest awhile, and
+thither they took their way, Ruth leading both horses and supporting her
+faltering cousin. The dame was all solicitude. Diana was led into her
+parlour, and what could be done was done. Her corsage was loosened,
+water drawn from the well and brought her to drink and bathe her brow.
+
+She sat back languidly, her head lolling sideways against one of the
+wings of the great chair, and languidly assured them she would be better
+soon if she were but allowed to rest awhile. Ruth drew up a stool to
+sit beside her, for all that her soul fretted at this delay. What if in
+consequence she should reach Zoyland Chase too late--to find that Mr.
+Wilding had gone forth already? But even as she was about to sit, it
+seemed that the same thought had of a sudden come to Diana. The girl
+leaned forward, thrusting--as if by an effort--some of her faintness
+from her.
+
+"Do not wait for me, Ruth," she begged.
+
+"I must, child."
+
+"You must not;" the other insisted. "Think what it may mean--Richard's
+life, perhaps. No, no, Ruth, dear. Go on; go on to Zoyland. I'll follow
+you in a few minutes."
+
+"I'll wait for you," said Ruth with firmness.
+
+At that Diana rose, and in rising staggered. "Then we'll push on at
+once," she gasped, as if speech itself were an excruciating effort.
+
+"But you are in no case to stand!" said Ruth. "Sit, Diana, sit."
+
+"Either you go on alone or I go with you, but go at once you must. At
+any moment Mr. Wilding may go forth, and your chance is lost. I'll not
+have Richard's blood upon my head."
+
+Ruth wrung her hands in her dismay, confronted by a parlous choice.
+Consent to Diana's accompanying her in this condition she could not;
+ride on alone to Mr. Wilding's house was hardly to be thought of, and
+yet if she delayed she was endangering Richard's life. By the very
+strength of her nature she was caught in the mesh of Diana's scheme.
+She saw that her hesitation was unworthy. This was no ordinary cause, no
+ordinary occasion. It was a time for heroic measures. She must ride on,
+nor could she consent to take Diana.
+
+And so in the end she went, having seen her cousin settled again in the
+high chair, and took with her Diana's feeble assurances that she would
+follow her in a few moments, as soon as her faintness passed.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. TERMS OF SURRENDER
+
+"MR. WILDING rode at dawn with Mr. Trenchard, madam," announced old
+Walters, the butler at Zoyland Chase. Old and familiar servant though he
+was, he kept from his countenance all manifestation of the deep surprise
+occasioned him by the advent of Mistress Westmacott, unescorted.
+
+"He rode... at dawn?" faltered Ruth, and for a moment she stood
+irresolute, afraid and pondering in the shade of the great pillared
+porch. Then she took heart again. If he rode at dawn, it was not in
+quest of Richard that he went, since it had been near eleven o'clock
+when she had left Bridgwater. He must have gone on other business first,
+and, doubtless, before he went to the encounter he would be returning
+home. "Said he at what hour he would return?" she asked.
+
+"He bade us expect him by noon, madam."
+
+This gave confirmation to her thoughts. It wanted more than half an hour
+to noon already. "Then he may return at any moment?" said she.
+
+"At any moment, madam," was the grave reply.
+
+She took her resolve. "I will wait," she announced, to the man's
+increasing if undisplayed astonishment. "Let my horse be seen to."
+
+He bowed his obedience, and she followed him--a slender, graceful
+figure in her dove-coloured riding-habit laced with silver--across the
+stone-flagged vestibule, through the cool gloom of the great hall, into
+the spacious library of which he held the door.
+
+"Mistress Horton is following me," she informed the butler. "Will you
+bring her to me when she comes?"
+
+Bowing again in silent acquiescence, the white-haired servant closed the
+door and left her. She stood in the centre of the great room, drawing
+off her riding-gloves, perturbed and frightened beyond all reason at
+finding herself for the first time under Mr. Wilding's roof. He was
+most handsomely housed. His grandfather, who had travelled in Italy,
+had built the Chase upon the severe and noble lines which there he had
+learnt to admire, and he had embellished its interior, too, with many
+treasures of art which with that intent he had there collected.
+
+She dropped her whip and gloves on to a table, and sank into a chair
+to wait, her heart fluttering in her throat. Time passed, and in the
+silence of the great house her anxiety was gradually quieted, until at
+last through the long window that stood open came faintly wafted to her
+on the soft breeze of that June morning the sound of a church clock at
+Weston Zoyland chiming twelve. She rose with a start, bethinking her
+suddenly of Diana, and wondering why she had not yet arrived. Was the
+child's indisposition graver than she had led Ruth to suppose? She
+crossed to the windows and stood there drumming impatiently upon the
+pane, her eyes straying idly over the sweep of elm-fringed lawns towards
+the river gleaming silvery here and there between the trees in the
+distance.
+
+Suddenly she caught a sound of hoofs. Was this Diana? She sped to the
+other window, the one that stood open, and now she heard the crunch of
+gravel and the champ of bits and the sound of more than two pairs of
+hoofs. She caught a glimpse of Mr. Wilding and Mr. Trenchard.
+
+She felt the colour flying from her cheeks; again her heart fluttered in
+her throat, and it was in vain that with her hand she sought to repress
+the heaving of her breast. She was afraid; her every instinct bade her
+slip through the window at which she stood and run from Zoyland Chase.
+And then she thought of Richard and his danger, and she seemed to gather
+courage from the reflection of her purpose in this house.
+
+Men's voices reached her--a laugh, the harsh cawing of Nick Trenchard.
+
+"A lady!" she heard him cry. "'Od's heart, Tony! Is this a time for
+trafficking with doxies?" She crimsoned an instant at the coarse word
+and set her teeth, only to pale again the next. The voices were
+lowered so that she heard not what was said; one sharp exclamation she
+recognized to be in Wilding's voice, but caught not the word he uttered.
+There followed a pause, and she stirred uneasily, waiting. Then
+came swift steps and jangling spurs across the hall, the door opened
+suddenly, and Mr. Wilding, in a scarlet riding-coat, his boots white
+with dust, stood bowing to her from the threshold.
+
+"Your servant, Mistress Westmacott," she heard him murmur. "My house is
+deeply honoured."
+
+She dropped him a half-curtsy, pale and tongue-tied. He turned to
+deliver hat and whip and gloves to Walters, who had followed him, then
+closed the door and came forward into the room.
+
+"You will forgive that I present myself thus before you," he said,
+in apology for his dusty raiment. "But I bethought me you might be in
+haste, and Walters tells me that already have you waited nigh upon an
+hour. Will you not sit, madam?" And he advanced a chair. His long white
+face was set like a mask; but his dark, slanting eyes devoured her. He
+guessed the reason of her visit. She who had humbled him, who had driven
+him to the very borders of despair, was now to be humbled and to despair
+before him. Under the impassive face his soul exulted fiercely.
+
+She disregarded the chair he proffered. "My visit... has no doubt
+surprised you," she began, tremulous and hesitating.
+
+"I' faith, no," he answered quietly. "The cause, after all, is not very
+far to seek. You are come on Richard's behalf."
+
+"Not on Richard's," she answered. "On my own." And now that the ice was
+broken, the suspense of waiting over, she found the tide of her courage
+flowing fast. "This encounter must not take place, Mr. Wilding," she
+informed him.
+
+He raised his eyebrows--fine and level as her own--his thin lips smiled
+never so faintly. "It is, I think," said he, "for Richard to prevent it.
+The chance was his last night. It shall be his again when we meet. If he
+will express regret..." He left his sentence there. In truth he mocked
+her, though she guessed it not.
+
+"You mean," said she, "that if he makes apology...?"
+
+"What else? What other way remains?"
+
+She shook her head, and, if pale, her face was resolute, her glance
+steady.
+
+"That is impossible," she told him. "Last night--as I have the story--he
+might have done it without shame. To-day it is too late. To tender his
+apology on the ground would be to proclaim himself a coward."
+
+Mr. Wilding pursed his lips and shifted his position. "It is difficult,
+perhaps," said he, "but not impossible."
+
+"It is impossible," she insisted firmly.
+
+"I'll not quarrel with you for a word," he answered, mighty agreeable.
+"Call it impossible, if you will. Admit, however, that it is all I
+can suggest. You will do me the justice, I am sure, to see that in
+expressing my willingness to accept your brother's expressions of regret
+I am proving myself once more your very obedient servant. But that it is
+you who ask it--and whose desires are my commands--I should let no man
+go unpunished for an insult such as your brother put upon me."
+
+She winced at his words, at the bow with which he had professed himself
+once more her servant.
+
+"It is no clemency that you offer him," she said. "You leave him a
+choice between death and dishonour."
+
+"He has," Wilding reminded her, "the chance of combat."
+
+She flung back her head impatiently. "I think you mock me," said she.
+
+He looked at her keenly. "Will you tell me plainly, madam," he begged,
+"what you would have me do?"
+
+She flushed under his gaze, and the flush told him what he sought to
+learn. There was, of course, another way, and she had thought of it;
+but she lacked--as well she might, all things considered--the courage
+to propose it. She had come to Mr. Wilding in the vague hope that he
+himself would choose the heroic part. And he, to punish for her scorn
+of him this woman whom he loved to hating-point, was resolved that she
+herself must beg it of him. Whether, having so far compelled her, he
+would grant her prayer or not was something he could not just then
+himself have told you. She bowed her head in silence, and Wilding, that
+faint smile, half friendliness, half mockery, hovering ever on his
+lips, turned aside and moved softly towards the window. Her eyes, veiled
+behind the long lashes of their drooping lids, followed him furtively.
+She felt that she hated him in very truth. She marked the upright
+elegance of his figure, the easy grace of his movements, the fine
+aristocratic mould of the aquiline face, which she beheld in profile;
+and she hated him the more for these outward favours that must commend
+him to no lack of women. He was too masterful. He made her realize too
+keenly her own weakness and that of Richard. She felt that just now he
+controlled the vice that held her fast--her affection for her brother.
+And because of that she hated him the more. "You see, Mistress
+Westmacott," said he, his shoulder to her, his tone sweet to the point
+of sadness, "that there is nothing else." She stood, her eyes following
+the pattern of the parquetry, her foot unconsciously tracing it; her
+courage ebbed, and she had no answer for him. After a pause he spoke
+again, still without turning. "If that was not enough to suit your
+ends"--and though he spoke in a tone of ever-increasing sadness, there
+glinted through it the faintest ray of mockery--"I marvel you should
+have come to Zoyland--to compromise yourself to so little purpose."
+
+She raised a startled face. "Com... compromise myself?" she echoed.
+"Oh!" It was a cry of indignation.
+
+"What else?" quoth he, and turned abruptly to confront her.
+
+"Mistress Horton was... was with me," she panted, her voice quivering as
+on the brink of tears.
+
+"'Tis unfortunate you should have separated," he condoled.
+
+"But... but, Mr. Wilding, I... I trusted to your honour. I accounted you
+a gentleman. Surely... surely, sir, you will not let it be known that...
+I came to you? You will keep my secret?"
+
+"Secret!" said he, his eyebrows raised. "'Tis already the talk of the
+servants' hall. By to-morrow 'twill be the gossip of Bridgwater."
+
+Air failed her. Her blue eyes fixed him in horror out of her stricken
+face. Not a word had she wherewith to answer him.
+
+The sight of her, thus, affected him oddly. His passion for her surged
+up, aroused by pity for her plight, and awakened in him a sense of his
+brutality. A faint flush stirred in his cheeks. He stepped quickly to
+her, and caught her hand. She let it lie, cold and inert, within his
+nervous grasp.
+
+"Ruth, Ruth!" he cried, and his voice was for once unsteady. "Give it no
+thought! I love you, Ruth. If you'll but heed that, no breath of scandal
+can hurt you."
+
+She swallowed hard. "As how?" she asked mechanically.
+
+He bowed low over her hand--so low that his face was hidden from her.
+
+"If you will do me the honour to become my wife..." he began, but got no
+further, for she snatched away her hand, her cheeks crimsoning, her eyes
+aflame with indignation. He stepped back, crimsoning too. She had dashed
+the gentleness from his mood. He was angered now and tigerish.
+
+"Oh!" she panted. "It is to affront me! Is this the time or place..."
+
+He cropped her flow of indignant speech ere it was well begun. He caught
+her in his arms, and held her tight, and so sudden was the act, so firm
+his grip that she had not the thought or force to struggle.
+
+"All time is love's time, all places are love's place," he told her,
+his face close to her own. "And of all time and places the present ever
+preferable to the wise--for life is uncertain and short at best. I bring
+you worship, and you answer me with scorn. But I shall prevail, and you
+shall come to love me in very spite of your own self."
+
+She threw back her head, away from his as far as the bonds he had cast
+about her would allow. "Air! Air!" she panted feebly.
+
+"Oh, you shall have air enough anon," he answered with a half-strangled
+laugh, his passion mounting ever. "Hark you, now--hark you, for
+Richard's sake, since you'll not listen for my own nor yours. There is
+another course by which I can save both Richard's life and honour.
+You know it, and you counted upon my generosity to suggest it. But you
+overlooked the thing on which you should have counted. You overlooked my
+love. Count upon that, my Ruth, and Richard shall have naught to fear.
+Count upon that, and when we meet this evening, Richard and I, it is
+I who will tender the apology, I who will admit that I was wrong to
+introduce your name into that company last night, and that what Richard
+did was a just and well-deserved punishment upon me. This will I do if
+you'll but count upon my love."
+
+She looked up at him fearfully, yet with flutterings of hope. "What is't
+you mean?" she asked him faintly.
+
+"That if you'll promise to be my wife..."
+
+"Your wife!" she interrupted him. She struggled to free herself,
+released one arm and struck him in the face. "Let me go, you coward!"
+
+He was answered. His arms melted from her. He fell back a pace, very
+white and even trembling, the fire all gone from his eye, which was now
+turned dull and deadly.
+
+"So be it," he said, and strode to the bell-rope. "I'll not offend
+again. I had not offended now"--he continued, in the voice of one
+offering an explanation cold and formal--"but that when first I came
+into your life you seemed to bid me welcome." His fingers closed upon
+the crimson bell-cord. She guessed his purpose.
+
+"Wait!" she gasped, and put forth her hand. He paused, the rope in his,
+his eye kindling anew. "You... you mean to kill Richard now?" she asked
+him.
+
+A swift lifting of his brows was his only answer. He tugged the cord.
+From the distance the peal of the bell reached them faintly.
+
+"Oh, wait, wait!" she begged, her hands pressed against her cheeks. He
+stood impassible--hatefully impassible. "....... if I were to consent
+to... this... how... how soon...?" He understood the unfinished
+question. Interest warmed his face again. He took a step towards her,
+but by a gesture she seemed to beg him come no nearer.
+
+"If you will promise to marry me within the week, Richard shall have no
+cause to fear either for his life or his honour at my hands."
+
+She seemed now to be recovering her calm. "Very well," she said, her
+voice singularly steady. "Let that be a bargain between us. Spare
+Richard's life and honour--both, remember!--and on Sunday next..." For
+all her courage her voice quavered and faltered. She dared add no more,
+lest it should break altogether.
+
+Mr. Wilding drew a deep breath. Again he would have advanced. "Ruth!"
+he cried, and some repentance smote him, some shame shook him in
+his purpose. At that moment it was in his mind to capitulate
+unconditionally; to tell her that Richard should have naught to fear
+from him, and yet that she should go free as the winds. Her gesture
+checked him. It was so eloquent of aversion. He paused in his advance,
+stifled his better feelings, and turned once more, relentless. The door
+opened and old Walters stood awaiting his commands.
+
+"Mistress Westmacott is leaving," he informed his servant, and bowed
+low and formally in farewell before her. She passed out without another
+word, the old butler following, and presently through the door that
+remained open came Trenchard, in quest of Mr. Wilding who stood bemused.
+
+Nick sauntered in, his left eye almost hidden by the rakish cock of his
+hat, one hand tucked away under the skirts of his plum-coloured coat,
+the other supporting the stem of a long clay pipe, at which he was
+pulling thoughtfully. The pipe and he were all but inseparable; indeed,
+the year before in London he had given appalling scandal by appearing
+with it in the Mall, and had there remained him any character to lose,
+he must assuredly have lost it then.
+
+He observed his friend through narrowing eyes--he had small eyes, very
+blue and very bright, in which there usually abode a roguish gleam.
+
+"My sight, Anthony," said he, "reminds me that I am growing old. I
+wonder did it mislead me on the score of your visitor?"
+
+"The lady who left," said Wilding with a touch of severity, "will be
+Mistress Wilding by this day se'night."
+
+Trenchard took the pipe from his lips, audibly blew out a cloud of smoke
+and stared at his friend. "Body o' me!" quoth he. "Is this a time for
+marrying?--with these rumours of Monmouth's coming over."
+
+Wilding made an impatient gesture. "I thought to have convinced you they
+are idle," said he, and flung himself into a chair at his writing-table.
+
+Nick came over and perched himself upon the table's edge, one leg
+swinging in the air. "And what of this matter of the intercepted letter
+from London to our Taunton friends?"
+
+"I can't tell you. But of this I am sure, His Grace is incapable of
+anything so rash. Certain is it that he'll not stir until Battiscomb
+returns to Holland, and Battiscomb is still in Cheshire sounding the
+Duke's friends."
+
+"Yet were I you, I should not marry just at present."
+
+Wilding smiled. "If you were me, you'd never marry at all."
+
+"Faith, no!" said Trenchard. "I'd as soon play at 'hot-cockles,' or
+'Parson-has-lost-his-cloak.' 'Tis a mort more amusing and the sooner
+done with."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE ENCOUNTER
+
+Ruth Wesmacott rode back like one in a dream, with vague and hazy
+notions of what she saw or did. So overwrought was she by the interview
+from which she came, her mind so obsessed by it, that never a thought
+had she for Diana and her indisposition until she arrived home to
+find her cousin there before her. Diana was in tears, called up by the
+reproaches of her mother, Lady Horton--the relict of that fine soldier
+Sir Cholmondeley Horton, of Taunton.
+
+The girl had arrived at Lupton House a half-hour ahead of Miss
+Westmacott, and upon her arrival she had expressed surprise, either
+feigned or real, at finding Ruth still absent. Detecting the alarm
+that Diana was careful to throw into her voice and manner, her mother
+questioned her, and elicited the story of her faintness and of Ruth's
+having ridden on alone to Mr. Wilding's. So outraged was Lady Horton
+that for once in a way this woman, usually so meek and ease-loving,
+was roused to an energy and anger with her daughter and her niece that
+threatened to remove Diana at once from the pernicious atmosphere of
+Lupton House and carry her home to Taunton. Ruth found her still at her
+remonstrances, arrived, indeed, in time for her share of them.
+
+"I have been sore mistaken in you, Ruth!" the dame reproached her. "I
+can scarce believe it of you. I have held you up as an example to Diana,
+for the discretion and wisdom of your conduct, and you do this! You go
+alone to Mr. Wilding's house--to Mr. Wilding's, of all men!"
+
+"It was no time for ordinary measures," said Ruth, but she spoke without
+any of the heat of one who defends her conduct. She was, the slyly
+watchful Diana observed, very white and tired. "It was no time to think
+of nice conduct. There was Richard to be saved."
+
+"And was it worth ruining yourself to do that?" quoth Lady Horton, her
+colour high.
+
+"Ruining myself?" echoed Ruth, and she smiled never so weary a smile. "I
+have, indeed, done that, though not in the way you mean."
+
+Mother and daughter eyed her, mystified. "Your good name is blasted,"
+said her aunt, "unless so be that Mr. Wilding is proposing to make you
+his wife." It was a sneer the good woman could not, in her indignation,
+repress.
+
+"That is what Mr. Wilding has done me the honour to propose," Ruth
+answered bitterly, and left them gaping. "We are to be married this day
+se'night."
+
+A dead silence followed the calm announcement. Then Diana rose. At the
+misery, the anguish that could impress so strange and white a look
+on Ruth's winsome face, she was smitten with remorse, her incipient
+satisfaction dashed. This was her work; the fruit of her scheming. But
+it had gone further than she had foreseen; and for all that no result
+could better harmonize with her own ambitions and desires, for the
+moment--under the first shock of that announcement--she felt guilty and
+grew afraid.
+
+"Ruth!" she cried, her voice a whisper of stupefaction. "Oh, I wish I
+had come with you!"
+
+"But you couldn't; you were faint." And then--recalling what had
+passed--her mind was filled with sudden concern for Diana, even amid her
+own sore troubles. "Are you quite yourself again, Diana?" she inquired.
+
+Diana answered almost fiercely, "I am quite well." And then, with a
+change to wistfulness, she added, "Oh, I would I had come with you!"
+
+"Matters had been no different," Ruth assured her. "It was a bargain
+Mr. Wilding drove. It was the price I had to pay for Richard's life and
+honour." She swallowed hard, and let her hands fall limply to her sides.
+"Where is Richard?" she inquired.
+
+It was her aunt who answered her. "He went forth half an hour agone with
+Mr. Vallancey and Sir Rowland."
+
+"Sir Rowland had returned, then?" She looked up quickly.
+
+"Yes," answered Diana. "But he had achieved nothing by his visit to Lord
+Gervase. His lordship would not intervene; he swore he hoped the cub
+would be flayed alive by Wilding. Those were his lordship's words, as
+Sir Rowland repeated them. Sir Rowland is in sore distress for Richard.
+He has gone with them to the meeting."
+
+"At least, he has no longer cause for his distress," said Miss
+Westmacott with her bitter smile, and sank as one exhausted to a chair.
+Lady Horton moved to comfort her, her motherliness all aroused for this
+motherless girl, usually so wise and strong, and seemingly wiser and
+stronger than ever in this thing that Lady Horton had deemed a weakness
+and a folly.
+
+Meanwhile, Richard and his two friends were on their way to the moors
+across the river to the encounter with Mr. Wilding. But before they
+had got him to ride forth, Vallancey had had occasion to regret that he
+stood committed to a share in this quarrel, for he came to know Richard
+as he really was. He had found him in an abject state, white and
+trembling, his coward's fancy anticipating a hundred times a minute the
+death he was anon to die.
+
+Vallancey had hailed him cheerily.
+
+"The day is yours, Dick," he had cried, when Richard entered the library
+where he awaited him. "Wild Wilding has ridden to Taunton this morning
+and is to be back by noon. Odsbud, Dick!--twenty miles and more in the
+saddle before coming on the ground. Heard you ever of the like madness?
+He'll be stiff as a broom-handle--an easy victim."
+
+Richard listened, stared, and, finding Vallancey's eyes fixed steadily
+upon him, attempted a smile and achieved a horrible grimace.
+
+"What ails you, man?" cried his second, and caught him by the wrist. He
+felt the quiver of the other's limb. "Stab me!" quoth he, "you are in no
+case to fight. What the plague ails you?"
+
+"I am none so well this morning," answered Richard feebly. "Lord
+Gervase's claret," he added, passing a hand across his brow.
+
+"Lord Gervase's claret?" echoed Vallancey in horror, as at some
+outrageous blasphemy. "Frontignac at ten shillings the bottle!" he
+exclaimed.
+
+"Still, claret never does lie easy on my stomach," Richard explained,
+intent upon blaming Lord Gervase s wine--since he could think of nothing
+else--for his condition.
+
+Vallancey looked at him shrewdly. "My cock," said he, "if you're to
+fight we'll have to mend your temper." He took it upon himself to ring
+the bell, and to order up two bottles of Canary and one of brandy. If he
+was to get his man to the ground at all--and young Vallancey had a due
+sense of his responsibilities in that connection--it would be well to
+supply Richard with something to replace the courage that had oozed
+out overnight. Young Richard, never loath to fortify himself, proved
+amenable enough to the stiffly laced Canary that his friend set before
+him. Then, to divert his mind, Vallancey, with that rash freedom that
+had made the whole of Somerset know him for a rebel, set himself to talk
+of the Protestant Duke and his right to the crown of England.
+
+He was still at his talk, Richard listening moodily what time he was
+slowly but surely befuddling himself, when Sir Rowland--returning from
+Scoresby Hall--came to bring the news of his lack of success. Richard
+hailed him noisily, and bade him ring for another glass, adding, with
+a burst of oaths, some appalling threats of how anon he should serve
+Anthony Wilding. His wits drowned in the stiff liquor Vallancey had
+pressed upon him, he seemed of a sudden to have grown as fierce and
+bloodthirsty as any scourer that ever terrorized the watch.
+
+Blake listened to him and grunted. "Body o' me!" swore the town gallant.
+"If that's the humour you're going out to fight in, I'll trouble you for
+the eight guineas I won from you at Primero yesterday before you start."
+
+Richard reared himself, by the help of the table, and stood a thought
+unsteadily, his glance laboriously striving to engage Blake's.
+
+"Damn me!" quoth he. "Your want of faith dishgraces me--and 't 'shgraces
+you. Shalt ha' the guineas when we're back--and not before."
+
+"Hum!" quoth Blake, to whom eight guineas were a consideration in these
+bankrupt days. "And if you don't come back at all upon whom am I to
+draw?"
+
+The suggestion sank through Dick's half-fuddled senses, and the scare it
+gave him was reflected on his face.
+
+"Damn you, Blake!" swore Vallancey between his teeth. "Is that a decent
+way to talk to a man who is going out? Never heed him, Dick! Let him
+wait for his dirty guineas till we return."
+
+"Thirty guineas?" hiccoughed Richard. "It was only eight.
+Anyhow--wait'll I've sli' the gullet of's Mr. Wilding." He checked on
+a thought that suddenly occurred to him. He turned to Vallancey with a
+ludicrous solemnity. "'Sbud!" he swore. "'S a scurvy trick I'm playing
+the Duke. 'S treason to him--treason no less." And he smote the table
+with his open hand.
+
+"What's that?" quoth Blake so sharply, his eyes so suddenly alert that
+Vallancey made haste to cover up his fellow rebel's indiscretion.
+
+"It's the brandy-and-Canary makes him dream," said he with a laugh, and
+rising as he spoke he announced that it was high time they should set
+out. Thus he brought about a bustle that drove the Duke's business from
+Richard's mind, and left Blake without a pretext to pursue his quest
+for information. But the mischief was done, and Blake's suspicions were
+awake. He bethought him now of dark hints that Richard had let fall
+to Vallancey in the past few days, and of hints less dark with which
+Vallancey--who was a careless fellow at ordinary times--had answered.
+And now this mention of the Duke and of treason to him--to what Duke
+could it refer but Monmouth?
+
+Blake was well aware of the wild tales that were going round, and he
+began to wonder now was aught really afoot, and was his good friend
+Westmacott in it?
+
+If there was, he bethought him that the knowledge might be of value,
+and it might help to float once more his shipwrecked fortunes. The haste
+with which Vallancey had proffered a frivolous explanation of Richard's
+words, the bustle with which upon the instant he swept Richard and Sir
+Rowland from the house to get to horse and ride out to Bridgwater were
+in themselves circumstances that went to heighten those suspicions of
+Sir Rowland's. But lacking all opportunity for investigation at the
+moment, he deemed it wisest to say no more just then lest he should
+betray his watchfulness.
+
+They were the first to arrive upon the ground--an open space on the
+borders of Sedgemoor, in the shelter of Polden Hill. But they had not
+long to wait before Wilding and Trenchard rode up, attended by a groom.
+Their arrival had an oddly sobering effect upon young Westmacott, for
+which Mr. Vallancey was thankful. For during their ride he had begun to
+fear that he had carried too far the business of equipping his principal
+with artificial valour.
+
+Trenchard came forward to offer Vallancey the courteous suggestion that
+Mr. Wilding's servant should charge himself with the care of the horses
+of Mr. Westmacott's party, if this would be a convenience to
+them. Vallancey thanked him and accepted the offer, and thus the
+groom--instructed by Trenchard--led the five horses some distance from
+the spot.
+
+It now became a matter of making preparation, and leaving Richard to
+divest himself of such garments as he might deem cumbrous, Vallancey
+went forward to consult with Trenchard upon the choice of ground. At
+that same moment Mr. Wilding lounged forward, flicking the grass with
+his whip in an absent manner.
+
+"Mr. Vallancey," he began, when Trenchard turned to interrupt him.
+
+"You can leave it safely to me, Tony," he growled. "But there is
+something I wish to say, Nick," answered Mr. Wilding, his manner mild.
+"By your leave, then." And he turned again to Valiancey. "Will you be so
+good as to call Mr. Westmacott hither?"
+
+Vallancey stared. "For what purpose, sir?" he asked.
+
+"For my purpose," answered Mr. Wilding sweetly. "It is no longer my wish
+to engage with Mr. Westmacott.
+
+"Anthony!" cried Trenchard, and in his amazement forgot to swear.
+
+"I propose," added Mr. Wilding, "to relieve Mr. Westmacott of the
+necessity of fighting."
+
+Vallancey in his heart thought this might be pleasant news for his
+principal. Still, he did not quite see how the end was to be attained,
+and said so.
+
+"You shall be enlightened if you will do as I request," Wilding
+insisted, and Vallancey, with a lift of the brows, a snort, and a shrug,
+turned away to comply.
+
+"Do you mean," quoth Trenchard, bursting with indignation, "that you
+will let live a man who has struck you?"
+
+Wilding took his friend affectionately by the arm. "It is a whim of
+mine," said he. "Do you think, Nick, that it is more than I can afford
+to indulge?"
+
+"I say not so," was the ready answer; "but..."
+
+"I thought you'd not," said Mr. Wilding, interrupting. "And if any
+does--why, I shall be glad to prove it upon him that he lies." He
+laughed, and Trenchard, vexed though he was, was forced to laugh with
+him. Then Nick set himself to urge the thing that last night had plagued
+his mind: that this Richard might prove a danger to the Cause; that
+in the Duke's interest, if not to safeguard his own person from some
+vindictive betrayal, Wilding would be better advised in imposing a
+reliable silence upon him.
+
+"But why vindictive?" Mr. Wilding remonstrated. "Rather must he have
+cause for gratitude."
+
+Mr. Trenchard laughed short and contemptuously. "There is," said he, "no
+rancour more bitter than that of the mean man who has offended you and
+whom you have spared. I beg you'll ponder it." He lowered his voice as
+he ended his admonition, for Vallancey and Westmacott were coming up,
+followed by Sir Rowland Blake.
+
+Richard, although his courage had been sinking lower and lower in a
+measure as he had grown more and more sober with the approach of the
+moment for engaging, came forward now with a firm step and an arrogant
+mien; for Vallancey had given him more than a hint of what was toward.
+His heart had leapt, not only at the deliverance that was promised him,
+but out of satisfaction at the reflection of how accurately last night
+he had gauged what Mr. Wilding would endure. It had dismayed him then,
+as we have seen, that this man who, he thought, must stomach any affront
+from him out of consideration for his sister, should have ended by
+calling him to account. He concluded now that upon reflection Wilding
+had seen his error, and was prepared to make amends that he might
+extricate himself from an impossible situation, and Richard blamed
+himself for having overlooked this inevitable solution and given way to
+idle panic.
+
+Vallancey and Blake watching him, and the sudden metamorphosis that was
+wrought in him, despised him heartily, and yet were glad--for the sake
+of their association with him--that things were as they were.
+
+"Mr. Westmacott," said Wilding quietly, his eyes steadily set upon
+Richard's own arrogant gaze, his lips smiling a little, "I am here not
+to fight, but to apologize."
+
+Richard's sneer was audible to all. Oh, he was gathering courage fast
+now that there no longer was the need for it. It urged him to lengths of
+daring possible only to a fool.
+
+"If you can take a blow, Mr. Wilding," said he offensively, "that is
+your own affair."
+
+And his friends gasped at his temerity and trembled for him, not knowing
+what grounds he had for counting himself unassailable.
+
+"Just so," said Mr. Wilding, as meek and humble as a nun, and Trenchard,
+who had expected something very different from him, swore aloud and with
+some circumstance of oaths. "The fact is," continued Mr. Wilding, "that
+what I did last night, I did in the heat of wine, and I am sorry for
+it. I recognize that this quarrel is of my provoking; that it was
+unwarrantable in me to introduce the name of Mistress Westmacott, no
+matter how respectfully; and that in doing so I gave Mr. Westmacott
+ample grounds for offence. For that I beg his pardon, and I venture to
+hope that this matter need go no further."
+
+Vallancey and Blake were speechless in astonishment; Trenchard
+livid with fury. Westmacott moved a step or two forward, a swagger
+unmistakable in his gait, his nether-lip thrust out in a sneer.
+
+"Why," said he, his voice mighty disdainful, "if Mr. Wilding apologizes,
+the matter hardly can go further." He conveyed such a suggestion of
+regret at this that Trenchard bounded forward, stung to speech.
+
+"But if Mr. Westmacott's disappointment threatens to overwhelm him," he
+snapped, very tartly, "I am his humble servant, and he may call upon me
+to see that he's not robbed of the exercise he came to take."
+
+Mr. Wilding set a restraining hand upon Trenchard's arm.
+
+Westmacott turned to him, the sneer, however, gone from his face.
+
+"I have no quarrel with you, sir," said he, with an uneasy assumption of
+dignity.
+
+"It's a want that may be soon supplied," answered Trenchard briskly,
+and, as he afterwards confessed, had not Wilding checked him at that
+moment, he had thrown his hat in Richard's face.
+
+It was Vallancey who saved the situation, cursing in his heart the
+bearing of his principal.
+
+"Mr. Wilding," said he, "this is very handsome in you. You are of the
+happy few who may tender such an apology without reflection upon your
+courage."
+
+Mr. Wilding made him a leg very elegantly. "You are vastly kind, sir,"
+said he.
+
+"You have given Mr. Westmacott the fullest satisfaction, and it is with
+an increased respect for you--if that were possible--that I acknowledge
+it on my friend's behalf."
+
+"You are, sir, a very mirror of the elegancies," said Mr. Wilding, and
+Vallancey wondered was he being laughed at. Whether he was or not, he
+conceived that he had done the only seemly thing. He had made handsome
+acknowledgment of a handsome apology, stung to it by the currishness of
+Richard.
+
+And there the matter ended, despite Trenchard's burning eagerness to
+carry it himself to a different consummation. Wilding prevailed upon
+him, and withdrew him from the field. But as they rode back to Zoyland
+Chase the old rake was bitter in his inveighings against Wilding's folly
+and weakness.
+
+"I pray Heaven," he kept repeating, "that it may not come to cost you
+dear."
+
+"Have done," said Mr. Wilding, a trifle out of patience. "Could I wed
+the sister having slain the brother?"
+
+And Trenchard, understanding at last, accounted himself a numskull that
+he had not understood before. But he none the less deemed it a pity
+Richard had been spared.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. THE CHAMPION
+
+As vainglorious was Richard Westmacott's retreat from the field of
+unstricken battle as his advance upon it had been inglorious. He spoke
+with confidence now of the narrow escape that Wilding had had at
+his hands, of the things he would have done to Wilding had not that
+gentleman grown wise in time. Sir Rowland, who had seen little of
+Richard's earlier stricken condition, was in a measure imposed upon by
+his blustering tone and manner; not so Vallancey, who remembered the
+steps he had been forced to take to bolster up the young man's courage
+sufficiently to admit of his being brought to the encounter. Richard so
+disgusted him that he felt if he did not quit his company soon, he would
+be quarrelling with him himself. So, congratulating him, in a caustic
+manner that Richard did not relish, upon the happy termination of the
+affair, Vallancey took his leave of him and Blake at the cross-roads,
+pleading business with Lord Gervase, and left them to proceed without
+him to Bridgwater.
+
+Blake, whose suspicions of some secret matter to which Vallancey
+and Richard were wedded, had been earlier excited by Westmacott's
+indiscretions, was full of sly questions now touching the business which
+might be taking Vallancey to Scoresby. But Richard was too full of
+the subject of the fear he had instilled into Wilding to afford his
+companion much satisfaction on any other score. Thus they came to Lupton
+House, and as Richard swaggered down the lawn into the presence of the
+ladies--Ruth and her aunt were occupying the stone bench, Diana the
+circular seat about the great oak in the centre of the lawn--he was a
+very different person from the pale, limp creature they had beheld there
+some few hours earlier. Loud and offensive was he now in self-laudation,
+and so indifferent to all else that he left unobserved the little smile,
+half wistful, half scornful, that visited his sister's lips when he
+sneeringly told how Mr. Wilding had chosen that better part of valour
+which discretion is alleged to be.
+
+It needed Diana, who, blinded by no sisterly affection, saw him exactly
+as he was, and despised him accordingly, to enlighten him. It may also
+be that in doing so at once she had ends of her own to serve; for Sir
+Rowland was still of the company.
+
+"Mr. Wilding afraid?" she cried, her voice so charged with derision that
+it inclined to shrillness. "La! Richard, Mr. Wilding was never afraid of
+any man."
+
+"Faith!" said Rowland, although his acquaintance with Mr. Wilding was
+slight and recent. "It is what I should think. He does not look like a
+man familiar with fear."
+
+Richard struck something of an attitude, his fair face flushed, his pale
+eyes glittering. "He took a blow," said he, and sneered.
+
+"There may have been reasons," Diana suggested darkly, and Sir Rowland's
+eyes narrowed at the hint.
+
+Again he recalled the words Richard had let fall that afternoon. Wilding
+and he were fellow workers in some secret business, and Richard had said
+that the encounter was treason to that same business, whatever it might
+be. And of what it might be Sir Rowland had grounds upon which to found
+at least a guess. Had perhaps Wilding acted upon some similar feelings
+in avoiding the duel? He wondered; and when Richard dismissed Diana's
+challenge with a fatuous laugh, it was Blake who took it up.
+
+"You speak, ma'am," said he, "as if you knew that there were reasons,
+and knew, too, what those reasons might be."
+
+Diana looked at Ruth, as if for guidance before replying. But Ruth sat
+calm and seemingly impassive, looking straight before her. She was,
+indeed, indifferent how much Diana said, for in any case the matter
+could not remain a secret long. Lady Horton, silent too and listening,
+looked a question at her daughter.
+
+And so, after a pause: "I know both," said Diana, her eyes straying
+again to Ruth; and a subtler man than Blake would have read that glance
+and understood that this same reason which he sought so diligently sat
+there before him.
+
+Richard, indeed, catching that sly look of his cousin's, checked his
+assurance, and stood frowning, cogitating. Then, quite suddenly, his
+voice harsh:
+
+"What do you mean, Diana?" he inquired.
+
+Diana shrugged and turned her shoulder to him. "You had best ask Ruth,"
+said she, which was an answer more or less plain to both the men.
+
+They stood at gaze, Richard looking a thought foolish. Blake, frowning,
+his heavy lip caught in his strong, white teeth.
+
+Ruth turned to her brother with an almost piteous attempt at a smile.
+She sought to spare him pain by excluding from her manner all suggestion
+that things were other than she desired.
+
+"I am betrothed to Mr. Wilding," said she.
+
+Sir Rowland made a sudden forward movement, drew a deep breath, and as
+suddenly stood still. Richard looked at his sister as she were mad and
+raving. Then he laughed, between unbelief and derision.
+
+"It is a jest," said he, but his accents lacked conviction.
+
+"It is the truth," Ruth assured him quietly.
+
+"The truth?" His brow darkened ominously--stupendously for one so fair.
+"The truth, you baggage...?" He began and stopped in very fury.
+
+She saw that she must tell him all.
+
+"I promised to wed Mr. Wilding this day se'night so that he saved your
+life and honour," she told him calmly, and added, "It was a bargain that
+we drove." Richard continued to stare at her. The thing she told him
+was too big to be swallowed at a mouthful; he was absorbing it by slow
+degrees.
+
+"So now," said Diana, "you know the sacrifice your sister has made to
+save you, and when you speak of the apology Mr. Wilding tendered you,
+perhaps you'll speak of it in a tone less loud."
+
+But the sarcasm was no longer needed. Already poor Richard was very
+humble, his make-believe spirit all snuffed out. He observed at last
+how pale and set was his sister's face, and he realized something of
+the sacrifice she had made. Never in all his life was Richard so near
+to lapsing from the love of himself; never so near to forgetting his
+own interests, and preferring those of Ruth. Lady Horton sat silent, her
+heart fluttering with dismay and perplexity. Heaven had not equipped her
+with a spirit capable of dealing with a situation such as this. Blake
+stood in make believe stolidity dissembling his infinite chagrin and
+the stormy emotions warring within him, for some signs of which Diana
+watched his countenance in vain.
+
+"You shall not do it!" cried Richard suddenly. He came forward and laid
+his hand on his sister's shoulder. His voice was almost gentle. "Ruth,
+you shall not do this for me. You must not."
+
+"By Heaven, no!" snapped Blake before she could reply. "You are right,
+Richard. Mistress Westmacott must not be the scapegoat. She shall not
+play the part of Iphigenia."
+
+But Ruth smiled wistfully as she answered him with a question, "Where is
+the help for it?"
+
+Richard knew where the help for it lay, and for once--for just a
+moment--he contemplated danger and even death with equanimity.
+
+"I can take up this quarrel again," he announced. "I can compel Mr.
+Wilding to meet me."
+
+Ruth's eyes, looking up at him, kindled with pride and admiration. It
+warmed her heart to hear him speak thus, to have this assurance that he
+was anything but the coward she had been so disloyal as to deem him; no
+doubt she had been right in saying that it was his health was the cause
+of the palsy he had displayed that morning; he was a little wild, she
+knew; inclined to sit over-late at the bottle; with advancing manhood,
+she had no doubt, he would overcome this boyish failing. Meanwhile
+it was this foolish habit--nothing more--that undermined the inherent
+firmness of his nature. And it comforted her generous soul to have this
+proof that he was full worthy of the sacrifice she was making for him.
+Diana watched him in some surprise, and never doubted but that his offer
+was impulsive, and that he would regret it when his ardour had had time
+to cool.
+
+"It were idle," said Ruth at last--not that she quite believed it, but
+that it was all-important to her that Richard should not be imperilled.
+"Mr. Wilding will prefer the bargain he has made."
+
+"No doubt," growled Blake, "but he shall be forced to unmake it." He
+advanced and bowed low before her. "Madam," said he, "will you grant
+me leave to champion your cause and remove this troublesome Mr. Wilding
+from your path?"
+
+Diana's eyes narrowed; her cheeks paled, partly from fear for Blake,
+partly from vexation at the promptness of an offer that afforded a fresh
+and so eloquent proof of the trend of his affections.
+
+Ruth smiled at him in a very friendly manner, but gently shook her head.
+
+"I thank you, sir," said she. "But it were more than I could permit.
+This has become a family affair."
+
+There was in her tone something which, despite its friendliness,
+gave Sir Rowland his dismissal. He was not at best a man of keen
+sensibilities; yet even so, he could not mistake the request to
+withdraw that was implicit in her tone and manner. He took his leave,
+registering, however, in his heart a vow that he would have his way with
+Wilding. Thus must he--through her gratitude--assuredly come to have his
+way with Ruth.
+
+Diana rose and turned to her mother. "Come," she said, "we'll speed Sir
+Rowland. Ruth and Richard would perhaps prefer to remain alone."
+
+Ruth thanked her with her eyes. Richard, standing beside his sister with
+bent head and moody gaze, did not appear to have heard. Thus he remained
+until he and his half-sister were alone together, then he flung himself
+wearily into the seat beside her, and took her hand.
+
+"Ruth," he faltered, "Ruth!"
+
+She stroked his hand, her honest, intelligent eyes bent upon him in
+a look of pity--and to indulge this pity for him, she forgot how much
+herself she needed pity.
+
+"Take it not so to heart," she urged him, her voice low and crooning
+--as that of a mother to her babe. "Take it not so to heart, Richard.
+I should have married some day, and, after all, it may well be that Mr.
+Wilding will make me as good a husband as another. I do believe," she
+added, her only intent to comfort Richard; "that he loves me; and if he
+loves me, surely he will prove kind."
+
+He flung himself back with an exclamation of angry pain. He was white to
+the lips, his eyes bloodshot. "It must not be--it shall not be--I'll not
+endure it!" he cried hoarsely.
+
+"Richard, dear..." she began, recapturing the hand he had snatched from
+hers in his gust of emotion.
+
+He rose abruptly, interrupting her. "I'll go to Wilding now," he cried,
+his voice resolute. "He shall cancel this bargain he had no right to
+make. He shall take up his quarrel with me where it stood before you
+went to him."
+
+"No, no, Richard, you must not!" she urged him, frightened, rising too,
+and clinging to his arm.
+
+"I will," he answered. "At the worst he can but kill me. But at least
+you shall not be sacrificed."
+
+"Sit here, Richard," she bade him. "There is something you have not
+considered. If you die, if Mr. Wilding kills you..." she paused.
+
+He looked at her, and at the repetition of the fate that would probably
+await him if he persevered in the course he threatened, his purely
+emotional courage again began to fail him. A look of fear crept
+gradually into his face to take the room of the resolution that had been
+stamped upon it but a moment since.
+
+He swallowed hard. "What then?" he asked, his voice harsh, and, obeying
+her command and the pressure on his hand, he resumed his seat beside
+her.
+
+She spoke now at length and very gravely, dwelling upon the circumstance
+that he was the head of the family, the last Westmacott of his line,
+pointing out to him the importance of his existence, the insignificance
+of her own. She was but a girl, a thing of small account where the
+perpetuation of a family was at issue. After all, she must marry
+somebody some day, she repeated, and perhaps she had been foolish in
+attaching too much importance to the tales she had heard of Mr.
+Wilding. Probably he was no worse than other men, and after all he was
+a gentleman of wealth and position, such a man as half the women in
+Somerset might be proud to own for husband.
+
+Her arguments and his weakness--his returning cowardice, which made him
+lend an ear to those same arguments--prevailed with him; at least they
+convinced him that he was far too important a person to risk his life in
+this quarrel upon which he had so rashly entered. He did not say that
+he was convinced; but he said that he would give the matter thought,
+hinting that perhaps some other way might present itself of cancelling
+the bargain she had made. They had a week before them, and in any case
+he promised readily in answer to her entreaties--for her faith in
+him was a thing unquenchable--that he would do nothing without taking
+counsel with her.
+
+Meanwhile Diana had escorted Sir Rowland to the main gates of Lupton
+House, in front of which Miss Westmacott's groom was walking his horse,
+awaiting him.
+
+"Sir Rowland," said she at parting, "your chivalry makes you take this
+matter too deeply to heart. You overlook the possibility that my cousin
+may have good reason for not desiring your interference."
+
+He looked keenly at this little lady to whom a month ago he had been
+on the point of offering marriage. His coxcombry might readily have
+suggested to him that she was in love with him, but that his conscience
+and inclinations urged him to assure himself that this was not the case.
+
+"What shall that mean, madam?" he asked her.
+
+Diana hesitated. "What I have said is plain," she answered, and it was
+clear that she held something back.
+
+Sir Rowland flattered himself upon the shrewdness with which he read
+her, never dreaming that he had but read just what she intended he
+should.
+
+He stood squarely before her, shaking his great head. "Not plain enough
+for me," he said. Then his tone softened to one of prayer. "Tell me," he
+besought her.
+
+"I can't! I can't!" she cried in feigned distress. "It were too
+disloyal."
+
+He frowned. He caught her arm and pressed it, his heart sick with
+jealous alarm. "What do you mean? Tell me, tell me, Mistress Horton."
+
+Diana lowered her eyes. "You'll not betray me?" she stipulated.
+
+"Why, no. Tell me."
+
+She flushed delicately. "I am disloyal to Ruth," she said, "and yet I am
+loath to see you cozened."
+
+"Cozened?" quoth he hoarsely, his egregious vanity in arms. "Cozened?"
+
+Diana explained. "Ruth was at his house to-day," said she, "closeted
+alone with him for an hour or more."
+
+"Impossible!" he cried.
+
+"Where else was the bargain made?" she asked, and shattered his last
+doubt. "You know that Mr. Wilding has not been here."
+
+Yet Blake struggled heroically against conviction.
+
+"She went to intercede for Richard," he protested. Miss Horton looked
+up at him, and under her glance Sir Rowland felt that he was a man of
+unfathomable ignorance. Then she turned aside her eyes and shrugged her
+shoulders very eloquently. "You are a man of the world, Sir Rowland. You
+cannot seriously suppose that any maid would so imperil her good name in
+any cause?"
+
+Darker grew his florid countenance; his bulging eyes looked troubled and
+perplexed.
+
+"You mean that she loves him?" he said, between question and assertion.
+
+Diana pursed her lips. "You shall draw your own inference," quoth she.
+
+He breathed heavily, and squared his broad shoulders, as one who braces
+himself for battle against an element stronger than himself.
+
+"But her talk of sacrifice?" he cried.
+
+Diana laughed, and again he was stung by her contempt of his
+perceptions. "Her brother is set against her marrying him," said she.
+"Here was her chance. Is it not very plain?"
+
+Doubt stared from his eyes. "Why do you tell me this?"
+
+"Because I esteem you, Sir Rowland," she answered very gently. "I would
+not have you meddle in a matter you cannot mend."
+
+"Which I am not desired to mend, say rather," he replied with heavy
+sarcasm. "She would not have my interference!" He laughed angrily. "I
+think you are right, Mistress Diana," he said, "and I think that more
+than ever is there the need to kill this Mr. Wilding."
+
+He took his departure abruptly, leaving her scared at the mischief she
+had made for him in seeking to save him from it, and that very night he
+sought out Wilding.
+
+But Wilding was from home again. Under its placid surface the West
+Country was in a ferment. And if hitherto Mr. Wilding had disdained the
+insistent rumours of Monmouth's coming, his assurance was shaken now by
+proof that the Government, itself, was stirring; for four companies of
+foot and a troop of horse had been that day ordered to Taunton by the
+Deputy-Lieutenant. Wilding was gone with Trenchard to White Lackington
+in a vain hope that there he might find news to confirm his persisting
+unbelief in any such rashness as was alleged on Monmouth's part.
+
+So Blake was forced to wait, but his purpose suffered nothing by delay.
+
+Returning on the morrow, he found Mr. Wilding at table with Nick
+Trenchard, and he cut short the greetings of both men. He flung his
+hat--a black castor trimmed with a black feather--rudely among the
+dishes on the board.
+
+"I have come to ask you, Mr. Wilding," said he, "to be so good as to
+tell me the colour of that hat."
+
+Mr. Wilding raised one eyebrow and looked aslant at Trenchard, whose
+weather-beaten face was suddenly agrin with stupefaction.
+
+"I could not," said Mr. Wilding, "deny an answer to a question set so
+courteously." He looked up into Blake's flushed and scowling face with
+the sweetest and most innocent of smiles. "You'll no doubt disagree with
+me," said he, "but I love to meet a man halfway. Your hat, sir, is as
+white as virgin snow."
+
+Blake's slow wits were disconcerted for a moment. Then he smiled
+viciously. "You mistake, Mr. Wilding," said he. "My hat is black."
+
+Mr. Wilding looked more attentively at the object in dispute. He was in
+a trifling mood, and the stupidity of this runagate debtor afforded him
+opportunities to indulge it. "Why, true," said he, "now that I come to
+look, I perceive that it is indeed black."
+
+And again was Sir Rowland disconcerted. Still he pursued the lesson he
+had taught himself.
+
+"You are mistaken again," said he, "that hat is green."
+
+"Indeed?" quoth Mr. Wilding, like one surprised and he turned to
+Trenchard, who was enjoying himself. "What is your own opinion of it,
+Nick?"
+
+Thus appealed to, Trenchard's reply was prompt. "Why, since you ask
+me," said he, "my opinion is that it's a noisome thing not meet for a
+gentleman's table." And he took it up, and threw it through the window.
+
+Sir Rowland was entirely put out of countenance. Here was a deliberate
+shifting of the quarrel he had come to pick, which left him all at sea.
+It was his duty to himself to take offence at Mr. Trenchard's action.
+But that was not the business on which he had come. He became angry.
+
+"Blister me!" he cried. "Must I sweep the cloth from the table before
+you'll understand me?"
+
+"If you were to do anything so unmannerly I should have you flung out
+of the house," said Mr. Wilding, "and it would distress me so to treat
+a person of your station and quality. The hat shall serve your purpose,
+although Mr. Trenchard's concern for my table has removed it. Our
+memories will supply its absence. What colour did you say it was?"
+
+"I said it was green," answered Blake, quite ready to keep to the point.
+
+"Nay, I am sure you were wrong," said Wilding with a grave air.
+"Although I admit that since it is your own hat, you should be the best
+judge of its colour, I am, nevertheless, of opinion that it is black."
+
+"And if I were to say that it is white?" asked Blake, feeling mighty
+ridiculous.
+
+"Why, in that case you would be confirming my first impression of it,"
+answered Wilding, and Trenchard let fly a burst of laughter at sight
+of the baronet's furious and bewildered countenance. "And since we are
+agreed on that," continued Mr. Wilding, imperturbable, "I hope you'll
+join us at supper."
+
+"I'll be damned," roared Blake, "if ever I sit at table of yours, sir."
+
+"Ah!" said Mr. Wilding regretfully. "Now you become offensive."
+
+"I mean to be," said Blake.
+
+"You astonish me!"
+
+"You lie! I don't," Sir Rowland answered him in triumph. He had got it
+out at last.
+
+Mr. Wilding sat back in his chair, and looked at him, his face
+inexpressibly shocked.
+
+"Will you of your own accord deprive us of your company, Sir Rowland,"
+he wondered, "or shall Mr. Trenchard throw you after your hat?"
+
+"Do you mean..." gasped the other, "that you'll ask no satisfaction of
+me?"
+
+"Not so. Mr. Trenchard shall wait upon your friends to-morrow, and I
+hope you'll afford us then as felicitous entertainment as you do now."
+
+Sir Rowland snorted, and, turning on his heel, made for the door.
+
+"Give you a good night, Sir Rowland," Mr. Wilding called after him.
+"Walters, you rascal, light Sir Rowland to the door."
+
+Poor Blake went home deeply vexed; but it was no more than the beginning
+of his humiliation at Mr. Wilding's hands--for what can be more
+humiliating to a quarrel--seeking man than to have his enemy refuse to
+treat him seriously? He and Mr. Wilding met next morning, and before
+noon the tale of it had run through Bridgwater that Wild Wilding was at
+his tricks again. It made a pretty story how twice he had disarmed and
+each time spared the London beau, who still insisted--each time more
+furiously--upon renewing the encounter, till Mr. Wilding had been forced
+to run him through the sword-arm and thus put him out of all case of
+continuing. It was a story that heaped ridicule upon Sir Rowland and did
+credit to Mr. Wilding.
+
+Richard heard it, and trembled, enraged and impotent. Ruth heard it, and
+was stirred despite herself to a feeling of gratitude towards Wilding
+for the patience and toleration he had displayed.
+
+There for a while the matter rested, and the days passed slowly. But Sir
+Rowland's nature--mean at bottom--was spurred to find him some other
+way of wiping out the score that lay 'twixt him and Mr. Wilding, a score
+mightily increased by the shame that Mr. Wilding had put upon him in
+that encounter from which--whatever the issue--he had looked to cull
+great credit in Ruth's eyes.
+
+He had been thinking constantly of the incautious words that Richard
+had let fall, thinking of them in conjunction with the startling rumours
+that were now the talk of the whole countryside. He laid two and two
+together, and the four he found them make afforded him some hope. Then
+he realized--as he might have realized before had he been shrewder--that
+Richard's mood was one that made him ripe for any villainy. He thought
+that he was much in error if a treachery existed so black that Richard
+would quail before it, if it but afforded him the means of ridding
+himself and the world of Mr. Wilding. He was considering how best to
+approach the subject, when it happened that one night when Richard sat
+at play with him in his own lodging, the boy grew talkative through
+excess of wine. It happened naturally enough that Richard sought an
+ally in Blake, just as Blake sought an ally in Richard. Indeed, their
+fortunes--so far as Ruth was concerned--were bound up together. The
+baronet saw that Richard, half-fuddled, was ripe for any confidences
+that might aim at the destruction of his enemy. He questioned him
+adroitly, and drew from him the story of the rising that was being
+planned, and of the share that Mr. Wilding--one of the Duke of
+Monmouth's chief movement-men--bore in the business that was toward.
+
+When, towards midnight, Richard Westmacott went home, he left in Sir
+Rowland's hands an instrument which the latter accounted potential not
+only for the destruction of Anthony Wilding, but perhaps also for laying
+the foundations to the building of his own fortunes anew.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. THE NUPTIALS OF RUTH WESTMACOTT
+
+Here was Sir Rowland Blake in high fettle at knowing himself armed with
+a portentous weapon for the destruction of Anthony Wilding. Upon closer
+inspection of it, however, he came to realize--as Richard had realized
+earlier--that it was double-edged, and that the wielding of it must be
+fraught with as much danger for Richard as for their common enemy. For
+to betray Mr. Wilding and the plot would scarce be possible without
+betraying young Westmacott, and that was unthinkable, since to ruin
+Richard--a thing he would have done with a light heart so far as Richard
+was himself concerned--would be to ruin his own hopes of winning Ruth.
+
+Therefore, during the days that followed, Sir Rowland was forced to
+fret in idleness what time his wound was healing; but if his arm was
+invalided, his eyes and ears were sound, and he remained watchful for an
+opportunity to apply the knowledge he had gained. Richard mentioned the
+subject no more, so that Blake almost came to wonder whether the boy
+remembered what in his cups he had betrayed.
+
+Meanwhile Mr. Wilding moved serene and smiling on his way. Daily there
+were great armfuls of flowers deposited at Lupton House--his lover's
+offering to his mistress--and no day went by but that some richer gift
+accompanied them. Now it was a collar of brilliants, anon a rope of
+pearls, again a priceless ring that had been Mr. Wilding's mother's.
+Ruth received with reluctance these pledges of his undesired affection.
+It were idle to reject them, considering that she was to marry him; yet
+it hurt her sorely to retain them. On her side she made no dispositions
+for the marriage, but went about her daily tasks as though she were to
+remain a maid at Lupton House for a time as yet indefinite.
+
+In Diana, Wilding had--though he was far from guessing it--an entirely
+exceptional ally. Lady Horton, too, was favourably disposed towards him.
+A foolish, worldly woman, who never probed beneath life's surface, nor
+indeed dreamed that anything existed in life beyond that to which her
+five senses testified, she was content placidly to contemplate the
+advantages that must accrue to her niece from this alliance.
+
+And so mother and daughter in Mr. Wilding's absence pleaded his cause
+with his refractory bride-elect. But they pleaded it to little real
+purpose. Something perhaps they achieved in that Ruth grew more or
+less resigned to the fate that awaited her. By repeating to herself the
+arguments she had employed to Richard--that she must wed some day, and
+that Mr. Wilding would prove no doubt as good a husband as another--she
+came in a measure to believe them.
+
+Richard meanwhile appeared to avoid her. Lacking the courage to adopt
+the heroic measures which at first he had promised, yet had he grace
+enough to take shame at his inaction. But if he was idle so far as
+Mr. Wilding was concerned, there was no lack of work for him in other
+connections. The clouds of war were gathering in that summer sky, and
+about to loose the storm gestating in them upon that fair country of
+the West, and young Westmacott, committed as he stood to the Duke of
+Monmouth's party, was forced to take his share in the surreptitious
+bustle that was toward. He was away two days in that week, having been
+summoned to a meeting of the leading gentlemen of the party at White
+Lackington, where he was forced into the unwelcome company of his future
+brother-in-law, to meet with courteous, deferential treatment from that
+imperturbable gentleman.
+
+Wilding, indeed, seemed to have forgotten that any quarrel had ever
+existed between them. For the rest, he came and went, supremely calm, as
+if he were, and knew himself to be, most welcome at Lupton House. Thrice
+in the course of that week of waiting he rode over from Zoyland Chase
+to pay his duty to Mistress Westmacott, and Ruth was persuaded on each
+occasion by her aunt and cousin to receive him. Indeed, how could she
+well refuse?
+
+His manner was ever all that could be desired. Gallant, affectionate,
+deferential. He was in word and look and tone Ruth's most obedient
+servant. Had she been less prejudiced she must have admired the
+admirable restraint with which he kept all exultation from his manner,
+for, after all, it is difficult to force a victory as he had forced his,
+and not to triumph.
+
+It is to be feared that during that week he neglected a good deal of his
+duty to the Duke, leaving Trenchard to supply his place and undertake
+tasks of a seditious nature that should have been his own.
+
+At heart, however, in spite of the stories current and the militia at
+Taunton, Wilding remained convinced--as did most of the other leading
+partisans of the Protestant Cause--that no such madness as this
+premature landing could be in contemplation by the Duke. Besides, were
+it so, they must unfailingly have definite word of it; and they had
+none.
+
+Trenchard was less assured, but Wilding laughed at the old rake's
+forebodings, and serenely went about the business of his marriage.
+
+On the eve of the wedding he paid Ruth his last visit in the quality
+of a lover, and was received by her in the garden. He found her looking
+paler than her wont, and there was a cloud of sadness on her brow, a
+haunting sadness in her eyes. It touched him to the soul, and for a
+moment he wavered in his purpose. He stood beside her--she seated on
+the old lichened seat--and a silence fell between them, during which
+Mr. Wilding's conscience wrestled with his stronger passion. It was his
+habit to be glib, talking incessantly what time he was in her company,
+and seeing to it that his talk was shallow and touched at nothing
+belonging to the deeps of human life. Thus was it, perhaps, that this
+sudden and enduring silence affected her most oddly; it was as if she
+had absorbed some notion of what was passing in his mind. She looked up
+suddenly into his face, so white and so composed. Their eyes met, and he
+stooped to her suddenly, his long brown ringlets tumbling forward. She
+feared his kiss, yet never moved, staring up with fixed, dilated eyes as
+if fascinated by his dark, brooding gaze. He paused, hovering above her
+upturned face as hovers the hawk above the dove.
+
+"Child," he said at last, and his voice was soft and winning from very
+sadness, "child, why do you fear me?"
+
+The truth of it went home to her. She feared him; she feared the
+strength that lay behind that calm; she feared the masterfulness of his
+wild but inscrutably hidden nature; she was afraid to surrender to
+such a man as this, afraid that in the hot crucible of his love her own
+nature would be dissolved, transmuted, and rendered part of his. Yet,
+though the truth was now made plain to her, she thrust it from her.
+
+"I do not fear you," said she, and her voice at least rang fearlessly.
+
+"Do you hate me, then?" he asked. Her glance grew troubled and fell
+away from his; it sought the calm of the river, gleaming golden in the
+sunset. There was a pause. Wilding sighed heavily, and straightened
+himself from his bending posture.
+
+"You should not have sought thus to compel me, she said presently.
+
+"I own it," he answered a thought bitterly. "I own it. Yet what hope had
+I but in compulsion?" She returned him no answer. "You see," he said,
+with increasing bitterness, "you see, that had I not seized the chance
+that was mine to win you by compulsion I had not won you at all."
+
+"It might," said she, "have been better so for both of us."
+
+"Better for neither," he replied. "Ah, think it not! In time, I swear,
+you shall not think it. For you shall come to love me, Ruth," he added
+with a note of such assurance that she turned to meet again his gaze.
+He answered the wordless question of her eyes. "There is," said he, "no
+love of man for woman, so that the man be not wholly unworthy, so that
+his passion be sincere and strong, that can fail in time to arouse
+response." She smiled a little pitiful smile of unbelief. "Were I a
+boy," he rejoined, his earnestness vibrating now in a voice that was
+usually so calm and level, "offering you protestations of a callow
+worship, you might have cause to doubt me. But I am a man, Ruth--a
+tried, and haply a sinful man, alas!--a man who needs you, and who will
+have you at all costs."
+
+"At all costs?" she echoed, and her lip took on a curl. "And you call
+this egotism by the name of love! No doubt you are right," she continued
+with an irony that stung him, "for love it is--love of yourself."
+
+"And is not all love of another founded upon the love of self?" he asked
+her, startling her with a question that revealed to her clear-sighted
+mind a truth undreamed of. "When some day--please Heaven--I come to find
+favour in your eyes, and you come to love me, what will it mean but that
+you have come to find me necessary to yourself and to your happiness?
+Would you deny me now your love if you felt that you had need of mine?
+I love you because I love myself, you say. I grant it you. But you'll
+confess that if you do not love me yet, it is for the same reason, and
+that when you do come to love me the reason will be still the same."
+
+"You are very sure that I shall come to love you," said she, shifting
+woman-like the ground of argument now that she found insecure the place
+on which at first she had taken her stand.
+
+"Were I not, think you I should compel you to the church to-morrow?"
+
+She trembled at his calm assurance. It was as if she almost feared that
+what he said might come to pass.
+
+"Since you bear such faith in your heart," said she, "were it not
+nobler, more generous, that you should set yourself to win me first and
+wed me afterwards?"
+
+"It is the course I should, myself, prefer," he answered quietly. "But
+it is a course denied me. I was viewed here with disfavour, almost
+denied your house. What chance had I whilst I might not come near you,
+whilst your mind was poisoned against me by the idle, vicious prattle
+that goes round and round the countryside, increasing ever in bulk from
+constant repetition?"
+
+"Do you say that these tales are groundless?" she asked, with a sudden
+lifting of the eyes, a sudden keen eagerness that did not escape him.
+
+"I would to God I could," he cried, "since from your manner I see that
+would improve me in your sight. But there is just sufficient truth in
+them to forbid me, as I am, I hope, a gentleman, from giving them a full
+denial. Yet in what am I worse than my fellows? Are you of those who
+think a husband should come to them as one whose youth has been the
+youth of cloistered nun? Heaven knows, I am not one to draw parallels
+'twixt myself and any other, yet you compel me. Whilst you deny me, you
+receive this fellow Blake--a London night-scourer, a broken gamester
+who has given his creditors leg-bail, and who woos you that with your
+fortune he may close the doors of the debtor's gaol that's open to
+receive him."
+
+"This is unworthy in you," she exclaimed, her tone indignant--so
+indignant that he experienced his first pang of jealousy.
+
+"It would be were I his rival," he answered quietly. "But I am not. I
+have saved you from becoming the prey of such as he by forcing you to
+marry me."
+
+"That I may become the prey of such as you, instead," was her retort.
+
+He looked at her a moment, smiling sadly. Then, with pardonable
+self-esteem when we think of what manner of man it was with whom he now
+compared himself, "Surely," said he, "it is better to become the prey of
+the lion than the jackal."
+
+"To the victim it can matter little," she answered, and he saw the tears
+gathering in her eyes.
+
+Compassion moved him. It rose in arms to batter down his will, and in a
+weaker man had triumphed. Mr. Wilding bent his knee and went down beside
+her.
+
+"I swear," he said impassionedly, "that as my wife you shall never count
+yourself a victim. You shall be honoured by all men, but by none more
+deeply than by him who will ever strive to be worthy of the proud title
+of your husband." He took her hand and kissed it reverentially. He rose
+and looked at her. "To-morrow," he said, and bowing low before her went
+his way, leaving her with emotions that found their vent in tears, but
+defied her maiden mind to understand them.
+
+The morrow came her wedding-day--a sunny day of early June, and
+Ruth--assisted by Diana and Lady Horton--made preparation for her
+marriage as spirited women have made preparation for the scaffold,
+determined to show the world a brave, serene exterior. The sacrifice was
+necessary for Richard's sake. That was a thing long since determined.
+Yet it would have been some comfort to her to have had Richard at her
+side; it would have lent her strength to have had his kiss of thanks
+for the holocaust which for him she was making of all that a woman holds
+most dear and sacred. But Richard was away--he had been absent since
+yesterday, and none could tell her where he tarried.
+
+With Lady Horton and Diana she took her way to Saint Mary's Church at
+noon, and there she found Mr. Wilding--very fine in a suit of sky-blue
+satin, laced with silver--awaiting her. And with him was old Lord
+Gervase Scoresby, his friend and cousin, the very incarnation of
+benignity and ruddy health.
+
+For a wonder Nick Trenchard was not at Mr. Wilding's side. But Nick
+had definitely refused to be of the party, emphasizing his refusal by
+certain choice reflections wholly unflattering to the married state.
+
+Some idlers of the town were the only witnesses--and little did they
+guess the extent of the tragedy they were witnessing. There was no
+music, and the ceremony was brief and soon at an end. The only touch of
+joy, of festiveness, was that afforded by the choice blooms with which
+Mr. Wilding had smothered nave and choir and altar-rails. Their perfume
+hung heavy as incense in the temple.
+
+"Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?" droned the parson's
+voice, and Wilding smiled defiantly a smile which seemed to answer him,
+"No man. I have taken her for myself."
+
+Lord Gervase stood forward as her sponsor, and as in a dream Ruth felt
+her hand lying in Mr. Wilding's cool, firm grasp.
+
+The ecclesiastic's voice droned on, his voice hanging like the hum of
+some great Insect upon the scented air. It was accomplished, and they
+were welded each to the other until death should part them.
+
+Down the festooned nave she came on his arm, her step unfaltering,
+her face calm; black misery in her heart. Behind followed her aunt and
+cousin and Lord Gervase. On Mr. Wilding's aquiline face a pale smile
+glimmered, like a beam of moonlight upon tranquil waters, and it abode
+there until they reached the porch and were suddenly confronted by Nick
+Trenchard, red of face for once, perspiring, excited, and dust-stained
+from head to foot.
+
+He had arrived that very instant; and, urged by the fearful news that
+brought him, he had come resolved to pluck Wilding from the altar be the
+ceremony done or not. But in that he reckoned without Mr. Wilding--for
+he should have known him better than to have hoped to succeed. He
+stepped forward now, and gripped him with his dusty glove by the
+sleeve of his shimmering bridegroom's coat. His voice came harsh with
+excitement and smouldering rage.
+
+"A word with you, Anthony!"
+
+Mr. Wilding turned placidly to regard him. "What now?" he asked, his
+bride's hand retained in the crook of his elbow.
+
+"Treachery!" snapped Trenchard in a whisper. "Hell and damnation! Step
+aside, man."
+
+Mr. Wilding turned to Lord Gervase, and begged of him to take charge of
+Mistress Wilding. "I deplore this interruption," he told her, no whit
+ruffled by what he had heard. "But I shall rejoin you soon. Meanwhile,
+his lordship will do the honours for me." This last he said with his
+eyes moving to Lady Horton and her daughter.
+
+Lord Gervase, in some surprise, but overruled by his cousin's calm,
+took the bride on his arm and led her from the churchyard to the waiting
+carriage. To this he handed her, and after her her aunt and cousin.
+Then, mounting himself, they drove away, leaving Wilding and Trenchard
+among the tombstones, whither the messenger of evil had meanwhile led
+his friend. Trenchard rapped out his story briefly.
+
+"Shenke," said he, "who was riding from Lyme with letters for you from
+the Duke, was robbed of his dispatches late last night a mile or so this
+side Taunton."
+
+"Highwaymen?" inquired Mr. Wilding, his tone calm, though his glance had
+hardened.
+
+"Highwaymen? No! Government agents belike. There were two of them, he
+says--for I have the tale from himself--and they met him at the Hare and
+Hounds at Taunton, where he stayed to sup last night. One of them gave
+him the password, and he conceived him to be a friend. But afterwards,
+growing suspicious, he refused to tell them too much. They followed
+him, it appears, and on the road they overtook and fell upon him; they
+knocked him from his horse, possessed themselves of the contents of his
+wallet, and left him for dead--with his head broken."
+
+Mr. Wilding drew a sharp breath. His wits worked quickly. He was, he
+realized, in deadly peril. One thought he gave to Ruth. If the worst
+came to pass here was one who would rejoice in her freedom. The
+reflection cut through him like a sword. He would be loath to die
+until he had taught her to regret him. Then his mind returned to what
+Trenchard had told him.
+
+"You said a Government agent," he mused slowly. "How would a Government
+agent know the password?"
+
+Trenchard's mouth fell open. "I had not thought..." he began. Then ended
+with an oath. "'Tis a traitor from inside."
+
+Wilding nodded. "It must be one of those who met at White Lackington
+three nights ago," he answered.
+
+Idlers--the witnesses of the wedding--were watching them with interest
+from the path, and others from over the low wall of the churchyard,
+as well they might, for Mr. Wilding's behaviour was, for a bridegroom,
+extraordinary. Trenchard did not relish the audience.
+
+"We had best away," said he. "Indeed," he added, "we had best out
+of England altogether before the hue and cry is raised. The bubble's
+pricked."
+
+Wilding's hand fell on his arm, and its grasp was steady. Wilding's eyes
+met his, and their gaze was calm.
+
+"Where have you bestowed this messenger?" quoth he.
+
+"He is here in Bridgwater, in bed, at the Bell Inn, whence he sent for
+you to Zoyland Chase. Suspecting trouble, I rode to him at once myself."
+
+"Come, then," said Wilding. "We'll go talk with him. This matter needs
+probing ere we decide on flight. You do not seem to have sought to
+discover who were the thieves, nor other matters that it may be of use
+to know."
+
+"Rat me!" swore Trenchard. "I was in haste to bring you news of
+it. Besides, there were other things to talk of. There is news that
+Albemarle has gone to Exeter, and that Sir Edward Phelips and Colonel
+Luttrell have been ordered to Taunton by the King."
+
+Mr. Wilding stared at him with sudden dismay.
+
+"Odso!" he exclaimed. "Is King James taking fright at last?" Then
+he shrugged his shoulders and laughed; "Pshaw!" he cried. "They are
+starting at a shadow."
+
+"Heaven send," prayed Trenchard, "that the shadow does not prove to have
+a substance immediately behind it."
+
+"Folly!" said Wilding. "When Monmouth comes, indeed, we shall not lack
+forewarning. Come," he added briskly. "We'll see this messenger and
+endeavour to discover who were these fellows that beset him." And he
+drew Trenchard from among the tombstones to the open path, and thus from
+the churchyard and the eyes of the gaping onlookers.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. BRIDE AND GROOM
+
+And so the bridegroom, in all his wedding finery, made his way with
+Trenchard to the Bell Inn, in the High Street, whilst his bride,
+escorted by Lord Gervase, was being driven to Zoyland Chase, of which
+she was now the mistress.
+
+But she was not destined just yet to cross its threshold. For scarcely
+were they over the river when a horseman barred their way, and called
+upon the driver to pull up. Lady Horton, in a panic, huddled herself
+in the great coach and spoke of tobymen, whilst Lord Gervase thrust
+his head from the window to discover that the rider who stayed their
+progress was Richard Westmacott. His lordship hailed the boy, who,
+thereupon, walked his horse to the carriage door.
+
+"Lord Gervase," said he, "will you bid the coachman put about and drive
+to Lupton House?"
+
+Lord Gervase stared at him in hopeless bewilderment. "Drive to Lupton
+House?" he echoed. The more he saw of this odd wedding, the less he
+understood of it. It seemed to the placid old gentleman that he was
+fallen among a parcel of Bedlamites. "Surely, sir, it is for Mistress
+Wilding to say whither she will be driven," and he drew in his head and
+turned to Ruth for her commands. But, bewildered herself, she had none
+to give him. It was her turn to lean from the carriage window to ask her
+brother what he meant.
+
+"I mean you are to drive home again," said he. "There is something
+I must tell you. When you have heard me it shall be yours to decide
+whether you will proceed or not to Zoyland Chase."
+
+Hers to decide? How was that possible? What could he mean? She pressed
+him with some such questions.
+
+"It means, in short," he answered impatiently, "that I hold your
+salvation in my hands. For the rest, this is not the time or place to
+tell you more. Bid the fellow put about."
+
+Ruth sat back and looked once more at her companions. But from none did
+she receive the least helpful suggestion. Lady Horton made great prattle
+to little purpose; Lord Gervase followed her example, whilst Diana,
+whose alert if trivial mind was the one that might have offered
+assistance, sat silent. Ruth pondered. She bethought her of Trenchard's
+sudden arrival at Saint Mary's, his dust-stained person and excited
+manner, and of how he had drawn Mr. Wilding aside with news that seemed
+of moment. And now her brother spoke of saving her; it was a little late
+for that, she thought. Outside the coach his voice still urged her, and
+it grew peevish and angry, as was usual when he was crossed. In the end
+she consented to do his will. If she were to fathom this mystery that
+was thickening about her there seemed to be no other course. She turned
+to Lord Gervase.
+
+"Will you do as Richard says?" she begged him.
+
+His lordship blew out his chubby cheeks in his astonishment; he
+hesitated a moment, thinking of his cousin Wilding; then, with a shrug,
+he leaned from the window and gave the order she desired. The carriage
+turned about, and with Richard following lumbered back across the bridge
+and through the town to Lupton House. At the door Lord Gervase took his
+leave of them. He had acted as Ruth had bidden him; but he had no wish
+to be further involved in this affair, whatever it might portend. Rather
+was it his duty at once to go acquaint Mr. Wilding--if he could find
+him--with what was taking place, and leave it to Mr. Wilding to take
+what measures might seem best to him. He told them so, and having told
+them, left them.
+
+Richard begged to be alone with his sister, and alone they passed
+together into the library. His manner was restless; he trembled with
+excitement, and his eyes glittered almost feverishly.
+
+"You may have thought, Ruth, that I was resigned to your marriage with
+this fellow Wilding," he began; "or that for other reasons I thought it
+wiser not to interfere. If you thought that you wronged me. I--Blake and
+I--have been at work for you during these last days, and I rejoice
+to say our labours have not been idle." His manner grew assertive,
+boastful, as he proceeded.
+
+"You know, of course," said she, "that I am married."
+
+He made a gesture of disdain. "No matter," said he exultantly.
+
+"It matters something, I think," she answered. "O Richard, Richard, why
+did you not come to me sooner if you possessed the means of sparing me
+this thing?"
+
+He shrugged impatiently; her remonstrance seemed to throw him out of
+temper. "Oons!" he cried; "I came as soon as was ever possible, and,
+depend upon it, I am not come too late. Indeed, I think I am come in the
+very nick of time." He drew a sheet of paper from an inside pocket of
+his coat and slapped it down upon the table. "There is the wherewithal
+to hang your fine husband," he announced in triumph.
+
+She recoiled. "To hang him?" she echoed. With all her aversion to Mr.
+Wilding it was plain she did not wish him hanged.
+
+"Aye, to hang him," Richard repeated, and drew himself to the full
+height of his short stature in pride at the thing he had achieved. "Read
+it."
+
+She took the paper almost mechanically, and for some moments she studied
+the crabbed signature before realizing whose it was. Then she started.
+
+"From the Duke of Monmouth!" she exclaimed.
+
+He laughed. "Read it," he bade her again, though there was no need for
+the injunction, for already she was deciphering the crabbed hand and
+the atrocious spelling--for His Grace of Monmouth's education had been
+notoriously neglected. The letter, which was dated from The Hague, was
+addressed "To my good friend W., at Bridgwater." It began, "Sir," spoke
+of the imminent arrival of His Grace in the West, and gave certain
+instructions for the collection of arms and the work of preparing men
+for enlistment in his Cause, ending with protestations of His Grace's
+friendship and esteem.
+
+Ruth read the epistle twice before its treasonable nature was made clear
+to her; before she understood the thing that was foreshadowed. Then
+she raised troubled eyes to her brother's face, and in answer to the
+question of her glance he made clear to her the shrewd means by which
+they had become possessed of this weapon that should destroy their enemy
+Mr. Wilding.
+
+Blake and he, forewarned--he said not how--of the coming of this
+messenger, had lain in wait for him at the Hare and Hounds, at Taunton.
+They had sought at first to become possessed of the letter without
+violence. But, having failed in this through having aroused the
+messenger's suspicions, they had been forced to follow and attack him on
+a lonely stretch of road, where they had robbed him of the contents of
+his wallet. Richard added that the letter was, no doubt, one of several
+sent over by Monmouth to some friend at Lyme for distribution among his
+principal agents in the West. It was regrettable that they should
+have endeavoured to take gentle measures with the courier, as this had
+forewarned him, and he had apparently been led to remove the
+letter's outer wrapper--which, no doubt, bore Wilding's full name and
+address--against the chance of such an attack as they had made upon him.
+Nevertheless, as it was, that letter "to my good friend W.," backed by
+Richard's and Blake's evidence of the destination intended for it, would
+be more than enough to lay Mr. Wilding safely by the heels.
+
+"I would to Heaven," he repeated in conclusion, "I could have come in
+time to save you from becoming his wife. But at least it is in my power
+to make you very speedily his widow."
+
+"That," said Ruth, still retaining the letter, "is what you propose to
+do?"
+
+"What else?"
+
+She shook her head. "It must not be, Richard," she said. "I'll not
+consent to it."
+
+Taken aback, he stared at her; then laughed unpleasantly. "Odds my life!
+Are you in love with the man? Have you been fooling us?"
+
+"No," she answered. "But I'll be no party to his murder."
+
+"Murder, quotha! Who talks of murder?" Her shrewd eyes searched his
+face. "How came you by your knowledge that this courier rode to Mr.
+Wilding?" she asked him suddenly, and the swift change that overspread
+his countenance showed her that she had touched him in a tender spot,
+assured her of the thing she had suddenly come to suspect--a suspicion
+which at the same time started from and explained much that had been
+mysterious in Richard's ways of late. "You had knowledge of this
+conspiracy," she pursued, answering her own question before he had time
+to speak, "because you were one of the conspirators."
+
+"At least I am so no longer," he blurted out.
+
+"I thank Heaven for that, Richard; for your life is very dear to me. But
+it would ill become you to make such use as this of the knowledge
+you came by in that manner. It were a Judas's act." He would have
+interrupted her, but her manner dominated him. "You will leave this
+letter with me, Richard," she continued.
+
+"Damn me! no..." he began.
+
+"Ah, yes, Richard," she insisted. "You will give it to me, and I shall
+thank you for the gift. It shall prove a weapon for my salvation, never
+fear."
+
+"It shall, indeed," he cried, with an ugly laugh; "when I have ridden to
+Exeter to lay it before Albemarle."
+
+"Not so," she answered him. "It shall be a weapon of defence--not of
+offence. It shall stand as a buckler between me and Mr. Wilding. Trust
+me, I shall know how to use it."
+
+"But there is Blake to consider," he expostulated, growing angry. "I am
+pledged to him."
+
+"Your first duty is to me..."
+
+"Tut!" he interrupted. "Blake feels that he owes it to his loyalty to
+lay this letter before the Lord-Lieutenant, and, for that matter, so do
+I."
+
+"Sir Rowland would not cross my wishes in this," she answered him.
+
+"Folly!" he cried, now thoroughly aroused. "Give me that letter."
+
+"Nay, Richard," she answered, and waved him back.
+
+But he advanced nevertheless.
+
+"Give it me," he bade her, waxing fierce. "Gad! It was folly to have
+told you of it. I had not done so but that I never thought you such a
+fool as to oppose yourself to the thing we intend."
+
+"Listen, Richard..." she besought him.
+
+But he was grown insensible to pleadings.
+
+"Give me that letter," he insisted, and caught her wrist. Her other
+hand, however--the one that held the sheet--was already behind her back.
+
+The door was suddenly thrust open, and Diana appeared. "Ruth," she
+announced, "Mr. Wilding is here."
+
+At the mention of that name, Richard let her free. "Wilding!" he
+ejaculated, his fierceness all blown out of him. He had imagined that
+already Mr. Wilding would be in full flight. Was the fellow mad?
+
+"He is following me," said Diana, and, indeed, a step could be heard in
+the passage.
+
+"The letter!" growled Richard in a frenzy, between fear and anger now.
+"Give it me! Give it me, do you hear?"
+
+"Sh! You'll betray yourself," she cried. "He is here."
+
+And at that same moment Mr. Wilding's tall figure, still arrayed in his
+bridegroom's finery of sky-blue satin, loomed in the doorway. He was
+serene and calm as ever. Neither the discovery of the plot by the
+abstraction of the messenger's letter, nor Ruth's strange conduct--of
+which he had heard from Lord Gervase--had sufficed to ruffle, outwardly
+at least, the inscrutable serenity of his air and manner. He paused
+to make his bow, then advanced into the room, with a passing glance at
+Richard still spurred and booted and all dust-stained.
+
+"You appear to have ridden far, Dick," said he, smiling, and Richard
+shivered in spite of himself at the mocking note that seemed to ring
+faintly at the words. "I saw your friend, Sir Rowland, in the garden,"
+he added. "I think he waits for you."
+
+Though Richard could not fail to apprehend the implied dismissal, he
+was minded at first to disregard it. But Mr. Wilding, turning, held the
+door, addressing Diana.
+
+"Mistress Horton," said he, "will you give us leave?"
+
+Diana curtsied and passed out, and Mr. Wilding's eye falling upon the
+lingering Richard at that moment, Richard thought it best to follow her
+example. But he went with rage in his heart at being forced to leave
+that precious document behind him.
+
+As Mr. Wilding, his back to her a moment, closed the door, Ruth slipped
+the paper hurriedly into the bosom of her low-necked gown. He turned to
+her, calm but very grave, and his dark eyes seemed to reproach her.
+
+"This is ill done, Ruth," said he.
+
+"Ill done, or well done," she answered him, "done it is, and shall so
+remain."
+
+He raised his brows. "Ah," said he, "I appear, then, to have
+misapprehended the situation. From what Gervase told me, I understood it
+was your brother forced you to return."
+
+"Not forced, sir," she answered him.
+
+"Induced, then," said he. "It but remains me to induce you to repair
+what I think was a mistake."
+
+She shook her head. "I have returned home for good," said she.
+
+"You'll pardon me," said he, "that I am so egotistical as to prefer
+Zoyland Chase to Lupton House. Despite the manifold attractions of the
+latter, I do not intend to take up my abode here."
+
+"You are not asked to."
+
+"What, then?"
+
+She hated him for the smile, for his masterful air, which seemed to
+imply that he humoured her because he scorned to use authority, but that
+when he did use it, hers must it be to obey him. Again she felt that
+everlasting calm, arguing such latent forces, was the thing she hated
+most in him.
+
+"I think I had best be plain with you," said she. "I have fulfilled my
+part of the bargain that we made. I intend to do no more. I promised
+that if you spared my brother, I would go to the altar with you to-day.
+I have carried out my contract to the letter. It is at an end."
+
+"Indeed," said he; "I think it has not yet begun." He advanced towards
+her, and took her hand. She yielded it, unwilling though she was. "This
+is unworthy of you, madam," said he, his tone grave and deferential.
+"You think to escape fulfilling the spirit of your bargain by adhering
+to the letter of it. Not so," he ended, and shook his head, smiling
+gently. "The carriage is still at your door. You return with me to
+Zoyland Chase to take possession of your home."
+
+"You mistake," said she, and tore her hand from his. "You say that what
+I have done is unworthy. I admit it; but it is with unworthiness that we
+must combat unworthiness. Was your attitude towards me less unworthy?"
+
+"I'll make amends for it if you'll come home," said he.
+
+"My home is here. You cannot compel me."
+
+"I should be loath to," he admitted, sighing.
+
+"You cannot," she insisted.
+
+"I think I can," said he. "There is a law.."
+
+"A law that will hang you if you invoke it," she cut in quickly. "This
+much can I safely promise you."
+
+She had need to say no more to tell him everything. At all times half a
+word was as much to Mr. Wilding as a whole sentence to another. She saw
+the tightening of his lips, the hardening of his eyes, beyond which he
+gave no other sign that she had hit him.
+
+"I see," said he. "It is another bargain that you make. I do suspect
+there is some trader's blood in the Westmacott veins. Let us be clear.
+You hold the wherewithal to ruin me, and you will use it if I insist
+upon my husband's rights. Is it not so?"
+
+She nodded in silence, surprised at the rapidity with which he had read
+the situation.
+
+"I admit," said he, "that you have me between sword and wall." He
+laughed shortly. "Let me know more," he begged her. "Am I to understand
+that so long as I leave you in peace--so long as I do not insist upon
+your becoming my wife in more than name--you will not wield the weapon
+that you hold?"
+
+"You are to understand so," she answered.
+
+He took a turn in the room, very thoughtful. Not of himself was he
+thinking now, but of the Duke of Monmouth. Trenchard had told him some
+ugly truths that morning of how in his love-making he appeared to have
+shipwrecked the Cause ere it was well launched. If this letter got
+to Whitehall there was no gauging--ignorant as he was of what was in
+it--the ruin that might follow; but they had reason to fear the worst.
+He saw his duty to the Duke most clearly, and he breathed a prayer of
+thanks that Richard had chosen to put that letter to such a use as this.
+He knew himself checkmated; but he was a man who knew how to bear defeat
+in a becoming manner. He turned suddenly.
+
+"The letter is in your hands?" he inquired.
+
+"It is," she answered.
+
+"May I see it?" he asked.
+
+She shook her head--not daring to show it or betray its whereabouts lest
+he should use force to become possessed of it--a thing, indeed, that was
+very far from his purpose.
+
+He considered a moment, his mind intent now rather upon the Duke's
+interest than his own.
+
+"You know," quoth he, "the desperate enterprise to which I stand
+committed. But it is a bargain between us that you do not betray me nor
+that enterprise so long as I leave you rid of my presence."
+
+"That is the bargain I propose," said she.
+
+He looked at her a moment with hungry eyes, and she found his glance
+almost more than she could bear, so strong was its appeal. Besides,
+it may be that she was a thought beglamoured by the danger in which he
+stood, which seemed to invest him with a certain heroic dignity.
+
+"Ruth," he said at length, "it may well be that that which you desire
+may speedily come to pass; it may well be that in the course of this
+rebellion that is hatching you may be widowed. But at least I know that
+if my head falls it will not be my wife who has betrayed me to the axe.
+For that much, believe me, I am supremely grateful."
+
+He advanced. He took her unresisting hand again and bore it to his lips,
+bowing low before her. Then erect and graceful he turned on his heel and
+left her.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. MR. TRENCHARD'S COUNTERSTROKE
+
+Now, however much it might satisfy Mr. Wilding to have Ruth's word for
+it that so long as he left her in peace neither he nor the Cause had any
+betrayal to fear from her, Mr. Trenchard was of a very different mind.
+
+He fumed and swore and worked himself into a very passion. "Zoons,
+man!" he cried, "it would mean utter ruin to you if that letter reached
+Whitehall."
+
+"I realize it; but my mind is easy. I have her promise."
+
+"A woman's promise!" snorted Trenchard, and proceeded with great
+circumstance of expletives to damn "everything that daggled a
+petticoat."
+
+"Your fears are idle," Wilding assured him. "What she says, she will
+do."
+
+"And her brother?" quoth Trenchard. "Have you bethought you of that
+canary-bird? He'll know the letter's whereabouts. He has cause to fear
+you more than ever now. Are you sure he'll not be making use of it to
+lay you by the heels?"
+
+Mr. Wilding smiled upon the fury provoked by Trenchard's concern and
+love for him. "She has promised," he said with an insistent faith that
+was fuel to Trenchard's anger, "and I can depend her word."
+
+"So cannot I," snapped his friend.
+
+"The thing that plagues me most," said Wilding, ignoring the remark, "is
+that we are kept in ignorance of the letter's contents at a time when we
+most long for news. Not a doubt but it would have enabled us to set our
+minds at ease on the score of these foolish rumours."
+
+"Aye--or else confirmed them," said pessimistic Trenchard. He wagged his
+head. "They say the Duke has put to sea already."
+
+"Folly!" Wilding protested.
+
+"Whitehall thinks otherwise. What of the troops at Taunton?"
+
+"More folly."
+
+"Well-I would you had that letter."
+
+"At least," said Wilding, "I have the superscription, and we know from
+Shenke that no name was mentioned in the letter itself."
+
+"There's evidence enough without it," Trenchard reminded him, and fell
+soon after into abstraction, turning over in his mind a notion with
+which he had suddenly been inspired. That notion kept Trenchard secretly
+occupied for a couple of days; but in the end he succeeded in perfecting
+it.
+
+Now it befell that towards dusk one evening early in the week Richard
+Westmacott went abroad alone, as was commonly his habit, his goal being
+the Saracen's Head, where he and Sir Rowland spent many a night over
+wine and cards--to Sir Rowland's moderate profit, for he had not played
+the pigeon in town so long without having acquired sufficient knowledge
+to enable him to play the rook in the country. As Westmacott was passing
+up the High Street, a black shadow fell athwart the light that streamed
+from the door of the Bell Inn, and out through the doorway lurched Mr.
+Trenchard a thought unsteadily to hurtle so violently against Richard
+that he broke the long stem of the white clay pipe he was carrying. Now
+Richard was not to know that Mr. Trenchard--having informed himself of
+Mr. Westmacott's evening habits--had been waiting for the past half-hour
+in that doorway hoping that Mr. Westmacott would not depart this evening
+from his usual custom. Another thing that Mr. Westmacott was not to
+know--considering his youth--was the singular histrionic ability which
+this old rake had displayed in those younger days of his when he had
+been a player, and the further circumstance that he had excelled in
+those parts in which ebriety was to be counterfeited. Indeed, we have it
+on the word of no less an authority on theatrical matters than Mr. Pepys
+that Mr. Nicholas Trenchard's appearance as Pistol in "Henry IV" in the
+year of the blessed Restoration was the talk alike of town and court.
+
+Mr. Trenchard steadied himself from the impact, and, swearing a round
+and awful Elizabethan oath, accused the other of being drunk, then
+struck an attitude to demand with truculence, "Would ye take the wall o'
+me, sir?"
+
+Richard hastened to make himself known to this turbulent roysterer, who
+straightway forgot his grievance to take Westmacott affectionately by
+the hand and overwhelm him with apologies. And that done, Trenchard--who
+affected the condition known as maudlin drunk--must needs protest almost
+in tears how profound was his love for Richard, and insist that the boy
+return with him to the Bell Inn, that they might pledge each other.
+
+Richard, himself sober, was contemptuous of Trenchard so obviously
+obfuscated. At first it was his impulse to excuse himself, as possibly
+Blake might be already waiting for him; but on second thoughts,
+remembering that Trenchard was Mr. Wilding's most intimate famulus, it
+occurred to him that by a little crafty questioning he might succeed in
+smoking Mr. Wilding's intentions in the matter of that letter--for from
+his sister he had failed to get satisfaction. So he permitted himself to
+be led indoors to a table by the window which stood vacant. There were
+at the time a dozen guests or so in the common-room. Trenchard bawled
+for wine and brandy, and for all that he babbled in an irresponsible,
+foolish manner of all things that were of no matter, yet not the most
+adroit of pumping could elicit from him any such information as Richard
+sought. Perforce young Westmacott must remain, plying him with more and
+more drink--and being plied in his turn--to the end that he might not
+waste the occasion.
+
+An hour later found Richard much the worse for wear, and Trenchard
+certainly no better. Richard forgot his purpose, forgot that Blake
+waited for him at the Saracen's Head. And now Trenchard seemed to be
+pulling himself together.
+
+"I want to talk to you, Richard," said he, and although thick, there was
+in his voice a certain impressive quality that had been absent hitherto.
+"'S a rumour current." He lowered his voice to a whisper almost, and,
+leaning across, took his companion by the arm. He hiccoughed noisily,
+then began again. "'S a rumour current, sweetheart, that you're
+disaffected."
+
+Richard started, and his mind flapped and struggled like a trapped bird
+to escape the meshes of the wine, to the end that he might convincingly
+defend himself from such an imputation--so dangerously true.
+
+"'S a lie!" he gasped.
+
+Trenchard shut one eye and owlishly surveyed his companion with the
+other. "They say," he added, "that you're for forsaking 'Duke's party."
+
+"Villainous!" Richard protested. "I'll sli' throat of any man 't says
+so." And draining the pewter at his elbow, he smashed it down on the
+table to emphasize his seriousness.
+
+Trenchard replenished it with the utmost promptness, then sat back in
+his tall chair and pulled a moment at the fresh pipe with which he had
+equipped himself.
+
+"I think I espy,"' he quoted presently, "'virtue and valour crouched
+in thine eye.' And yet... and yet... if I had cause to think it
+true, I'd... I'd run you through the vitals--jus' so," and he prodded
+Richard's waistcoat with the point of his pipe-stem. His swarthy face
+darkened, his eyes glittered fiercely. "Are ye sure ye're norrer foul
+traitor?" he demanded suddenly. "Are y' sure, for if ye're not..."
+
+He left the terrible menace unuttered, but it was none the less
+understood. It penetrated the vinous fog that beset the brain of
+Richard, and startled him.
+
+"'Swear I'm not!" he cried. "'Swear mos' solemnly I'm not."
+
+"Swear?" echoed Trenchard, and his scowl grew darker still. "Swear? A
+man may swear and yet lie--'a man may smile and smile and be a villain.'
+I'll have proof of your loyalty to us. I'll have proof, or as there's a
+heaven above and a hell below, I'll rip you up."
+
+His mien was terrific, and his voice the more threatening in that it was
+not raised above a whisper.
+
+Richard sat back appalled, afraid.
+
+"Wha'... what proof'll satisfy you?" he asked.
+
+Trenchard considered it, pulling at his pipe again. "Pledge me the
+Duke," said he at length. "Ther's truth 'n wine. Pledge me the Duke and
+confusion to His Majesty the goldfinch." Richard reached for his pewter,
+glad that the test was to be so light. "Up on your feet, man," grumbled
+Trenchard. "On your feet, and see that your words have a ring of truth
+in them."
+
+Richard did as he was bidden, the little reason left him being
+concentrated wholly on the convincing of his fellow tippler. He rose to
+his feet, so unsteadily that his chair fell over with a bang. He never
+heeded it, but others in the room turned at the sound, and a hush fell
+in the chamber. Dominating this came Richard's voice, strident with
+intensity, if thick of utterance.
+
+"Down with Popery, and God save the Protestant Duke!" he cried. "Down
+with Popery!" And he looked at Trenchard for applause, and assurance
+that Trenchard no longer thought there was cause to quarrel with him.
+
+Behind him there was a stir in the room that went unheeded by the boy.
+Men nudged their neighbours; some looked frightened and some grinned at
+the treasonable words.
+
+A swift change came over Trenchard. His drunkenness fell from him like
+a discarded mantle. He sat like a man amazed. Then he heaved himself to
+his feet in a fury, and smashed down his pipestem on the wooden table,
+sending its fragments flying.
+
+"Damn me!" he roared. "Have I sat at table with a traitor?" And he
+thrust at Richard with his open palm, lightly yet with sufficient force
+to throw Richard off his precarious balance and send him sprawling on
+the sanded floor. Men rose from the tables about and approached them,
+some few amused, but the majority very grave. Dodsley, the landlord,
+came hurrying to assist Richard to his feet.
+
+"Mr. Westmacott," he whispered in the rash fool's ear, "you were best
+away."
+
+Richard stood up, leaning his full weight upon the arm the landlord had
+about his waist. He passed a hand over his brow, as if to brush aside
+the veil that obscured his wits. What had happened? What had he said?
+What had Trenchard done? Why did these fellows stand and gape at him? He
+heard his companion's voice, raised to address the company.
+
+"Gentlemen," he heard him say, "I trust there is none present will
+impute to me any share in such treasonable sentiments as Mr. Westmacott
+has expressed. But if there is any who questions my loyalty, I have
+a convincing argument for him--in my scabbard." And he struck his
+sword-hilt with his fist.
+
+Then he clapped on his hat, aslant over the locks of his golden wig,
+and, taking up his whip, he moved with leisurely dignity towards the
+door. He looked back with a sardonic smile at the ado he was leaving
+behind him, listened a moment to the voices that already were being
+raised in excitement, then closed the door and made his way briskly
+to the stable-yard, where he called for his horse. He rode out of
+Bridgwater ten minutes later, and took the road to Taunton as the moon
+was rising big and yellow over the hills on his left. He reached Taunton
+towards ten o'clock that night, having ridden hell-to-leather. His
+first visit was to the Hare and Hounds, where Blake and Westmacott had
+overtaken the courier. His next to the house where Sir Edward Phelips
+and Colonel Luttrell--the gentlemen lately ordered to Taunton by His
+Majesty--had their lodging.
+
+The fruits of Mr. Trenchard's extraordinary behaviour that night were
+to be seen at an early hour on the following day, when a constable and
+three tything-men came with a Lord-Lieutenant's warrant to arrest Mr.
+Richard Westmacott on a charge of high treason. They found the young man
+still abed, and most guilty was his panic when they bade him rise and
+dress himself--though little did he dream of the full extent to which
+Mr. Trenchard had enmeshed him, or indeed that Mr. Trenchard had any
+hand at all in this affair. What time he was getting into his clothes
+with a tything-man outside his door and another on guard under his
+window, the constable and his third myrmidon made an exhaustive search
+of the house. All they found of interest was a letter signed "Monmouth,"
+which they took from the secret drawer of a secretary in the library;
+but that, it seemed, was all they sought, for having found it, they
+proceeded no further with their reckless and destructive ransacking.
+
+With that letter and the person of Richard Westmacott, the constable and
+his men took their departure, and rode back to Taunton, leaving alarm
+and sore distress at Lupton House. In her despair poor Ruth was all for
+following her brother, in the hope that at least by giving evidence
+of how that letter came into his possession she might do something to
+assist him. But knowing, as she did, that he had had his share in the
+treason that was hatching, she had cause to fear that his guilt would
+not lack for other proofs. It was Diana who urged her to repair instead
+to the only man upon whose resource she might depend, provided he were
+willing to exert it. That man was Anthony Wilding, and whether Diana
+urged it from motives of her own or out of concern for Richard, it would
+be difficult to say with certainty.
+
+The very thought of going to him for aid, after all that had passed, was
+repugnant to Ruth. And yet what choice had she? Convinced by her cousin
+and urged by her affection and duty to Richard, she repressed her
+aversion, and, calling for a horse, rode out to Zoyland Chase, attended
+by a groom. Wilding by good fortune was at home, hard at work upon a
+mass of documents in that same library where she had talked with him on
+the occasion of her first visit to his home--to the home of which she
+remembered that she was now, herself, the mistress. He was preparing
+for circulation in the West a mass of libels and incendiary pamphlets
+calculated to forward the cause of the Protestant Duke.
+
+Dissembling his surprise, he bade old Walters--who left her waiting in
+the hall whilst he went to announce her--to admit her instantly, and he
+advanced to the door to receive and welcome her.
+
+"Ruth," said he, and his face was oddly alight, "you have come at last."
+
+She smiled a wan smile of self-pity. "I have been constrained," said
+she, and told him what had happened; that her brother had been arrested
+for high treason, and that the constable in searching the house had come
+upon the Monmouth letter she had locked away in her desk.
+
+"And not a doubt," she ended, "but it will be believed that it was to
+Richard the letter was indited by the Duke. You will remember that
+its only address was 'to my good friend, W.,' and that will stand for
+Westmacott as well as Wilding."
+
+Mr. Wilding was fain to laugh at the irony of this surprising turn of
+things of which she brought him news; for he had neither knowledge nor
+suspicion of the machinations of his friend Trenchard, to which these
+events were due. But noting and respecting her anxiety for her brother,
+he curbed his natural amusement.
+
+"It is a judgment upon you," said he, nevertheless.
+
+"Do you exult?" she asked indignantly.
+
+"No; but I cannot repress my admiration for the ways of Divine Justice.
+If you are come to me for advice, I can but suggest that you should
+follow your brother's captors to Taunton, and inform the lieutenants of
+how the letter came into your power."
+
+She looked at him in anger almost at what seemed a callousness. "Would
+he believe me, think you?"
+
+"Belike he would not," said Mr. Wilding. "You can but try."
+
+"If I told them it was addressed to you," she said, eyeing him sternly,
+"does it not occur to you that they would send for you to question you,
+and that if they did so, as you are a gentleman you could not lie away
+my brother's life."
+
+"Why, yes," said he quite calmly, "it does occur to me. But does it not
+occur to you that by the time they came here they would find me gone?"
+He laughed at her dismay. "I thank you, madam, for this warning," he
+added. "I think I'll bid them saddle for me without delay. Too long
+already have I tarried."
+
+"And must Richard hang?" she asked him fiercely.
+
+Mr. Wilding produced a snuffbox of tortoise shell and gold. He opened it
+deliberately. "If he does, you'll admit that he will hang on the gallows
+that he has built himself--although intended for another. I'faith! He's
+not the first booby to be caught in his own springe. There is in this a
+measure of poetic justice. Poetry and justice! Do you know, Ruth,
+they are two things I have ever loved?" And he took a pinch of choice
+Bergamot.
+
+"Will you be serious?" she demanded.
+
+"Trenchard would tell you that it were to make an exception from the
+rule of my life," he assured her, smiling. "Yet even that might I do at
+your bidding."
+
+"But this is a serious matter," she told him angrily.
+
+"For Richard," he acknowledged, closing his snuffbox with a snap. "Tell
+me, what would you have me do?"
+
+Since he asked her thus, she answered him in two words. "Save him."
+
+"At the cost of my own neck?" quoth he. "The price is high," he reminded
+her. "Do you think that Richard is quite worth it?"
+
+"And are you to save yourself at the cost of his?" she
+counter-questioned. "Are you capable of such a baseness?"
+
+He looked at her thoughtfully a moment. "You have not reflected," said
+he slowly, "that in this affair is involved more than mine or Richard's
+life. There is a great cause weighing in the balance against all
+personal considerations. If I accounted Richard of more value to
+Monmouth than I am myself, I should not hesitate in riding to set
+him free by taking his place. As it is, however, I think I am of the
+greatest conceivable importance to His Grace, whilst if twenty Richards
+perished--frankly--their loss would be something of a gain, for Richard
+has played a traitor's part already. That is with me the first of all
+considerations."
+
+"Am I of no consideration to you?" she asked him. And in an agony of
+terror for her brother she now approached him, and, obeying a sudden
+impulse, cast herself upon her knees before him. "Listen!" she cried.
+
+"Not thus," said he, a frown between his eyes. He took her by the elbows
+and gently but very firmly brought her to her feet again. "It is not
+fitting you should kneel save at your prayers."
+
+She was standing now, and very close to him, his hands still held her
+elbows, though their touch was so light that she scarce felt it.
+To release them was easy, and the next second her hands were on his
+shoulders, her brave eyes raised to him.
+
+"Mr. Wilding," she implored him, "you'll not let Richard be destroyed?"
+
+He looked down at her with kindling glance, his arms slipped round her
+lissom waist. "It is hard to deny you, Ruth," said he. "Yet not my love
+of my own life compels me; but my duty, my loyalty to the cause to which
+I am pledged. I were a traitor were I now to place myself in peril."
+
+She pressed against him, her face so close to his that her breath fanned
+his cheek, whither a faint colour crept in quick response. Despite
+herself almost, instinctively, unconsciously, she exerted the weapons of
+her sex to bend him to her will.
+
+"You say you love me," she whispered. "Prove it me now, and I will
+believe you.
+
+"Ah!" he sighed. "And believing me? What then?"
+
+He had himself grimly in hand, yet feared he should not prove strong
+enough to hold himself for long.
+
+"You... you shall find me your... dutiful wife," she faltered,
+crimsoning.
+
+His arms tightened about her; he crushed her to him, he bent his head to
+hers and his lips burnt the lips she yielded to him as though they had
+been living fire.
+
+Anon, she was to weep in shame--in shame and in astonishment--at that
+instant of surrender, but for the moment she had no thought save for her
+brother. Exultation filled her. She accounted that she had conquered,
+and she gloried in the power her beauty gave her, a power that had
+sufficed to melt to water the hard-frozen purposes of this self-willed
+man. The next instant, however, she was cold again with dismay and
+newborn terror. He unclasped her arms, he drew back, shaking off the
+hands she had rested upon his shoulders. His white face--the flush had
+faded from it again--smiled a thought disdainfully.
+
+"You bargain with me," he said. "But I have some knowledge of your ways
+of trading. They are overshrewd for an honest gentleman."
+
+"You mean," she gasped, her hand pressed to her heart, her face a
+deathly white, "you mean that you'll not save him?"
+
+"I mean," said he, "that I will have no further bargains with you."
+
+There was such hard finality in his tone that she recoiled, beaten and
+without power, to return to the assault. She had played and lost. She
+had yielded her lips to his kisses, and--husband though he might be in
+name--shame was her only guerdon.
+
+One look she gave him from out of that face so white and pitiful, then
+with a shudder turned from him and fled his presence. He sprang after
+her as the door closed, then checked and stood in thought, very grim for
+one who professed to bestow no seriousness on the affairs of life. Then
+he returned slowly to his writing-table, and rummaged there among the
+papers with which it was encumbered, seeking something of which he now
+had need. Through the open window he heard the retreating beat of her
+horse's hoofs. He sighed and sat down heavily, to take his long square
+chin in his hand and stare before him at the sunlight on the lawn
+outside.
+
+And whilst he sat thus, Ruth made all haste back to Lupton House to tell
+of the failure that had attended her. There was nothing left her now
+but to embark upon the forlorn hope of following Richard to Taunton, to
+offer her evidence of how the incriminating letter had come to be locked
+in the drawer in which the constable had discovered it. Diana met her
+with a face as white as her own and infinitely more startled. She had
+just learnt that Sir Rowland Blake had been arrested also and that
+he had been carried to Taunton together with Richard, and, as a
+consequence, she was as eager now that Ruth should repair to Albemarle
+as she had erstwhile been earnest in urging her to seek out Mr. Wilding;
+indeed, Diana went so far as to offer to accompany her, an offer that
+Ruth gladly, gratefully accepted.
+
+Within an hour Ruth and Diana--in spite of all that poor, docile Lady
+Horton had said to stay them--were riding to Taunton, attended by the
+same groom who had so lately accompanied his mistress to Zoyland Chase.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. THEIR OWN PETARD
+
+In a lofty, spacious room of the town hall at Taunton sat Sir Edward
+Phelips and Colonel Luttrell to dispense justice, and with them, flanked
+by one of them on either side of him, sat Christopher Monk, Duke of
+Albemarle, Lord-Lieutenant of Devonshire, who had been summoned in
+all haste from Exeter that he might be present at an examination which
+promised to be of so vast importance. The three sat at a long table at
+the room's end, attended by two secretaries.
+
+Before them, guarded by constable and tything-men, weaponless, their
+hands pinioned behind them--Blake's arm was healed by now--stood Mr.
+Westmacott and his friend Sir Rowland to answer this grave charge.
+
+Richard, not knowing who might have betrayed him and to what extent, was
+very fearful--having through his connection with the Cause every reason
+so to be. Blake, on the other hand, conscious of his innocence of any
+plotting, was impatient of his position, and a thought contemptuous.
+It was he who, upon being ushered by the constable and his men into the
+august presence of the Lord-Lieutenant, clamoured to know precisely of
+what he was accused that he might straightway clear himself.
+
+Albemarle reared his great massive head, smothered in a mighty black
+peruke, and scowled upon the florid London beau. A black-visaged
+gentleman was Christopher Monk. His pendulous cheeks, it is true, were
+of a sallow pallor, but what with his black wig, black eyebrows, dark
+eyes, and the blue-black tint of shaven beard on his great jaw and upper
+lip, he presented an appearance sombrely sinister. His netherlip was
+thick and very prominent; deep creases ran from the corners of his mouth
+adown his heavy chin; his eyes were dull and lack-lustre, with great
+pouches under them. In the main, the air of this son of the great
+Parliamentarian general was stupid, dull, unprepossessing.
+
+The creases of his mouth deepened as Blake protested against what he
+termed this outrage that had been done him; he sneered ponderously,
+thrusting further forward his heavily undershot jowl.
+
+"We are informed, sir, of your antecedents," he staggered Blake by
+answering. "We have learnt the reason why you left London and your
+creditors, and in all my life, sir, I have never known a man more ready
+to turn his hand to treason than a broken gamester. Your kind turns by
+instinct to such work as this, as a last resource for the mending of
+battered fortunes."
+
+Blake crimsoned from chin to brow. "I'm forejudged, it, seems," he made
+answer haughtily, tossing his fair locks, his blue eyes glaring upon his
+judges. "May I, at least, know the name of my accuser?"
+
+"You shall receive impartial justice at our hands," put in Phelips,
+whose manner was of a dangerous mildness. "Depend on that. Not only
+shall you know the name of your accuser, but you shall be confronted by
+him. Meanwhile, sirs"--and his glance strayed from Blake's flushed and
+angry countenance to Richard's, pale and timid--"meanwhile, are we to
+understand that you deny the charge?"
+
+"I have heard none as yet," said Sir Rowland insolently.
+
+Albemarle turned to one of the secretaries. "Read them the indictment,"
+said he, and sank back in his chair, his dull glance upon the prisoners,
+whilst the clerk in a droning voice read from a document which he took
+up. It impeached Sir Rowland Blake and Mr. Richard Westmacott of holding
+treasonable communication with James Scott, Duke of Monmouth, and of
+plotting against His Majesty's life and throne and the peace of His
+Majesty's realms.
+
+Blake listened with unconcealed impatience to the farrago of legal
+phrases, and snorted contemptuously when the reading came to an end.
+
+Albemarle looked at him darkly. "I do thank God," said he, "that through
+Mr. Westmacott's folly has this hideous plot, this black and damnable
+treason, been brought to light in time to enable us to stamp out this
+fire ere it is well kindled. Have you aught to say, sir?"
+
+"I have to say that the whole charge a foul and unfounded lie," said Sir
+Rowland bluntly: "I never plotted in my life against anything but my own
+prosperity, nor against any man but myself."
+
+Albemarle smiled coldly at his colleagues, then turned to Westmacott.
+"And you, sir?" he said. "Are you as stubborn as your friend?"
+
+"I incontinently deny the charge," said Richard, and he contrived that
+his voice should ring bold and resolute.
+
+"A charge built on air," sneered Blake, "which the first breath of truth
+should utterly dispel. We have heard the impeachment. Will Your Grace
+with the same consideration permit us to see the proofs that we may lay
+bare their falseness? It should not be difficult."
+
+"Do you say there is no such plot as is here alleged?" quoth the Duke,
+and smote a paper sharply.
+
+Blake shrugged his shoulders. "How should I know?" he asked. "I say I
+have no share in any, that I am acquainted with none."
+
+"Call Mr. Trenchard," said the Duke quietly, and an usher who had stood
+tamely by the door at the far end of the room departed on the errand.
+
+Richard started at the mention of that name. He had a singular dread of
+Mr. Trenchard.
+
+Colonel Luttrell--lean and wiry--now addressed the prisoners, Blake more
+particularly. "Still," said he, "you will admit that such a plot may,
+indeed, exist?"
+
+"It may, indeed, for aught I know--or care," he added incautiously.
+
+Albemarle smote the table with a heavy hand. "By God!" he cried in that
+deep booming voice of his, "there spoke a traitor! You do not care, you
+say, what plots may be hatched against His Majesty's life and crown! Yet
+you ask me to believe you a true and loyal subject."
+
+Blake was angered; he was at best a short-tempered man. Deliberately he
+floundered further into the mire.
+
+"I have not asked Your Grace to believe me anything," he answered hotly.
+"It is all one to me what Your Grace believes me. I take it I have not
+been fetched hither to be confronted with what Your Grace believes. You
+have preferred a lying charge against me; I ask for proofs, not Your
+Grace's beliefs and opinions."
+
+"By God, sir, you are a daring rogue!" cried Albemarle.
+
+Sir Rowland's eyes blazed. "Anon, Your Grace, when, having failed of
+your proofs, you shall be constrained to restore me to liberty, I shall
+ask Your Grace to unsay that word."
+
+Albemarle stared, confounded, and in that moment the door opened, and
+Trenchard sauntered in, cane in hand, his hat under his arm, a wicked
+smile on his wizened face.
+
+Leaving Blake's veiled threat unanswered, the Duke turned to the old
+rake. "These rogues," said he, pointing to the prisoners, "demand proofs
+ere they will admit the truth of the impeachment."
+
+"Those proofs," said Trenchard, "are already in Your Grace's hands."
+
+"Aye, but they have asked to be confronted with their accuser."
+
+Trenchard bowed. "Is it your wish, then, that I recite for them the
+counts on which I have based the accusation I laid before Your Grace?"
+
+"If you will condescend so far," said Albemarle.
+
+"Blister me...!" roared Blake, when the Duke interrupted him.
+
+"By God, sir!" he cried, "I'll have no such disrespectful language here.
+You'll observe the decency of speech and forbear from profanities, you
+damned rogue, or by God! I'll commit you forthwith."
+
+"I will endeavour," said Blake, with a sarcasm lost on Albemarle, "to
+follow Your Grace's lofty example."
+
+"You will do well, sir," said the Duke, and was shocked that Trenchard
+should laugh at such a moment.
+
+"I was about to protest, sir," said Blake, "that it is monstrous
+I should be accused by Mr. Trenchard. He has but the slightest
+acquaintance with me."
+
+Trenchard bowed to him across the chamber. "Admitted, sir," said
+he. "What should I be doing in bad company?" An answer this that set
+Albemarle bawling with laughter. Trenchard turned to the Duke. "I will
+begin, an it please Your Grace, with the expressions used last night in
+my presence at the Bell Inn at Bridgwater by Mr. Richard Westmacott, and
+I will confine myself strictly to those matters on which my testimony
+can be corroborated by that of other witnesses."
+
+Colonel Luttrell interrupted him to turn to Richard. "Do you recall
+those expressions, sir?" he asked him.
+
+Richard winced under the question. Nevertheless, he braced himself to
+make the best defence he could. "I have not yet heard," said he, "what
+those expressions were; nor when I hear them must it follow that I
+recognize them as my own. I must admit to having taken more wine,
+perhaps, than... than..." Whilst he sought the expression that he needed
+Trenchard cut in with a laugh. "In vino veritas, gentlemen," and
+His Grace and Sir Edward nodded sagely; Luttrell preserved a stolid
+exterior. He seemed less prone than his colleagues to forejudging.
+
+"Will you repeat the expressions used by Mr. Westmacott?" Sir Edward
+begged.
+
+"I will repeat the one that, to my mind, matters most." Mr. Westmacott,
+getting to his feet and in a loud voice, exclaimed, "God save the
+Protestant Duke!"
+
+"Do you admit it, sir?" thundered Albemarle, his eyes glowering upon
+Richard hesitated a moment, pale and trembling.
+
+"You will waste breath in denying it," said Trenchard suavely, "for I
+have a drawer from the Bell Inn, and two gentlemen who overheard you
+waiting outside."
+
+"I'faith, sir," cried Blake, "what treason was therein that? If he..."
+
+"Silence!" thundered Albemarle. "Let Mr. Westmacott speak for himself."
+
+Richard, inspired by the defence Blake had begun, took the same line of
+argument. "I admit that in the heat of wine I may have used such words,"
+said he. "But I deny their intent to be treasonable. There are many men
+who drink to the prosperity of the late Kings's son..."
+
+"Natural son, sir; natural son," Albemarle amended. "It is treason to
+speak of him otherwise."
+
+"It will be a treason presently to draw breath," sneered Blake.
+
+"If it be," said Trenchard, "it is a treason you'll not be long
+committing."
+
+"Faith, you are right, Mr. Trenchard," said the Duke with a laugh.
+Indeed, he found Mr. Trenchard a most pleasant and facetious gentleman.
+
+"Still," insisted Richard, endeavouring in spite of these irrelevancies
+to make good his point, "there be many men who drink daily to the
+prosperity of the late King's natural son."
+
+"Aye, sir," answered Albemarle; "but not his prosperity in horrid plots
+against the life of our beloved sovereign."
+
+"True, Your Grace; very true," purred Sir Edward. "It was not so I meant
+to toast him," cried Richard. Albemarle made an impatient gesture,
+and took up a sheet of paper. "How, then," he asked, "comes this
+letter--this letter which makes plain the treason upon which the Duke
+of Monmouth is embarked, just as it makes plain your participation in
+it--how comes this letter to be found in your possession?" And he waved
+the letter in the air.
+
+Richard went the colour of ashes. He faltered a moment, then took refuge
+in the truth, for all that he knew beforehand that the truth was bound
+to ring more false than any lie he could invent.
+
+"That letter was not addressed to me," he stammered.
+
+Albemarle read the subscription, "To my good friend W., at Bridgwater."
+He looked up, a heavy sneer thrusting his heavy lip still further out.
+"What do you say to that? Does not 'W' stand for Westmacott?"
+
+"It does not."
+
+"Of course not," said Albemarle with heavy sarcasm. "It stands for
+Wilkins, or Williams, or... or... What-not."
+
+"Indeed, I can bear witness that it does not," exclaimed Sir Rowland.
+
+"Be silent, sir, I tell you!" bawled the Duke at him again. "You shall
+bear witness soon enough, I promise you. To whom, then," he resumed,
+turning again to Richard, "do you say that this letter was addressed?"
+
+"To Mr. Wilding--Mr. Anthony Wilding," Richard answered.
+
+"I would have Your Grace to observe," put in Trench ard quietly, "that
+Mr. Wilding, properly speaking, does not reside in Bridgwater."
+
+"Tush!" cried Albemarle; "the rogue but mentions the first name with a
+'W' that occurs to him. He's not even an ingenious liar. And how, sir,"
+he asked Richard, "does it come to be in your possession, having been
+addressed, as you say, to Mr. Wilding?"
+
+"Aye, sir," said Sir Edward, blinking his weak eyes. "Tell us that."
+
+Richard hesitated again, and looked at Blake. Blake, who by now had
+come to realize that his friend's affairs were not mended by his
+interruptions, moodily shrugged his shoulders, scowling.
+
+"Come, sir," said Colonel Luttrell, engagingly, "answer the question."
+
+"Aye," roared Albemarle; "let your invention have free rein."
+
+Again poor Richard sought refuge in the truth. "We--Sir Rowland here and
+I--had reason to suspect that he was awaiting such a letter."
+
+"Tell us your reasons, sir, if we are to credit you," said the Duke, and
+it was plain he mocked the prisoner. It was, moreover, a request that
+staggered Richard. Still, he sought to find a reason that should sound
+plausible.
+
+"We inferred it from certain remarks that Mr. Wilding let fall in our
+presence."
+
+"Tell us the remarks, sir," the Duke insisted.
+
+"Indeed, I do not call his precise words to mind, Your Grace. But they
+were such that we suspicioned him."
+
+"And you would have me believe that hearing words which awoke in you
+such grave suspicions, you kept your suspicions and straightway forgot
+the words. You're but an indifferent liar."
+
+Trenchard, who was standing by the long table, leaned forward now.
+
+"It might be well, an it please Your Grace," said he, "to waive the
+point, and let us come to those matters which are of greater moment. Let
+him tell Your Grace how he came by the letter."
+
+"Aye," said Albemarle. "We do but waste time. Tell us, then, how came
+the letter into your hands?"
+
+"With Sir Rowland, here, I robbed the courier as he was riding from
+Taunton to Bridgwater."
+
+Albemarle laughed, and Sir Edward smiled. "You robbed him, eh?" said His
+Grace. "Very well. But how did it happen that you knew he had the letter
+upon him, or was it that you were playing the hightobymen, and that in
+robbing him you hoped to find other matters?"
+
+"Not so, sir," answered Richard. "I sought but the letter."
+
+"And how knew you that he carried it? Did you learn that, too, from Mr.
+Wilding's indiscretion?"
+
+"Your Grace has said it."
+
+"'Slife! What an impudent rogue have we here!" cried the angry Duke,
+who conceived that Richard was purposely dealing in effrontery. "Mr.
+Trenchard, I do think we are wasting time. Be so good as to confound
+them both with the truth of this matter."
+
+"That letter," said Trenchard, "was delivered to them at the Hare and
+Hounds, here at Taunton, by a gentleman who put up at the inn, and was
+there joined by Mr. Westmacott and Sir Rowland Blake. They opened
+the conversation with certain cant phrases very clearly intended as
+passwords. Thus: the prisoners said to the messenger, as they seated
+themselves at the table he occupied, 'You have the air, sir, of being
+from overseas,' to which the courier answered, 'Indeed, yes. I am from
+Holland. 'From the land of Orange,' says one of the prisoners. 'Aye, and
+other things,' replies the messenger. 'There is a fair wind blowing,' he
+adds; to which one of the prisoners, I believe it was Sir Rowland, makes
+answer, 'Mayit prosper the Protestant Duke and blow Popery to hell.'
+Thereupon the landlord caught some mention of a letter, but these
+plotters, perceiving that they were perhaps being overheard, sent him
+away to fetch them wine. A half-hour later the messenger took his leave,
+and the prisoners followed a very few minutes afterwards."
+
+Albemarle turned to the prisoners. "You have heard Mr. Trenchard's
+story. How do you say--is it true or untrue?"
+
+"You will waste breath in denying it," Trenchard took it again upon
+himself to admonish them. "For I have with me the landlord of the Hare
+and Hounds, who will corroborate, upon oath, what I have said."
+
+"We do not deny it," put in Blake. "But we submit that the matter is
+susceptible to explanation."
+
+"You can keep your explanations till your trial, then," snapped
+Albemarle. "I have heard more than enough to commit the pair of you to
+gaol."
+
+"But, Your Grace," cried Sir Rowland, so fiercely that one of the
+tything-men set a restraining hand upon his shoulder, "I am ready to
+swear that what I did, and what my friend Mr. Westmacott did, was done
+in the interests of His Majesty. We were working to discover this plot."
+
+"Which, no doubt," put in Trenchard slyly, "is the reason why, having
+got the letter, your friend Mr. Westmacott locked it in a desk, and you
+kept silence on the matter."
+
+"You see," exclaimed Albemarle, "how your lies do but serve further to
+bind you in the toils. It is ever thus with traitors."
+
+"I do think you are a damned traitor, Trenchard," began Blake; "a
+foul..."
+
+But what more he would have said was checked by Albemarle, who thundered
+forth an order for their removal, and then, scarce were the words
+uttered than the door at the far end of the hall was opened, and through
+it came a sound of women's voices. Richard started, for one was the
+voice of Ruth.
+
+An usher advanced. "May it please Your Grace, there are two ladies here
+beg that you will hear their evidence in the matter of Mr. Westmacott
+and Sir Rowland Blake."
+
+Albemarle considered a moment. Trenchard stood very thoughtful.
+
+"Indeed," said the Duke, at last, "I have heard as much as I need hear,"
+and Sir Phelips nodded in token of concurrence.
+
+Not so, however, Colonel Luttrell. "Still," said he, "in the interests
+of His Majesty, perhaps, we should be doing well to receive them."
+
+Albemarle blew out his cheeks like a man wearied, and stared an instant
+at Luttrell. Then he shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Admit them, then," he commanded almost peevishly, and Ruth and Diana
+were ushered into the hall. Both were pale, but whilst Diana was
+fluttered with excitement, Ruth was calm and cool, and it was she who
+spoke in answer to the Duke's invitation. The burden of her speech was
+a clear, succinct recitation--in which she spared neither Wilding
+nor herself--of how the letter came to have remained in her hands and
+silence to have been preserved regarding it. Albemarle heard her very
+patiently.
+
+"If what you say is true, mistress," said he, "and God forbid that
+I should be so ungallant as to throw doubt upon a lady's word, it
+certainly explains--although most strangely--how the letter was not
+brought to us at once by your brother and his friend Sir Rowland. You
+are prepared to swear that this letter was intended for Mr. Wilding?"
+
+"I am prepared to swear it," she replied.
+
+"This is very serious," said the Duke.
+
+"Very serious," assented Sir Edward Phelips.
+
+Albemarle, a little flustered, turned to his colleagues. "What do you
+say to this? Were it perhaps well to order Mr. Wilding's apprehension,
+and to have him brought hither?"
+
+"It were to give yourselves useless trouble, gentlemen," said Trenchard,
+with so much assurance that it was plain Albemarle hesitated.
+
+"Beware of Mr. Trenchard, Your Grace," cried Ruth. "He is Mr. Wilding's
+friend, and if there is a plot he is sure to be in it."
+
+Albemarle, startled, looked at Trenchard. Had the accusation come from
+either of the men the Duke would have silenced him and abused him;
+but coming from a woman, and so comely a woman, it seemed to His Grace
+worthy at least of consideration. But nimble Mr. Trenchard was easily
+master of the situation.
+
+"Which, of course," he answered, with fine sarcasm, "is the reason why
+I have been at work for the past four-and-twenty hours to lay proofs of
+this plot before Your Grace."
+
+Albemarle was ashamed of his momentary hesitation.
+
+"For the rest," said Trenchard, "it is perfectly true that I am Mr.
+Wilding's friend. But the lady is even more intimately connected with
+him. It happens that she is his wife."
+
+"His... his wife!" gasped the Duke, whilst Phelips chuckled, and Colonel
+Luttrell's face grew dark.
+
+Trenchard's wicked smile flickered upon his mobile features. "There are
+rumours current of court paid her by Sir Rowland, there. Who knows?" he
+questioned most suggestively, arching his brows and tightening his lips.
+"Wives are strange kittle-kattle, and husbands have been known before to
+grow inconvenient. Upon reflection, Your Grace will no doubt discern the
+precise degree of faith to attach to what this lady may tell you against
+Mr. Wilding."
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Ruth, her cheeks flaming crimson. "But this is
+monstrous!"
+
+"Tis how I should myself describe it," answered Trenchard without shame.
+
+Spurred to it thus, Ruth poured out the entire story of her marriage,
+and so clear and lucid was her statement that it threw upon the affair a
+flood of light, whilst so frank and truthful was her tone, her narrative
+hung so well together, that the Bench began to recover from the shock to
+its faith, and was again in danger of believing her. Trenchard saw this
+and trembled. To save Wilding for the Cause he had resorted to this
+desperate expedient of betraying that Cause. It must be observed,
+however, that he had not done so save under the conviction that betrayed
+it was bound to be, and that since that was inevitable the thing had
+better come from him--for Wilding's sake--than from Richard Westmacott.
+He had taken the bull by the horns in a most desperate fashion when he
+had determined to hoist Richard and Blake with their own petard, hoping
+that, after all, the harm would reach no further than the destruction of
+these two--a purely defensive measure. But now this girl threatened
+to wreck his scheme just as it was being safely steered to harbour.
+Suddenly he swung round, interrupting her.
+
+"Lies, lies, lies!" he clamoured, and his interruption coming at such a
+time served to impress the Duke most unfavourably--as well it might.
+
+"It is our wish to hear this lady out, Mr. Trenchard," the Duke reproved
+him.
+
+But Mr. Trenchard was undismayed. Indeed, he had just discovered a
+hitherto neglected card, which should put an end to this dangerous game.
+
+"I do abhor to hear Your Grace's patience thus abused," he exclaimed
+with some show of heat. "This lady makes a mock of you. If you'll allow
+me to ask two questions--or perhaps three--I'll promise finally to prick
+this bubble for you. Have I Your Grace's leave?"
+
+"Well, well," said Albemarle. "Let us hear your questions." And his
+colleagues nodded.
+
+Trenchard turned airily to Ruth. Behind her Diana sat--an attendant had
+fetched a chair for her--in fear and wonder at what she saw and heard,
+her eyes ever and anon straying to Sir Rowland's back, which was towards
+her.
+
+"This letter, madam," said he, "for the possession of which you have
+accounted in so... so... picturesque a manner, was intended for and
+addressed to Mr. Wilding, you say. And you are prepared to swear to it?"
+
+Ruth turned indignantly to the Bench. "Must I answer this man's
+questions?" she demanded.
+
+"I think, perhaps, it were best you did," said the Duke, still showing
+her all deference.
+
+She turned to Trenchard, her head high, her eyes full upon his wrinkled,
+cynical face. "I swear, then..." she began, but he--consummate actor
+that he was and versed in tricks that impress an audience--interrupted
+her, raising one of his gnarled, yellow hands.
+
+"Nay, nay," said he. "I would not have perjury proved against you. I do
+not ask you to swear. It will be sufficient if you pronounce yourself
+prepared to swear."
+
+She pouted her lip a trifle, her whole expression manifesting her
+contempt of him. "I am in no fear of perjuring myself," she answered
+fearlessly. "And I swear that the letter in question was addressed to
+Mr. Wilding."
+
+"As you will," said Trenchard, and was careful not to ask her how she
+came by her knowledge. "The letter, no doubt, was in an outer wrapper,
+on which there would be a superscription--the name of the person to whom
+the letter was addressed?" he half questioned, and Luttrell, who saw the
+drift of the question, nodded gravely.
+
+"No doubt," said Ruth.
+
+"Now you will acknowledge, I am sure, madam, that such a wrapper would
+be a document of the greatest importance, as important, indeed, as the
+letter itself, since we could depend upon it finally to clear up this
+point on which we differ. You will admit so much, I think?"
+
+"Why, yes," she answered, but her voice faltered a little, and her
+glance was not quite so fearless. She, too, saw at last the pit he had
+dug for her. He leaned forward, smiling quietly, his voice impressively
+subdued, and launched the bolt that was to annihilate the credibility of
+the story she had told.
+
+"Can you, then, explain how it comes that that wrapper has been
+suppressed? Can you tell us how--the matter being as you state it--in
+very self-defence against the dangers of keeping such a letter, your
+brother did not also keep that wrapper?"
+
+Her eyes fell away from his face, they turned to Albemarle, who sat
+scowling again, and from him they flickered unsteadily to Phelips and
+Luttrell, and lastly, to Richard, who, very white and with set teeth,
+stood listening to the working of his ruin.
+
+"I... I do not know," she faltered at last.
+
+"Ah!" said Trenchard, drawing a deep breath. He turned to the Bench.
+"Need I suggest what was the need--the urgent need--for suppressing that
+wrapper?" quoth he. "Need I say what name was inscribed upon it? I think
+not. Your Grace's keen insight, and yours, gentlemen, will determine
+what was probable."
+
+Sir Rowland now stood forward, addressing Albemarle. "Will Your Grace
+permit me to offer my explanation of this?"
+
+Albemarle banged the table. His patience was at an end, since he came
+now to believe--as Trenchard had earlier suggested--that he had been
+played upon by Ruth.
+
+"Too many explanations have I heard already, sir," he answered. He
+turned to one of his secretaries. In his sudden excess of choler he
+forgot his colleagues altogether. "The prisoners are committed for
+trial," said he harshly, and Trenchard breathed freely at last. But the
+next instant he caught his breath again, for a ringing voice was heard
+without demanding to see His Grace of Albemarle at once, and the voice
+was the voice of Anthony Wilding.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. THE MARPLOT
+
+Mr. Wilding's appearance produced as many different emotions as there
+were individuals present. He made the company a sweeping bow on his
+admission by Albemarle's orders, a bow which was returned by a stare
+from one and all. Diana eyed him in amazement, Ruth in hope; Richard
+averted his glance from that of his brother-in-law, whilst Sir Rowland
+met it with a scowl of enmity--they had not come face to face since the
+occasion of that encounter in which Sir Rowland's self-love had been so
+rudely handled. Albemarle's face expressed a sort of satisfaction,
+which was reflected on the countenances of Phelips and Luttrell; whilst
+Trenchard never thought of attempting to dissemble his profound dismay.
+And this dismay was shared, though not in so deep a measure, by Wilding
+himself. Trenchard's presence gave him pause; for he had been far,
+indeed, from dreaming that his friend had a hand in this affair. At
+sight of him all was made clear to Mr. Wilding. At once he saw the role
+which Trenchard had assumed on this occasion, saw to the bottom of the
+motives that had inspired him to take the bull by the horns and level
+against Richard and Blake this accusation before they had leisure to
+level it against himself.
+
+His quick wits having fathomed Trenchard's motive, Mr. Wilding was
+deeply touched by this proof of friendship, and for a second, as deeply
+nonplussed, at loss now how to discharge the task on which he came.
+
+"You are very choicely come, Mr. Wilding," said Albemarle. "You will be
+able to resolve me certain doubts which have been set on foot by these
+traitors."
+
+"That," said Mr. Wilding, "is the purpose for which I am here. News
+reached me of the arrest that had been made. May I beg that Your Grace
+will place me in possession of the facts that have so far transpired."
+
+It was one of his secretaries who, at Albemarle's bidding, gave Wilding
+the information that he craved. He listened gravely; then, before
+Albemarle had time to question him on the score of the name that might
+have been upon the enfolding wrapper of the letter, he begged that he
+might confer apart a moment with Mr. Trenchard.
+
+"But Mr. Wilding," said Colonel Luttrell, surprised not to hear the
+immediate denial of the imputation they had expected, "we should first
+like to hear..."
+
+"By your leave, sirs," Wilding interrupted, "I should prefer that
+you ask me nothing until I have consulted with Mr. Trenchard." He saw
+Luttrell's frown, observed Sir Edward shift his wig to scratch his head
+in sheer perplexity, and caught the fore-shadowing of denial on the
+Duke's face. So, without giving any of them time to say him nay, he
+added quickly and very seriously, "I am begging this in the interests of
+justice. Your Grace has told me that some lingering doubt still haunts
+your mind upon the subject of this letter--the other charges can matter
+little, apart from that treasonable document. It lies within my power to
+resolve such doubts most clearly and finally. But I warn you, sirs, that
+not one word will I utter in this connection until I have had speech
+with Mr. Trenchard."
+
+There was about his mien and voice a firmness that forewarned Albemarle
+that to insist would be worse than idle. A slight pause followed his
+words, and Luttrell leaned across to whisper in His Grace's ear; from
+the Duke's other side Sir Edward bent his head forward till it almost
+touched those of his companions. Blake watched, and was most foolishly
+impatient.
+
+"Your Grace will never allow this!" he cried.
+
+"Eh?" said Albemarle, scowling at him.
+
+"If you allow those two villains to consort together we are all undone,"
+the baronet protested, and ruined what chance there was of Albemarle's
+not consenting.
+
+It was the one thing needed to determine Albemarle. Like the stubborn
+man he was, there was naught he detested so much as to have his course
+dictated to him. More than that, in Sir Rowland's anxiety that Wilding
+and Trenchard should not be allowed to confer apart, he smoked a fear
+on Sir Rowland's part, based upon the baronet's consciousness of his own
+guilt. He turned from him with a sneering smile, and without so much
+as consulting his associates he glanced at Wilding and waved his hand
+towards the door.
+
+"Pray do as you suggest, Mr. Wilding," said he. "But I depend upon you
+not to tax our patience."
+
+"I shall not keep Mr. Trenchard a moment longer than is necessary," said
+Wilding, giving no hint of the second meaning in his words.
+
+He stepped to the door, opened it himself, and signed to Trenchard to
+pass out. The old player obeyed him readily, if in silence. An usher
+closed the door after them, and in silence they walked together to the
+end of the passage.
+
+"Where is your horse, Nick?" quoth Wilding abruptly.
+
+"What a plague do you mean, where is my horse?" flashed Trenchard. "What
+midsummer frenzy is this? Damn you for a marplot, Anthony! What a pox
+are you thinking of to thrust yourself in here at such a time?"
+
+"I had no knowledge you were in the affair," said Wilding. "You should
+have told me." His manner was brisk to the point of dryness. "However,
+there is still time to get you out of it. Where is your horse?"
+
+"Damn my horse!" answered Trenchard in a passion. "You have spoiled
+everything!"
+
+"On the contrary," said Mr. Wilding tartly, "it seems you had done that
+very thoroughly before I arrived. Whilst I am touched by the regard for
+me which has misled you into turning the tables on Blake and Westmacott,
+yet I do blame you for this betrayal of the Cause."
+
+"There was no help for it."
+
+"Why, no; and that is why you should have left matters where they
+stood."
+
+Trenchard stamped his foot; indeed, he almost danced in the excess of
+his vexation. "Left them where they stood!" he echoed. "Body o' me!
+Where are your wits? Left them where they stood! And at any moment you
+might have been taken unawares as a consequence of this accusation being
+lodged against you by Richard or by Blake. Then the Cause would have
+been betrayed, indeed."
+
+"Not more so than it is now."
+
+"Not less, at least," snapped the player. "You give me credit for no
+more wit than yourself. Do you think that I am the man to do things by
+halves? I have betrayed the plot to Albemarle; but do you imagine I have
+made no provision for what must follow?"
+
+"Provision?" echoed Wilding, staring.
+
+"Aye, provision. God lack! What do you suppose Albemarle will do?"
+
+"Dispatch a messenger to Whitehall with the letter within an hour."
+
+"You perceive it, do you? And where the plague do you think Nick
+Trenchard'll be what time that messenger rides?"
+
+Mr. Wilding understood. "Aye, you may stare," sneered Trenchard. "A
+letter that has once been stolen may be stolen again. The courier must
+go by way of Walford. I had in my mind arranged the spot, close by the
+ford, where I should fall upon him, rob him of his dispatches, and take
+him--bound hand and foot if necessary--to Vallancey's, who lives close
+by; and there I'd leave him until word came that the Duke had landed."
+
+"That the Duke had landed?" cried Wilding. "You talk as though the thing
+were imminent."
+
+"And imminent it is. For aught we know he may be in England already."
+
+Mr. Wilding laughed impatiently. "You must forever be building on these
+crack-brained rumours, Nick," said he.
+
+"Rumours!" roared the other. "Rumours? Ha!" He checked his wild scorn,
+and proceeded in a different key. "I was forgetting. You do not know the
+Contents of that stolen letter."
+
+Wilding started. Underlying his disbelief in the talk of the
+countryside, and even in the military measures which by the King's
+orders were being taken in the West, was an uneasy dread lest they
+should prove to be well founded, lest Argyle's operations in Scotland
+should be but the forerunner of a rash and premature invasion by
+Monmouth. He knew the Duke was surrounded by such reckless, foolhardy
+counsellors as Grey and Ferguson--and yet he could not think the Duke
+would ruin all by coming before he had definite word that his friends
+were ready. He looked at Trenchard now with anxious eyes.
+
+"Have you seen the letter, Nick?" he asked, and almost dreaded the
+reply.
+
+"Albemarle showed it me an hour ago," said Trenchard.
+
+"And it contains?"
+
+"The news we fear. It is in the Duke's own hand, and intimates that he
+will follow it in a few days--in a few days, man in person."
+
+Mr. Wilding clenched teeth and hands. "God help us all, then!" he
+muttered grimly.
+
+"Meanwhile," quoth Trenchard, bringing him back to the point, "there is
+this precious business here. I had as choice a plan as could have been
+devised, and it must have succeeded, had you not come blundering into it
+to mar it all at the last moment. That fat fool Albemarle had swallowed
+my impeachment like a draught of muscadine. Do you hear me?" he ended
+sharply, for Mr. Wilding stood bemused, his thoughts plainly wandering.
+
+He let his hand fall upon Trenchard's shoulder. "No," said he, "I wasn't
+listening. No matter; for even had I known the full extent of your
+scheme I still must have interfered."
+
+"For the sake of Mistress Westmacott's blue eyes, no doubt," sneered
+Trenchard. "Pah! Wherever there's a woman there's the loss of a man."
+
+"For the sake of Mistress Wilding's blue eyes," his friend corrected
+him. "I'll allow no brother of hers to hang in my place."
+
+"It will be interesting to see how you will rescue him."
+
+"By telling the truth to Albemarle."
+
+"He'll not believe it."
+
+"I shall prove it," said Wilding quietly. Trenchard swung round upon him
+in mingled anger and alarm for him. "You shall not do it!" he snarled.
+"It is nothing short of treason to the Duke to get yourself laid by the
+heels at such a time as this."
+
+"I hope to avoid it," answered Wilding confidently.
+
+"Avoid it? How?"
+
+"Not by staying longer here in talk. That will ruin all. Away with you,
+Trenchard!"
+
+"By my soul, no!" answered Trenchard. "I'll not leave you. If I have got
+you into this, I'll help to get you out again, or stay in it with you."
+
+"Bethink you of Monmouth?" Wilding admonished him.
+
+"Damn Monmouth!" was the vicious answer. "I am here, and here I stay."
+
+"Get to horse, you fool, and ride to Walford as you proposed, there to
+ambush the messenger. The letter will go to Whitehall none the less in
+spite of what I shall tell Albemarle. If things go well with me, I shall
+join you at Vallancey's before long."
+
+"Why, if that is your intention," said Trenchard, "I had better stay,
+and we can ride together. It will make it less uncertain for you."
+
+"But less certain for you."
+
+"The more reason why I should remain."
+
+The door of the hall was suddenly flung open at the far end of the
+corridor, and Albemarle's booming voice, impatiently raised, reached
+them where they stood.
+
+"In any case," added Trenchard, "it seems there is no help for it now."
+
+Mr. Wilding shrugged his shoulders, but otherwise dissembled his
+vexation. Up the passage floated the constable's voice calling them.
+
+Side by side they moved down, and side by side they stepped once more
+into the presence of Christopher Monk and his associates.
+
+"Sirs, you have not been in haste," was the Duke's ill-humoured
+greeting.
+
+"We have tarried a little that we might make an end the sooner,"
+answered Trenchard dryly, and this was the first indication he gave Mr.
+Wilding of how naturally--like the inimitable actor that he was--he had
+slipped into his new role.
+
+Albemarle waved the frivolous rejoinder aside. "Come, Mr. Wilding," said
+he, "let us hear what you may have to say. You are not, I take it, about
+to urge any reasons why these rogues should not be committed?"
+
+"Indeed, Your Grace," said Wilding, "that is what I am about to urge."
+
+Blake and Richard looked at him suddenly, and from him to Trenchard; but
+it was only Ruth whose eyes were shrewd enough to observe the altered
+demeanour of the latter. Her hopes rose, founded upon this oddly
+assorted pair. Already in anticipation she was stirred by gratitude
+towards Wilding, and it was in impatient and almost wondering awe that
+she waited for him to proceed.
+
+"I take it, sir," he said, without waiting for Albemarle to express
+any of the fresh astonishment his countenance manifested, "that the
+accusation against these gentlemen rests entirely upon the letter which
+you have been led to believe was addressed to Mr. Westmacott."
+
+The Duke scowled a moment before replying. "Why," said he, "if it could
+be shown--irrefutably shown--that the letter was not addressed to either
+of them, that would no doubt establish the truth of what they say--that
+they possessed themselves of the letter in the interests of His
+Majesty." He turned to Luttrell and Phelips, and they nodded their
+concurrence with his view of the matter. "But," he continued, "if
+you are proposing to prove any such thing, I think you will find it
+difficult."
+
+Mr. Wilding drew a crumpled paper from his pocket. "When the courier
+whom they robbed, as they have correctly informed you," said he quietly,
+"suspected their design upon the contents of his wallet, he bethought
+him of removing the wrapper from the letter, so that in case the
+letter were seized by them it should prove nothing against any man
+in particular. He stuffed the wrapper into the lining of his hat,
+preserving it as a proof of his good faith against the time when he
+should bring the letter to its destination, or come to confess that it
+had been taken from him. That wrapper the courier brought to me, and I
+have it here. The evidence it will give should be more than sufficient
+to warrant your restoring these unjustly accused gentlemen their
+liberty."
+
+"The courier took it to you?" echoed Albemarle, stupefaction in his
+glance. "But why to you?"
+
+"Because," said Wilding, and with his left hand he placed the wrapper
+before Albemarle, whilst his right dropped again to his pocket, "the
+letter, as you may see, was addressed to me."
+
+The quiet manner in which he made the announcement conveyed almost as
+great a shock as the announcement itself.
+
+Albemarle took up the wrapper; Luttrell and Phelips craned forward to
+join him in his scrutiny of it. They compared the two, paper with paper,
+writing with writing. Then Monk flung one and the other down in front of
+him.
+
+"What lies have I been hearing, then?" he demanded furiously of
+Trenchard. "'Slife I'll make an example of you. Arrest me that
+rogue--arrest them both," and he half rose from his seat, his trembling
+hand pointing to Wilding and Trenchard.
+
+Two of the tything-men stirred to do his bidding, but in the same
+instant Albemarle found himself looking into the round nozzle of a
+pistol.
+
+"If," said Mr. Wilding, "a finger is laid upon Mr. Trenchard or me I
+shall have the extreme mortification of being compelled to shoot Your
+Grace."
+
+His pleasantly modulated voice was as deliberate and calm as if he were
+offering the Bench a pinch of snuff. Albemarle's dark visage crimsoned;
+his eyes became at once wicked and afraid. Sir Edward's cheeks turned
+pale, his glance grew startled. Luttrell alone, vigilant and dangerous,
+preserved his calm. But the situation baffled even him.
+
+Behind the two friends the tything-men had come to a terror-stricken
+halt. Diana had risen from her chair in the excitement of the moment and
+had drawn close to Ruth, who looked on with parted lips and bosom
+that rose and fell. Even Blake could not stifle his admiration of
+Mr. Wilding's coolness and address. Richard, on the other hand, was
+concerned only with thoughts for himself, wondering how it would fare
+with him if Wilding and Trenchard succeeded in getting away.
+
+"Nick," said Mr. Wilding, "will you desire those catchpolls behind us
+to stand aside? If Your Grace raises your voice to call for help, if,
+indeed, any measures are taken calculated to lead to our capture, I
+can promise Your Grace--notwithstanding my profound reluctance to use
+violence--that they will be the last measures you will take in life. Be
+good enough to open the door, Nick, and to see that the key is on the
+outside."
+
+Trenchard, who was by way of enjoying himself now, stepped briskly
+down the hall to do as his friend bade him, with a wary eye on the
+tything-men. But never so much as a finger did they dare to lift. Mr.
+Wilding's calm was too deadly; they had seen a man in earnest before
+this, and they knew his appearance now. From the doorway Trenchard
+called Mr. Wilding.
+
+"I must be going, Your Grace," said the latter very courteously, "but
+I shall not be so wanting in deference to His Majesty's august
+representatives as to turn my back upon you." Saying which, he walked
+backwards, holding his pistol level, until he had reached Trenchard and
+the door. There he paused and made them a deep bow, his manner the more
+mocking in that there was no tinge of mockery perceptible. "Your very
+obedient servant," said he, and stepped outside. Trenchard turned the
+key, withdrew it from the lock, and, standing on tiptoe, thrust it upon
+the ledge of the lintel.
+
+Instantly a clamour arose within the chamber. But the two friends never
+stayed to listen. Down the passage they sped at the double, and out
+into the courtyard. Here Ruth's groom, mounted himself, was walking his
+mistress's and Diana's horses up and down whilst he waited; yonder one
+of Sir Edward's stable-boys was holding Mr. Wilding's roan. Two or three
+men of the Somerset militia, in their red and yellow liveries, lounged
+by the gates, and turned uninterested eyes upon these newcomers.
+
+Wilding approached his wife's groom. "Get down," he said, "I need your
+horse--on the King's business. Get down, I say," he added impatiently,
+upon noting the fellow's stare, and, seizing his leg, he helped him to
+dismount by almost dragging him from the saddle. "Up with you, Nick,"
+said he, and Nick very promptly mounted. "Your mistress will be here
+presently," Wilding told the groom, and, turning on his heel, strode
+to his own mare. A moment later Trenchard and he vanished through the
+gateway with a tremendous clatter, just as the Lord-Lieutenant, Colonel
+Luttrell, Sir Edward Phelips, the constable, the tything-men, Sir
+Rowland, Richard, and the ladies made their appearance.
+
+Ruth pushed her way quickly to the front. She feared lest her horse
+and her cousin's being at hand might be used for the pursuit; so urging
+Diana to do the same, she snatched her reins from the hands of the
+dumbfounded groom and leapt nimbly to the saddle.
+
+"After them!" roared Albemarle, and the constable with two of his
+men made a dash for the gateway to raise the hue and cry, whilst
+the militiamen watched them in stupid, inactive wonder. "Damnation,
+mistress!" thundered the Duke in ever-increasing passion, "hold your
+nag! Hold your nag, woman!" For Ruth's horse had become unmanageable,
+and was caracoling about the yard between the men and the gateway in
+such a manner that they dared not attempt to win past her.
+
+"You have scared him with your bellowing," she panted, tugging at the
+bridle, and all but backed into the constable who had been endeavouring
+to get round behind her. The beast continued its wild prancing, and the
+Duke abated nothing in his furious profanity, until suddenly the groom,
+having relinquished to Diana the reins of the other horse, sprang to
+Ruth's assistance and caught her bridle in a firm grasp which brought
+the animal to a standstill.
+
+"You fool!" she hissed at him, and half raised her whip to strike, but
+checked on the impulse, bethinking her in time that, after all, what the
+poor lad had done he had done thinking her distressed.
+
+The constable and a couple of his fellows won through; others were
+rousing the stable and getting to horse, and in the courtyard all was
+bustle and commotion. Meanwhile, however, Mr. Wilding and Trenchard had
+made the most of their start, and were thundering through the town.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. AT THE FORD
+
+As Mr. Wilding and Nick Trenchard rode hell-to-leather through Taunton
+streets they never noticed a horseman at the door of the Red Lion Inn.
+But the horseman noticed them. He looked up at the sound of their wild
+approach, started upon recognizing them, and turned in his saddle as
+they swept past him to call upon them excitedly to stop.
+
+"Hi!" he shouted. "Nick Trenchard! Hi! Wilding!" Then, seeing that they
+either did not hear or did not heed him, he loosed a volley of oaths,
+wheeled his horse about, drove home the spurs, and started in pursuit.
+Out of the town he followed them and along the road towards Walford,
+shouting and clamouring at first, afterwards in a grim and angry
+silence.
+
+Now, despite their natural anxiety for their own safety, Wilding and
+Trenchard had by no means abandoned their project of taking cover by the
+ford to await the messenger whom Albemarle and the others would no
+doubt be sending to Whitehall; and this mad fellow thundering after them
+seemed in a fair way to mar their plan. As they reluctantly passed the
+spot they had marked out for their ambush, splashed through the ford and
+breasted the rising ground beyond, they took counsel. They determined
+to stand and meet this rash pursuer. Trenchard calmly opined that if
+necessary they must shoot him; he was, I fear, a bloody-minded fellow
+at bottom, although, it is true he justified himself now by pointing out
+that this was no time to hesitate at trifles. Partly because they
+talked and partly because the gradient was steep and their horses
+needed breathing, they slackened rein, and the horseman behind them
+came tearing through the water of the ford and lessened the distance
+considerably in the next few minutes.
+
+He bethought him of using his lungs once more. "Hi, Wilding! Hold, damn
+you!"
+
+"He curses you in a most intimate manner," quoth Trenchard.
+
+Wilding reined in and turned in the saddle. "His voice has a familiar
+sound," said he. He shaded his eyes with his hand, and looked down the
+slope at the pursuer, who came on crouching low upon the withers of his
+goaded beast.
+
+"Wait!" the fellow shouted. "I have news--news for you!"
+
+"It's Vallancey!" cried Wilding suddenly. Trenchard too had drawn
+rein and was looking behind him. Instead of expressing relief at the
+discovery that this was not an enemy, he swore at the trouble to
+which they had so needlessly put themselves, and he was still at his
+vituperations when Vallancey came up with them, red in the face and very
+angry, cursing them roundly for the folly of their mad career, and for
+not having stopped when he bade them.
+
+"It was no doubt discourteous," said Mr. Wilding "but we took you for
+some friend of the Lord-Lieutenant's."
+
+"Are they after you?" quoth Vallancey, his face of a sudden very
+startled.
+
+"Like enough," said Trenchard, "if they have found their horses yet."
+
+"Forward, then," Vallancey urged them in excitement, and he picked up
+his reins again. "You shall hear my news as we ride."
+
+"Not so," said Trenchard. "We have business here down yonder at the
+ford."
+
+"Business? What business?"
+
+They told him, and scarce had they got the words out than he cut in
+impatiently. "That's no matter now.
+
+"Not yet, perhaps," said Mr. Wilding; "but it will be if that letter
+gets to Whitehall."
+
+"Odso!" was the impatient retort, "there's other news travelling to
+Whitehall that will make small-beer of this--and belike it's well on its
+way there already."
+
+"What news is that?" asked Trenchard. Vallancey told them. "The Duke has
+landed--he came ashore this morning at Lyme."
+
+"The Duke?" quoth Mr. Wilding, whilst Trenchard merely stared. "What
+Duke?"
+
+"What Duke! Lord, you weary me! What dukes be there? The Duke of
+Monmouth, man."
+
+"Monmouth!" They uttered the name in a breath. "But is this really
+true?" asked Wilding. "Or is it but another rumour?"
+
+"Remember the letter your friends intercepted," Trenchard bade him.
+
+"I am not forgetting it," said Wilding.
+
+"It's no rumour," Vallancey assured them. "I was at White Lackington
+three hours ago when the news came to George Speke, and I was riding to
+carry it to you, going by way of Taunton that I might drop word of it
+for our friends at the Red Lion."
+
+Trenchard needed no further convincing; he looked accordingly dismayed.
+But Wilding found it still almost impossible--in spite of what already
+he had learnt--to credit this amazing news. It was hard to believe the
+Duke of Monmouth mad enough to spoil all by this sudden and unheralded
+precipitation.
+
+"You heard the news at White Lackington?" said he slowly. "Who carried
+it thither?"
+
+"There were two messengers," answered Vallancey, with restrained
+impatience, "and they were Heywood Dare--who has been appointed
+paymaster to the Duke's forces--and Mr. Chamberlain."
+
+Mr. Wilding was observed for once to change colour. He gripped Vallancey
+by the wrist. "You saw them?" he demanded, and his voice had a husky,
+unusual sound. "You saw them?"
+
+"With these two eyes," answered Vallancey, "and I spoke with them."
+
+It was true, then! There was no room for further doubt.
+
+Wilding looked at Trenchard, who shrugged his shoulders and made a wry
+face. "I never thought but that we were working in the service of a
+hairbrain," said he contemptuously.
+
+Vallancey proceeded to details. "Dare and Chamberlain," he informed
+them, "came off the Duke's own frigate at daybreak to-day. They were put
+ashore at Seatown, and they rode straight to Mr. Speke's with the news,
+returning afterwards to Lyme."
+
+"What men has the Duke with him, did you learn?" asked Wilding.
+
+"Not more than a hundred or so, from what Dare told us."
+
+"A hundred! God help us all! And is England to be conquered with a
+hundred men? Oh, this is midsummer frenzy."
+
+"He counts on all true Protestants to flock to his banner," put in
+Trenchard, and it was not plain whether he expressed a fact or sneered
+at one.
+
+"Does he bring money and arms, at least?" asked Wilding.
+
+"I did not ask," answered Vallancey. "But Dare told us that three
+vessels had come over, so that it is to be supposed he brings some
+manner of provision with him."
+
+"It is to be hoped so, Vallancey; but hardly to be supposed," quoth
+Trenchard, and then he touched Wilding on the arm and pointed with his
+whip across the fields towards Taunton. A cloud of dust was rising from
+between tall hedges where ran the road. "I think it were wise to be
+moving. At least, this sudden landing of James Scott relieves my mind in
+the matter of that letter."
+
+Wilding, having taken a look at the floating dust that announced the
+oncoming of their pursuers, was now lost in thought. Vallancey, who,
+beyond excitement at the news of which he was the bearer, seemed to have
+no opinion of his own as to the wisdom or folly of the Duke's sudden
+arrival, looked from one to the other of these two men whom he had known
+as the prime secret agents in the West, and waited. Trenchard moved his
+horse a few paces nearer the hedge, "Whither now, Anthony?" he asked
+suddenly.
+
+"You may ask, indeed!" exclaimed Wilding, and his voice was as bitter
+as ever Trenchard had heard it. "'S heart! We are in it now! We had
+best make for Lyme--if only that we may attempt to persuade this
+crack-brained boy to ship back to Holland again, and ship ourselves with
+him."
+
+"There's sense in you at last," grumbled Trenchard. "But I misdoubt me
+he'll turn back after having come so far. Have you any money?" he asked.
+He could be very practical at times.
+
+"A guinea or two. But I can get money at Ilminster."
+
+"And how do you propose to reach Ilminster with these gentlemen by way
+of cutting us off?"
+
+"We'll double back as far as the cross-roads," said Wilding promptly,
+"and strike south over Swell Hill for Hatch. If we ride hard we can do
+it easily, and have little fear of being followed. They'll naturally
+take it we have made for Bridgwater."
+
+They acted on the suggestion there and then, Vallancey going with them;
+for his task was now accomplished, and he was all eager to get to Lyme
+to kiss the hand of the Protestant Duke. They rode hard, as Wilding had
+said they must, and they reached the junction of the roads before their
+pursuers hove in sight. Here Wilding suddenly detained them again. The
+road ahead of them ran straight for almost a mile, so that if they took
+it now they were almost sure to be seen presently by the messengers.
+On their right a thickly grown coppice stretched from the road to the
+stream that babbled in the hollow. He gave it as his advice that they
+should lie hidden there until those who hunted them should have gone by.
+Obviously that was the only plan, and his companions instantly adopted
+it. They found a way through a gate into an adjacent field, and from
+this they gained the shelter of the trees. Trenchard, neglectful of
+his finery and oblivious of the ubiquitous brambles, left his horse in
+Vallancey's care and crept to the edge of the thicket that he might take
+a peep at the pursuers.
+
+They came up very soon, six militiamen in lobster coats with yellow
+facings, and a sergeant, which was what Mr. Trenchard might have
+expected. There was, however, something else that Mr. Trenchard did not
+expect; something that afforded him considerable surprise. At the head
+of the party rode Sir Rowland Blake--obviously leading it--and with him
+was Richard Westmacott. Amongst them went a man in grey clothes,
+whom Mr. Trenchard rightly conjectured to be the messenger riding for
+Whitehall. He thought with a smile of what a handful he and
+Wilding would have had had they waited to rob that messenger of the
+incriminating letter that he bore. Then he checked his smile to consider
+again how Sir Rowland Blake came to head that party. He abandoned the
+problem, as the little troop swept unhesitatingly round to the left and
+went pounding along the road that led northwards to Bridgwater, clearly
+never doubting which way their quarry had sped.
+
+As for Sir Rowland Blake's connection with this pursuit, the town
+gallant had by his earnestness not only convinced Colonel Luttrell of
+his loyalty and devotion to King James, but had actually gone so far as
+to beg that he might be allowed to prove that same loyalty by leading
+the soldiers to the capture of those self-confessed traitors, Mr.
+Wilding and Mr. Trenchard. From his knowledge of their haunts he was
+confident, he assured Colonel Luttrell, that he could be of service
+to the King in this matter. The fierce sincerity of his purpose shone
+through his words; Luttrell caught the accent of hate in Sir Rowland's
+tense voice, and, being a shrewd man, he saw that if Mr. Wilding was to
+be taken, an enemy would surely be the best pursuer to accomplish it. So
+he prevailed, and gave him the trust he sought, in spite of Albemarle's
+expressed reluctance. And never did bloodhound set out more relentlessly
+purposeful upon a scent than did Sir Rowland follow now in what he
+believed to be the track of this man who stood between him and Ruth
+Westmacott. Until Ruth was widowed, Sir Rowland's hopes of her must lie
+fallow; and so it was with a zest that he flung himself into the task of
+widowing her.
+
+As the party passed out of view round the angle of the white road,
+Trenchard made his way back to Wilding to tell him what he had seen and
+to lay before him, for his enucleation, the problem of Blake's being the
+leader of it. But Wilding thought little of Blake, and cared little of
+what he might be the leader.
+
+"We'll stay here," said he, "until they have passed the crest of the
+hill."
+
+This, Trenchard told him, was his own purpose; for to leave their
+concealment earlier would be to reveal themselves to any of the troopers
+who might happen to glance over his shoulder.
+
+And so they waited some ten minutes or so, and then walked their horses
+slowly and carefully forward through the trees towards the road. Wilding
+was alongside and slightly ahead of Trenchard; Vallancey followed close
+upon their tails. Suddenly, as Wilding was about to put his mare at the
+low stone wall, Trenchard leaned forward and caught his bridle.
+
+"Ss!" he hissed. "Horses!"
+
+And now that they halted they heard the hoofbeats clear and close at
+hand; the crackling of undergrowth and the rustle of the leaves through
+which they had thrust their passage had deafened their ears to other
+sounds until this moment. They checked and waited where they stood,
+barely screened by the few boughs that still might intervene between
+them and the open, not daring to advance, and not daring to retreat
+lest their movements should draw attention to themselves. They remained
+absolutely still, scarcely breathing, their only hope being that if
+these who came should chance to be enemies they might ride on without
+looking to right or left. It was so slender a hope that Wilding looked
+to the priming of his pistols, whilst Trenchard, who had none, loosened
+his sword in its scabbard. Nearer came the riders.
+
+"There are not more than three," whispered Trenchard, who had been
+listening intently, and Mr. Wilding nodded, but said nothing.
+
+Another moment and the little party was abreast of those watchers; a
+dark brown riding-habit flashed into their line of vision, and a
+blue one laced with gold. At sight of the first Mr. Wilding's eyelids
+flickered; he had recognized it for Ruth's, with whom rode Diana,
+whilst some twenty paces or so behind came Jerry, the groom. They were
+returning to Bridgwater.
+
+They came along, looking neither to right nor to left, as the three men
+had hoped they would, and they were all but past, when suddenly Wilding
+gave his roan a touch of the spur and bounded forward. Diana's horse
+swerved so that it nearly threw her. Ruth, slightly ahead, reined in at
+once; so, too, did the groom in the rear, and so violently in his sudden
+fear of highwaymen that he brought his horse on to its hind legs and had
+it prancing and rearing madly about the road, so that he was hard put to
+it to keep his seat.
+
+Ruth looked round as Mr. Wilding's voice greeted her.
+
+"Mistress Wilding," he called to her. "A moment, if I may detain you."
+
+"You have eluded them!" she cried, entirely off her guard in her
+surprise at seeing him, and there echoed through her words a note of
+genuine gladness that almost disconcerted her husband for a moment. The
+next instant a crimson flush overspread her pale face, and her eyes were
+veiled from him, vexation in her heart at having betrayed the lively
+satisfaction it afforded her to see him safe when she feared him
+captured already or at least upon the point of capture.
+
+She had admired him almost unconsciously for his daring at the town hall
+that day, when his strong calm had stood out in such sharp contrast to
+the fluster and excitement of the men about him; of them all, indeed, it
+had seemed to her in those stressful moments that he was the only man,
+and she was--although she did not realize it--in danger of being proud
+of him. Then again the thing he had done. He had come deliberately to
+thrust his head into the lion's maw that he might save her brother. It
+was possible that he had done it in answer to the entreaties which she
+had earlier feared she had poured into deaf ears; or it was possible
+that he had done it spurred by his sense of right and justice, which
+would not permit him to allow another to suffer in his stead--however
+much that other might be caught in the very toils that he had prepared
+for Mr. Wilding himself. Her admiration, then, was swelled by gratitude,
+and it was a compound of these that had urged her to hinder the
+tything-men from winning past her until he and Trenchard should have got
+well away.
+
+Afterwards, when with Diana and her groom--on a horse which Sir Edward
+Phelips insisted upon lending them--she rode homeward from Taunton,
+there was Diana to keep alive the spark of kindness that glowed at last
+for Wilding in Ruth's breast. Miss Horton extolled his bravery, his
+chivalry, his nobility, and ended by expressing her envy of Ruth that
+she should have won such a man amongst men for her husband, and wondered
+what it might be that kept Ruth from claiming him for her own as was
+her right. Ruth had answered little, but she had ridden very thoughtful;
+there was that in the past she found it hard to forgive Wilding. And yet
+she would now have welcomed an opportunity of thanking him for what he
+had done, of expressing to him something of the respect he had won
+in her eyes by his act of self-denunciation to save her brother. This
+chance, it seemed, was given her, for there he stood, with head bared
+before her; and already she thought no longer of seizing the chance,
+vexed as she was at having been surprised into a betrayal of feelings
+whose warmth she had until that moment scarce estimated.
+
+In answer to her cry of "You have eluded them!" he waved a hand towards
+the rising ground and the road to Bridgwater.
+
+"They passed that way but a few moments since," said he, "and by the
+rate at which they were travelling they should be nearing Newton by now.
+In their great haste to catch me they could not pause to look for me so
+close at hand," he added with a smile, "and for that I am thankful."
+
+She sat her horse and answered nothing, which threw her cousin out of
+all patience with her. "Come, Jerry," Diana called to the groom. "We
+will walk our horses up the hill."
+
+"You are very good, madam," said Mr. Wilding, and he bowed to the
+withers of his roan.
+
+Ruth said nothing; expressed neither approval nor disapproval of Diana's
+withdrawal, and the latter, with a word of greeting to Wilding, went
+ahead followed by Jerry, who had regained control by now of the beast
+he bestrode. Wilding watched them until they turned the corner, then he
+walked his mare slowly forward until he was alongside Ruth.
+
+"Before I go," said he, "there is something I should like to say." His
+dark eyes were sombre, his manner betrayed some hesitation.
+
+The diffidence of his tone proved startling to her by virtue of its
+unusualness. What might it portend, she wondered, and sought with grave
+eyes to read his baffling countenance; and then a wild alarm swept into
+her and shook her spirit in its grip; there was something of which until
+this moment she had not thought--something connected with the fateful
+matter of that letter. It had stood as a barrier between them, her
+buckler, her sole defence against him. It had been to her what its
+sting is to the bee--a thing which if once used in self-defence is
+self-destructive. Not, indeed, that she had used it as her sting; it had
+been forced from her by the machinations of Trenchard; but used it had
+been, and was done with; she had it no longer that with it she might
+hold him in defiance, and it did not occur to her that he was no longer
+in case to invoke the law.
+
+Her face grew stony, a dry glitter came to her blue eyes; she cast a
+glance over her shoulder at Diana and her servant. Wilding observed
+it and read what was passing in her mind; indeed, it was not to be
+mistaken, no more than what is passing in the mind of the recruit who
+looks behind him in the act of charging. His lips half smiled.
+
+"Of what are you afraid?" he asked her.
+
+"I am not afraid," she answered in husky accents that belied her.
+
+Perhaps to reassure her, perhaps because he thought of his companions
+lurking in the thicket and cared not to have them for his audience, he
+suggested they should go a little way in the direction her cousin had
+taken. She wheeled her horse, and, side by side, they ambled up the
+dusty road.
+
+"The thing I have to tell you," said he presently, "concerns myself."
+
+"Does it concern me?" she asked him coldly, and her coolness was urged
+partly by her newborn fears, partly to counterbalance such impression
+as her illjudged show of gladness at his safety might have made upon his
+mind. He flashed her a sidelong glance, the long white fingers of his
+right hand toying thoughtfully with a ringlet of the dark brown hair
+that fell upon the shoulders of his scarlet coat.
+
+"Surely, madam," he answered dryly, "what concerns a man may well
+concern his wife."
+
+She bowed her head, her eyes upon the road before her. "True," said she,
+her voice expressionless. "I had forgot."
+
+He reined in and turned to look at her; her horse moved on a pace or
+two, then came to a halt, apparently of its own accord.
+
+"I do protest," said he, "you treat me less kindly than I deserve." He
+urged his mare forward until he had come up with her again, and
+then drew rein once more. "I think that I may lay some claim to--at
+least--your gratitude for what I did to-day."
+
+"It is my inclination to be grateful," said she. She was very wary of
+him. "Forgive me, if I am still mistrustful."
+
+"But of what?" he cried, a thought impatiently.
+
+"Of you. What ends did you seek to serve? Was it to save Richard that
+you came?"
+
+"Unless you think that it was to save Blake," he said ironically. "What
+other ends do you conceive I could have served?" She made him no answer,
+and so he resumed after a pause. "I rode to Taunton to serve you for two
+reasons; because you asked me, and because I would have no innocent men
+suffer in my stead--not even though, as these men, they were but caught
+in their own toils, hoist with the petard they had charged for me.
+Beyond these two motives, I had no other thought in ruining myself."
+
+"Ruining yourself?" she cried. Yes, it was true; but she had not thought
+of it until this moment; there had been so much to think of.
+
+"Is it not ruin to be outlawed, to have a price set upon your head, as
+will no doubt a price be set on mine when Albemarle's messenger shall
+have reached Whitehall? Is it not ruin to have my lands and all I
+own made forfeit to the State, to find myself a beggar, hunted and
+proscribed? Forgive me that I harass you with this catalogue of my
+misfortunes. You'll say, no doubt, that I have brought them upon myself
+by compelling you against your will to marry me.
+
+"I'll not deny that it is in my mind," said she, and of set purpose
+stifled pity.
+
+He sighed and looked at her again, but she would not meet his eye, else
+its whimsical expression might have intrigued her. "Can you deny my
+magnanimity, I wonder?" said he, and spoke almost as one amused. "All I
+had I sacrificed to do your will, to save your brother from the snare
+of his own contriving against me. I wonder do you yet realize how much
+I sacrificed to-day at Taunton! I wonder!" And he paused, looking at her
+and waiting for some word from her; but she had none for him.
+
+"Clearly you do not, else I think you would show me if only a pretence
+of kindness." She was looking at him at last, her eyes less hard. They
+seemed to ask him to explain. "When you came this morning with the
+tale of how the tables had been turned upon your brother, of how he
+was caught in his own springe, and the letter found in his keeping was
+before the King's folk at Taunton with every appearance of having been
+addressed to him, and not a tittle of evidence to show that it had been
+meant for me, do you know what news it was you brought me?" He paused
+a second, looking at her from narrowing eyes. Then he answered his own
+question. "You brought me the news that you were mine to take whensoe'er
+I pleased. Whilst that letter was in your hands it gave you the power to
+make me your obedient slave. You might blow upon me as you listed whilst
+you held it, and I was a vane that must turn to your blowing for my
+honour's sake and for the sake of the cause in which I worked. Through
+no rashness of mine must that letter come into the hands of the King's
+friends, else was I dishonoured. It was an effective barrier between us.
+So long as you possessed that letter you might pipe as you pleased, and
+I must dance to the tune you set. And then this morning what you came to
+tell me was that things were changed; that it was mine to call the tune.
+Had I had the strength to be a villain, you had been mine now, and
+your brother and Sir Rowland might have hanged on the rope of their own
+weaving."
+
+She looked at him in a startled, almost shamefaced manner. This was an
+aspect of the case she had not considered.
+
+"You realize it, I see," he said, and smiled wistfully. "Then perhaps
+you realize why you found me so unwilling to do the thing you craved.
+Having treated me ungenerously, you came to cast yourself upon my
+generosity, asking me--though I scarcely think you understood--to beggar
+myself of life itself with all it held for me. God knows I make no
+pretence to virtue, and yet I think I had been something more than human
+had I not refused you and the bargain you offered--a bargain that you
+would never be called upon to fulfil if I did the thing you asked."
+
+At last she interrupted him; she could bear it no longer.
+
+"I had not thought of it!" she cried. It was a piteous wail that broke
+from her. "I swear I had not thought of that. I was all distraught for
+poor Richard's sake. Oh, Mr. Wilding," she turned to him, holding out a
+hand; her eyes shone, filmed with moisture, "I shall have a kindness
+for you... all my days for your... generosity to-day." It was lamentably
+weak, far from the hot expressions which she forced it to replace.
+
+"Yes, I was generous," he admitted. "We will move on as far as the
+cross-roads." Again they ambled gently forward. Up the slope from the
+ford Diana and Jerry were slowly climbing; not another human being was
+in sight ahead or behind them. "After you left me," he continued, "your
+memory and your entreaties lingered with me. I gave the matter of our
+position thought, and it seemed to me that all was monstrously ill-done.
+I loved you, Ruth, I needed you, and you disdained me. My love was
+master of me. But 'neath your disdain it was transmuted oddly." He
+checked the passion that was vibrating in his voice and resumed after
+a pause, in the calm, slow tones, soft and musical, that were his own.
+"There is scarce the need for so much recapitulation. When the power
+was mine I bent you unfairly to my will; you did as much by me when
+the power suddenly became yours. It was a strange war between us, and I
+accepted its conditions. To-day, when the power was mine again, mine
+to bring you at last to subjection, behold, I have capitulated at
+your bidding, and all that I held--including your own self--have I
+relinquished. It is perhaps fitting. Haply I am punished for having wed
+you before I had wooed you." Again his tone changed, it grew more cold,
+more matter-of-fact. "I rode this way a little while ago a hunted man,
+my only hope to reach home and collect what moneys and valuables I could
+carry, and make for the coast to find a vessel bound for Holland. I
+have been engaged, as you know, in stirring up rebellion to check the
+iniquities and persecutions that are toward in a land I love. I'll not
+weary you with details. Time was needed for this as for all things, and
+by next spring, perhaps, had matters gone well, this vineyard that so
+carefully and secretly I have been tending, would have been, maybe, in
+condition to bear fruit. Even now, in the hour of my flight, I learn
+that others have come to force this delicate growth into sudden
+maturity. There! Soon ripe, soon rotten. The Duke of Monmouth has landed
+at Lyme this morning. I am riding to him."
+
+"To what end?" she cried, and he saw in her face a dismay that amounted
+almost to fear, and he wondered was it for him.
+
+"To place my sword at his service. Were I not encompassed by this
+ruin, I should not have stirred a foot in that direction--so rash, so
+foredoomed to failure is this invasion. As it is,"--he shrugged and
+laughed--"it is the only hope--all forlorn though it may be--for me."
+
+The trammels she had imposed upon her soul fell away at that like bonds
+of cobweb. She laid her hand upon his wrists, tears stood in her eyes;
+her lips quivered.
+
+"Anthony, forgive me," she besought him. He trembled under her touch,
+under the caress of her voice, and at the sound of his name for the
+first time upon her lips.
+
+"What have I to forgive?" he asked.
+
+"The thing that I did in the matter of that letter."
+
+"You poor child," said he, smiling gently upon her, "you did it in
+self-defence."
+
+"Yet say that you forgive me--say it before you go!" she begged him.
+
+He considered her gravely a moment. "To what end," he asked, "do you
+imagine that I have talked so much? To the end that I might show you
+that however I may have wronged you I have at the last made some amends;
+and that for the sake of this, the truest proof of penitence, I may have
+your forgiveness ere I go."
+
+She was weeping softly. "It was an ill day on which we met," she sighed.
+
+"For you--aye."
+
+"Nay--for you.
+
+"We'll say for both of us, then," he compromised. "See, Ruth, your
+cousin grows weary, and I have a couple of comrades who are no doubt
+impatient to be gone. It may not be good for us to tarry in these parts.
+Some amends I have made; but there is one crowning wrong which I have
+done you for which there is but one amend to make." He paused. He
+steadied himself before continuing. In his attempt to render his voice
+cold and commonplace he went near to achieving harshness. "It may be
+that this crackbrained rebellion of which the torch is already alight
+will, if it does no other good in England, at least make a widow of you.
+When that has come to pass, when I have thus repaired the wrong I
+did you, I hope you'll bear me as kindly as may be in your thought.
+Good-bye, my Ruth! I would you might have loved me. I sought to force
+it." He smiled ever so wanly. "Perhaps that was my mistake. It is an
+ill thing to eat one's hay while it is grass." He raised to his lips the
+little gloved hand that still rested on his wrist. "God keep you, Ruth!"
+he murmured.
+
+She sought to answer him, but something choked her; a sob was all she
+achieved. Had he caught her to him in that moment there is little doubt
+but that she had yielded. Perhaps he knew it; and knowing it kept the
+tighter rein upon desire. She was as metal molten in the crucible, to be
+moulded by his craftsman's hands into any pattern that he chose. But the
+crucible was the crucible of pity, not of love; that, too, he knew, and,
+knowing it, forbore.
+
+He dropped her hand, doffed his hat, and, wheeling his horse about,
+touched it with the spur and rode back towards the thicket where his
+friends awaited him. As he left her, she too wheeled about, as if to
+follow him. She strove to command her voice that she might recall him;
+but at that same moment Trenchard, hearing his returning hoofs, thrust
+out into the road with Vallancey following at his heels. The old
+player's harsh voice reached her where she stood, and it was querulous
+with impatience.
+
+"What a plague do you mean, dallying here at such a time, Anthony?" he
+cried, to which Vallancey added: "In God's name, let us push on."
+
+At that she checked her impulse--it may even be that she mistrusted it.
+She paused, lingering undecided for an instant; then, turning her horse
+once more, she ambled up the slope to rejoin Diana.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. "PRO RELIGIONE ET LIBERTATE"
+
+The evening was far advanced when Mr. Wilding and his two companions
+descended to Uplyme Common from the heights whence as they rode they had
+commanded a clear view of the fair valley of the Axe, lying now under a
+thin opalescent veil of evening mist.
+
+They had paused at Ilminster for fresh horses, and there Wilding had
+paid a visit to one of his agents from whom he had procured a hundred
+guineas. Thence they had come south at a sharp pace, and with little
+said. Wilding was moody and thoughtful, filled with chagrin at this
+unconscionable rashness of the man upon whom all his hopes were centred.
+As they cantered briskly across Uplyme Common in the twilight they
+passed several bodies of countrymen, all heading for the town, and one
+group sent up a shout of "God save the Protestant Duke!" as they rode
+past him.
+
+"Amen to that," muttered Mr. Wilding grimly, "for I am afraid that no
+man can."
+
+In the narrow lane by Hay Farm a horseman, going in the opposite
+direction, passed them at the gallop; but they had met several such
+since leaving Ilminster, for indeed the news was spreading fast, and the
+whole countryside was alive with messengers, some on foot and some on
+horseback, but all hurrying as if their lives depended on their haste.
+
+They made their way to the Market-Place where Monmouth's
+declaration--that remarkable manifesto from the pen of Ferguson--had
+been read some hours before. Thence, having ascertained where His Grace
+was lodged, they made their way to the George Inn.
+
+In Coombe Street they found the crowd so dense that they could but with
+difficulty open out a way for their horses through the human press.
+Not a window but was open, and thronged with sight-seers--mostly women,
+indeed, for the men were in the press below. On every hand resounded the
+cries of "A Monmouth! A Monmouth! The Protestant Religion! Religion and
+Liberty," which latter were the words inscribed on the standard Monmouth
+had set up that evening on the Church Cliffs.
+
+In truth, Wilding was amazed at what he saw, and said as much to
+Trenchard. So pessimistic had been his outlook that he had almost
+expected to find the rebellion snuffed out by the time they reached
+Lyme-of-the-King. What had the authorities been about that they had
+permitted Monmouth to come ashore, or had Vallancey's information been
+wrong in the matter of the numbers that accompanied the Protestant
+Champion? Wilding's red coat attracted some attention. In the dusk its
+colour was almost all that could be discerned of it.
+
+"Here's a militia captain for the Duke!" cried one, and others took up
+the cry, and if it did nothing else it opened a way for them through
+that solid human mass and permitted them to win through to the yard of
+the George Inn. They found the spacious quadrangle thronged with men,
+armed and unarmed, and on the steps stood a tall, well-knit, soldierly
+man, his hat rakishly cocked, about whom a crowd of townsmen and
+country fellows were pressing with insistence. At a glance Mr. Wilding
+recognized Captain Venner--raised to the rank of colonel by Monmouth on
+the way from Holland.
+
+Trenchard dismounted, and taking a distracted stable-boy by the arm,
+bade him see to their horses. The fellow endeavoured to swing himself
+free of the other's tenacious grasp.
+
+"Let me go," he cried. "I am for the Duke!"
+
+"And so are we, my fine rebel," answered Trenchard, holding fast.
+
+"Let me go," the lout insisted. "I am going to enlist."
+
+"And so you shall when you have stabled our nags. See to him, Vallancey;
+he is brainsick with the fumes of war."
+
+The fellow protested, but Trenchard's way was brisk and short; and so,
+protesting still, he led away their cattle in the end, Vallancey going
+with him to see that he performed this last duty as a stable-boy ere he
+too became a champion militant of the Protestant Cause. Trenchard sped
+after Wilding, who was elbowing his way through the yokels about the
+steps. The glare of a newly lighted lamp from the doorway fell full upon
+his long white face as he advanced, and Venner espied and recognized
+him.
+
+"Mr. Wilding!" he cried, and there was a glad ring in his voice,
+for though cobblers, tailors, deserters from the militia, pot-boys,
+stable-boys, and shuffling yokels had been coming in in numbers during
+the past few hours since the Declaration had been read, this was the
+first gentleman that arrived to welcome Monmouth. The soldier stretched
+out a hand to grasp the newcomer's. "His Grace will see you this
+instant, not a doubt of it." He turned and called down the passage.
+"Cragg!" A young man in a buff coat came forward, and to him Venner
+delivered Wilding and Trenchard that he might announce them to His
+Grace.
+
+In the room that had been set apart for him abovestairs, Monmouth still
+sat at table. He had just supped, with but an indifferent appetite,
+so fevered was he by the events of his landing. He was excited with
+hope--inspired by the readiness with which the men of Lyme and its
+neighbourhood had flocked to his banner--and fretted by anxiety that
+none of the gentry of the vicinity should yet have followed the example
+of the meaner folk, in answer to the messages dispatched at dawn from
+Seaton. The board at which he sat was still cumbered with some glasses
+and platters and vestiges of his repast. Below him on his right sat
+Ferguson--that prince of plotters--very busy with pen and ink, his keen
+face almost hidden by his great periwig; opposite were Lord Grey, of
+Werke, and Andrew Fletcher, of Saltoun, whilst, standing at the foot of
+the table barely within the circle of candlelight from the branch on the
+polished oak, was Nathaniel Wade, the lawyer, who had fled to Holland
+on account of his alleged complicity in the Rye House plot and was now
+returned a major in the Duke's service. Erect and soldierly of figure,
+girt with a great sword and with the butt of a pistol protruding from
+his belt, he had little the air of a man whose methods of contention
+were forensic.
+
+"You understand, then, Major Wade," His Grace was saying, his voice
+pleasant and musical. "It is decided that the guns had best be got
+ashore forthwith and mounted."
+
+Wade bowed. "I shall set about it at once, Your Grace. I shall not want
+for help. Have I Your Grace's leave to go?"
+
+Monmouth nodded, and as Wade passed out, Ensign Cragg entered to
+announce Mr. Wilding and Mr. Trenchard. The Duke rose to his feet, his
+glance suddenly brightening. Fletcher and Grey rose with him; Ferguson
+paid no heed, absorbed in his task, which he industriously continued.
+
+"At last!" exclaimed the Duke. "Admit them, sir."
+
+When they entered, Wilding coming first, his hat under his arm, the Duke
+sprang to meet him, a tall young figure, lithe and slender as a blade of
+steel, and of a steely strength for all his slimness. He was dressed in
+a suit of purple that became him marvellously well, and on his breast a
+star of diamonds flashed and smouldered like a thing of fire. He was
+of an exceeding beauty of face, wherein he mainly favoured that "bold,
+handsome woman" that was his mother, without, however, any of his
+mother's insipidity; fine eyes, a good nose, straight and slender, and
+a mouth which, if sensual and indicating a lack of strength, was
+beautifully shaped. His chin was slightly cleft, the shape of his face
+a delicate oval, framed now in the waving masses of his brown wig. Some
+likeness to his late Majesty was also discernible, in spite of the wart,
+out of which his uncle James made so much capital.
+
+There was a slight flush on his cheeks, an added lustre in his eye, as
+he took Wilding's hand and shook it heartily before Wilding had time to
+kiss His Grace's.
+
+"You are late," he said, but there was no reproach in his voice. "We had
+looked to find you here when we came ashore. You had my letter?"
+
+"I had not, Your Grace," answered Wilding, very grave. "It was stolen."
+
+"Stolen?" cried the Duke, and behind him Grey pressed forward, whilst
+even Ferguson paused in his writing to raise his piercing eyes and
+listen.
+
+"It is no matter," Wilding reassured him. "Although stolen, it has but
+gone to Whitehall to-day, when it can add little to the news that is
+already on its way there."
+
+The Duke laughed softly, with a flash of white teeth, and looked past
+Wilding at Trenchard. Some of the light faded out of his eyes. "They
+told me Mr. Trenchard..." he began, when Wilding, half turning to his
+friend, explained.
+
+"This is Mr. Nicholas Trenchard--John Trenchard's cousin.
+
+"I bid you welcome, sir," said the Duke, very agreeably, "and I trust
+your cousin follows you."
+
+"Alas," said Trenchard, "my cousin is in France," and in a few brief
+words he related the matter of John Trenchard's home-coming on his
+acquittal and the trouble there had been connected with it.
+
+The Duke received the news in silence. He had expected good support from
+old Speke's son-in-law. Indeed, there was a promise that when he came,
+John Trenchard would bring fifteen hundred men from Taunton. He took a
+turn in the room deep in thought, and there was a pause until Ferguson,
+rubbing his great Roman nose, asked suddenly had Mr. Wilding seen the
+Declaration. Mr. Wilding had not, and thereupon the plotting parson, who
+was proud of his composition, would have read it to him there and then,
+but that Grey sourly told him the matter would keep, and that they had
+other things to discuss with Mr. Wilding.
+
+This the Duke himself confirmed, stating that there were matters on
+which he would be glad to have their opinion.
+
+He invited the newcomers to draw chairs to the table; glasses were
+called for, and a couple of fresh bottles of Canary went round the
+board. The talk was desultory for a few moments, whilst Wilding and
+Trenchard washed the dust from their throats; then Monmouth broke the
+ice by asking them bluntly what they thought of his coming thus, earlier
+than was at first agreed.
+
+Wilding never hesitated in his reply. "Frankly, Your Grace," said he, "I
+like it not at all."
+
+Fletcher looked up sharply, his clear intelligent eyes full upon
+Wilding's calm face, his countenance expressing as little as did
+Wilding's. Ferguson seemed slightly taken aback. Grey's thick lips were
+twisted in a sneering smile.
+
+"Faith," said the latter with elaborate sarcasm, "in that case it only
+remains for us to ship again, heave anchor, and back to Holland."
+
+"It is what I should advise," said Wilding slowly and quietly, "if I
+thought there was a chance of my advice being taken." He had a calm,
+almost apathetic way of uttering startling things which rendered them
+doubly startling. The sneer seemed to freeze on Lord Grey's lips;
+Fletcher continued to stare, but his eyes had grown more round; Ferguson
+scowled darkly. The Duke's boyish face--it was still very youthful
+despite his six-and-thirty years--expressed a wondering consternation.
+He looked at Wilding, and from Wilding to the others, and his glance
+seemed to entreat them to suggest an answer to him. It was Grey at last
+who took the matter up.
+
+"You shall explain your meaning, sir, or we must hold you a traitor," he
+exclaimed.
+
+"King James does that already," answered Wilding with a quiet smile.
+
+"D'ye mean the Duke of York?" rumbled Ferguson's Scottish accent with
+startling suddenness, and Monmouth nodded approval of the correction.
+"If ye mean that bloody papist and fratricide, it were well so to speak
+of him. Had ye read the Declaration..."
+
+But Fletcher cropped his speech in mid-growth. He was ever a
+short-tempered man, intolerant of irrelevancies.
+
+"It were well, perhaps," said he, his accent abundantly proclaiming him
+a fellow countryman of Ferguson's, "to keep to the matter before us. Mr.
+Wilding, no doubt, will state the reasons that exist, or that he fancies
+may exist, for giving advice which is hardly worthy of the cause to
+which he stands committed."
+
+"Aye, Fletcher," said Monmouth, "there is sense in you. Tell us what is
+in your mind, Mr. Wilding."
+
+"It is in my mind, Your Grace, that this invasion is rash, premature,
+and ill-advised."
+
+"Odds life!" cried Grey, and he swung angrily round fully to face the
+Duke, the nostrils of his heavy nose dilating. "Are we to listen to this
+milksop prattle?"
+
+Nick Trenchard, who had hitherto been silent, cleared his throat so
+noisily that he drew all eyes to himself.
+
+"Your Grace," Mr. Wilding pursued, his air calm and dignified, and
+gathering more dignity from the circumstance that he proceeded as if
+there had been no interruption, "when I had the honour of conferring
+with you at The Hague two months ago, it was agreed that you should
+spend the summer in Sweden--away from politics and scheming, leaving
+the work of preparation to your accredited agents here. That work I have
+been slowly but surely pushing forward. It was not to be hurried; men of
+position are not to be won over in a day; men with anything to lose need
+some guarantee that they are not wantonly casting their possessions to
+the winds. By next spring, as was agreed, all would have been ready.
+Delay could not have hurt you. Indeed, with every day by which you
+delayed your coming you did good service to your cause, you strengthened
+its prospects of success; for every day the people's burden of
+oppression and persecution grows more heavy, and the people's temper
+more short; every day, by the methods that he is pursuing, King James
+brings himself into deeper hatred. This hatred is spreading. It was
+the business of myself and those others to help it on, until from the
+cottage of the ploughman the infection of anger should have spread
+to the mansion of the squire. Had Your Grace but given me time, as
+I entreated you, and as you promised me, you might have marched to
+Whitehall with scarce the shedding of a drop of blood; had Your Grace
+but waited until we were ready, England would have so trembled at your
+landing that your uncle's throne would have toppled over 'neath the
+shock. As it is..." He shrugged his shoulders, sighed and spread his
+hands, leaving his sentence uncompleted.
+
+Monmouth sat sobered by these sober words; the intoxication that had
+come to him from the little measure of success that had attended the
+opening of the listing on Church Cliffs, deserted him now; he saw the
+thing stark and in its true proportions, and not even the shouting of
+the folk in the streets below, crying his name and acclaiming him their
+champion, served to lighten the gloom that Wilding's words cast like
+a cloud over his volatile heart. Alas, poor Monmouth! He was ever a
+weathercock, and even as Wilding's words seemed to strike the courage
+out of him, so did Grey's short contemptuous answer restore it.
+
+"As it is, we'll thrust that throne over with our hands," said he after
+a moment's pause.
+
+"Aye," cried Monmouth. "We'll do it, God helping us!"
+
+"Our dependence and trust is in the Lord of Hosts, in Whose Name we
+go forth," boomed the voice of Ferguson, quoting from his precious
+Declaration. "The Lord will do that which seemeth good unto Him."
+
+"An unanswerable argument," said Wilding, smiling. "But the Lord, I am
+told by the gentlemen of your cloth, works in His own good time, and my
+fears are all lest, finding us unprepared of ourselves, the Lord's good
+time be not yet."
+
+"Out on ye, sir," cried Ferguson. "Ye want for reverence!"
+
+"Common sense will serve us better at the moment," answered Wilding
+with a touch of sharpness. He turned to the frowning and perplexed
+Duke--whose mind was being tossed this way and that, like a shuttlecock
+upon the battledore of these men's words. "Your Grace," he said,
+"forgive me that I speak it if hear it you will, or forbid me to say it
+if your resolve is unalterable in this matter."
+
+"It is unalterable," answered Grey for the Duke.
+
+But Monmouth gently overruled him for once.
+
+"Nevertheless, speak by all means, Mr. Wilding. Whatever you may say,
+you need have no fear that any of us can doubt your good intentions to
+ourselves."
+
+"I thank Your Grace. What I have to say is but a repetition of the
+first words I uttered at this table. I would urge Your Grace even now to
+retreat."
+
+"What? Are you mad?" It was Lord Grey who asked the impatient question.
+
+"I doubt it's over-late for that," said Fletcher slowly.
+
+"I am not so sure," answered Wilding. "But I am sure that to attempt it
+were the safer course--the surer in the end. I myself may not linger
+to push forward the task of stirring up the people, for I am already
+something more than under suspicion. But there are others who will
+remain to carry on the work after I have departed with Your Grace, if
+Your Grace thinks well. From the Continent by correspondence we can
+mature our plans. In a twelvemonth things will be very different, and we
+can return with confidence."
+
+Grey shrugged and turned his shoulder upon Wilding, but said no word.
+There was silence of some few moments. Andrew Fletcher leaned his elbow
+on the table and took his brow in his great bony hand. Wilding's words
+seemed an echo of those he himself had spoken a week or two ago, only to
+be overruled by Grey, who swayed the Duke more than did any other--and
+that he did not do so of fell purpose, and seeking deliberately to work
+Monmouth's ruin, no man will ever be able to say with certainty.
+
+Ferguson rose, a tall, spare, stooping figure, and smote the board with
+his fist. "It is a good cause," he cried, "and God will not leave us
+unless we leave Him."
+
+"Henry the Seventh landed with fewer men than did Your Grace," said
+Grey, "and he succeeded."
+
+"True," put in Fletcher. "But Henry the Seventh was sure of the support
+of not a few of the nobility, which does not seem to be our case."
+
+Ferguson and Grey stared at him in horror; Monmouth sat biting his lip,
+more bewildered than thoughtful.
+
+"O man of little faith!" roared Ferguson in a passion. "Are ye to be
+swayed like a straw in the wind?"
+
+"I am no' swayed. Ye ken this was ever my own view. I feel, in my heart,
+that what Mr. Wilding says is right. It is but what I said myself, and
+Captain Matthews with me, before we embarked upon this expedition. We
+were in danger of ruining all by a needless precipitancy. Nay, man,
+never stare so," he said to Grey, "I am in it now and I am no' the man
+to draw back, nor do I go so far as Mr. Wilding in counselling such a
+course. We've set our hands to the plough; let us go forward in God's
+name. Yet I would remind you that what Mr. Wilding says is true. Had
+we waited until next year, we had found the usurper's throne tottering
+under him, and, on our landing, it would have toppled o'er of itself."
+
+"I have said already that we'll overset it with our hands," Grey
+answered.
+
+"How many hands have you?" asked a new voice, a crisp, discordant voice,
+much steeped in mockery. It was Nick Trenchard's.
+
+"Have we another here of Mr. Wilding's mind?" cried Grey, staring at
+him.
+
+"I am seldom of any other," answered Trenchard.
+
+"We shall no' want for hands," Ferguson assured him. "Had ye arrived
+earlier ye might have seen how readily men enlisted." He had risen and
+approached the window as he spoke; he pulled it open, to let in the full
+volume of sound that rose from the street below.
+
+"A Monmouth! A Monmouth!" voices shouted.
+
+Ferguson struck a theatrical posture, one long, lean arm stretched
+outward from the shoulder.
+
+"Ye hear them, sirs," he cried, and there was a gleam of triumph in his
+eye. "That is answer enough to those who want for faith, to the feckless
+ones that think the Lord will abandon those that have set out to serve
+Him," and his glance comprehended Fletcher, Trenchard, and Wilding.
+
+The Duke stirred in his chair, stretched a hand for the bottle and
+filled a glass. His mercurial spirits were rising again. He smiled at
+Wilding.
+
+"I think you are answered, sir," said he; "and I hope that like Fletcher
+there, who shared your doubts, you will come to agree that since we have
+set our hands to the plough we must go forward."
+
+"I have said that which I had it on my conscience to say. Your Grace may
+have found me over-ready with my counsel; at least you shall find me no
+less ready with my sword."
+
+"Odso! That is better." Grey applauded, and his manner was almost
+pleasant.
+
+"I never doubted it, Mr. Wilding," His Grace replied; "but I should like
+to hear you say that you are convinced--at least in part," and he
+waved his hand towards the window. It was almost as if he pleaded for
+encouragement. In common with most men who came in contact with Wilding,
+he had felt the latent force of this man's nature, the strength that was
+hidden under that calm surface, and the acuteness of the judgment that
+must be wedded to it. He longed to have the word of such a man that his
+enterprise was not as desperate as Wilding had seemed at first to paint
+it. But Wilding made no concession to hopes or desires when he dealt
+with facts.
+
+"Men will flock to you, no doubt; persecution has wearied many of the
+country-folk, and they are ready for revolt. But they are all untrained
+in arms; they are rustics, not soldiers. If any of the men of position
+were to rally round your standard they would bring the militia, and
+others in their train; they would bring arms, horses, and money, all of
+which Your Grace must be sorely needing."
+
+"They will come," answered the Duke.
+
+"Some, no doubt," Wilding agreed; "but had it been next year, I would
+have answered for it that it would have been no handful had ridden in
+to welcome you. Scarce a gentleman of Devon or Somerset, of Dorset or
+Hampshire, of Wiltshire or Cheshire but would have hastened to your
+side."
+
+"They will come as it is," the Duke repeated with an almost womanish
+insistence, persisting in believing what he hoped, all evidence apart.
+
+The door opened and Ensign Cragg made his appearance. "May it please
+Your Grace," he announced, "Mr. Battiscomb has just arrived, and asks
+will Your Grace receive him to-night?"
+
+"Battiscomb!" cried the Duke. Again his cheek flushed and his eye
+sparkled. "Aye, in Heaven's name, show him up."
+
+"And may the Lord refresh us with good tidings!" prayed Ferguson
+devoutly.
+
+Monmouth turned to Wilding. "It is the agent I sent ahead of me from
+Holland to stir up the gentry from here to the Mersey."
+
+"I know," said Wilding; "we conferred together some weeks since."
+
+"Now you shall see how idle are your fears," the Duke promised him.
+
+And Wilding, who was better informed on that score, kept silence.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. HIS GRACE' IN COUNSEL
+
+Mr. Christopher Battiscomb, that mild-mannered Dorchester gentleman,
+who, like Wade, was by vocation a lawyer, was ushered into the Duke's
+presence. He was dressed in black, and, like Ferguson, was almost
+smothered in a great periwig, which he may have adopted for purposes of
+disguise rather than adornment. Certainly he had none of that air of
+the soldier of fortune which distinguished his brother of the robe. He
+advanced, hat in hand, towards the table, greeting the company about it,
+and Wilding observed that he wore silk stockings and shoes, upon which
+there rested not a speck of dust. Mr. Battiscomb was plainly a man who
+loved his ease, since on such a day he had travelled to Lyme in a coach.
+The lawyer bent low to kiss the Duke's hand, and scarce was that formal
+homage paid than questions poured upon him from Grey, from Fletcher, and
+from Ferguson.
+
+"Gentlemen, gentlemen," the Duke entreated them, smiling; and
+remembering their manners they fell silent.
+
+As Wilding afterwards told Trenchard, they reminded him of a parcel of
+saucy lacqueys who take liberties with an upstart master for whom they
+are wanting in respect.
+
+"I am glad to see you, Battiscomb," said Monmouth, when quiet was
+restored, "and I trust I behold in you a bearer of good tidings."
+
+The lawyer's full face was usually pale; to-night it was, in addition,
+solemn, and the smile that haunted his lips was a courtesy smile that
+expressed neither mirth nor satisfaction. He cleared his throat, as if
+nervous. He avoided the Duke's question as to the quality of the news
+he brought by answering that he had made all haste to come to Lyme upon
+hearing of His Grace's landing. He was surprised, he said; as well he
+might be, for the arrangement was that having done his work he was to
+return to Holland and report to Monmouth upon the feeling of the gentry.
+
+"But your news, Battiscomb," the Duke insisted. "Aye," put in Grey; "in
+Heaven's name, let us hear that."
+
+Again there was the little nervous cough from Battiscomb. "I have scarce
+had time to complete my round of visits," he temporized. "Your Grace
+has taken us so by surprise. I... I was with Sir Walter Young at Colyton
+when the news of your landing came some few hours ago." His voice
+faltered and seemed to die away.
+
+"Well?" cried the Duke. His brows were drawn together. Already he
+realized that Battiscomb's tidings were not good, else would he be
+hesitating less in uttering them. "Is Sir Walter with you, at least?"
+
+"I grieve to say that he is not."
+
+"Not?" It was Grey who spoke, and he followed the ejaculation by an
+oath. "Why not?"
+
+"He is following, no doubt?" suggested Fletcher.
+
+"We may hope, sirs," answered Battiscomb, "that in a few days--when he
+shall have seen the zeal of the countryside--he will be cured of his
+present luke-warmness." Thus, discreetly, did the man of law break the
+bad news he bore.
+
+Monmouth sank back into his chair like one who has lost some of
+his strength. "Lukewarmness?" he repeated dully. "Sir Walter Young
+lukewarm!"
+
+"Even so, Your Grace--alas!" and Battiscomb sighed audibly.
+
+Ferguson's voice boomed forth again to startle them. "The ox knoweth his
+owner," he cried, "the ass his master's crib; but Israel doth not know,
+my people doth not consider."
+
+Grey pushed the bottle contemptuously across the table to the parson.
+"Drink, man, and get sense, said he, and turned aside to question
+Battiscomb touching others of the neighbourhood upon whom they had
+depended.
+
+"What of Sir Francis Rolles?" he inquired.
+
+Battiscomb answered the question, addressing himself to the Duke.
+
+"Alas! Sir Francis, no doubt, would have been faithful to Your Grace,
+but, unfortunately, Sir Francis is in prison already."
+
+Deeper grew Monmouth's frown; his fingers drummed the table absently.
+Fletcher poured himself wine, his face inscrutable. Grey threw one leg
+over the other and in a voice that was carefully careless he inquired,
+"And what of Sidney Clifford?"
+
+"He is considering," said Battiscomb. "I was to have seen him again at
+the end of the month; meanwhile, he would take no resolve."
+
+"Lord Gervase Scoresby?" questioned Grey, less carelessly.
+
+Battiscomb half turned to him, then faced the Duke again as he made
+answer, "Mr. Wilding there, can tell you more concerning Lord Gervase."
+
+All eyes swept round to Wilding who sat in silence, listening;
+Monmouth's were laden with inquiry and some anxiety. Wilding shook his
+head slowly, sadly. "You must not depend upon him," he answered; "Lord
+Gervase was not yet ripe. A little longer and I think I must have won
+him for Your Grace."
+
+"Heaven help us!" exclaimed the Duke in petulant vexation. "Is no one
+coming in?"
+
+Ferguson swung a hand towards the still open window, drawing attention
+to the sounds without.
+
+"Does Your Grace not hear, that ye can ask?" he cried, almost
+reproachfully; but they scarce heeded him, for Grey was inquiring if
+Mr. Strode might be depended upon to join, and that was a matter that
+claimed the greater attention.
+
+"I think," said Battiscomb, "that he might have been depended upon."
+
+"Might have been?" questioned Fletcher, speaking now for the first time
+since Battiscomb's arrival.
+
+"Like Sir Francis Rolles, he is in prison," the lawyer explained.
+
+Monmouth leaned forward, and his young face looked careworn now; he
+thrust a slender hand under the brown curls upon his brow. "Will you
+tell us, Mr. Battiscomb, upon what friends you think that we may count?"
+he said.
+
+Battiscomb pursed his lips a second, pondering. "I think," said he,
+"that you may count upon Mr. Legge and Mr. Hooper, and possibly upon
+Colonel Churchill, though I cannot say what following they will bring,
+if any. Mr. Trenchard, upon whom we counted for fifteen hundred men of
+Taunton, has been obliged to fly the country to escape arrest."
+
+"We have heard that from Mr. Trenchard's cousin," answered the Duke.
+"What of Prideaux, of Ford? Is he lukewarm?"
+
+"I was unable to elicit a definite promise from him. But he was
+favourably disposed to Your Grace."
+
+His Grace made a gesture that seemed to dismiss Prideaux from their
+calculations. "And Mr. Hucker, of Taunton?"
+
+Battiscomb's manner grew yet more ill at ease. "Mr. Hucker himself, I
+am sure, would place his sword at your disposal. But his brother is a
+red-hot Tory."
+
+"Well, well," sighed the Duke, "I take it we must not make certain of
+Mr. Hucker. Are there any others besides Legge and Hooper upon whom you
+think that we may reckon?"
+
+"Lord Wiltshire, perhaps," said Battiscomb, but with a lack of
+assurance.
+
+"A plague on perhaps!" exclaimed Monmouth, growing irritable; "I want
+you to name the men of whom you are certain."
+
+Battiscomb stood silent for a moment, pondering. He looked almost
+foolish, like a schoolboy who hesitates to confess his ignorance of the
+answer to a question set him.
+
+Fletcher swung round, his grey eyes flashing angrily, his accent more
+Scottish than ever.
+
+"Is it that ye're certain o' none, Mr. Battiscomb?" he exclaimed.
+
+"Indeed," said Battiscomb, "I think we may be fairly certain of Mr.
+Legge and Mr. Hooper."
+
+"And of none besides?" questioned Fletcher again. "Be these the only
+representatives of the flower of England's nobility that is to flock to
+the banner of the cause of England's freedom and religion?" Scorn was
+stamped on every word of his question.
+
+Battiscomb spread his hands, raised his brows, and said nothing.
+
+"The Lord knows I do not say it exulting," said Fletcher; "but I told
+Your Grace yours was hardly the case of Henry the Seventh, as my Lord
+Grey would have you believe."
+
+"We shall see," snapped Grey, scowling at the Scot. "The people are
+coming in hundreds--aye, in thousands--the gentry will follow; they
+must."
+
+"Make not too sure, Your Grace--oh, make not too sure," Wilding besought
+the Duke. "As I have said, these hinds have nothing to lose but their
+lives."
+
+"Faith, can a man lose more?" asked Grey contemptuously. He disliked
+Wilding by instinct, which was but a reciprocation of the feeling with
+which Wilding was inspired by him.
+
+"I think he can," said Mr. Wilding quietly. "A man may lose honour, he
+may plunge his family into ruin. These are things of more weight with a
+gentleman than life."
+
+"Odds death!" blazed Grey, giving a free rein to his dislike of this
+calm gentleman. "Do you suggest that a man's honour is imperilled in His
+Grace's service?"
+
+"I suggest nothing," answered Wilding, unmoved. "What I think, I state.
+If I thought a man's honour imperilled in this service, you would not
+see me at this table now. I can make you no more convincing answer."
+
+Grey laughed unpleasantly, and Wilding, a faint tinge on his
+cheek-bones, measured him with a stern, intrepid look before which his
+lordship's shifty glance was observed to fall. Wilding's eye, having
+achieved that much, passed from him to the Duke, and its expression
+softened.
+
+"Your Grace sees," said he, "how well founded were the fears I expressed
+that your coming has been premature."
+
+"In God's name, what would you have me do?" cried the Duke, and
+petulance made his voice unsteady.
+
+Mr. Wilding rose, moved out of his habitual calm by the earnestness
+that pervaded him. "It is not for me to say again what I would have Your
+Grace do. Your Grace has heard my views, and those of these gentlemen.
+It is for Your Grace to decide."
+
+"You mean whether I will go forward with this thing? What alternative
+have I?"
+
+"No alternative," put in Grey with finality. "Nor is alternative needed.
+We'll carry this through in spite of timorous folk and birds of ill-omen
+that croak to affright us."
+
+"Our service is the service of the Lord," cried Ferguson, returning from
+the window in the embrasure of which he had been standing; "the Lord
+cannot but destine it to prevail."
+
+"Ye said so before," quoth Fletcher testily. "We need here men, money,
+and weapons--not divinity."
+
+"You are plainly infected with Mr. Wilding's disease," sneered Grey.
+
+"Ford," cried the Duke, who saw Wilding's eyes flash fire; "you go too
+fast. Mr. Wilding, you will not heed his lordship."
+
+"I should not be likely to do so, Your Grace," answered Wilding, who had
+resumed his seat.
+
+"What shall that mean?" quoth Grey, leaping to his feet.
+
+"Make it quite clear to him, Tony," whispered Trenchard coaxingly; but
+Mr. Wilding was not as lost as were these immediate followers of the
+Duke's to all sense of the respect due to His Grace.
+
+"I think," said Wilding quietly, "that you have forgotten something."
+
+"Forgotten what?" bawled Grey.
+
+"His Grace's presence."
+
+His lordship turned crimson, his anger swelled to think that the very
+terms of the rebuke precluded his allowing his feelings a free rein.
+
+Monmouth leaned forward. "Sit down," he said to Grey, and Grey, so
+lately called to the respect he owed His Grace, obeyed him. "You will
+both promise me that this affair shall go no further. I know you will
+do it if I ask you, particularly when you remember how few are the
+followers upon whom I may depend. I am not in case to lose either of you
+through foolish words uttered in a heat which, in both your hearts, is
+born, I know, of your loyalty to me."
+
+Grey's coarse, elderly face took on a sulky look, his heavy lips were
+pouted, his glance sullen. Mr. Wilding, on the contrary, smiled across
+the table.
+
+"For my part I very gladly give Your Grace the undertaking," said he,
+and took care not to observe the sneer that altered the line of Lord
+Grey's lips. His lordship, too, was forced to give the same pledge, and
+he followed it up by inveighing sturdily against the suggestion that
+they should retreat.
+
+"I do protest," he exclaimed, "that those who advise Your Grace to do
+anything but go forward boldly now, are evil counsellors. If you put
+back to Holland, you may leave every hope behind. There will be no
+second coming for you. Your influence will have been dissipated. Men
+will not trust you another time. I do not think that even Mr. Wilding
+can deny the truth of this."
+
+"I am by no means sure," said Wilding, and Fletcher looked at him with
+eyes that were full of understanding. This sturdy Scot, the only soldier
+worthy of the name in the Duke's following, who, ever since the project
+had first been mooted, had held out against it, counselling delay, was
+in sympathy with Mr. Wilding.
+
+Monmouth rose, his face anxious, his voice fretful. "There can be no
+retreat for me, gentlemen. Though many that we depended upon are not
+here to join us, yet let us remember that Heaven is on our side, and
+that we are come to fight in the sacred cause of religion and a nation's
+emancipation from the thraldom of popery, oppression, and superstition.
+Let this dispel such doubts as yet may linger in our minds."
+
+His words had a brave sound, but, when analysed, they but formed a
+paraphrase of what Grey and Ferguson had said. It was his destiny to be
+a mere echo of the minds of other men, just as he was now the tool
+of these two, one of whom plotted, seemingly, because plotting was a
+disease that had got into his blood; the other for reasons that may have
+been of ambition or of revenge--no man will ever know for certain.
+
+In the chamber they shared, Trenchard and Mr. Wilding reviewed that
+night the scene so lately enacted, in which one had taken an active
+part, the other been little more than a spectator. Trenchard had come
+from the Duke's presence entirely out of conceit with Monmouth and
+his cause, contemptuous of Ferguson, angry with Grey, and indifferent
+towards Fletcher.
+
+"I am committed, and I'll not draw back," said he; "but I tell you,
+Anthony, my heart is not confederate with my hand in this. Bah!" he
+railed. "We serve a man of straw, a Perkin, a very pope of a fellow."
+
+Mr. Wilding sighed. "He's scarce the man for such an undertaking," said
+he. "I fear we have been misled."
+
+Trenchard was drawing off his boots. He paused in the act. "Aye," said
+he, "misled by our blindness. What else, after all, should we have
+expected of him?" he cried contemptuously. "The Cause is good; but its
+leader---Pshaw! Would you have such a puppet as that on the throne of
+England?"
+
+"He does not aim so high."
+
+"Be not so sure. We shall hear more of the black box anon, and of the
+marriage certificate it contains. 'Twould not surprise me if they were
+to produce forgeries of the one and the other to prove his father's
+marriage to Lucy Walters. Anthony, Anthony! To what a business are we
+wedded?"
+
+Mr. Wilding, already abed, turned impatiently. "Things cried aloud to be
+redressed; a leader was necessary, and none other offered. That is the
+whole story. But our chance is slender, and it might have been great."
+
+"That rake-hell, Ford, Lord Grey has made it so," grumbled Trenchard,
+busy with his stockings. "This sudden coming is his work. You heard what
+Fletcher said--how he opposed it when first it was urged." He paused,
+and looked up suddenly. "Blister me!" he cried, "is it his lordship's
+purpose, think you, to work the ruin of Monmouth?"
+
+"What are you saying, Nick?"
+
+"There are certain rumours current touching His Grace and Lady Grey. A
+man like Grey might well resort to some such scheme of vengeance."
+
+"Get to sleep, Nick," said Wilding, yawning; "you are dreaming already.
+Such a plan would be over elaborate for his lordship's mind. It would
+ask a villainy parallel with your own."
+
+Trenchard climbed into bed, and settled himself under the coverlet.
+
+"Maybe," said he, "and maybe not; but I think that were it not for that
+cursed business of the letter Richard Westmacott stole from us, I should
+be going my ways to-morrow and leaving His Grace of Monmouth to go his."
+
+"Aye, and I'd go with you," answered Wilding. "I've little taste for
+suicide; but we are in it now."
+
+"'Twas a sad pity you meddled this morning in that affair at Taunton,"
+mused Trenchard wistfully. "A sadder pity you were bitten with a taste
+for matrimony," he added thoughtfully, and blew out the rushlight.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. LYME OF THE KING
+
+On the next day, which was Friday, the country folk continued to come
+in, and by evening Monmouth's forces amounted to a thousand foot and
+a hundred and fifty horse. The men were armed as fast as they were
+enrolled, and scarce a field or quiet avenue in the district but
+resounded to the tramp of feet, the rattle of weapons, and the sharp
+orders of the officers who, by drilling, were converting this raw
+material into soldiers. On the Saturday the rally of the Duke's standard
+was such that Monmouth threw off at last the gloomy forebodings that had
+burdened his soul since that meeting on Thursday night. Wade, Holmes,
+Foulkes, and Fox were able to set about forming the first four
+regiments--the Duke's, and the Green, the White, and the Yellow.
+Monmouth's spirits continued to rise, for he had been joined by now
+by Legge and Hooper--the two upon whom Battiscomb had counted--and by
+Colonel Joshua Churchill, of whom Battiscomb had been less certain.
+Captain Matthews brought news that Lord Wiltshire and the gentlemen
+of Hampshire might be expected if they could force their way through
+Albemarle's militia, which was already closing round Lyme.
+
+Long before evening willing fellows were being turned away in hundreds
+for lack of weapons. In spite of Monmouth's big talk on landing, and of
+the rumour that had gone out, that he could arm thirty thousand men, his
+stock of arms was exhausted by a mere fifteen hundred. Trenchard,
+who now held a Major's rank in the horse attached to the Duke's own
+regiment, was loud in his scorn of this state of things; Mr. Wilding was
+sad, and his depression again spread to the Duke after a few words had
+passed between them towards evening. Fletcher was for heroic measures.
+He looked only ahead now, like the good soldier that he was; and,
+already, he began to suggest a bold dash for Exeter, for weapons,
+horses, and possibly the militia as well, for they had ample evidence
+that the men composing it might easily be induced to desert to the
+Duke's side.
+
+The suggestion was one that instantly received Mr. Wilding's heartiest
+approval. It seemed to fill him suddenly with hope, and he spoke of
+it, indeed, as an inspiration which, if acted upon, might yet save the
+situation. The Duke was undecided as ever; he was too much troubled
+weighing the chances for and against, and he would decide upon nothing
+until he had consulted Grey and the others. He would summon a council
+that night, he promised, and the matter should be considered.
+
+But that council was never to be called, for Andrew Fletcher's
+association with the rebellion was drawing rapidly to its close, and
+there was that to happen in the next few hours which should counteract
+all the encouragement with which the Duke had been fortified that day.
+Towards evening little Heywood Dare, the Taunton goldsmith, who had
+landed at Seatown and gone out with the news of the Duke's arrival, rode
+into Lyme with forty horse, mounted, himself, upon a beautiful charger
+which was destined to be the undoing of him.
+
+News came, too, that the Dorset militia were at Bridport, eight miles
+away, whereupon Wilding and Fletcher postponed all further suggestion of
+the dash for Exeter, proposing that in the mean time a night attack upon
+Bridport might result well. For once Lord Grey was in agreement with
+them, and so the matter was decided. Fletcher went down to arm and
+mount, and all the world knows the story of the foolish, ill-fated
+quarrel which robbed Monmouth of two of his most valued adherents.
+By ill-luck the Scot's eyes lighted upon the fine horse that Dare had
+brought from Ford Abbey. It occurred to him that nothing could be more
+fitting than that the best man should sit upon the best horse, and he
+forthwith led the beast from the stables and was about to mount when
+Dare came forth to catch him in the very act. The goldsmith was a rude,
+peppery fellow, who did not mince his words.
+
+"What a plague are you doing with that horse?" he cried.
+
+Fletcher paused, one foot in the stirrup, and looked the fellow up and
+down. "I am mounting it," said he, and proceeded to do as he said.
+
+But Dare caught him by the tails of his coat and brought him back to
+earth.
+
+"You are making a mistake, Mr. Fletcher," he cried angrily. "That horse
+is mine."
+
+Fletcher, whose temper was by no means of the most peaceful, kept
+himself with difficulty in hand at the indignity Dare offered him.
+
+"Yours?" quoth he.
+
+"Aye, mine. I brought it from Ford Abbey myself."
+
+"For the Duke's service," Fletcher reminded him.
+
+"For my own, sir; for my own I would have you know." And brushing
+the Scot aside, he caught the bridle, and sought to wrench it from
+Fletcher's hand.
+
+But Fletcher maintained his hold. "Softly, Mr. Dare," said he. "Ye're
+a trifle o'er true to your name, as you once told his late Majesty
+yourself."
+
+"Take your hands from my horse," Dare shouted, very angry.
+
+Several loiterers in the yard gathered round to watch the scene, culling
+diversion from it and speculating upon the conclusion it might have. One
+rash young fellow offered audibly to lay ten to one that Paymaster Dare
+would have the best of the argument.
+
+Dare overheard, and was spurred on.
+
+"I will, by God!" he answered. "Come, Mr. Fletcher!" And he shook the
+bridle again.
+
+There was a dull flush showing through the tan of Fletcher's skin.
+"Mr. Dare," said he, "this horse is no more yours than mine. It is the
+Duke's, and I, as one o' the leaders, claim it in the Duke's service."
+
+"Aye, sir," cried an onlooker, encouraging Fletcher, and did the
+mischief. It so goaded Dare to have his antagonist in this trifling
+matter supported that he utterly lost his head.
+
+"I have said the horse is mine, and I repeat it. Let go the bridle--let
+it go!" Still, Fletcher, striving hard to keep his calm, clung to the
+reins. "Let it go, you damned, thieving Scot!" screamed Dare in a fury,
+and struck Fletcher with his whip.
+
+It was unfortunate for them both that he should have had that switch in
+his hand at such a time, but more unfortunate still was it that Fletcher
+should have had a pistol in his belt. The Scot dropped the bridle at
+last; dropped it to pluck forth the weapon.
+
+"Hi! I did not..." began Dare, who had stood appalled by what he had
+done in the second or two that had passed since he had delivered the
+blow. The rest of his sentence was drowned in the report of Fletcher's
+pistol, and Dare dropped dead on the rough cobbles of the yard.
+
+Ferguson has left it on record--and, presumably, he had Fletcher's
+word for it--that it was no part of the Scot's intent to do Mr. Dare
+a mischief. He had but drawn the pistol to intimidate him into better
+manners, but in his haste he accidentally pulled the trigger.
+
+However that may be, there was Dare as dead as the stones on which he
+lay, and Fletcher with a smoking pistol in his hand.
+
+After that all was confusion. Fletcher was seized by those who had
+witnessed the deed; there was none thought it an accident; indeed,
+they were all ready enough to say that Fletcher had received excessive
+provocation. He was haled to the presence of the Duke with whom
+were Grey and Wilding at the time; and old Dare's son--an ensign in
+Goodenough's company--came clamouring for vengeance backed by such
+goodly numbers that the distraught Duke was forced to show at least the
+outward seeming of it.
+
+Wilding, who knew the value of this Scottish soldier of fortune who had
+seen so much service, strenuously urged his enlargement. It was not a
+time to let the fortunes of a cause suffer through such an act as this,
+deplorable though it might be. The evidence showed that Fletcher had
+been provoked; he had been struck, a thing that might well justify the
+anger in the heat of which he had done this thing. Grey was stolid and
+silent, saying nothing either for or against the man who had divided
+with him under the Duke the honours of the supreme command.
+
+Monmouth, white and horror-stricken, sat and listened first to
+Wilding, then to Dare, and lastly to Fletcher himself. But it was young
+Dare--Dare and his followers, who prevailed. They were too numerous and
+turbulent, and they must at all costs be conciliated, or there was no
+telling to what extremes they might not go. And so there was an end to
+the share of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun in this undertaking--the end of
+the only man who was of any capacity to pilot it through the troubled
+waters that lay before it. Monmouth placed him under arrest and sent him
+aboard the frigate again, ordering her captain to sail at once. That was
+the utmost Monmouth could do to save him.
+
+Wilding continued to plead with the Duke after Fletcher's removal, and
+to such good purpose that at last Monmouth determined that Fletcher
+should rejoin them later, when the affair should have blown over, and
+he sent word accordingly to the Scot. Even in this there were
+manifestations of antagonism between Mr. Wilding and Lord Grey, and it
+almost seemed enough that Wilding should suggest a course for Lord Grey
+instantly to oppose it.
+
+The effects of Fletcher's removal were not long in following. On the
+morrow came the Bridport affair, and Grey's shameful conduct when, had
+he stood his ground, victory must have been assured the Duke's forces
+instead of just that honourable retreat by which Colonel Wade so
+gallantly saved the situation. Mr. Wilding did not mince his words in
+putting it that Grey had run away.
+
+In his room at the George Inn, Monmouth, deeply distressed, asked
+Wilding and Colonel Matthews what action he should take in the
+matter--how deal with Grey.
+
+"There is no other general in Europe would ask that, Your Grace,"
+answered Matthews gravely, and Mr. Wilding added without an instant's
+hesitation that His Grace's course was plain.
+
+"It would be an unwise thing to expose the troops to the chance of more
+such happenings."
+
+Monmouth dismissed them and sent for Grey, and he seemed resolved to
+deal with him as he deserved. Yet an hour later, when Wilding, Matthews,
+Wade, and the others were ordered to attend the Duke in council, there
+was his lordship seemingly on as good terms as ever with His Grace.
+
+They were assembled to discuss the next step which it might be advisable
+to take, for the militia was closing in around them, and to remain
+longer in Lyme would be to be caught there as in a trap. It was Grey
+who advanced the first suggestion, his assurance no whit abated by
+the shameful thing that had befallen, by the cowardice which he had
+betrayed.
+
+"That we must quit Lyme we are all agreed," said he. "I would propose
+that Your Grace march north to Gloucester, where our Cheshire friends
+will assemble to meet us."
+
+Colonel Matthews reminded the Duke of Andrew Fletcher's proposal that
+they should make a raid upon Exeter with a view to seizing arms, of
+which they stood so sorely in need.
+
+This Mr. Wilding was quick to support. "Not only that, Your Grace," he
+said, "but I am confident that with very little inducement the greater
+portion of the militia will desert to us as soon as we appear.
+
+"What assurance can you give of that?" asked Grey, his heavy lip
+protruded.
+
+"I take it," said Mr. Wilding, "that in such matters no man can give
+an assurance of anything. I speak with knowledge of the country and the
+folk from which the militia is enlisted. I offer it as my opinion that
+the militia is favourably disposed to Your Grace. I can do no more.
+
+"If Mr. Wilding says so, Your Grace," put in Matthews, "I have no doubt
+he has sound reasons upon which to base his opinion.
+
+"No doubt," said Monmouth. "Indeed, I had already thought of the step
+that you suggest, Colonel Matthews, and what Mr. Wilding says causes me
+to look upon it still more favourably."
+
+Grey frowned. "Consider, Your Grace," he said earnestly, "that you are
+in no case to fight at present."
+
+"What fighting do you suggest there would be?" asked the Duke.
+
+"There is Albemarle between us and Exeter."
+
+"But with the militia," Wilding reminded him; "and if the militia
+deserts him for Your Grace, in what case will Albemarle find himself?"
+
+"And if the militia does not desert? If you should be proven wrong, sir?
+What then? What then?" asked Grey.
+
+"Aye--true--what then, Mr. Wilding?" quoth the Duke, already wavering.
+
+Wilding considered a moment, all eyes upon him. "Even then," said he
+presently, "I do maintain that in this dash for Exeter lies Your Grace's
+greatest chance of success. We can deliver battle if need be. Already we
+are three thousand strong..."
+
+Grey interrupted him rudely. "Nay," he insisted. "You must not presume
+upon that. We are not yet fit to fight. It is His Grace's business at
+present to drill and discipline his troops and induce more friends to
+join him."
+
+"Already we are turning men away because we have no weapons to put into
+their hands," Wilding reminded them, and a murmur of approval ran round,
+which but served to anger Grey the more, to render more obstinate his
+opposition.
+
+"But all that come in are not unprovided," was his lordship's retort.
+"There are the Hampshire gentry and their friends. They will come armed,
+and so will others if we have patience.
+
+"Aye," said Wilding, "and if you have patience enough there will be
+troops the Parliament will send against us. They, too, will be armed, I
+can assure your lordship."
+
+"In God's name let us keep from wrangling," the Duke besought them. "It
+is difficult enough to determine for the best. If the dash to Exeter
+were successful..."
+
+"It cannot be," Grey interrupted again.
+
+The liberties he took with Monmouth and which Monmouth permitted him
+might well be a source of wonder to all who heard them. Monmouth paused
+now in his interrupted speech and looked about him a trifle wearily.
+
+"It seems idle to insist," said Mr. Wilding; "such is the temper of Your
+Grace's counsellors, that we get no further than contradictions." Grey's
+bold eyes were upon Wilding as he spoke. "I would remind Your Grace,
+and I am sure that many present will agree with me, that in a desperate
+enterprise a sudden unexpected movement will often strike terror."
+
+"That is true," said Monmouth, but apparently without enthusiasm, and
+having approved what was urged on one side, he looked at Grey, as if
+waiting to hear what might be said on the other. His indecision was
+pitiful--tragical, indeed, in the leader of so bold an enterprise.
+
+"We should do better, I think," said Grey, "to deal with the facts as we
+know them."
+
+"It is what I am endeavouring to do, Your Grace," protested Wilding,
+a note of despair in his voice. "Perhaps some other gentleman will put
+forward better counsel than mine."
+
+"Aye! In Heaven's name let us hope so," snorted Grey; and Monmouth,
+catching the sudden flash of Mr. Wilding's eye, set a hand upon his
+lordship's arm as if to urge him to be gentler. But he continued, "When
+men talk of striking terror by sudden movements they build on air."
+
+"I had hardly thought to hear that from your lordship," said Mr.
+Wilding, and he permitted himself that tight-lipped smile that gave his
+face so wicked a look.
+
+"And why not?" asked Grey, stupidly unsuspicious.
+
+"Because I had thought you might have concluded otherwise from your own
+experience at Bridport this morning."
+
+Grey got angrily to his feet, rage and shame flushing his face, and it
+needed Ferguson and the Duke to restore him to some semblance of calm.
+Indeed, it may well be that it was to complete this that His Grace
+decided there and then that they should follow Grey's advice and go by
+way of Taunton, Bridgwater, and Bristol to Gloucester. He was, like all
+weak men, of conspicuous mental short-sightedness. The matter of the
+moment was ever of greater importance to him than any result that might
+attend it in the future.
+
+He insisted that Wilding and Grey should shake hands before the breaking
+up of that most astounding council, and as he had done last night, he
+now again imposed upon them his commands that they must not allow this
+matter to go further.
+
+Mr. Wilding paved the way for peace by making an apology within
+limitations.
+
+"If, in my zeal to serve Your Grace to the best of my ability, I have
+said that which Lord Grey thinks fit to resent, I would bid him consider
+my motive rather than my actual words."
+
+But when all had gone save Ferguson, the chaplain approached the
+preoccupied and distressed Duke with counsel that Mr. Wilding should be
+sent away from the army.
+
+"Else there'll be trouble 'twixt him and Grey," the plotting parson
+foretold. "We'll be having a repetition of the unfortunate Fletcher and
+Dare affair, and I think that has cost Your Grace enough already."
+
+"Do you suggest that I dismiss Wilding?" cried the Duke. "You know his
+influence, and the bad impression his removal would leave."
+
+Ferguson stroked his long lean jaw. "No, no," said he; "all I suggest is
+that you find Mr. Wilding work to do elsewhere."
+
+"Elsewhere?" the Duke questioned. "Where else?"
+
+"I have thought of that, too. Send him to London to see Danvers and to
+stir up your friends there. And," he added, lowering his voice, "give
+him discretion to see Sunderland if he thinks well."
+
+The proposition pleased Monmouth, and it seemed to please Mr. Wilding
+no less when, having sent for him, the Duke communicated it to him in
+Ferguson's presence.
+
+Upon this mission Mr. Wilding set out that very night, leaving Nick
+Trenchard in despair at being separated from him at a time when there
+seemed to be every chance that such a separation might be eternal.
+
+Monmouth and Ferguson may have conceived they did a wise thing in
+removing a man who was instinctively spoiling for a little sword-play
+with my Lord Grey. It is odds that had he remained, the brewing storm
+between the pair would have come to a head. Had it done so, it is more
+than likely, from what we know of Mr. Wilding's accomplishments, that
+he had given Lord Grey his quietus. And had that happened, it is to
+be inferred from history that it is possible the Duke of Monmouth's
+rebellion might have had a less disastrous issue.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. PLOTS AND PLOTTERS
+
+Mr. Wilding left Monmouth's army at Lyme on Sunday, the 14th of
+June, and rejoined it at Bridgwater exactly three weeks later. In the
+meanwhile a good deal had happened, yet the happenings on every hand had
+fallen far short of the expectations aroused in Mr. Wilding's mind,
+now by one circumstance, now by another. In reaching London he had
+experienced no difficulty. Men travelling in that direction were not
+subjected to the scrutiny that fell to the share of those travelling
+from it towards the West, or, rather, to the scrutiny ordained by the
+Government; for Wilding had more than one opportunity of observing
+how very lax and indifferent were the constables and
+tything-men--particularly in Somerset and Wiltshire--in the performance
+of this duty. Wayfarers were questioned as a matter of form, but in no
+case did Wilding hear of any one being detained upon suspicion. This
+was calculated to raise his drooping hopes, pointing as it did to the
+general favouring of Monmouth that was toward. He grew less despondent
+on the score of the Duke's possible ultimate success, and he came to
+hope that the efforts he went to exert would not be fruitless.
+
+But rude were the disappointments that awaited him in town. London, like
+the rest of the country, was not ready. There were not wanting men who
+favoured Monmouth; but no rising had been organized, and the Duke's
+partisans were not disposed to rashness.
+
+Wilding lodged at Covent Garden, in a house recommended to him by
+Colonel Danvers, and there--an outlaw himself--he threw himself with a
+will into his task. He heard of the burning of Monmouth's Declaration by
+the common hangman at the Royal Exchange, and of the bill passed by
+the Commons to make it treason for any to assert that Lucy Walters was
+married to the late King. He attended meetings at the "Bull's Head,"
+in Bishopsgate, where he met Disney and Danvers, Payton and Lock; but
+though they talked and argued at prodigious length, they did naught
+besides. Danvers, who was their hope in town, definitely refused to have
+a hand in anything that was not properly organized, and in common with
+the others urged that they should wait until Cheshire had risen, as was
+reported that it must.
+
+Meanwhile, troops had gone west under Kirke and Churchill, and the
+Parliament had voted nearly half a million for the putting down of the
+rebellion. London was flung into a fever of excitement by the news
+that was reaching it. The position was not quite as Monmouth's
+advisers--before coming over from Holland--had represented that it would
+be. They had thought that out of fear of tumults about his own person,
+King James would have been compelled to keep near him what troops he
+had, sparing none to be sent against Monmouth. This, King James had not
+done; he had all but emptied London of soldiery, and, considering the
+general disaffection, no moment could have been more favourable than
+this for a rising in London itself. The confusion that must have
+resulted from the recalling of troops would have given Monmouth not
+only a mighty grip of the West, but would have heartened those who--like
+Sunderland himself--were sitting on the wall, to declare themselves for
+the Protestant Champion. This Wilding saw, and almost frenziedly did he
+urge it upon Danvers that all London needed at the moment was a resolute
+leader. But the Colonel still held back; indeed, he had neither truth
+nor valour; he was timid, and used deceit to mask his timidity; he urged
+frivolous reasons for inaction, and when Wilding waxed impatient with
+him, he suggested that Wilding himself should head the rising if he were
+so confident of its success. And Wilding would have done it but that,
+being unknown in London, he had no reason to suppose that men would
+flock to him if he raised the Duke's banner.
+
+Later, when the excitement grew and rumours ran through town that
+Monmouth had now a following of twenty thousand men and that the King's
+forces were falling back before him, and discontent was rife at the
+commissioning of Catholic lords to levy troops, Wilding again pressed
+the matter upon Danvers. Surely no moment could be more propitious.
+But again he received the same answer, that Danvers had lacked time to
+organize matters sufficiently; that the Duke's coming had taken him by
+surprise.
+
+Lastly came the news that Monmouth had been crowned at Taunton amid the
+wildest enthusiasm, and that there were now in England two men each
+of whom called himself King James the Second. This was the excuse
+that Danvers needed to be rid of a business he had not the courage to
+transact to a finish. He swore that he washed his hands of Monmouth's
+affairs; that the latter had broken faith with him and the promise
+he had made him in having himself proclaimed King. He protested that
+Monmouth had done ill, and prophesied that his act would alienate from
+him the numerous republicans who, like Danvers, had hitherto looked to
+him for the country's salvation. Wilding himself was appalled at the
+news for Monmouth was indeed going further than men had been given to
+understand. Nevertheless, for his own sake, in very self-defence now,
+if out of no motives of loyalty to the Duke, he must urge forward the
+fortunes of this man. He had high words with Danvers, and the two might
+have quarrelled before long but for the sudden arrest of Disney, which
+threw Danvers into such a panic that he fled incontinently, abandoning
+in body, as he already appeared to have abandoned in spirit, the
+Monmouth Cause.
+
+The arrest of Disney struck a chill into Wilding. From his lodging at
+Covent Garden he had communicated cautiously with Sunderland a few days
+after his arrival, building upon certain information he had received
+from the Duke at parting as to Sunderland's attachment to the Cause. He
+had carefully chosen his moment for making this communication, having
+a certain innate mistrust of a man who so obviously as Sunderland was
+running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. He had sent a letter
+to the Secretary of State when London was agog with the Axminster
+affair, and the tale--of which Sir Edward Phelips wrote to Colonel
+Berkeley as "the shamefullest story that you ever heard"--of how
+Albemarle's forces and the Somerset militia had run before Monmouth in
+spite of their own overwhelming numbers. This promised ill for James,
+particularly when it was perceived as perceived it was--that this
+running away was not all cowardice, not all "the shamefullest story"
+that Phelips accounted it. It was an expression of good-will towards
+Monmouth on the part of the militia of the West, and it was confidently
+expected that the next news would be that these men who had decamped
+before him would presently be found to have ranged themselves under his
+banner.
+
+Sunderland had given no sign that he had received Wilding's
+communication. And Wilding drew his own contemptuous conclusions of the
+Secretary of State's cautious policy. It was a fortnight later--when
+London was settling down again from the diversion of excitement created
+by the news of Argyle's defeat in Scotland--before Mr. Wilding attempted
+to approach Sunderland again. He awaited a favourable opportunity, and
+this he had when London was thrown into consternation by the alarming
+news of the Duke of Somerset's urgent demand for reinforcements. Unless
+he had them, he declared, the whole country was lost, as he could not
+get the militia to stand, whilst Lord Stawell's regiment were all fled
+and mostly gone over to the rebels at Bridgwater.
+
+This was grave news, but it was followed in a few days by graver. The
+affair at Philips Norton was exaggerated by report into a wholesale
+defeat of the loyal army, and it was reported--on, apparently, such good
+authority that it received credence in quarters that might have waited
+for official news--that the Duke of Albemarle had been slain by the
+militia which had mutinied and deserted to Monmouth.
+
+It was while this news was going round that Sunderland--in a moment of
+panic--at last vouchsafed an answer to Mr. Wilding's letters, and he
+vouchsafed it in person, just as Wilding--particularly since Disney's
+arrest--was beginning to lose all hope. He came one evening to Mr.
+Wilding's lodgings in Covent Garden, unattended and closely muffled, and
+he remained closeted with the Duke's ambassador for nigh upon an hour,
+at the end of which he entrusted Mr. Wilding with a letter for the Duke,
+very brief but entirely to the point, which expressed him Monmouth's
+most devoted servant.
+
+"You may well judge, sir," he had said at parting, "that this is not
+such a letter as I should entrust to any man."
+
+Mr. Wilding had bowed gravely, and gravely he had expressed himself
+sensible of the exceptional honour his lordship did him by such a trust.
+
+"And I depend upon you, sir, as you are a man of honour, to take such
+measures as will ensure against its falling into any but the hands for
+which it is intended."
+
+"As I am a man of honour, you may depend upon me," Mr. Wilding solemnly
+promised. "Will your lordship give me three lines above your signature
+that will save me from molestation; thus you will facilitate the
+preservation of this letter."
+
+"I had already thought of that," was Sunderland's answer, and he placed
+before Mr. Wilding three lines of writing signed and sealed which
+enjoined all, straitly, in the King's name to suffer the bearer to pass
+and repass and to offer him no hindrance.
+
+On that they shook hands and parted, Sunderland to return to Whitehall
+and his obedience to the King James whom he was ready to betray as
+soon as he saw profit for himself in the act, Mr. Wilding to return to
+Somerset to the King James in whom his faith was scant, indeed, but with
+whom his fortunes were irrevocably bound up.
+
+Meanwhile, Monmouth was back in Bridgwater, his second occupation
+of which town was not being looked upon with unmixed favour. The
+inhabitants had suffered enough already from his first visit; his return
+there, after the Philips Norton affair of which such grossly exaggerated
+reports had reached London, and which, in point of fact, had been little
+better than a drawn battle--had been looked upon with dread by some,
+with disfavour by others, and with dismay by not a few who viewed in
+this an augury of failure.
+
+Now Sir Rowland Blake, who since his pursuit of Mr. Wilding and
+Trenchard on the occasion of their flight from Taunton had--in spite
+of his failure on that occasion--been more or less in the service of
+Albemarle and the loyal army, saw in this indisposition towards Monmouth
+of so many of Bridgwater's inhabitants great possibilities of profit to
+himself.
+
+He was at Lupton House, the guest of his friend Richard Westmacott, and
+the open suitor of Ruth, entirely ignoring the circumstance that she was
+nominally the wife of Mr. Wilding--this to the infinite chagrin of Miss
+Horton, who saw all her scheming likely to go for nothing.
+
+In his heart of hearts it was a matter of not the slightest consequence
+to Sir Rowland whether James Stuart or James Scott occupied the throne
+of England. His own affairs gave him more than enough to think of, and
+these disturbances in the West were very welcome to him, since they
+rendered difficult any attempt to trace him on the part of his London
+creditors. It happens, however, very commonly that enmity to an
+individual will lead to enmity to the cause which that individual
+espouses. Thus may it have been with Sir Rowland. His hatred of Wilding
+and his keen desire to see Wilding destroyed had made him a zealous
+partisan of the loyal cause. Richard Westmacott, easily swayed and
+overborne by the town rake, whose vices made him seem to Richard the
+embodiment of all that is splendid and enviable in man, had become
+practically the baronet's tool, now that he had abandoned Monmouth's
+Cause. Sir Rowland had not considered it beneath the dignity of his name
+and station to discharge in Bridgwater certain functions that made him
+more or less a spy. And so reliable had been the information he had sent
+Feversham and Albemarle during Monmouth's first occupation of the town,
+that he had won by now their complete confidence.
+
+The second occupation and its unpopularity with many of those who
+earlier--if lukewarm--had been partisans of the Duke, swelled the number
+of loyally inclined people in Bridgwater, and suddenly inspired
+Sir Rowland with a scheme by which at a blow he might snuff out the
+rebellion.
+
+This scheme involved the capture of the Duke, and the reward of success
+should mean far more to Blake than the five thousand pounds at which the
+value of the Duke's head had already been fixed by Parliament. He needed
+a tool for this, and he even thought of Westmacott and Lupton House, but
+afterwards preferred a Mr. Newlington, who was in better case to assist
+him. This Newlington, an exceedingly prosperous merchant and one of the
+richest men perhaps in the whole West of England, looked with extreme
+disfavour upon Monmouth, whose advent had paralyzed his industries to an
+extent that was costing him a fine round sum of money weekly.
+
+He was now in alarm lest the town of Bridgwater should be made to
+pay dearly for having harboured the Protestant Duke--he had no faith
+whatever in the Protestant Duke's ultimate prevailing--and that he,
+as one of the town's most prominent and prosperous citizens, might
+be amongst the heaviest sufferers in spite of his neutrality. This
+neutrality he observed because it was hardly safe in that disaffected
+town for a man to proclaim himself a loyalist.
+
+To him Sir Rowland expounded his audacious plan... He sought out the
+merchant in his handsome mansion on the night of that Friday which had
+witnessed Monmouth's return, and the merchant, honoured by the visit of
+this gallant--ignorant as he was of the gentleman's fame in town--placed
+himself entirely and instantly at his disposal, though the hour was
+late. Sounding him carefully, and finding the fellow most amenable
+to any scheme that should achieve the salvation of his purse and
+industries, Blake boldly laid his plan before him. Startled at first,
+Mr. Newlington upon considering it became so enthusiastic that he hailed
+Sir Rowland as his deliverer, and heartily promised his cooperation.
+Indeed, it was Mr. Newlington who was, himself, to take the first step.
+
+Well pleased with his evening's work, Sir Rowland went home to Lupton
+House and to bed. In the morning he broached the matter to Richard. He
+had all the vanity of the inferior not only to lessen the appearance of
+his inferiority, but to clothe himself in a mantle of importance; and it
+was this vanity urged him to acquaint Richard with his plans in the very
+presence of Ruth.
+
+They had broken their fast, and they still lingered in the dining-room,
+the largest and most important room in Lupton House. It was cool and
+pleasant here in contrast to the heat of the July sun, which, following
+upon the late wet weather, beat fiercely on the lawn, the window-doors
+to which stood open. The cloth had been raised, and Diana and her mother
+had lately left the room. Ruth, in the window-seat, at a small oval
+table, was arranging a cluster of roses in an old bronze bowl. Sir
+Rowland, his stiff short figure carefully dressed in a suit of brown
+camlet, his fair wig very carefully curled, occupied a tall-backed
+armchair near the empty fireplace. Richard, perched on the table's edge,
+swung his shapely legs idly backwards and forwards and cogitated upon a
+pretext to call for a morning draught of last October's ale.
+
+Ruth completed her task with the roses and turned her eyes upon her
+brother.
+
+"You are not looking well, Richard," she said, which was true enough,
+for much hard drinking was beginning to set its stamp on Richard, and
+young as he was, his insipidly fair face began to display a bloatedness
+that was exceedingly unhealthy.
+
+"Oh, I am well enough," he answered almost peevishly, for these
+allusions to his looks were becoming more frequent than he savoured.
+
+"Gad!" cried Sir Rowland's deep voice, "you'll need to be well. I have
+work for you to-morrow, Dick."
+
+Dick did not appear to share his enthusiasm. "I am sick of the work you
+discover for us, Rowland," he answered ungraciously.
+
+But Blake showed no resentment. "Maybe you'll find the present task more
+to your taste. If it's deeds of derring-do you pine for, I am the man
+to satisfy you." He smiled grimly, his bold grey eyes glancing across at
+Ruth, who was observing him, listening.
+
+Richard sneered, but offered him no encouragement to proceed.
+
+"I see," said Blake, "that I shall have to tell you the whole story
+before you'll credit me. Shalt have it, then. But..." and he checked on
+the word, his face growing serious, his eye wandering to the door, "I
+would not have it overheard--not for a king's ransom," which was more
+literally true than he may have intended it to be.
+
+Richard looked over his shoulder carelessly at the door.
+
+"We have no eavesdroppers," he said, and his voice bespoke his contempt
+of the gravity of this news of which Sir Rowland made so much in
+anticipation. He was acquainted with Sir Rowland's ways, and the
+importance of them. "What are you considering?" he inquired.
+
+"To end the rebellion," answered Blake, his voice cautiously lowered.
+
+Richard laughed outright. "There are several others considering
+that--notably His Majesty King James, the Duke of Albemarle, and the
+Earl of Feversham. Yet they don't appear to achieve it."
+
+"It is in that particular," said Blake complacently, "that I shall
+differ from them." He turned to Ruth, eager to engage her in the
+conversation, to flatter her by including her in the secret. Knowing the
+loyalist principles she entertained, he had no reason to fear that his
+plans could other than meet her approval. "What do you say, Mistress
+Ruth?" Presuming upon his friendship with her brother, he had taken to
+calling her by that name in preference to the other which he could not
+bring himself to give her. "Is it not an object worthy of a gentleman's
+endeavour?"
+
+"If you can save so many poor people from encompassing their ruin by
+following that rash young man the Duke of Monmouth, you will indeed be
+doing a worthy deed."
+
+Blake rose, and made her a leg. "Madam," said he, "had aught been
+wanting to cement my resolve, your words would supply it to me. My plan
+is simplicity itself. I propose to capture Monmouth and his principal
+agents, and deliver them over to the King. And that is all."
+
+"A mere nothing," croaked Richard.
+
+"Could more be needed?" quoth Blake. "Once the rebel army is deprived of
+its leaders it will melt and dissolve of itself. Once the Duke is in the
+hands of his enemies there will be nothing left to fight for. Is it not
+shrewd?"
+
+"You are telling us the object rather than the plan," Ruth reminded him.
+"If the plan is as good as the object..."
+
+"As good?" he echoed, chuckling. "You shall judge." And briefly he
+sketched for her the springe he was setting with the help of Mr.
+Newlington. "Newlington is rich; the Duke is in straits for money.
+Newlington goes to-day to offer him twenty thousand pounds; and the Duke
+is to do him the honour of supping at his house to-morrow night to fetch
+the money. It is a reasonable request for Mr. Newlington to make under
+the circumstances, and the Duke cannot--dare not refuse it."
+
+"But how will that advance your project?" Ruth inquired, for Blake had
+paused again, thinking that the rest must be obvious.
+
+"In Mr. Newlington's orchard I propose to post a score or so of men,
+well armed. Oh! I shall run no risks of betrayal by engaging Bridgwater
+folk. I'll get the fellows I need from General Feversham. We take
+Monmouth at supper, as quietly as may be, with what gentlemen happen to
+have accompanied him. We bind and gag the Duke, and we convey him with
+all speed and quiet out of Bridgwater. Feversham shall send a troop to
+await me a mile or so from the town on the road to Weston Zoyland. We
+shall join them with our captive, and thus convey him to the Royalist
+General. Could aught be simpler or more infallible?"
+
+Richard had slipped from the table. He had changed his mind on the
+subject of the importance of the business Blake had in view. Excited by
+it, he clapped his friend on the back approvingly.
+
+"A great plan!" he cried. "Is it not, Ruth?"
+
+"It should be the means of saving hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives,"
+said she, "and so it deserves to prosper. But what of the officers who
+may be with the Duke?" she inquired.
+
+"There are not likely to be many--half a dozen, say. We shall have to
+make short work of them, lest they should raise an alarm." He saw her
+glance clouding. "That is the ugly part of the affair," he was quick
+to add, himself assuming a look of sadness. He sighed. "What help is
+there?" he asked. "Better that those few should suffer than that, as you
+yourself have said, there should be some thousands of lives lost before
+this rebellion is put down. Besides," he continued, "Monmouth's officers
+are far-seeing, ambitious men, who have entered into this affair to
+promote their own personal fortunes. They are gamesters who have set
+their lives upon the board against a great prize, and they know it. But
+these other poor misguided people who have gone out to fight for liberty
+and religion--it is these whom I am striving to rescue."
+
+His words sounded fervent, his sentiments almost heroic. Ruth looked at
+him, and wondered had she misjudged him in the past. She sighed. Then
+she thought of Wilding. He was on the other side, but where was he?
+Rumour ran that he was dead; that he and Grey had quarrelled at Lyme,
+and that Wilding had been killed as a result. Had it not been for Diana,
+who strenuously bade her attach no credit to these reports, she would
+readily have believed them. As it was she waited, wondering, thinking of
+him always as she had seen him on that day at Walford when he had taken
+his leave of her, and more than once, when she pondered the words he had
+said, the look that had invested his drooping eyes, she found herself
+with tears in her own. They welled up now, and she rose hastily to her
+feet.
+
+She looked a moment at Blake who was watching her keenly, speculating
+upon this emotion of which she betrayed some sign, and wondering might
+not his heroism have touched her, for, as we have seen, he had arrayed
+a deed of excessive meanness, a deed worthy, almost, of the Iscariot, in
+the panoply of heroic achievement.
+
+"I think," she said, "that you are setting your hand to a very worthy
+and glorious enterprise, and I hope, nay, I am sure, that success must
+attend your efforts." He was still bowing his thanks when she passed out
+through the open window-doors into the sunshine of the garden.
+
+Sir Rowland swung round upon Richard. "A great enterprise, Dick," he
+cried; "I may count upon you for one?"
+
+"Aye," said Dick, who had found at last the pretext that he needed,
+"you may count on me. Pull the bell, we'll drink to the success of the
+venture."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. MR. WILDING'S RETURN
+
+The preparations to be made for the momentous coup Sir Rowland meditated
+were considerable. Mr. Newlington was yet to be concerted with and
+advised, and, that done, Sir Rowland had to face the difficulty of
+eluding the Bridgwater guards and make his way to Feversham's camp at
+Somerton to enlist the general's cooperation to the extent that we
+have seen he looked for. That done, he was to return and ripen his
+preparations for the business he had undertaken. Nevertheless, in spite
+of all that lay before him, he did not find it possible to leave Lupton
+House without stepping out into the garden in quest of Ruth. Through
+the window, whilst he and Richard were at their ale, he had watched her
+between whiles, and had lingered, waiting; for Diana was with her, and
+it was not his wish to seek her whilst Diana was at hand. Speak with
+her, ere he went, he must. He was an opportunist, and now, he fondly
+imagined, was his opportunity. He had made that day, at last, a
+favourable impression upon Richard's sister; he had revealed himself in
+an heroic light, and egregiously misreading the emotion she had shown
+before withdrawing, he was satisfied that did he strike now victory must
+attend him. He sighed his satisfaction and pleasurable anticipation. He
+had been wary and he had known how to wait; and now, it seemed to him,
+he was to be rewarded for his patience. Then he frowned, as another
+glance showed him that Diana still lingered with her cousin; he wished
+Diana at the devil. He had come to hate this fair-haired doll to whom
+he had once paid court. She was too continually in his way, a constant
+obstacle in his path, ever ready to remind Ruth of Anthony Wilding when
+Sir Rowland most desired Anthony Wilding to be forgotten; and in Diana's
+feelings towards himself such a change had been gradually wrought that
+she had come to reciprocate his sentiments--to hate him with all the
+bitter hatred into which love can be by scorn transmuted. At first her
+object in keeping Ruth's thoughts on Mr. Wilding, in pleading his cause,
+and seeking to present him in a favourable light to the lady whom he had
+constrained to become his wife, had been that he might stand a barrier
+between Ruth and Sir Rowland to the end that Diana might hope to see
+revived--faute de mieux, since possible in no other way--the feelings
+that once Sir Rowland had professed for herself. The situation was
+rich in humiliations for poor, vain, foolishly crafty Diana, and these
+humiliations were daily rendered more bitter by Sir Rowland's unwavering
+courtship of her cousin in spite of all that she could do.
+
+In the end the poison of them entered her soul, corroded her sentiments
+towards him, dissolved the love she had borne him, and transformed
+it into venom. She would not have him now if he did penitence for his
+disaffection by going in sackcloth and crawling after her on his knees
+for a full twelvemonth. But neither should he have Ruth if she could
+thwart his purpose. On that she was resolved.
+
+Had she but guessed that he watched them from the windows, waiting for
+her to take her departure, she had lingered all the morning, and all
+the afternoon if need be, at Ruth's side. But being ignorant of
+the circumstance--believing that he had already left the house--she
+presently quitted Ruth to go indoors, and no sooner was she gone than
+there was Blake replacing her at Ruth's elbow. Mistress Wilding met him
+with unsmiling, but not ungentle face.
+
+"Not yet gone, Sir Rowland?" she asked him, and a less sanguine man had
+been discouraged by the words.
+
+"It may be forgiven me that I tarry at such a time," said he, "when we
+consider that I go, perhaps--to return no more." It was an inspiration
+on his part to assume the role of the hero going forth to a possible
+death. It invested him with noble, valiant pathos which could not, he
+thought, fail of its effect upon a woman's mind. But he looked in vain
+for a change of colour, be it ever so slight, or a quickening of the
+breath. He found neither; though, indeed, her deep blue eyes seemed to
+soften as they observed him.
+
+"There is danger in this thing that you are undertaking?" said she,
+between question and assertion.
+
+"It is not my wish to overstate it; yet I leave you to imagine what the
+risk may be."
+
+"It is a good cause," said she, thinking of the poor, deluded, humble
+folk that followed Monmouth's banner, whom Blake's fine action was to
+rescue from impending ruin and annihilation, "and surely Heaven will be
+on your side."
+
+"We must prevail," cried Blake with kindling eye, and you had thought
+him a fanatic, not a miserable earner of blood-money. "We must
+prevail, though some of us may pay dearly for the victory. I have a
+foreboding..." He paused, sighed, then laughed and flung back his head,
+as if throwing off some weight that had oppressed him.
+
+It was admirably played; Nick Trenchard, had he observed it, might have
+envied the performance; and it took effect with her, this adding of a
+prospective martyr's crown to the hero's raiment he had earlier donned.
+It was a master-touch worthy of one who was deeply learned--from the
+school of foul experience--in the secret ways that lead to a woman's
+favour. In a pursuit of this kind there was no subterfuge too mean, no
+treachery too base for Sir Rowland Blake.
+
+"Will you walk, mistress?" he said, and she, feeling that it were an
+unkindness not to do his will, assented gravely. They moved down the
+sloping lawn, side by side, Sir Rowland leaning on his cane, bareheaded,
+his feathered hat tucked under his arm. Before them the river's smooth
+expanse, swollen and yellow with the recent rains, glowed like a sheet
+of copper, so that it blurred the sight to look upon it long.
+
+A few steps they took with no word uttered, then Sir Rowland spoke.
+"With this foreboding that is on me," said he, "I could not go without
+seeing you, without saying something that I may never have another
+chance of saying; something that--who knows?--but for the emprise to
+which I am now wedded you had never heard from me."
+
+He shot her a furtive, sidelong glance from under his heavy, beetling
+brows, and now, indeed, he observed a change ripple over the composure
+of her face like a sudden breeze across a sheet of water. The deep lace
+collar at her throat rose and fell, and her fingers toyed nervously with
+a ribbon of her grey bodice. She recovered in an instant, and threw up
+entrenchments against the attack she saw he was about to make.
+
+"You exaggerate, I trust," said she. "Your forebodings will be proved
+groundless. You will return safe and sound from this venture, as indeed
+I hope you may."
+
+That was his cue. "You hope it?" he cried, arresting his step, turning,
+and imprisoning her left hand in his right. "You hope it? Ah, if you
+hope for my return, return I will; but unless I know that you will have
+some welcome for me such as I desire from you, I think..." his
+voice quivered cleverly, "I think, perhaps, it were well if... if
+my forebodings were not as groundless as you say they are. Tell me,
+Ruth..."
+
+But she interrupted him. It was high time, she thought. Her face he saw
+was flushed, her eyes had hardened somewhat. Calmly she disengaged her
+hand.
+
+"What is't you mean?" she asked. "Speak, Sir Rowland, speak plainly,
+that I may give you a plain answer."
+
+It was a challenge in which another man had seen how hopeless was his
+case, and, accepting defeat, had made as orderly a retreat as still was
+possible. But Sir Rowland, stricken in his vanity, went headlong on to
+utter rout.
+
+"Since you ask me in such terms I will be plain, indeed," he answered
+her. "I mean..." He almost quailed before the look that met him from her
+intrepid eyes. "Do you not see my meaning, Ruth?"
+
+"That which I see," said she, "I do not believe, and as I would not
+wrong you by any foolish imaginings, I would have you plain with me."
+
+Yet the egregious fool went on. "And why should you not believe your
+senses?" he asked her, between anger and entreaty. "Is it wonderful that
+I should love you? Is it...?"
+
+"Stop!" She drew back a pace from him. There was a moment's silence,
+during which it seemed she gathered her forces to destroy him, and,
+in the spirit, he bowed his head before the coming storm. Then, with a
+sudden relaxing of the stiffness her lissom figure had assumed, "I think
+you had better leave me, Sir Rowland," she advised him. She half turned
+and moved a step away; he followed with lowering glance, his upper lip
+lifting and laying bare his powerful teeth. In a stride he was beside
+her.
+
+"Do you hate me, Ruth?" he asked her hoarsely.
+
+"Why should I hate you?" she counter-questioned, sadly. "I do not even
+dislike you," she continued in a more friendly tone, adding, as if by
+way of explaining this phenomenon, "You are my brother's friend. But I
+am disappointed in you, Sir Rowland. You had, I know, no intention of
+offering me disrespect; and yet it is what you have done."
+
+"As how?" he asked.
+
+"Knowing me another's wife..."
+
+He broke in tempestuously. "A mock marriage! If it is but that scruple
+stands between us..."
+
+"I think there is more," she answered him. "You compel me to hurt you; I
+do so as the surgeon does--that I may heal you."
+
+"Why, thanks for nothing," he made answer, unable to repress a sneer.
+Then, checking himself, and resuming the hero-martyr posture, "I go,
+mistress," he told her sadly, "and if I lose my life to-night, or
+to-morrow, in this affair..."
+
+"I shall pray for you," said she; for she had found him out at
+last, perceived the nature of the bow he sought to draw across her
+heart-strings, and, having perceived it, contempt awoke in her. He had
+attempted to move her by unfair, insidious means.
+
+He fell back, crimson from chin to brow. He stifled the wrath that
+welled up, threatening to choke him. He was a short-necked man, of the
+sort--as Trenchard had once reminded him--that falls a prey to apoplexy,
+and surely he was never nearer it than at that moment. He made her a
+profound bow, bending himself almost in two before her in a very irony
+of deference; then, drawing himself up again, he turned and left her.
+
+The plot which with some pride he had hatched and the reward he looked
+to cull from it, were now to his soul as ashes to his lips. What could
+it profit him to destroy Monmouth so that Anthony Wilding lived? For
+whether she loved Wilding or not, she was Wilding's wife. Wilding,
+nominally, at least, was master of that which Sir Rowland coveted;
+not her heart, indeed, but her ample fortune. Wilding had been a
+stumbling-block to him since he had come to Bridgwater; but for Wilding
+he might have run a smooth course; he was still fool enough to hug
+that dear illusion to his soul. Somewhere in England--if not dead
+already--this Wilding lurked, an outlaw, whom any might shoot down at
+sight. Sir Rowland swore he would not rest until he knew that Anthony
+Wilding cumbered the earth no more--leastways, not the surface of it.
+
+He went forth to seek Newlington. The merchant had sent his message
+to the rebel King, and had word in answer that His Majesty would be
+graciously pleased to sup at Mr. Newlington's at nine o'clock on
+the following evening, attended by a few gentlemen of his immediate
+following. Sir Rowland received the news with satisfaction, and sighed
+to think that Mr. Wilding--still absent, Heaven knew where--would not be
+of the party. It was reported that on the Monday Monmouth was to march
+to Gloucester, hoping there to be joined by his Cheshire friends, so
+that it seemed Sir Rowland had not matured his plan a day too soon.
+He got to horse, and contriving to win out of Bridgwater, rode off to
+Somerton to concert with Lord Feversham concerning the men he would need
+for his undertaking.
+
+That night Richard made free talk of the undertaking to Diana and to
+Ruth, loving, as does the pusillanimous, to show himself engaged in
+daring enterprises. Emulating his friend Sir Rowland, he held forth
+with prolixity upon the great service he was to do the State, and Ruth,
+listening to him, was proud of his zeal, the sincerity of which it never
+entered her mind to doubt.
+
+Diana listened, too, but without illusions concerning Master Richard,
+and she kept her conclusions to herself.
+
+During the afternoon of the morrow, which was Sunday, Sir Rowland
+returned to Bridgwater, his mission to Feversham entirely successful,
+and all preparations made. He completed his arrangements, and towards
+eight o'clock that night the twenty men sent by Feversham--they had
+slipped singly into the town--began to muster in the orchard at the back
+of Mr. Newlington's house.
+
+It was just about that same hour that Mr. Wilding, saddle-worn and
+dust-clogged in every pore, rode into Bridgwater, and made his way to
+the sign of The Ship in the High Street, overlooking the Cross where
+Trenchard was lodged. His friend was absent--possibly gone with his men
+to the sermon Ferguson was preaching to the army in the Castle Fields.
+Having put up his horse, Mr. Wilding, all dusty as he was, repaired
+straight to the Castle to report himself to Monmouth.
+
+He was informed that His Majesty was in council. Nevertheless, urging
+that his news was of importance, he begged to be instantly announced.
+After a pause, he was ushered into a lofty, roomy chamber where, in
+the fading daylight, King Monmouth sat in council with Grey and Wade,
+Matthews, Speke, Ferguson, and others. At the foot of the table stood a
+sturdy country-fellow, unknown to Wilding. It was Godfrey, the spy, who
+was to act as their guide across Sedgemoor that night; for the matter
+that was engaging them just then was the completion of their plans
+for the attack that was to be made that very night upon Feversham's
+unprepared camp--a matter which had been resolved during the last few
+hours as an alternative preferable to the retreat towards Gloucester
+that had at first been intended.
+
+Wilding was shocked at the change that had been wrought in Monmouth's
+appearance during the few weeks since last he had seen him. His face
+was thin, pale, and haggard, his eyes were more sombre, and beneath them
+there were heavy, dark stains of sleeplessness and care, his very voice,
+when presently he spoke, seemed to have lost the musical timbre that had
+earlier distinguished it; it was grown harsh and rasping. Disappointment
+after disappointment, set down to ill-luck, but in reality the fruit of
+incompetence, had served to sour him. The climax had been reached in
+the serious desertions after the Philips Norton fight, and the flight
+of Paymaster Goodenough with the funds for the campaign. The company sat
+about the long oak table on which a map was spread, and Colonel Wade was
+speaking when Wilding entered.
+
+On his appearance Wade ceased, and every eye was turned upon the
+messenger from London. Ferguson, fresh from his sermon, sat with elbows
+resting on the table, his long chin supported by his hands, his eyes
+gleaming sharply under the shadow of his wig which was pulled down in
+front to the level of his eyebrows.
+
+It was the Duke who addressed Mr. Wilding, and the latter's keen ears
+were quick to catch the bitterness that underlay his words.
+
+"We are glad to see you, sir; we had not looked to do so again."
+
+"Not looked to do so, Your Gr... Majesty!" he echoed, plainly not
+understanding, and it was observed that he stumbled over the Duke's new
+title.
+
+"We had imagined that the pleasures of the town were claiming your
+entire attention."
+
+Wilding looked from one to the other of the men before him, and on the
+face of all he saw a gravity that amounted to disapproval of him.
+
+"The pleasures of the town?" said he, frowning, and again--"the
+pleasures of the town? There is something in this that I fear I do not
+understand."
+
+"Do you bring us news that London has risen?" asked Grey suddenly.
+
+"I would I could," said Wilding, smiling wistfully.
+
+"Is it a laughing matter?" quoth Grey angrily.
+
+"A smiling matter, my lord," answered Wilding, nettled. "Your lordship
+will observe that I did but smile."
+
+"Mr. Wilding," said Monmouth darkly, "we are not pleased with you."
+
+"In that case," returned Wilding, more and more irritated, "Your Majesty
+expected of me more than was possible to any man."
+
+"You have wasted your time in London, sir," the Duke explained. "We sent
+you thither counting upon your loyalty and devotion to ourselves. What
+have you done?"
+
+"As much as a man could..." Wilding began, when Grey again interrupted
+him.
+
+"As little as a man could," he answered. "Were His Grace not the most
+foolishly clement prince in Christendom, a halter would be your reward
+for the fine things you have done in London."
+
+Mr. Wilding stiffened visibly, his long white face grew set, and his
+slanting eyes looked wicked. He was not a man readily moved to anger,
+but to be greeted in such words as these by one who constituted himself
+the mouthpiece of him for whom Wilding had incurred ruin was more than
+he could bear with equanimity; that the risks to which he had exposed
+himself in London--where, indeed, he had been in almost hourly
+expectation of arrest and such short shrift as poor Disney had--should
+be acknowledged in such terms as these, was something that turned him
+almost sick with disgust. To what manner of men had he leagued himself?
+He looked Grey steadily between the eyes.
+
+"I mind me of an occasion on which such a charge of foolish clemency
+might, indeed--and with greater justice--have been levelled against His
+Majesty," said he and his calm was almost terrible.
+
+His lordship grew pale at the obvious allusion to Monmouth's mild
+treatment of him for his cowardice at Bridport, and his eyes were as
+baleful as Wilding's own at that moment. But before he could speak,
+Monmouth had already answered Mr. Wilding.
+
+"You are wanting in respect to us, sir," he admonished him.
+
+Mr. Wilding bowed to the rebuke in a submission that seemed ironical.
+The blood mounted slowly to Monmouth's cheeks.
+
+"Perhaps," put in Wade, who was anxious for peace, "Mr. Wilding has some
+explanation to offer us of his failure."
+
+His failure! They took too much for granted. Stitched in the lining of
+his boot was the letter from the Secretary of State. To have achieved
+that was surely to have achieved something.
+
+"I thank you, sir, for supposing it," answered Wilding, his voice hard
+with self-restraint; "I have indeed an explanation."
+
+"We will hear it," said Monmouth condescendingly, and Grey sneered,
+thrusting out his bloated lips.
+
+"I have to offer the explanation that Your Majesty is served in London
+by cowards; self-sufficient and self-important cowards who have hindered
+me in my task instead of helping me. I refer particularly to Colonel
+Danvers."
+
+Grey interrupted him. "You have a rare effrontery, sir--aye, by God! Do
+you dare call Danvers a coward?"
+
+"It is not I who so call him; but the facts. Colonel Danvers has run
+away.
+
+"Danvers gone?" cried Ferguson, voicing the consternation of all.
+
+Wilding shrugged and smiled; Grey's eye was offensively upon him. He
+elected to answer the challenge of that glance. "He has followed
+the illustrious example set him by other of Your Majesty's devoted
+followers," said Wilding.
+
+Grey rose suddenly. This was too much. "I'll not endure it from this
+knave!" he cried, appealing to Monmouth.
+
+Monmouth wearily waved him to a seat; but Grey disregarded the command.
+
+"What have I said that should touch your lordship?" asked Wilding, and,
+smiling sardonically, he looked into Grey's eyes.
+
+"It is not what you have said. It is what you have inferred."
+
+"And to call me knave!" said Wilding in a mocking horror.
+
+The repression of his anger lent him a rare bitterness, and an almost
+devilishly subtle manner of expressing wordlessly what was passing in
+his mind. There was not one present but gathered from his utterance of
+those five words that he did not hold Grey worthy the honour of
+being called to account for that offensive epithet. He made just an
+exclamatory protest, such as he might have made had a woman applied the
+term to him.
+
+Grey turned from him slowly to Monmouth. "It might be well," said he,
+in his turn controlling himself at last, "to place Mr. Wilding under
+arrest."
+
+Mr. Wilding's manner quickened on the instant from passive to active
+anger.
+
+"Upon what charge, sir?" he demanded sharply. In truth it was the
+only thing wanting that, after all that he had undergone, he should be
+arrested. His eyes were upon the Duke's melancholy face, and his anger
+was such that in that moment he vowed that if Monmouth acted upon this
+suggestion of Grey's he should not have so much as the consolation of
+Sunderland's letter.
+
+"You have been wanting in respect to us, sir," the Duke answered him.
+He seemed able to do little more than repeat himself. "You return from
+London empty-handed, your task unaccomplished, and instead of a becoming
+contrition, you hector it here before us in this manner." He shook his
+head. "We are not pleased with you, Mr. Wilding."
+
+"But, Your Grace," exclaimed Wilding, "is it my fault that your London
+agents had failed to organize the rising? That rising should have taken
+place, and it would have taken place had Your Majesty been more ably
+represented there."
+
+"You were there, Mr. Wilding," said Grey with heavy sarcasm.
+
+"Would it no' be better to leave Mr. Wilding's affair until afterwards?"
+suggested Ferguson at that moment. "It is already past eight, Your
+Majesty, and there be still some details of this attack to settle that
+your officers may prepare for it, whilst Mr. Newlington awaits Your
+Majesty to supper at nine."
+
+"True," said Monmouth, ever ready to take a solution offered by another.
+"We will confer with you again later, Mr. Wilding."
+
+Wilding bowed, accepting his dismissal. "Before I go, Your Majesty,
+there are certain things I would report..." he began.
+
+"You have heard, sir," Grey broke in. "Not now. This is not the time."
+
+"Indeed, no. This is not the time, Mr. Wilding," echoed the Duke.
+
+Wilding set his teeth in the intensity of his vexation.
+
+"What I have to tell Your Majesty is of importance," he exclaimed, and
+Monmouth seemed to waver, whilst Grey looked disdainful unbelief of the
+importance of any communication Wilding might have to make.
+
+"We have little time, Your Majesty," Ferguson reminded Monmouth.
+
+"Perhaps," put in friendly Wade, "Your Majesty might see Mr. Wilding at
+Mr. Newlington's."
+
+"Is it really necessary?" quoth Grey.
+
+This treatment of him inspired Mr. Wilding with malice. The mere mention
+of Sunderland's letter would have changed their tone. But he elected
+by no such word to urge the importance of his business. It should be
+entirely as Monmouth should elect or be constrained by these gentlemen
+about his council-table.
+
+"It would serve two purposes," said Wade, whilst Monmouth still
+considered. "Your Majesty will be none too well attended, your officers
+having this other matter to prepare for. Mr. Wilding would form another
+to swell your escort of gentlemen."
+
+"I think you are right, Colonel Wade," said Monmouth. "We sup at Mr.
+Newlington's at nine o'clock, Mr. Wilding. We shall expect you to attend
+us there. Lieutenant Cragg," said His Grace to the young officer who had
+admitted Wilding, and who had remained at attention by the door, "you
+may reconduct Mr. Wilding."
+
+Wilding bowed, his lips tight to keep in the anger that craved
+expression. Then, without another word spoken, he turned and departed.
+
+"An insolent, overbearing knave!" was Grey's comment upon him after he
+had left the room.
+
+"Let us attend to this, your lordship," said Speke, tapping the
+map. "Time presses," and he invited Wade to continue the matter that
+Wilding's advent had interrupted.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. BETRAYAL
+
+Still smarting under the cavalier treatment he had received, Mr. Wilding
+came forth from the Castle to find Trenchard awaiting him among the
+crowd of officers and men that thronged the yard.
+
+Nick linked his arm through his friend's and led him away. They quitted
+the place in silence, and in silence took their way south towards the
+High Street, Nick waiting for Mr. Wilding to speak, Mr. Wilding's mind
+still in turmoil at the things he had endured. At last Nick halted
+suddenly and looked keenly at his friend in the failing light.
+
+"What a plague ails you, Tony?" said he sharply. "You are as silent as I
+am impatient for your news."
+
+Wilding told him in brief, disdainful terms of the reception they
+had given him at the Castle, and of how they had blamed him for the
+circumstance that London had failed to proclaim itself for Monmouth.
+
+Trenchard snarled viciously. "'Tis that mongrel Grey," said he. "Oh,
+Anthony, to what an affair have we set our hands? Naught can prosper
+with that fellow in it." He laid his hand on Wilding's arm and lowered
+his voice. "As I have hinted before, 'twould not surprise me if time
+proved him a traitor. Failure attends him everywhere, and so unfailingly
+that one wonders is not failure invited by him. And that fool Monmouth!
+Pshaw! See what it is to serve a weakling. With another in his place
+and the country disaffected as it is, we had been masters of England by
+now."
+
+Two ladies passed them at that moment, cloaked and hooded, walking
+briskly. One of them turned to look at Trenchard, who, waving his arms
+in wild gesticulation, was a conspicuous object. She checked in her
+walk, arresting her companion.
+
+"Mr. Wilding!" she exclaimed. It was Lady Horton.
+
+"Mr. Wilding!" cried Diana, her companion.
+
+Wilding doffed his hat and bowed, Trenchard following his example.
+
+"We had scarce looked to see you in Bridgwater again," said the mother,
+her mild, pleasant countenance reflecting the satisfaction it gave her
+to behold him safe and sound.
+
+"There have been moments," answered Wilding, "when myself I scarce
+expected to return. Your ladyship's greeting shows me what I had lost
+had I not done so."
+
+"You are but newly arrived?" quoth Diana, scanning him in the gloaming.
+
+"From London, an hour since."
+
+"An hour?" she echoed, and observed that he was still booted and
+dust-stained. "You will have been to Lupton House?"
+
+A shadow crossed his face, his glance seemed to grow clouded, all of
+which watchful Diana did not fail to observe. "Not yet," said he.
+
+"You are a laggard," she laughed at him, and he felt the blood driven
+back upon his heart. What did she mean? Was it possible she suggested
+that he should be welcome, that his wife's feelings towards him had
+undergone a change? His last parting from her on the road near Walford
+had been ever in his mind.
+
+"I have had weighty business to transact, he replied, and Trenchard
+snorted, his mind flying back to the council-room at the Castle, and
+what his friend had told him.
+
+"But now that you have disposed of that you will sup with us," said Lady
+Horton, who was convinced that since Ruth had gone to the altar with
+him he was Ruth's lover in spite of the odd things she had heard.
+Appearances with Lady Horton counted for everything, and all that
+glittered was gold to her.
+
+"I would," he answered, "but that I am to sup at Mr. Newlington's with
+His Majesty. My visit must wait until to-morrow."
+
+"Let us hope," said Trenchard, "that it waits no longer." He was already
+instructed touching the night attack on Feversham's camp on Sedgemoor,
+and thought it likely Wilding would accompany them.
+
+"You are going to Mr. Newlington's?" said Diana, and Trenchard thought
+she had turned singularly pale. Her hand was over her heart, her eyes
+wide. She seemed about to add something, but checked herself. She took
+her mother's arm. "We are detaining Mr. Wilding, mother," said she,
+and her voice quivered as if her whole being were shaken by some gusty
+agitation. They spoke their farewells briefly, and moved on. A second
+later Diana was back at their side again.
+
+"Where are you lodged, Mr. Wilding?" she inquired.
+
+"With my friend Trenchard--at the sign of The Ship, by the Cross."
+
+She briefly acknowledged the information, rejoined her mother, and
+hurried away with her.
+
+Trenchard stood staring after them a moment. "Odd!" said he; "did you
+mark that girl's discomposure?"
+
+But Wilding's thoughts were elsewhere. "Come, Nick! If I am to render
+myself fit to sit at table with Monmouth, we'll need to hasten."
+
+They went their way, but not so fast as went Diana, urging with her her
+protesting and short-winded mother.
+
+"Where is your mistress?" the girl asked excitedly of the first servant
+she met at Lupton House.
+
+"In her room, madam," the man replied, and to Ruth's room went Diana
+breathlessly, leaving Lady Horton gaping after her and understanding
+nothing.
+
+Ruth, who was seated pensive by her window, rose on Diana's impetuous
+entrance, and in the deepening twilight she looked almost ghostly in her
+gown of shimmering white satin, sewn with pearls about the neck of the
+low-cut bodice.
+
+"Diana!" she cried. "You startled me."
+
+"Not so much as I am yet to do," answered Diana, breathing excitement.
+She threw back the wimple from her head, and pulling away her cloak,
+tossed it on to the bed. "Mr. Wilding is in Bridgwater," she announced.
+
+There was a faint rustle from the stiff satin of Ruth's gown. "Then..."
+her voice shook slightly. "Then... he is not dead," she said, more
+because she felt that she must say something than because her words
+fitted the occasion.
+
+"Not yet," said Diana grimly.
+
+"Not yet?"
+
+"He sups to-night at Mr. Newlington's," Miss Horton exclaimed in a voice
+pregnant with meaning.
+
+"Ah!" It was a cry from Ruth, sharp as if she had been stabbed. She sank
+back to her seat by the window, smitten down by this sudden news.
+
+There was a pause, which fretted Diana, who now craved knowledge of what
+might be passing in her cousin's mind. She advanced towards Ruth and
+laid a trembling hand on her shoulder, where the white gown met the
+ivory neck. "He must be warned," she said.
+
+"But... but how?" stammered Ruth. "To warn him were to betray Sir
+Rowland."
+
+"Sir Rowland?" cried Diana in high scorn.
+
+"And... and Richard," Ruth continued.
+
+"Yes, and Mr. Newlington, and all the other knaves that are engaged in
+this murderous business. Well?" she demanded. "Will you do it, or must
+I?"
+
+"Do it?" Ruth's eyes sought her cousin's white, excited face in the
+quasi-darkness. "But have you thought of what it will mean? Have you
+thought of the poor people that will perish unless the Duke is taken and
+this rebellion brought to an end?"
+
+"Thought of it?" repeated Diana witheringly. "Not I. I have thought that
+Mr. Wilding is here and like to have his throat cut before an hour is
+past."
+
+"Tell me, are you sure of this?" asked Ruth.
+
+"I have it from your husband's own lips," Diana answered, and told her
+in a few words of her meeting with Mr. Wilding.
+
+Ruth sat with hands folded in her lap, her eyes on the dim violet
+after-glow in the west, and her mind wrestling with this problem that
+Diana had brought her.
+
+"Diana," she cried at last, "what am I to do?"
+
+"Do?" echoed Diana. "Is it not plain? Warn Mr. Wilding."
+
+"But Richard?"
+
+"Mr. Wilding saved Richard's life..."
+
+"I know. I know. My duty is to warn him."
+
+"Then why hesitate?"
+
+"My duty is also to keep faith with Richard, to think of those poor
+misguided folk who are to be saved by this," cried Ruth in an agony. "If
+Mr. Wilding is warned, they will all be ruined."
+
+Diana stamped her foot impatiently. "Had I thought to find you in this
+mind, I had warned him myself," said she.
+
+"Ah! Why did you not?"
+
+"That the chance of doing so might be yours. That you might thus repay
+him the debt in which you stand."
+
+"Diana, I can't!" The words broke from her in a sob.
+
+But whatever her interest in Mr. Wilding for her own sake, Diana's prime
+intent was the thwarting of Sir Rowland Blake. If Wilding were warned
+of what manner of feast was spread at Newlington's, Sir Rowland would be
+indeed undone.
+
+"You think of Richard," she exclaimed, "and you know that Richard is to
+have no active part in the affair--that he will run no risk. They have
+assigned him but a sentry duty that he may warn Blake and his followers
+if any danger threatens them."
+
+"It is not of Richard's life I am thinking, but of his honour, of his
+trust in me. To warn Mr. Wilding were... to commit an act of betrayal."
+
+"And is Mr. Wilding to be slaughtered with his friends?" Diana asked
+her. "Resolve me that. Time presses. In half an hour it will be too
+late."
+
+That allusion to the shortness of the time brought Ruth an inspiration.
+Suddenly she saw a way. Wilding should be saved, and yet she would not
+break faith with Richard nor ruin those others. She would detain him,
+and whilst warning him at the last moment, in time for him to save
+himself; not do so until it must be too late for him to warn the others.
+Thus she would do her duty by him, and yet keep faith with Richard and
+Sir Rowland. She had resolved, she thought, the awful difficulty that
+had confronted her. She rose suddenly, heartened by the thought.
+
+"Give me your cloak and wimple," she bade Diana, and Diana flew to do
+her bidding. "Where is Mr. Wilding lodged?" she asked.
+
+"At the sign of The Ship--overlooking the Cross, with Mr. Trenchard.
+Shall I come with you?"
+
+"No," answered Ruth without hesitation. "I will go alone." She drew the
+wimple well over her head, so that in its shadows her face might lie
+concealed, and hid her shimmering white dress under Diana's cloak.
+
+She hastened through the ill-lighted streets, never heeding the rough
+cobbles that hurt her feet, shod in light indoor wear, never heeding the
+crowds that thronged her way. All Bridgwater was astir with Monmouth's
+presence; moreover, there had been great incursions from Taunton and the
+surrounding country, the women-folk of the Duke-King's followers having
+come that day to Bridgwater to say farewell to father and son, husband
+and brother, before the army marched--as was still believed--to
+Gloucester.
+
+The half-hour was striking from Saint Mary's--the church in which she
+had been married--as Ruth reached the door of the sign of The Ship. She
+was about to knock, when suddenly it opened, and Mr. Wilding himself,
+with Trenchard immediately behind him, stood confronting her. At sight
+of him a momentary weakness took her. He had changed from his hard-used
+riding-garments into a suit of roughly corded black silk, which threw
+into relief the steely litheness of his spare figure. His dark brown
+hair was carefully dressed, diamonds gleamed in the cravat of snowy lace
+at his throat. He was uncovered, his hat under his arm, and he stood
+aside to make way for her, imagining that she was some woman of the
+house.
+
+"Mr. Wilding," said she, her heart fluttering in her throat. "May I...
+may I speak with you?"
+
+He leaned forward, seeking to pierce the shadows of her wimple; he had
+thought he recognized the voice, as his sudden start had shown; and
+yet he disbelieved his ears. She moved her head at that moment, and the
+light streaming out from a lamp in the passage beat upon her white face.
+
+"Ruth!" he cried, and came quickly forward. Trenchard, behind
+him, looked on and scowled with sudden impatience. Mr. Wilding's
+philanderings with this lady had never had the old rake's approval. Too
+much trouble already had resulted from them.
+
+"I must speak with you at once. At once!" she urged him, her tone
+fearful.
+
+"Are you in need of me?" he asked concernedly.
+
+"In very urgent need," said she.
+
+"I thank God," he answered without flippancy. "You shall find me at your
+service. Tell me."
+
+"Not here; not here," she answered him.
+
+"Where else?" said he. "Shall we walk?"
+
+"No, no." Her repetitions marked the deep excitement that possessed her.
+"I will go in with you." And she signed with her head towards the door
+from which he was barely emerged.
+
+"'Twere scarce fitting," said he, for being confused and full of
+speculation on the score of her need, he had for the moment almost
+overlooked the relations in which they stood. In spite of the ceremony
+through which they had gone together, Mr. Wilding still mostly thought
+of her as of a mistress very difficult to woo.
+
+"Fitting?" she echoed, and then after a pause, "Am I not your wife?" she
+asked him in a low voice, her cheeks crimsoning.
+
+"Ha! 'Pon honour, I had almost forgot," said he, and though the burden
+of his words seemed mocking, their tone was sad.
+
+Of the passers-by that jostled them a couple had now paused to watch a
+scene that had an element of the unusual in it. She pulled her wimple
+closer to her face, took him by the arm, and drew him with her into the
+house.
+
+"Close the door," she bade him, and Trenchard, who had stood aside that
+they might pass in, forestalled him in obeying her. "Now lead me to your
+room, said she, and Wilding in amaze turned to Trenchard as if asking
+his consent, for the lodging, after all, was Trenchard's.
+
+"I'll wait here," said Nick, and waved his hand towards an oak bench
+that stood in the passage. "You had best make haste," he urged his
+friend; "you are late already. That is, unless you are of a mind to set
+the lady's affairs before King Monmouth's. And were I in your place,
+Anthony, faith I'd not scruple to do it. For after all," he added under
+his breath, "there's little choice in rotten apples."
+
+Ruth waited for some answer from Wilding that might suggest he was
+indifferent whether he went to Newlington's or not; but he spoke no word
+as he turned to lead the way above-stairs to the indifferent
+parlour which with the adjoining bedroom constituted Mr. Trenchard's
+lodging--and his own, for the time being.
+
+Having assured herself that the curtains were closely drawn, she put by
+her cloak and hood, and stood revealed to him in the light of the
+three candles, burning in a branch upon the bare oak table, dazzlingly
+beautiful in her gown of ivory-white.
+
+He stood apart, cogitating her with glowing eyes, the faintest smile
+between question and pleasure hovering about his thin mouth. He had
+closed the door, and stood in silence waiting for her to make known to
+him her pleasure.
+
+"Mr. Wilding..." she began, and straightway he interrupted her.
+
+"But a moment since you did remind me that I have the honour to be your
+husband," he said with grave humour. "Why seek now to overcloud that
+fact? I mind me that the last time we met you called me by another name.
+But it may be," he added as an afterthought, "you are of opinion that I
+have broken faith with you."
+
+"Broken faith? As how?"
+
+"So!" he said, and sighed. "My words were of so little account that they
+have been, I see, forgotten. Yet, so that I remember them, that is what
+chiefly matters. I promised then--or seemed to promise--that I would
+make a widow of you, who had made a wife of you against your will. It
+has not happened yet. Do not despair. This Monmouth quarrel is not yet
+fought out. Hope on, my Ruth."
+
+She looked at him with eyes wide open--lustrous eyes of sapphire in
+a face of ivory. A faint smile parted her lips, the reflection of the
+thought in her mind that had she, indeed, been eager for his death she
+would not be with him at this moment; had she desired it, how easy would
+her course have been.
+
+"You do me wrong to bid me hope for that," she answered him, her tones
+level. "I do not wish the death of any man, unless..." She paused; her
+truthfulness urged her too far.
+
+"Unless?" said he, brows raised, polite interest on his face.
+
+"Unless it be His Grace of Monmouth."
+
+He considered her with suddenly narrowed eyes. "You have not by chance
+sought me to talk politics?" said he. "Or..." and he suddenly caught his
+breath, his nostrils dilating with rage at the bare thought that leapt
+into his mind. Had Monmouth, the notorious libertine, been to Lupton
+House and persecuted her with his addresses? "Is it that you are
+acquainted with His Grace?" he asked.
+
+"I have never spoken to him!" she answered, with no suspicion of what
+was in his thoughts.
+
+In his relief he laughed, remembering now that Monmouth's affairs were
+too absorbing just at present to leave him room for dalliance.
+
+"But you are standing," said he, and he advanced a chair. "I deplore
+that I have no better hospitality to offer you. I doubt if I ever shall
+again. I am told that Albemarle did me the honour to stable his knackers
+in my hall at Zoyland."
+
+She took the chair he offered her, sinking to it like one physically
+weary, a thing he was quick to notice. He watched her, his body eager,
+his soul trammelling it with a steely restraint. "Tell me, now," said
+he, "in what you need me."
+
+She was silent a moment, pondering, hesitation and confusion seeming to
+envelop her. A pink flush rose to colour the beautiful pillar of neck
+and overspread the delicate half-averted face. He watched it, wondering.
+
+"How long," she asked him, her whole intent at present being to delay
+him and gain time. "How long have you been in Bridgwater?"
+
+"Two hours at most," said he.
+
+"Two hours! And yet you never came to... to me. I heard of your
+presence, and I feared you might intend to abstain from seeking me."
+
+He almost held his breath while she spoke, caught in amazement. He was
+standing close beside her chair, his right hand rested upon its tall
+back.
+
+"Did you so intend?" she asked him.
+
+"I told you even now," he answered with hard-won calm, "that I had made
+you a sort of promise."
+
+"I... I would not have you keep it," she murmured. She heard his sharply
+indrawn breath, felt him leaning over her, and was filled with an
+unaccountable fear.
+
+"Was it to tell me this you came?" he asked her, his voice reduced to a
+whisper.
+
+"No... yes," she answered, an agony in her mind, which groped for some
+means to keep him by her side until his danger should be overpast. That
+much she owed him in honour if in nothing else.
+
+"No--yes?" he echoed, and he had drawn himself erect again. "What is't
+you mean, Ruth?"
+
+"I mean that it was that, yet not quite only that."
+
+"Ah!" Disappointment vibrated faintly in his clamation. "What else?"
+
+"I would have you abandon Monmouth's following," she told him.
+
+He stared a moment, moved away and round where he could confront her.
+The flush had now faded from her face. This he observed and the heave
+of her bosom in its low bodice. He knit his brows, perplexed. Here was
+surely more than at first might seem.
+
+"Why so?" he asked.
+
+"For your own safety's sake," she answered him.
+
+"You are oddly concerned for that, Ruth."
+
+"Concerned--not oddly." She paused an instant, swallowed hard, and then
+continued. "I am concerned too for your honour, and there is no honour
+in following his banner. He has crowned himself King, and so proved
+himself a self-seeker who came dissembled as the champion of a cause
+that he might delude poor ignorant folk into flocking to his standard
+and helping him to his ambitious ends."
+
+"You are wondrously well schooled," said he. "Whose teachings do you
+recite me? Sir Rowland Blake's?"
+
+At another time the sneer might have cut her. At the moment she was too
+intent upon gaining time. The means to it mattered little. The more she
+talked to no purpose, the more at random was their discourse, the better
+would her ends be served.
+
+"Sir Rowland Blake?" she cried. "What is he to me?"
+
+"Ah, what? Let me set you the question rather."
+
+"Less than nothing," she assured him, and for some moments afterwards it
+was this Sir Rowland who served them as a topic for their odd interview.
+On the overmantel the pulse of time beat on from a little wooden clock.
+His eyes strayed to it; it marked the three-quarters. He bethought
+him suddenly of his engagement. Trenchard, below-stairs, supremely
+indifferent whether Wilding went to Newlington's or not, smoked on,
+entirely unconcerned by the flight of time.
+
+"Mistress," said Wilding suddenly, "you have not yet told me in what you
+seek my service. Indeed, we seem to have talked to little purpose. My
+time is very short."
+
+"Where are you going?" she asked him, and fearfully she shot a sidelong
+glance at the timepiece. It was still too soon, by at least five
+minutes.
+
+He smiled, but his smile was singular. He began to suspect at last that
+her only purpose--to what end he could not guess--was to detain him.
+
+"'Tis a singularly sudden interest in my doings, this," said he quietly.
+"What is't you seek of me?" He reached for the hat he had cast upon the
+table when they had entered. "Tell me briefly. I may stay no longer."
+
+She rose, her agitation suddenly increasing, afraid that after all he
+would escape her. "Where are you going?" she asked. "Answer me that, and
+I will tell you why I came."
+
+"I am to sup at Mr. Newlington's in His Majesty's company.
+
+"His Majesty's?"
+
+"King Monmouth's," he explained impatiently. "Come, Ruth. Already I am
+late."
+
+"If I were to ask you not to go," she said slowly, and she held out her
+hands to him, her glance most piteous--and that was not acting--as she
+raised it to meet his own, "would you not stay to pleasure me?"
+
+He considered her from under frowning eyes. "Ruth," he said, and he took
+her hands, "there is here something that I do not understand. What is't
+you mean?"
+
+"Promise me that you will not go to Newlington's, and I will tell you."
+
+"But what has Newlington to do with...? Nay, I am pledged already to
+go."
+
+She drew closer to him, her hands upon his shoulders. "Yet if I ask
+you--I, your wife?" she pleaded, and almost won him to her will.
+
+But suddenly he remembered another occasion on which, for purposes of
+her own, she had so pleaded. He laughed softly, mockingly.
+
+"Do you woo me, Ruth, who, when I wooed you, would have none of me?"
+
+She drew back from him, crimsoning. "I think I had better go," said she.
+"You have nothing but mockery for me. It was ever so. Who knows?" she
+sighed as she took up her mantle. "Had you but observed more gentle
+ways, you... you..." She paused, needing to say no more. "Good-night!"
+she ended, and made shift to leave. He watched her, deeply mystified.
+She had gained the door when suddenly he moved.
+
+"Wait!" he cried. She paused, and turned to look over her shoulder, her
+hand apparently upon the latch. "You shall not go until you have told
+me why you besought me to keep away from Newlington's. What is it?" he
+asked, and paused suddenly, a flood of light breaking in upon his mind.
+"Is there some treachery afoot?" he asked her, and his eye went wildly
+to the clock. A harsh, grating sound rang through the room. "What are
+you doing?" he cried. "Why have you locked the door?" She was tugging
+and fumbling desperately to extract the key, her hands all clumsy in her
+nervous haste. He leapt at her, but in that moment the key came away in
+her hand. She wheeled round to face him, erect, defiant almost.
+
+"Here is some devilry!" he cried. "Give me that key."
+
+He had no need for further questions. Here was a proof more eloquent
+than words to his ready wit. Sir Rowland or Richard, or both, were in
+some plot for the Duke's ruin--perhaps assassination. Had not her very
+words shown that she herself was out of all sympathy with Monmouth? He
+was out of sympathy himself. But not to the extent of standing by to see
+his throat cut. She would have the plot succeed--whatever it might be
+and yet that he himself be spared. There his thoughts paused; but only
+for a moment. He saw suddenly in this, not a proof of concern born of
+love but of duty towards him who had imperilled himself once--and for
+all time, indeed--that he might save her brother and Sir Rowland.
+
+He told her what had been so suddenly revealed to him, taxing her with
+it. She acknowledged it, her wits battling to find some way by which
+she might yet gain a few moments more. She would cling to the key, and
+though he should offer her violence, she would not let it go without a
+struggle, and that struggle must consume the little time yet wanting to
+make it too late for him to save the Duke, and--what imported more--thus
+save herself from betraying her brother's trust. Another fear leapt at
+her suddenly. If through deed of hers Monmouth was spared that night,
+Blake, in his despair and rage, might slake his vengeance upon Richard.
+
+"Give me that key," he demanded, his voice cold and quiet, his face set.
+
+"No, no," she cried, setting her hand behind her. "You shall not go,
+Anthony. You shall not go."
+
+"I must," he insisted, still cold, but oh! so determined. "My honour's
+in it now that I know."
+
+"You'll go to your death," she reminded him.
+
+He sneered. "What signifies a day or so? Give me the key."
+
+"I love you, Anthony!" she cried, livid to the lips.
+
+"Lies!" he answered her contemptuously. "The key!"
+
+"No," she answered, and her firmness matched his own. "I will not have
+you slain."
+
+"'Tis not my purpose--not just yet. But I must save the others. God
+forgive me if I offer violence to a woman," he added, "and lay rude
+hands upon her. Do not compel me to it." He advanced upon her, but she,
+lithe and quick, evaded him, and sprang for the middle of the room. He
+wheeled about, his self-control all slipping from him now. Suddenly she
+darted to the window, and with the hand that clenched the key she
+smote a pane with all her might. There was a smash of shivering glass,
+followed an instant later by a faint tinkle on the stones below, and the
+hand that she still held out covered itself all with blood.
+
+"O God!" he cried, the key and all else forgotten. "You are hurt."
+
+"But you are saved," she cried, overwrought, and staggered, laughing and
+sobbing, to a chair, sinking her bleeding hand to her lap, and smearing
+recklessly her spotless, shimmering gown.
+
+He caught up a chair by its legs, and at a single blow smashed down the
+door--a frail barrier after all. "Nick!" he roared. "Nick!" He tossed
+the chair from him and vanished into the adjoining room to reappear a
+moment later carrying basin and ewer, and a shirt of Trenchard's--the
+first piece of linen he could find.
+
+She was half fainting, and she let him have his swift, masterful way.
+He bathed her hand, and was relieved to find that the injury was none so
+great as the flow of blood had made him fear. He tore Trenchard's
+fine cambric shirt to shreds--a matter on which Trenchard afterwards
+commented in quotations from at least three famous Elizabethan
+dramatists. He bound up her hand, just as Nick made his appearance at
+the splintered door, his mouth open, his pipe, gone out, between his
+fingers. He was followed by a startled serving-wench, the only other
+person in the house, for every one was out of doors that night.
+
+Into the woman's care Wilding delivered his wife, and without a word to
+her he left the room, dragging Trenchard with him. It was striking nine
+as they went down the stairs, and the sound brought as much satisfaction
+to Ruth above as dismay to Wilding below.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. THE BANQUET
+
+It was striking nine. Therefore, Ruth thought that she had achieved her
+object, Wilding imagined that all was lost. It needed the more tranquil
+mind of Nicholas Trenchard to show him the fly in madam's ointment,
+after Wilding, in half a dozen words, had made him acquainted with the
+situation.
+
+"What are you going to do?" asked Trenchard.
+
+"Run to Newlington's and warn the Duke--if still in time."
+
+"And thereby precipitate the catastrophe? Oh, give it thought. It is all
+it needs. You are taking it for granted that nine o'clock is the hour
+appointed for King Monmouth's butchery."
+
+"What else?" asked Wilding, impatient to be off.
+
+They were standing in the street under the sign of The Ship, by which
+Jonathan Edney--Mr. Trenchard's landlord--distinguished his premises and
+the chandler's trade he drove there. Trenchard set a detaining hand on
+Mr. Wilding's arm.
+
+"Nine o'clock is the hour appointed for supper. It is odds the Duke will
+be a little late, and it is more than odds that when he does arrive, the
+assassins will wait until the company is safely at table and lulled by
+good eating and drinking. You had overlooked that, I see. It asks an old
+head for wisdom, after all. Look you, Anthony. Speed to Colonel Wade as
+fast as your legs can carry you, and get a score of men. Then find
+some fellow to lead you to Newlington's orchard, and if only you do not
+arrive too late you may take Sir Rowland and his cut-throats in the rear
+and destroy them to a man before they realize themselves attacked. I'll
+reconnoitre while you go, and keep an eye on the front of the house.
+Away with you!"
+
+Ordinarily Wilding was a man of a certain dignity, but you had not
+thought it had you seen him running in silk stockings and silver-buckled
+shoes at a headlong pace through the narrow streets of Bridgwater,
+in the direction of the Castle. He overset more than one, and oaths
+followed him from these and from others whom he rudely jostled out of
+his path. Wade was gone with Monmouth, but he came upon Captain Slape,
+who had a company of scythes and musketeers incorporated in the Duke's
+own regiment, and to him Wilding gasped out the news and his request for
+a score of men with what breath was left him.
+
+Time was lost--and never was time more precious--in convincing Slape
+that this was no old wife's tale. At last, however, he won his way and
+twenty musketeers; but the quarter-past the hour had chimed ere they
+left the Castle. He led them forth at a sharp run, with never a thought
+for the circumstance that they would need their breath anon, perhaps for
+fighting, and he bade the man who guided them take them by back streets
+that they might attract as little attention as possible.
+
+Within a stone's-throw of the house he halted them, and sent one
+forward to reconnoitre, following himself with the others as quietly and
+noiselessly as possible. Mr. Newlington's house was all alight, but from
+the absence of uproar--sounds there were in plenty from the main street,
+where a dense throng had collected to see His Majesty go in--Mr. Wilding
+inferred with supreme relief that they were still in time. But
+the danger was not yet past. Already, perhaps, the assassins were
+penetrating--or had penetrated--to the house; and at any moment such
+sounds might greet them as would announce the execution of their
+murderous design.
+
+Meanwhile Mr. Trenchard, having relighted his pipe, and set his hat
+rakishly atop his golden wig, strolled up the High Street, swinging
+his long cane very much like a gentleman taking the air in quest of an
+appetite for supper. He strolled past the Cross and on until he came
+to the handsome mansion--one of the few handsome houses in
+Bridgwater--where opulent Mr. Newlington had his residence. A small
+crowd had congregated about the doors, for word had gone forth that His
+Majesty was to sup there. Trenchard moved slowly through the people,
+seemingly uninterested, but, in fact, scanning closely every face he
+encountered. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he espied in the
+indifferent light Mr. Richard Westmacott.
+
+Trenchard passed him, jostling him as he went, and strolled on some few
+paces, then turned, and came slowly back, and observed that Richard had
+also turned and was now watching him as he approached. He was all but
+upon the boy when suddenly his wrinkled face lighted with recognition.
+
+"Mr. Westmacott!" he cried, and there was surprise in his voice.
+
+Richard, conscious that Trenchard must no doubt regard him as a
+turn-tippet, flushed, and stood aside to give passage to the other.
+But Mr. Trenchard was by no means minded to pass. He clapped a hand
+on Richard's shoulder. "Nay," he cried, between laughter and feigned
+resentment. "Do you bear me ill-will, lad?"
+
+Richard was somewhat taken aback. "For what should I bear you ill-will,
+Mr. Trenchard?" quoth he.
+
+Trenchard laughed frankly, and so uproariously that his hat
+over-jauntily cocked was all but shaken from his head. "I mind me the
+last time we met, I played you an unfair trick," said he. His tone
+bespoke the very highest good-humour. He slipped his arm through
+Richard's. "Never bear an old man malice, lad," said he.
+
+"I assure you that I bear you none," said Richard, relieved to find that
+Trenchard apparently knew nothing of his defection, yet wishing that
+Trenchard would go his ways, for Richard's task was to stand sentry
+there.
+
+"I'll not believe you till you afford me proof," Trenchard replied. "You
+shall come and wash your resentment down in the best bottle of Canary
+the White Cow can furnish us."
+
+"Not now, I thank you," answered Richard.
+
+"You are thinking of the last occasion on which I drank with you," said
+Trenchard reproachfully.
+
+"Not so. But... but I am not thirsty."
+
+"Not thirsty?" echoed Trenchard. "And is that a reason? Why, lad, it is
+the beast that drinks only when he thirsts. And in that lies one of the
+main differences between beast and man. Come on"--and his arm effected a
+gentle pressure upon Richard's, to move him thence. But at that moment,
+down the street with a great rumble of wheels, cracking of whips
+and clatter of hoofs, came a coach, bearing to Mr. Newlington's King
+Monmouth escorted by his forty life-guards. Cheering broke from the
+crowd as the carriage drew up, and the Duke-King as he alighted
+turned his handsome face, on which shone the ruddy glow of torches, to
+acknowledge these loyal acclamations. He passed up the steps, at the top
+of which Mr. Newlington--fat and pale and monstrously overdressed--stood
+bowing to welcome his royal visitor. Host and guest vanished, followed
+by some six officers of Monmouth's, among whom were Grey and Wade.
+The sight-seers flattened themselves against the walls as the great
+lumbering coach put about and went off again the way it had come, the
+life-guards following after.
+
+Trenchard fancied that he caught a sigh of relief from Richard, but the
+street was noisy at the time and he may well have been mistaken.
+
+"Come," said he, renewing his invitation, "we shall both be the better
+for a little milk of the White Cow."
+
+Richard wavered almost by instinct. The White Cow, he knew, was famous
+for its sack; on the other hand, he was pledged to Sir Rowland to
+stand guard in the narrow lane at the back where ran the wall of Mr.
+Newlington's garden. Under the gentle suasion of Trenchard's arm, he
+moved a few steps up the street; then halted, his duty battling with his
+inclination.
+
+"No, no," he muttered. "If you will excuse me..."
+
+"Not I," said Trenchard, drawing from his hesitation a shrewd inference
+as to Richard's business. "To drink alone is an abomination I'll not be
+guilty of."
+
+"But..." began the irresolute Richard.
+
+"Shalt urge me no excuses, or we'll quarrel. Come," and he moved on,
+dragging Richard with him.
+
+A few steps Richard took unwillingly under the other's soft compulsion;
+then, having given the matter thought--he was always one to take the
+line of least resistance--he assured himself that his sentryship was
+entirely superfluous; the matter of Blake's affair was an entire secret,
+shared only by those who had a hand in it. Blake was quite safe from all
+surprises; Trenchard was insistent and it was difficult to deny him;
+and the sack at the White Cow was no doubt the best in Somerset. He gave
+himself up to the inevitable and fell into step alongside his companion
+who babbled aimlessly of trivial matters. Trenchard felt the change from
+unwilling to willing companionship, and approved it.
+
+They mounted the three steps and entered the common room of the inn.
+It was well thronged at the time, but they found places at the end of a
+long table, and there they sat and discussed the landlady's Canary for
+the best part of a half-hour, until a sudden spatter of musketry, near
+at hand, came to startle the whole room.
+
+There was a momentary stillness in the tavern, succeeded by an excited
+clamouring, a dash for the windows and a storm of questions, to
+which none could return any answer. Richard had risen with a sudden
+exclamation, very pale and scared of aspect. Trenchard tugged at his
+sleeve.
+
+"Sit down," said he. "Sit down. It will be nothing."
+
+"Nothing?" echoed Richard, and his eyes were suddenly bent on Trenchard
+in a look in which suspicion was now blent with terror.
+
+A second volley of musketry crackled forth at that moment, and the next
+the whole street was in an uproar. Men were running and shots resounded
+on every side, above all of which predominated the cry that His Majesty
+was murdered.
+
+In an instant the common room of the White Cow was emptied of every
+occupant save two--Trenchard and Westmacott. Neither of them felt the
+need to go forth in quest of news. They knew how idle was the cry in
+the streets. They knew what had taken place, and knowing it, Trenchard
+smoked on placidly, satisfied that Wilding had been in time, whilst
+Richard stood stricken and petrified by dismay at realizing, with even
+greater certainty, that something had supervened to thwart, perhaps
+to destroy, Sir Rowland. For he knew that Blake's party had gone forth
+armed with pistols only, and intent not to use even these save in
+the last extremity; to avoid noise they were to keep to steel. This
+knowledge gave Richard positive assurance that the volleys they had
+heard must have been fired by some party that had fallen upon Blake's
+men and taken them by surprise.
+
+And it was his fault! He was the traitor to whom perhaps a score of men
+owed their deaths at that moment! He had failed to keep watch as he had
+undertaken. His fault it was--No! not his, but this villain's who sat
+there smugly taking his ease and pulling at his pipe.
+
+At a blow Richard dashed the thing from his companion's mouth and
+fingers.
+
+Trenchard looked up startled.
+
+"What the devil...?" he began.
+
+"It is your fault, your fault!" cried Richard, his eyes blazing, his
+lips livid. "It was you who lured me hither."
+
+Trenchard stared at him in bland surprise. "Now, what a plague is't
+you're saying?" he asked, and brought Richard to his senses by awaking
+in him the instinct of self-preservation.
+
+How could he explain his meaning without betraying himself?--and surely
+that were a folly, now that the others were no doubt disposed of. Let
+him, rather, bethink him of his own safety. Trenchard looked at him
+keenly, with well-assumed intent to read what might be passing in his
+mind, then rose, paid for the wine, and expressed his intention of
+going forth to inquire into these strange matters that were happening in
+Bridgwater.
+
+Meanwhile, those volleys fired in Mr. Newlington's orchard had
+caused--as well may be conceived--an agitated interruption of the superb
+feast Mr. Newlington had spread for his noble and distinguished guests.
+The Duke had for some days been going in fear of his life, for already
+he had been fired at more than once by men anxious to earn the price
+at which his head was valued; instantly he surmised that whatever that
+firing might mean, it indicated some attempt to surprise him with the
+few gentlemen who attended him.
+
+The whole company came instantly to its feet, and Colonel Wade stepped
+to a window that stood open--for the night was very warm. The Duke
+turned for explanation to his host; the trader, however, professed
+himself entirely unable to offer any. He was very pale and his limbs
+were visibly trembling, but then his agitation was most natural. His
+wife and daughter supervened at that moment, in their alarm entering the
+room unceremoniously, in spite of the august presence, to inquire into
+the meaning of this firing, and to reassure themselves that their father
+and his illustrious guests were safe.
+
+From the windows they could observe a stir in the gardens below. Black
+shadows of men flitted to and fro, and a loud, rich voice was heard
+calling to them to take cover, that they were betrayed. Then a sheet of
+livid flame blazed along the summit of the low wall, and a second volley
+of musketry rang out, succeeded by cries and screams from the assailed
+and the shouts of the assailers who were now pouring into the garden
+through the battered doorway and over the wall. For some moments
+steel rang on steel, and pistol-shots cracked here and there to the
+accompaniment of voices, raised some in anger, some in pain. But it was
+soon over, and a comparative stillness succeeded.
+
+A voice called up from the darkness under the windows to know if His
+Majesty was safe. There had been a plot to take him; but the ambuscaders
+had been ambuscaded in their turn, and not a man of them remained--which
+was hardly exact, for under a laurel bush, scarce daring to breathe, lay
+Sir Rowland Blake, livid with fear and fury, and bleeding from a rapier
+scratch in the cheek, but otherwise unhurt.
+
+In the room above, Monmouth had sunk wearily into his chair upon hearing
+of the design there had been against his life. A deep, bitter melancholy
+enwrapped his spirit. Lord Grey's first thoughts flew to the man he
+most disliked--the one man missing from those who had been bidden to
+accompany His Majesty, whose absence had already formed the subject
+of comment. Grey remembered this bearing before the council that same
+evening, and his undisguised resentment of the reproaches levelled
+against him.
+
+"Where is Mr. Wilding?" he asked suddenly, his voice dominating the
+din of talk that filled the room. "Do we hold the explanation of his
+absence?"
+
+Monmouth looked up quickly, his beautiful eyes ineffably sad, his weak
+mouth drooping at the corners. Wade turned to confront Grey.
+
+"Your lordship does not suggest that Mr. Wilding can have a hand in
+this?"
+
+"Appearances would seem to point in that direction," answered Grey, and
+in his wicked heart he almost hoped it might be so.
+
+"Then appearances speak truth for once," came a bitter, ringing voice.
+They turned, and there on the threshold stood Mr. Wilding. Unheard he
+had come upon them. He was bareheaded and carried his drawn sword. There
+was blood upon it, and there was blood on the lace that half concealed
+the hand that held it; otherwise--and saving that his shoes and
+stockings were sodden with the dew from the long grass in the
+orchard--he was as spotless as when he had left Ruth in Trenchard's
+lodging; his face, too, was calm, save for the mocking smile with which
+he eyed Lord Grey.
+
+Monmouth rose on his appearance, and put his hand to his sword in alarm.
+Grey whipped his own from the scabbard, and placed himself slightly in
+front of his master as if to preserve him.
+
+"You mistake, sirs," said Wilding quietly. "The hand I have had in this
+affair has been to save Your Majesty from your enemies. At the moment I
+should have joined you, word was brought me of the plot that was laid,
+of the trap that was set for you. I hastened to the Castle and obtained
+a score of musketeers of Slape's company. With those I surprised the
+murderers lurking in the garden there, and made an end of them. I
+greatly feared I should not come in time; but it is plain that Heaven
+preserves Your Majesty for better days."
+
+In the revulsion of feeling, Monmouth's eyes shone moist. Grey sheathed
+his sword with an awkward laugh, and a still more awkward word of
+apology to Wilding. The Duke, moved by a sudden impulse to make amends
+for his unworthy suspicions, for his perhaps unworthy reception of
+Wilding earlier that evening in the council-room, drew the sword on
+which his hand still rested. He advanced a step.
+
+"Kneel, Mr. Wilding," he said in a voice stirred by emotion. But
+Wilding's stern spirit scorned this all too sudden friendliness of
+Monmouth's as much as he scorned the accolade at Monmouth's hands.
+
+"There are more pressing matters to demand Your Majesty's attention,"
+said Mr. Wilding coldly, advancing to the table as he spoke, and taking
+up a napkin to wipe his blade, "than the reward of an unworthy servant."
+
+Monmouth felt his sudden enthusiasm chilled by that tone and manner.
+
+"Mr. Newlington," said Mr. Wilding, after the briefest of pauses, and
+the fat, sinful merchant started forward in alarm. It was like a summons
+of doom. "His Majesty came hither, I am informed, to receive at your
+hands a sum of money--twenty thousand pounds--towards the expenses
+of the campaign. Have you the money at hand?" And his eye, glittering
+between cruelty and mockery, fixed itself upon the merchant's ashen
+face.
+
+"It... it shall be forthcoming by morning," stammered Newlington.
+
+"By morning?" cried Grey, who, with the others, watched Mr. Newlington
+what time they all wondered at Mr. Wilding's question and the manner of
+it.
+
+"You knew that I march to-night," Monmouth reproached the merchant.
+
+"And it was to receive the money that you invited His Majesty to do you
+the honours of supping with you here," put in Wade, frowning darkly.
+
+The merchant's wife and daughter stood beside him watching him, and
+plainly uneasy. Before he could make any reply, Mr. Wilding spoke again.
+
+"The circumstance that he has not the money by him is a little odd--or
+would be were it not for what has happened. I would submit, Your
+Majesty, that you receive from Mr. Newlington not twenty thousand pounds
+as he had promised you, but thirty thousand, and that you receive it not
+as a loan as was proposed, but as a fine imposed upon him in consequence
+of... his lack of care in the matter of his orchard."
+
+Monmouth looked at the merchant very sternly. "You have heard Mr.
+Wilding's suggestion," said he. "You may thank the god of traitors it
+was made, else we might have thought of a harsher course. You shall pay
+the money by ten o'clock to-morrow to Mr. Wilding, whom I shall leave
+behind for the sole purpose of collecting it." He turned from Newlington
+in plain disgust. "I think, sirs, that here is no more to be done. Are
+the streets safe, Mr. Wilding?"
+
+"Not only safe, Your Majesty, but the twenty men of Slape's and your own
+life-guards are waiting to escort you."
+
+"Then in God's name let us be going," said Monmouth, sheathing his sword
+and moving towards the door. Not a second time did he offer to confer
+the honour of knighthood upon his saviour.
+
+Mr. Wilding turned and went out to marshal his men. The Duke and his
+officers followed more leisurely. As they reached the door, a woman's
+cry broke the silence behind them. Monmouth turned. Mr. Newlington,
+purple of face and his eyes protruding horridly, was beating the air
+with his hands. Suddenly he collapsed, and crashed forward with arms
+flung out amid the glass and silver of the table all spread with the
+traitor's banquet to which he had bidden his unsuspecting victim.
+
+His wife and daughter ran to him and called him by name, Monmouth
+pausing a moment to watch them from the doorway with eyes unmoved. But
+Mr. Newlington answered not their call, for he was dead.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. THE RECKONING
+
+Ruth had sped home through the streets unattended, as she had come,
+heedless of the rude jostlings and ruder greetings she met with from
+those she passed; heedless, too, of the smarting of her injured hand,
+for the agony of her soul was such that it whelmed all minor sufferings
+of the flesh.
+
+In the dining-room at Lupton House she came upon Diana and Lady Horton
+at supper, and her appearance--her white and distraught face and
+blood-smeared gown--brought both women to their feet in alarmed inquiry,
+no less than it brought Jasper, the butler, to her side with ready
+solicitude. Ruth answered him that there was no cause for fear, that she
+was quite well--had scratched her hand, no more; and with that dismissed
+him. When she was alone with her aunt and cousin, she sank into a chair
+and told them what had passed 'twixt her husband and herself and most of
+what she said was Greek to Lady Horton.
+
+"Mr. Wilding has gone to warn the Duke," she ended, and the despair of
+her tone was tragical. "I sought to detain him until it should be too
+late--I thought I had done so, but... but... Oh, I am afraid, Diana!"
+
+"Afraid of what?" asked Diana. "Afraid of what?"
+
+And she came to Ruth and set an arm in comfort about her shoulders.
+
+"Afraid that Mr. Wilding might reach the Duke in time to be destroyed
+with him," her cousin answered. "Such a warning could but hasten on the
+blow."
+
+Lady Horton begged to be enlightened, and was filled with horror
+when--from Diana--enlightenment was hers. Her sympathies were all with
+the handsome Monmouth, for he was beautiful and should therefore be
+triumphant; poor Lady Horton never got beyond externals. That her
+nephew and Sir Rowland, whom she had esteemed, should be leagued in this
+dastardly undertaking against that lovely person horrified her beyond
+words. She withdrew soon afterwards, having warmly praised Ruth's action
+in warning Mr. Wilding--unable to understand that it should be no part
+of Ruth's design to save the Duke--and went to her room to pray for the
+preservation of the late King's handsome son.
+
+Left alone with her cousin, Ruth gave expression to the fears for
+Richard by which she was being tortured. Diana poured wine for her
+and urged her to drink; she sought to comfort and reassure her. But
+as moments passed and grew to hours and still Richard did not appear,
+Ruth's fears that he had come to harm were changed to certainty. There
+was a moment when, but for Diana's remonstrances, she had gone forth in
+quest of news. Bad news were better than this horror of suspense. What
+if Wilding's warning should have procured help, and Richard were slain
+in consequence? Oh, it was unthinkable! Diana, white of face, listened
+to and shared her fears. Even her shallow nature was stirred by the
+tragedy of Ruth's position, by dread lest Richard should indeed have met
+his end that night. In these moments of distress, she forgot her hopes
+of triumphing over Blake, of punishing him for his indifference to
+herself.
+
+At last, at something after midnight, there came a fevered rapping at
+the outer door. Both women started up, and with arms about each other,
+in their sudden panic, stood there waiting for the news that must be
+here at last.
+
+The door of the dining-room was flung open; the women recoiled in
+their dread of what might come; then Richard entered, Jasper's startled
+countenance showing behind him.
+
+He closed the door, shutting out the wondering servant, and they saw
+that, though his face was ashen and his limbs all a-tremble, he showed
+no sign of any hurt or effort. His dress was as meticulous as when last
+they had seen him. Ruth flew to him, flung her arms about his neck, and
+pressed him to her.
+
+"Oh, Richard, Richard!" she sobbed in the immensity of her relief.
+"Thank God! Thank God!"
+
+He wriggled peevishly in her embrace, disengaged her arms, and put her
+from him almost roughly. "Have done!" he growled, and, lurching past
+her, he reached the table, took up a bottle, and brimmed himself a
+measure. He gulped the wine avidly, set down the cup, and shivered.
+"Where is Blake?" he asked.
+
+"Blake?" echoed Ruth, her lips white. Diana sank into a chair,
+watchful, fearful and silent, taking now no glory in the thing she had
+encompassed.
+
+Richard beat his hands together in a passion of dismay. "Is he not
+here?" he asked, and groaned, "O God!" He flung himself all limp into a
+chair. "You have heard the news, I see," he said.
+
+"Not all of it," said Diana hoarsely, leaning forward. "Tell us what
+passed."
+
+He moistened his lips with his tongue. "We were betrayed," he said in a
+quivering voice. "Betrayed! Did I but know by whom..." He broke off with
+a bitter laugh and shrugged, rubbing his hands together and shivering
+till his shoulders shook. "Blake's party was set upon by half a company
+of musketeers. Their corpses are strewn about old Newlington's orchard.
+Not one of them escaped. They say that Newlington himself is dead." He
+poured himself more wine.
+
+Ruth listened, her eyes burning, the rest of her as cold as ice.
+"But...but... oh, thank God that you at least are safe, Dick!"
+
+"How did you escape?" quoth Diana.
+
+"How?" He started as if he had been stung. He laughed in a high, cracked
+voice, his eyes wild and bloodshot. "How? Perhaps it is just as well
+that Blake has gone to his account. Perhaps..." He checked on the word,
+and started to his feet; Diana screamed in sheer affright. Behind her
+the windows had been thrust open so violently that one of the panes was
+shivered. Blake stood under the lintel, scarce recognizable, so smeared
+was his face with the blood escaping from the wound his cheek had taken.
+His clothes were muddied, soiled, torn, and disordered.
+
+Framed there against the black background of the night, he stood and
+surveyed them for a moment, his aspect terrific. Then he leapt forward,
+baring his sword as he came. An incoherent roar burst from his lips as
+he bore straight down upon Richard.
+
+"You damned, infernal traitor!" he cried. "Draw, draw! Or die like the
+muckworm that you are."
+
+Intrepid, her terror all vanished now that there was the need for
+courage, Ruth confronted him, barring his passage, a buckler to her
+palsied brother.
+
+"Out of my way, mistress, or I'll be doing you a mischief."
+
+"You are mad, Sir Rowland," she told him in a voice that did something
+towards restoring him to his senses.
+
+His fierce eyes considered her a moment, and he controlled himself to
+offer an explanation. "The twenty that were with me lie stark under
+the stars in Newlington's garden," he told her, as Richard had told her
+already. "I escaped by a miracle, no less, but for what? Feversham will
+demand of me a stern account of those lives, whilst if I am found in
+Bridgwater there will be a short shrift for me at the rebel hands--for
+my share in this affair is known, my name on every lip in the town. And
+why?" he asked with a sudden increase of fierceness. "Why? Because that
+craven villain there betrayed me."
+
+"He did not," she answered in so assured a voice that not only did it
+give him pause, but caused Richard, cowering behind her, to raise his
+head in wonder.
+
+Sir Rowland smiled his disbelief, and that smile, twisting his
+blood-smeared countenance, was grotesque and horrible. "I left him to
+guard our backs and give me warning if any approached," he informed her.
+"I knew him for too great a coward to be trusted in the fight; so I gave
+him a safe task, and yet in that he failed me-failed me because he had
+betrayed and sold me."
+
+"He had not. I tell you he had not," she insisted. "I swear it."
+
+He stared at her. "There was no one else for it," he made answer, and
+bade her harshly stand aside.
+
+Diana, huddled together, watched and waited in horror for the end of
+these consequences of her work.
+
+Blake made a sudden movement to win past Ruth. Richard staggered to his
+feet intent on defending himself; but he was swordless; retreat to the
+door suggested itself, and he had half turned to attempt to gain it,
+when Ruth's next words arrested him, petrified him.
+
+"There was some one else for it, Sir Rowland," she cried. "It was not
+Richard who betrayed you. It... it was I."
+
+"You?" The fierceness seemed all to drop away from him, whelmed in the
+immensity of his astonishment. "You?" Then he laughed loud in scornful
+disbelief. "You think to save him," he said.
+
+"Should I lie?" she asked him, calm and brave.
+
+He stared at her stupidly; he passed a hand across his brow, and looked
+at Diana. "Oh, it is impossible!" he said at last.
+
+"You shall hear," she answered, and told him how at the last moment she
+had learnt not only that her husband was in Bridgwater, but that he was
+to sup at Newlington's with the Duke's party.
+
+"I had no thought of betraying you or of saving the Duke," she said.
+"I knew how justifiable was what you intended. But I could not let Mr.
+Wilding go to his death. I sought to detain him, warning him only when
+I thought it would be too late for him to warn others. But you delayed
+overlong, and..."
+
+A hoarse inarticulate cry from him came to interrupt her at that point.
+One glimpse of his face she had and of the hand half raised with sword
+pointing towards her, and she closed her eyes, thinking that her sands
+were run. And, indeed, Blake's intention was just then to kill her. That
+he should owe his betrayal to her was in itself cause enough to
+enrage him, but that her motive should have been her desire to save
+Wilding--Wilding of all men!--that was the last straw.
+
+Had he been forewarned that Wilding was to be one of Monmouth's party at
+Mr. Newlington's, his pulses would have throbbed with joy, and he would
+have flung himself into his murderous task with twice the zest he had
+carried to it. And now he learnt that not only had she thwarted his
+schemes against Monmouth, but had deprived him of the ardently sought
+felicity of widowing her. He drew back his arm for the thrust;
+Diana huddled into her chair too horror-stricken to speak or move:
+Richard--immediately behind his sister--saw nothing of what was passing,
+and thought of nothing but his own safety.
+
+Then Blake paused, stepped back, returned his sword to its scabbard, and
+bending himself--but whether to bow or not was not quite plain--he took
+some paces backwards, then turned and went out by the window as he had
+come. But there was a sudden purposefulness in the way he did it that
+might have warned them this withdrawal was not quite the retreat it
+seemed.
+
+They watched him with many emotions, predominant among which was relief,
+and when he was gone Diana rose and came to Ruth.
+
+"Come," she said, and sought to lead her from the room.
+
+But there was Richard now to be reckoned with, Richard from whom the
+palsy was of a sudden fallen, now that the cause of it had withdrawn.
+He had his back to the door, and his weak mouth was pursed up into a
+semblance of resolution, his pale eyes looked stern, his white eyebrows
+bent together in a frown.
+
+"Wait," he said. They looked at him, and the shadow of a smile almost
+flitted across Diana's face. He stepped to the door, and, opening it,
+held it wide. "Go, Diana," he said. "Ruth and I must understand each
+other."
+
+Diana hesitated. "You had better go, Diana," said her cousin, whereupon
+Mistress Horton went.
+
+Hot and fierce came the recriminations from Richard's lips when he and
+his sister were alone, and Ruth weathered the storm bravely until it
+was stemmed again by fresh fear in Richard. For Blake had suddenly
+reappeared. He came forward from his window; his manner composed and
+full of resolution. Young Westmacott recoiled, the heat all frozen out
+of him. But Blake scarce looked at him, his smouldering glance was all
+for Ruth, who watched him with incipient fear, despite herself.
+
+"Madam," he said, "'tis not to be supposed a mind holding so much
+thought for a husband's safety could find room for any concern as to
+another's. I will ask you, natheless, to consider what tale I am to bear
+Lord Feversham."
+
+"What tale?" said she.
+
+"Aye--that will account for what has chanced; for my failure to
+discharge the task entrusted me, and for the slaughter of an officer of
+his and twenty men.
+
+"Why ask me this?" she demanded half angrily; then suddenly bethinking
+her of how she had ruined his enterprise, and of the position in which
+she had placed him, she softened. Her clear mind held justice very dear.
+She approached. "Oh, I am sorry--sorry, Sir Rowland," she cried.
+
+He sneered. He had wiped some of the blood from his face, but still
+looked terrible enough.
+
+"Sorry!" said he, and laughed unpleasantly. "You'll come with me to
+Feversham and tell him what you did," said he.
+
+"I?" She recoiled in fear.
+
+"At once" he informed her.
+
+"Wha... what's that?" faltered Richard, calling up his manhood, and
+coming forward. "What are you saying, Blake?"
+
+Sir Rowland disdained to heed him. "Come, mistress," he said, and
+putting forward his hand he caught her wrist and pulled her roughly
+towards him. She struggled to free herself, but he leered evilly upon
+her, no whit discomposed by her endeavours. Though short of stature,
+he was a man of considerable bodily strength, and she, though tall, was
+slight of frame. He released her wrist, and before she realized what he
+was about he had stooped, passed an arm behind her knees, another round
+her waist, and, swinging her from her feet, took her up bodily in his
+arms. He turned about, and a scream broke from her.
+
+"Hold!" cried Richard. "Hold, you madman!"
+
+"Keep off, or I'll make an end of you before I go," roared Blake over
+his shoulder, for already he had turned about and was making for the
+window, apparently no more hindered by his burden than had she been a
+doll.
+
+Richard sprang to the door. "Jasper!" he bawled. "Jasper!" He had no
+weapons, as we have seen, else it may be that he had made an attempt to
+use them.
+
+Ruth got a hand free and caught at the windowframe as Blake was leaping
+through. It checked their progress, but did not sensibly delay it. It
+was unfortunately her wounded hand with which she had sought to cling,
+and with an angry, brutal wrench Sir Rowland compelled her to unclose
+her grasp. He sped down the lawn towards the orchard, where his horse
+was tethered. And now she knew in a subconscious sort of way why he had
+earlier withdrawn. He had gone to saddle for this purpose.
+
+She struggled now, thinking that he would be too hampered to compel her
+to his will. He became angry, and set her down beside his horse, one arm
+still holding her.
+
+"Look you, mistress," he told her fiercely, "living or dead, you come
+with me to Feversham. Choose now."
+
+His tone was such that she never doubted he would carry out his threat.
+And so in dull despair she submitted, hoping that Feversham might be
+a gentleman and would recognize and respect a lady. Half fainting, she
+allowed him to swing her to the withers of his horse. Thus they threaded
+their way in the dim starlit night through the trees towards the gate.
+
+It stood open, and they passed out into the lane. There Sir Rowland put
+his horse to the trot, which he increased to a gallop when he was over
+the bridge and clear of the town.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI. THE SENTENCE
+
+Mr. Wilding, as we know, was to remain at Bridgwater for the purpose of
+collecting from Mr. Newlington the fine which had been imposed upon him.
+It is by no means clear whether Monmouth realized the fullness of
+the tragedy at the merchant's house, and whether he understood that,
+stricken with apoplexy at the thought of parting with so considerable a
+portion of his fortune, Mr. Newlington had not merely fainted, but had
+expired under His Grace's eyes. If he did realize it he was cynically
+indifferent, and lest we should be doing him an injustice by assuming
+this we had better give him the benefit of the doubt, and take it that
+in the subsequent bustle of departure, his mind filled with the prospect
+of the night attack to be delivered upon his uncle's army at-Sedgemoor,
+he thought no more either of Mr. Newlington or of Mr. Wilding. The
+latter, as we know, had no place in the rebel army; although a man of
+his hands, he was not a trained soldier, and notwithstanding that he may
+fully have intended to draw his sword for Monmouth when the time came,
+yet circumstances had led to his continuing after Monmouth's landing the
+more diplomatic work of movement-man, in which he had been engaged for
+the months that had preceded it.
+
+So it befell that when Monmouth's army marched out of Bridgwater at
+eleven o'clock on that Sunday night, not to make for Gloucester and
+Cheshire, as was generally believed, but to fall upon the encamped
+Feversham at Sedgemoor and slaughter the royal army in their beds, Mr.
+Wilding was left behind. Trenchard was gone, in command of his troop of
+horse, and Mr. Wilding had for only company his thoughts touching the
+singular happenings of that busy night.
+
+He went back to the sign of The Ship overlooking the Cross, and, kicking
+off his sodden shoes, he supped quietly in the room of which shattered
+door and broken window reminded him of his odd interview with Ruth, and
+of the comedy of love she had enacted to detain him there. The
+thought of it embittered him; the part she had played seemed to his
+retrospective mind almost a wanton's part--for all that in name she was
+his wife. And yet, underlying a certain irrepressible nausea, came the
+reflection that, after all, her purpose had been to save his life. It
+would have been a sweet thought, sweet enough to have overlaid that
+other bitterness, had he not insisted upon setting it down entirely to
+her gratitude and her sense of justice. She intended to repay the debt
+in which she had stood to him since, at the risk of his own life
+and fortune, he had rescued her brother from the clutches of the
+Lord-Lieutenant at Taunton.
+
+He sighed heavily as he thought of the results that had attended his
+compulsory wedding of her. In the intensity of his passion, in
+the blindness of his vanity, which made him confident--gloriously
+confident--that did he make himself her husband, she herself would make
+of him her lover before long, he had committed an unworthiness of which
+it seemed he might never cleanse himself in life. There was but one
+amend, as he had told her. Let him make it, and perhaps she would--out
+of gratitude, if out of no other feeling--come to think more kindly
+of him; and that night it seemed to him as he sat alone in that mean
+chamber that it were a better and a sweeter thing to earn some measure
+of her esteem by death than to continue in a life that inspired her
+hatred and resentment. From which it will be seen how utterly he
+disbelieved the protestations she had uttered in seeking to detain him.
+They were--he was assured--a part of a scheme, a trick, to lull him
+while Monmouth and his officers were being butchered. And she had gone
+the length of saying she loved him! He regretted that, being as he was
+convinced of its untruth. What cause had she to love him? She hated him,
+and because she hated him she did not scruple to lie to him--once with
+suggestions and this time with actual expression of affection--that she
+might gain her ends: ends that concerned her brother and Sir Rowland
+Blake. Sir Rowland Blake! The name was a very goad to his passion and
+despair.
+
+He rose from the table and took a turn in the room, moving noiselessly
+in his stockinged feet. He felt the need of air and action; the
+weariness of his flesh incurred in his long ride from London was cast
+off or forgotten. He must go forth. He picked up his fine shoes of
+Spanish leather, but as luck would have it--little though he guessed the
+extent just then--he found them hardening, though still damp from the
+dews of Mr. Newlington's garden. He cast them aside, and, taking a key
+from his pocket, unlocked an oak cupboard and withdrew the heavy muddy
+boots in which he had ridden from town. He drew them on and, taking
+up his hat and sword, went down the creaking stairs and out into the
+street.
+
+Bridgwater had fallen quiet by now; the army was gone and townsfolk were
+in their beds. Moodily, unconsciously, yet as if guided by a sort of
+instinct, he went down the High Street, and then turned off into the
+narrower lane that led in the direction of Lupton House. By the gates
+of this he paused, recalled out of his abstraction and rendered aware
+of whither his steps had led him by the sight of the hall door standing
+open, a black figure silhouetted against the light behind it. What was
+happening here? Why were they not abed like all decent folk?
+
+The figure called to him in a quavering voice. "Mr. Wilding! Mr.
+Wilding!" for the light beating upon his face and figure from the
+open door had revealed him. The form came swiftly forward, its steps
+pattering down the walk, another slenderer figure surged in its place
+upon the threshold, hovered there an instant, then plunged down into the
+darkness to come after it. But the first was by now upon Mr. Wilding.
+
+"What is it, Jasper?" he asked, recognizing the old servant.
+
+"Mistress Ruth!" wailed the fellow, wringing his hands. "She... she has
+been... carried off." He got it out in gasps, winded by his short run
+and by the excitement that possessed him.
+
+No word said Wilding. He just stood and stared, scarcely understanding,
+and in that moment they were joined by Richard. He seized Wilding by the
+arm. "Blake has carried her off," he cried.
+
+"Blake?" said Mr. Wilding, and wondered with a sensation of nausea was
+it an ordinary running away. But Richard's next words made it plain to
+him that it was no amorous elopement, nor even amorous abduction.
+
+"He has carried her to Feversham... for her betrayal of his to-night's
+plan to seize the Duke."
+
+That stirred Mr. Wilding. He wasted no time in idle questions or idler
+complainings. "How long since?" he asked, and it was he who clutched
+Richard now, by the shoulder and with a hand that hurt.
+
+"Not ten minutes ago," was the quavering answer.
+
+"And you were at hand when it befell?" cried Wilding, the scorn in his
+voice rising superior to his agitation and fears for Ruth. "You were at
+hand, and could neither prevent nor follow him?"
+
+"I'll go with you now, if you'll give chase," whimpered Richard, feeling
+himself for once the craven that he was.
+
+"If?" echoed Wilding scornfully, and dragged him past the gate and up
+towards the house even as he spoke. "Is there room for a doubt of it?
+Have you horses, at least?"
+
+"To spare," said Richard as they hurried on. They skirted the house and
+found the stable door open as Blake had left it. Old Jasper followed
+with a lamp which burned steadily, so calm was the air of that July
+night. In three minutes they had saddled a couple of nags; in five they
+were riding for the bridge and the road to Weston Zoyland.
+
+"It is a miracle you remained in Bridgwater," said Richard as they rode.
+"How came you to be left behind?"
+
+"I had a task assigned me in the town against the Duke's return
+to-morrow," Wilding explained, and he spoke almost mechanically, his
+mind full of--anguished by--thoughts of Ruth.
+
+"Against the Duke's return?" cried Richard, first surprised and then
+thinking that Wilding spoke at random. "Against the Duke's return?" he
+repeated.
+
+"That is what I said?"
+
+"But the Duke is marching to Gloucester."
+
+"The Duke is marching by circuitous ways to Sedgemoor," answered
+Wilding, never dreaming that at this time of day there could be the
+slightest imprudence in saying so much, indeed, taking little heed of
+what he said, his mind obsessed by the other, to him, far weightier
+matter.
+
+"To Sedgemoor?" gasped Westmacott.
+
+"Aye--to take Feversham by surprise--to destroy King James's soldiers in
+their beds. He should be near upon the attack by now. But there! Spur on
+and save your breath if we are to overtake Sir Rowland."
+
+They pounded on through the night at a breakneck pace which they never
+slackened until, when within a quarter of a mile or so of Penzoy Pound,
+where the army was encamped and slumbering by now, they caught sight of
+the musketeers' matches glowing in the dark ahead of them. An outpost
+barred their progress; but Richard had the watchword, and he spurred
+ahead shouting "Albemarle," and the soldiers fell back and gave them
+passage. On they galloped, skirting Penzoy Pound and the army sleeping
+in utter unconsciousness of the fate that was creeping stealthily upon
+it out of the darkness and mists across the moors; they clattered on
+past Langmoor Stone and dashed straight into the village, Richard never
+drawing rein until he reached the door of the cottage where Feversham
+was lodged.
+
+They had come not only at a headlong pace, but in a headlong manner,
+without quite considering what awaited them at the end of their ride in
+addition to their object of finding Ruth. It was only now, as he drew
+rein before the lighted house and caught the sound of Blake's raised
+voice pouring through an open window on the ground floor, that Richard
+fully realized what manner of rashness he was committing. He was too
+late to rescue Ruth from Blake. What more could he look to achieve?
+His hope had been that with Wilding's help he might snatch her from Sir
+Rowland before the latter reached his destination. But now--to enter
+Feversham's presence and in association with so notorious a rebel as Mr.
+Wilding were a piece of folly of the heroic kind that Richard did not
+savour. Indeed, had it not been for Wilding's masterful presence, it is
+more than odds he had turned tail, and ridden home again to bed.
+
+But Wilding, who had leapt nimbly to the ground, stood waiting for
+Richard to dismount, impatient now that from the sound of Sir Rowland's
+voice he had assurance that Richard had proved an able guide. The young
+man got down, but might yet have hesitated had not Wilding caught him
+by the arm and whirled him up the steps, through the open door, past
+the two soldiers who kept it, and who were too surprised to stay him,
+straight into the long, low-ceilinged chamber where Feversham, attended
+by a captain of horse, was listening to Blake's angry narrative of that
+night's failure.
+
+Mr. Wilding's entrance was decidedly sensational. He stepped quickly
+forward, and, taking Blake who was still talking, all unconscious of
+those behind him, by the collar of his coat, he interrupted him in the
+middle of an impassioned period, wrenched him backwards off his feet,
+and dashed him with a force almost incredible into a heap in a corner of
+the room. There for some moments the baronet lay half dazed by the shock
+of his fall.
+
+A long table, which seemed to divide the chamber in two, stood between
+Lord Feversham and his officer and Mr. Wilding and Ruth--by whose side
+he had now come to stand in Blake's room.
+
+There was an exclamation, half anger, half amazement, at Mr. Wilding's
+outrage upon Sir Rowland, and the captain of horse sprang forward.
+But Wilding raised his hand, his face so composed and calm that it was
+impossible to think him conceiving any violence, as indeed he protested
+at that moment.
+
+"Be assured, gentlemen," he said, "that I have no further rudeness to
+offer any so that this lady is suffered to withdraw with me." And he
+took in his own a hand that Ruth, amazed and unresisting, yielded up to
+him. That touch of his seemed to drive out her fears and to restore her
+confidence; the mortal terror in which she had been until his coming
+dropped from her now. She was no longer alone and abandoned to the
+vindictiveness of rude and violent men. She had beside her one in whom
+experience had taught her to have faith.
+
+Louis Duras, Marquis de Blanquefort, and Earl of Feversham, coughed with
+mock discreetness under cover of his hand. "Ahem!"
+
+He was a comely man with a long nose, good low-lidded eyes, a humorous
+mouth, and a weak chin; at a glance he looked what he was, a weak,
+good-natured sensualist. He was resplendent at the moment in a blue
+satin dressing-gown stiff with gold lace, for he had been interrupted
+by Blake's arrival in the very act of putting himself to bed, and his
+head--divested of his wig--was bound up in a scarf of many colours.
+
+At his side, the red-coated captain, arrested by the general's sardonic
+cough, stood, a red-faced, freckled boy, looking to his superior for
+orders.
+
+"I t'ink you 'ave 'urt Sare Rowland," said Feversham composedly in his
+bad English. "Who are you, sare?"
+
+"This lady's husband," answered Wilding, whereupon the captain stared
+and Feversham's brows went up in surprised amusement.
+
+"So-ho! T'at true?" quoth the latter in a tone suggesting that it
+explained everything to him. "T'is gif a differen' colour to your
+story, Sare Rowlan'." Then he added in a chuckle, "Ho, ho--l'amour!" and
+laughed outright.
+
+Blake, gathering together his wits and his limbs at the same time, made
+shift to rise.
+
+"What a plague does their relationship matter?" he began. He would have
+added more, but the Frenchman thought this question one that needed
+answering.
+
+"Parbleu!" he swore, his amusement rising. "It seem to matter
+somet'ing."
+
+"Damn me!" swore Blake, red in the face from pale that he had been. "Do
+you conceive that if I had run away with his wife for her own sake I
+had fetched her to you?" He lurched forward as he spoke, but kept his
+distance from Wilding, who stood between Ruth and him.
+
+Feversham bowed sardonically. "You are a such flatterer, Sare Rowlan',"
+said he, laughter bubbling in his words.
+
+Blake looked his scorn of this trivial Frenchman, who, upon scenting
+what appeared to be the comedy of an outraged husband overtaking the
+man who had carried off his wife, forgot the serious business, a part
+of which Sir Rowland had already imparted to him. Captain Wentworth--a
+time-serving gentleman--smiled with this French general of a British
+army that he might win the great man's favour.
+
+"I have told your lordship," said Blake, froth on his lips, "that
+the twenty men I had from you, as well as Ensign Norris, are dead in
+Bridgwater, and that my plan to carry off King Monmouth has come to
+ruin, all because we were betrayed by this woman. It is now my further
+privilege to point out to your lordship the man to whom she sold us."
+
+Feversham misliked Sir Rowland's arrogant tone, misliked his angry,
+scornful glance. His eyes narrowed, the laughter faded slowly from his
+face.
+
+"Yes, yes, I remember," said he; "t'is lady, you have tole us, betray
+you. Ver' well. But you have not tole us who betray you to t'is lady."
+And he looked inquiringly at Blake.
+
+The baronet's jaw dropped; his face lost some of its high colour. He
+was stunned by the question as the bird is stunned that flies headlong
+against a pane of glass. He had crashed into an obstruction so
+transparent that he had not seen it.
+
+"So!" said Feversham, and he stroked the cleft of his chin. "Captain
+Wentwort', be so kind as to call t'e guard."
+
+Wentworth moved to obey, but before he had gone round the table, Blake
+had looked behind him and espied Richard shrinking by the door.
+
+"By heaven!" he cried, "I can more than answer your lordship's
+question."
+
+Wentworth stopped, looking at Feversham.
+
+"Voyons," said the General.
+
+"I can place you in possession of the man who has wrought our ruin. He
+is there," and he pointed theatrically to Richard.
+
+Feversham looked at the limp figure in some bewilderment. Indeed, he was
+having a most bewildering evening--or morning, rather, for it was even
+then on the stroke of one o'clock. "An' who are you, sare?" he asked.
+
+Richard came forward, nerving himself for what was to follow. It had
+just occurred to him that he held a card which should trump any trick of
+Sir Rowland's vindictiveness, and the prospect heartened and comforted
+him.
+
+"I am this lady's brother, my lord," he answered, and his voice was
+fairly steady.
+
+"Tiens!" said Feversham, and, smiling, he turned to Wentworth.
+
+"Quite a family party, sir," said the captain, smiling back.
+
+"Oh! mais tout--fait," said the General, laughing outright, and then
+Wilding created a diversion by leading Ruth to a chair that stood at the
+far end of the table, and drawing it forward for her. "Ah, yes," said
+Feversham airily, "let Madame sit."
+
+"You are very good, sir," said Ruth, her voice brave and calm.
+
+"But somewhat lacking in spontaneity," Wilding criticized, which set
+Wentworth staring and the Frenchman scowling.
+
+"Shall I call the guard, my lord?" asked Wentworth crisply.
+
+"I t'ink yes," said Feversham, and the captain gained the door, and
+spoke a word to one of the soldiers without.
+
+"But, my lord," exclaimed Blake in a tone of protest, "I vow you are too
+ready to take this fellow's word."
+
+"He 'as spoke so few," said Feversham.
+
+"Do you know who he is?"
+
+"You 'af 'eard 'im say--t'e lady's 'usband."
+
+"Aye--but his name," cried Blake, quivering with anger. "Do you know
+that it is Wilding?"
+
+The name certainly made an impression that might have flattered the man
+to whom it belonged. Feversham's whole manner changed; the trivial air
+of persiflage that he had adopted hitherto was gone on the instant, and
+his brow grew dark.
+
+"T'at true?" he asked sharply. "Are you Mistaire Wildin'--Mistaire
+Antoine Wildin'?"
+
+"Your lordship's most devoted servant," said Wilding suavely, and made a
+leg.
+
+Wentworth in the background paused in the act of reclosing the door to
+stare at this gentleman whose name Albemarle had rendered so excellently
+well known.
+
+"And you to dare come 'ere?" thundered Feversham, thoroughly roused
+by the other's airy indifference. "You to dare come 'ere--into my ver'
+presence?"
+
+Mr. Wilding smiled conciliatingly. "I came for my wife, my lord," he
+reminded him. "It grieves me to intrude upon your lordship at so late an
+hour, and indeed it was far from my intent. I had hoped to overtake Sir
+Rowland before he reached you."
+
+"Nom de Dieu!" swore Feversham. "Ho! A so great effrontery!" He swung
+round upon Blake again. "Sare Rowlan'," he bade him angrily, "be so kind
+to tell me what 'appen in Breechwater--everyt'ing!"
+
+Blake, his face purple, seemed to struggle for breath and words. Mr.
+Wilding answered for him.
+
+"Sir Rowland is so choleric, my lord," he said in his pleasant, level
+voice, "that perhaps the tale would come more intelligibly from
+me. Believe me that he has served you to the best of his ability.
+Unfortunately for the success of your choice plan of murder, I had news
+of it at the eleventh hour, and with a party of musketeers I was able
+to surprise and destroy your cut-throats in Mr. Newlington's garden.
+You see, my lord, I was to have been one of the victims myself, and I
+resented the attentions that were intended me. I had no knowledge that
+Sir Rowland had contrived to escape, and, frankly, it is a thing I
+deplore more than I can say, for had that not happened much trouble
+might have been saved and your lordship's rest had not been disturbed."
+
+"But t'e woman?" cried Feversham impatiently. "How is she come into this
+galare?"
+
+"It was she who warned him," Blake got out, "as already I have had the
+honour to inform your lordship."
+
+"And your lordship cannot blame her for that," said Wilding. "The lady
+is a most loyal subject of King James; but she is also, as you observe,
+a dutiful wife. I will add that it was her intention to warn me only
+when too late for interference. Sir Rowland, as it happened, was slow
+in..."
+
+"Silence!" blazed the Frenchman. "Now t'at I know who you are, t'at make
+a so great difference. Where is t'e guard, Wentwort'?"
+
+"I hear them," answered the captain, and from the street came the tramp
+of their marching feet.
+
+Feversham turned again to Blake. "T'e affaire 'as 'appen' so," he
+said, between question and assertion, summing up the situation as he
+understood it. "T'is rogue," and he pointed to Richard, "'ave betray
+your plan to 'is sister, who betray it to 'er 'usband, who save t'e Duc
+de Monmoot'. N'est-ce pas?"
+
+"That is so," said Blake, and Ruth scarcely thought it worth while to
+add that she had heard of the plot not only from her brother, but from
+Blake as well. After all, Blake's attitude in the matter, his action in
+bringing her to Feversham for punishment, and to exculpate himself, must
+suffice to cause any such statement of hers to be lightly received by
+the General.
+
+She sat in an anguished silence, her eyes wide, her face pale, and
+waited for the end of this strange business. In her heart she did permit
+herself to think that it would be difficult to assemble a group of
+men less worthy of respect. Choleric and vindictive Blake, foolish
+Feversham, stupid Wentworth, and timid Richard--even Richard did
+not escape the unfavourable criticism they were undergoing in her
+subconscious mind. Only Wilding detached in that assembly--as he had
+detached in another that she remembered--and stood out in sharp relief a
+very man, calm, intrepid, self-possessed; and if she was afraid, she was
+more afraid for him than for herself. This was something that, perhaps,
+she scarcely realized just then; but she was to realize it soon.
+
+Feversham was speaking again, asking Blake a fresh question. "And who
+betray you to t'is rogue?"
+
+"To Westmacott?" cried Blake. "He was in the plot with me. He was left
+to guard the rear, to see that we were not taken by surprise, and he
+deserted his post. Had he not done that, there had been no disaster, in
+spite of Mr. Wilding's intervention."
+
+Feversham's brow was dark, his eyes glittered as they rested on the
+traitor.
+
+"T'at true, sare?" he asked him.
+
+"Not quite," put in Mr. Wilding. "Mr. Westmacott, I think, was
+constrained away. He did not intend..."
+
+"Tais-toi!" blazed Feversham. "Did I interrogate you? It is for Mistaire
+Westercott to answer." He set a hand on the table and leaned forward
+towards Wilding, his face very malign. "You shall to answer for
+yourself, Mistaire Wildin'; I promise you you shall to answer for
+yourself." He turned again to Richard. "Eh, bien?" he snapped. "Will you
+speak?"
+
+Richard came forward a step; he was certainly nervous, and certainly
+pale; but neither as pale nor as nervous as from our knowledge of
+Richard we might have looked to see him at that moment.
+
+"It is in a measure true," he said. "But what Mr. Wilding has said is
+more exact. I was induced away. I did not dream any could know of the
+plan, or that my absence could cause this catastrophe."
+
+"So you went, eh, vaurien? You t'ought t'at be to do your duty, eh? And
+it was you who tole your sistaire?"
+
+"I may have told her, but not before she had the tale already from
+Blake."
+
+Feversham sneered and shrugged. "Natural you will not speak true. A
+traitor I 'ave observe' is always liar."
+
+Richard drew himself up; he seemed invested almost with a new dignity.
+"Your lordship is pleased to account me a traitor?" he inquired.
+
+"A dam' traitor," said his lordship, and at that moment the door opened,
+and a sergeant, with six men following him, stood at the salute upon the
+threshold. "A la bonne heure!" his lordship hailed them. "Sergean', you
+will arrest t'is rogue and t'is lady,"--he waved his hand from Richard
+to Ruth--"and you will take t'em to lock..up."
+
+The sergeant advanced towards Richard, who drew a step away from him.
+Ruth rose to her feet in agitation. Mr. Wilding interposed himself
+between her and the guard, his hand upon his sword.
+
+"My lord," he cried, "do they teach no better courtesy in France?"
+
+Feversham scowled at him, smiling darkly. "I shall talk wit' you soon,
+sare," said he, his words a threat.
+
+"But, my lord..." began Richard. "I can make it very plain I am no
+traitor..."
+
+"In t'e mornin'," said Feversham blandly, waving his hand, and the
+sergeant took Richard by the shoulder.
+
+But Richard twisted from his grasp. "In the morning will be too late,"
+he cried. "I have it in my power to render you such a service as you
+little dream of."
+
+"Take 'im away," said Feversham wearily.
+
+"I can save you from destruction," bawled Richard, "you and your army."
+
+Perhaps even now Feversham had not heeded him but for Wilding's sudden
+interference.
+
+"Silence, Richard!" he cried to him. "Would you betray...?" He checked
+on the word; more he dared not say; but he hoped faintly that he had
+said enough.
+
+Feversham, however, chanced to observe that this man who had shown
+himself hitherto so calm looked suddenly most singularly perturbed.
+
+"Eh?" quoth the General. "An instan', Sergean'. What is t'is, eh?"--and
+he looked from Wilding to Richard.
+
+"Your lordship shall learn at a price," cried Richard.
+
+"Me, I not bargain wit' traitors," said his lordship stiffly.
+
+"Very well, then," answered Richard, and he folded his arms
+dramatically. "But no matter what your lordship's life may be hereafter,
+you will never regret anything more bitterly than you shall regret this
+by sunrise if indeed you live to see it."
+
+Feversham shifted uneasily on his feet. "'What you say?" he asked. "What
+you mean?"
+
+"You shall know at a price," said Richard again.
+
+Wilding, realizing the hopelessness of interfering now, stood gloomily
+apart, a great bitterness in his soul at the indiscretion he had
+committed in telling Richard of the night attack that was afoot.
+
+"Your lordship shall hear my price, but you need not pay it me until you
+have had an opportunity of verifying the information I have to give you.
+
+"Tell me," said Feversham after a brief pause, during which he
+scrutinized the young man's face.
+
+"If your lordship will promise liberty and safe-conduct to my sister and
+myself."
+
+"Tell me," Feversham repeated.
+
+"When you have promised to grant me what I ask in return for my
+information."
+
+"Yes, if I t'ink your information is wort'"
+
+"I am content," said Richard. He inclined his head and loosed the
+quarrel of his news. "Your camp is slumbering, your officers are all
+abed with the exception of the outpost on the road to Bridgwater. What
+should you say if I told you that Monmouth and all his army are marching
+upon you at this very moment, will probably fall upon you before another
+hour is past?"
+
+Wilding uttered a groan, and his hands fell to his sides. Had Feversham
+observed this he might have been less ready with his sneering answer.
+
+"A lie!" he answered, and laughed. "My fren', I 'ave myself been
+to-night, at midnight, on t'e moore, and I 'ave 'eard t'e army of t'e
+Duc de Monmoot' marching to Bristol on t'e road--what you call t'e road,
+Wentwort'?"
+
+"The Eastern Causeway, my lord," answered the captain.
+
+"Voil!" said Feversham, and spread his hands. "What you say now, eh?"
+
+"That that is part of Monmouth's plan to come at you across the moors,
+by way of Chedzoy, avoiding your only outpost, and falling upon you in
+your beds, all unawares. Lord! sir, do not take my word for it. Send out
+your scouts, and I dare swear they'll not need go far before they come
+upon the enemy."
+
+Feversham looked at Wentworth. His lordship's face had undergone a
+change.
+
+"What you t'ink?" he asked.
+
+"Indeed, my lord, it sounds so likely," answered Wentworth, "that...
+that... I marvel we did not provide against such a contingency."
+
+"But I 'ave provide'!" cried this nephew of the great Turenne.
+"Ogelt'orpe is on t'e moor and Sare Francis Compton. If t'is is true,
+'ow can t'ey 'ave miss Monmoot'? Send word to Milor' Churchill at once,
+Wentwort'. Let t'e matter be investigate'--at once, Wentwort'--at once!"
+The General was dancing with excitement. Wentworth saluted and turned to
+leave the room. "If you 'ave tole me true," continued Feversham, turning
+now to Richard, "you shall 'ave t'e price you ask, and t'e t'anks of t'e
+King's army. But if not..."
+
+"Oh, it's true enough," broke in Wilding, and his voice was like a
+groan, his face over-charged with gloom.
+
+Feversham looked at him; his sneering smile returned.
+
+"Me, I not remember," said he, "that Mr. Westercott 'ave include you in
+t'e bargain."
+
+Nothing had been further from Wilding's thoughts than such a suggestion.
+And he snorted his disdain. The sergeant had fallen back at Feversham's
+words, and his men lined the wall of the chamber. The General bade
+Richard be seated whilst he waited. Sir Rowland stood apart, leaning
+wearily against the wainscot, waiting also, his dull wits not quite
+clear how Richard might have come by so valuable a piece of information,
+his evil spirit almost wishing it untrue, in his vindictiveness, to the
+end that Richard might pay the price of having played him false and Ruth
+the price of having scorned him.
+
+Feversham meanwhile was seeking--with no great success--to engage
+Mr. Wilding in talk of Monmouth, against whom Feversham harboured in
+addition to his political enmity a very deadly personal hatred; for
+Feversham had been a suitor to the hand of the Lady Henrietta Wentworth,
+the woman for whom Monmouth--worthy son of his father--had practically
+abandoned his own wife; the woman with whom he had run off, to the great
+scandal of court and nation.
+
+Despairing of drawing any useful information from Wilding, his lordship
+was on the point of turning to Blake, when quick steps and the rattle of
+a scabbard sounded without; the door was thrust open without ceremony,
+and Captain Wentworth reappeared.
+
+"My lord," he cried, his manner excited beyond aught one could have
+believed possible in so phlegmatic-seeming a person, "it is true. We are
+beset."
+
+"Beset!" echoed Feversham. "Beset already?"
+
+"We can hear them moving on the moor. They are crossing the Langmoor
+Rhine. They will be upon us in ten minutes at the most. I have roused
+Colonel Douglas, and Dunbarton's regiment is ready for them."
+
+Feversham exploded. "What else 'ave you done?" he asked. "Where is
+Milor' Churchill?"
+
+"Lord Churchill is mustering his men as quietly as may be that they may
+be ready to surprise those who come to surprise us. By Heaven, sir, we
+owe a great debt to Mr. Westmacott. Without his information we might
+have had all our throats cut whilst we slept."
+
+"Be so kind to call Belmont," said Feversham. "Tell him to bring my
+clot'es."
+
+Wentworth turned and went out again to execute the General's orders.
+Feversham spoke to Richard. "We are oblige', Mr. Westercott," said he.
+"We are ver' much oblige'."
+
+Suddenly from a little distance came the roll of drums. Other sounds
+began to stir in the night outside to tell of a waking army.
+
+Feversham stood listening. "It is Dunbarton's," he murmured. Then, with
+some show of heat, "Ah, pardieu!" he cried. "But it was a dirty t'ing
+t'is Monmoot' 'ave prepare'. It is murder; it is not t'e war.
+
+"And yet," said Wilding critically, "it is a little more like war than
+the Bridgwater affair to which your lordship gave your sanction."
+
+Feversham pursed his lips and considered the speaker. Wentworth
+reentered, followed by the Earl's valet carrying an armful of garments.
+His lordship threw off his dressing-gown and stood forth in shirt and
+breeches.
+
+"Mais duche-toi, donc, Belmont!" said he. "Nous nous battons! Ii faut
+que je m'habille." Belmont, a little wizened fellow who understood
+nothing of this topsy-turveydom, hastened forward, deposited his armful
+on the table, and selected a finely embroidered waistcoat, which he
+proceeded to hold for his master. Wriggling into it, Feversham rapped
+out his orders.
+
+"Captain Wentwort', you will go to your regimen at once. But first,
+ah--wait. Take t'ose six men and Mistaire Wilding. 'Ave 'im shot at
+once; you onderstan', eh? Good. Allons, Belmont! my cravat."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII. THE EXECUTION
+
+Captain Wentworth clicked his heels together and saluted. Blake, in the
+background, drew a deep breath--unmistakably of satisfaction, and his
+eyes glittered. A muffled cry broke from Ruth, who rose instantly from
+her chair, her hand on her bosom. Richard stood with fallen jaw, amazed,
+a trifle troubled even, whilst Mr. Wilding started more in surprise than
+actual fear, and approached the table.
+
+"You heard, sir," said Captain Wentworth.
+
+"I heard," answered Mr. Wilding quietly. "But surely not aright. One
+moment, sir," and he waved his hand so compellingly that, despite the
+order he had received, the phlegmatic captain hesitated.
+
+Feversham, who had taken the cravat--a yard of priceless Dutch
+lace--from the hands of his valet, and was standing with his back to the
+company at a small and very faulty mirror that hung by the overmantel,
+looked peevishly over his shoulder.
+
+"My lord," said Wilding, and Blake, for all his hatred of this man,
+marvelled at a composure that did not forsake him even now, "you are
+surely not proposing to deal with me in this fashion--not seriously, my
+lord?"
+
+"Ah, ca!" said the Frenchman. "T'ink it a jest if you please. What for
+you come 'ere?"
+
+"Assuredly not for the purpose of being shot," said Wilding, and
+actually smiled. Then, in the tones of one discussing a matter that is
+grave but not of surpassing gravity, he continued: "It is not that I
+fail to recognize that I may seem to have incurred the rigour of the
+law; but these matters must be formally proved against me. I have
+affairs to set in order against such a consummation."
+
+"Ta, ta!" snapped Feversham. "T'at not regard me Weutwort', you 'ave
+'eard my order." And he returned to his mirror and the nice adjustment
+of his neckwear.
+
+"But, my lord," insisted Wilding, "you have not the right--you have not
+the power so to proceed against me. A man of my quality is not to be
+shot without a trial."
+
+"You can 'ang if you prefer," said Feversham indifferently, drawing out
+the ends of his cravat and smoothing them down upon his breast. He faced
+about briskly. "Give me t'at coat, Belmont. His Majesty 'ave empower me
+to 'ang or shoot any gentlemens of t'e partie of t'e Duc t'e Monmoot' on
+t'e spot. I say t'at for your satisfaction. And look, I am desolate' to
+be so quick wit' you, but please to consider t'e circumstance. T'e enemy
+go to attack. Wentwort' must go to his regimen', and my ot'er
+officers are all occupi'. You comprehen' I 'ave not t'e time to spare
+you--n'est-ce-pas?"--Wentworth's hand touched Wilding on the shoulder.
+He was standing with head slightly bowed, his brows knit in thought. He
+looked round at the touch, sighed and smiled.
+
+Belmont held the coat for his master, who slipped into it, and flung
+at Wilding what was intended for a consolatory sop. "It is fortune de
+guerre, Mistaire Wilding. I am desolate'; but it is fortune of t'e war."
+
+"May it be less fortunate for your lordship, then," said Wilding dryly,
+and was on the point of turning, when Ruth's voice came in a loud cry to
+startle him and to quicken his pulses.
+
+"My lord!" It was a cry of utter anguish.
+
+Feversham, settling his gold-laced coat comfortably to his figure,
+looked at her. "Madame?" said he.
+
+But she had nothing to say. She stood, deathly white, slightly bent
+forward, one hand wringing the other, her eyes almost wild, her bosom
+heaving frantically.
+
+"Hum!" said Feversham, and he loosened and removed the scarf from his
+head. He shrugged slightly and looked at Wentworth. "Finissons!" said
+he.
+
+The word and the look snapped the trammels that bound Ruth's speech.
+
+"Five minutes, my lord!" she cried imploringly. "Give him five
+minutes--and me, my lord!"
+
+Wilding, deeply shaken, trembled now as he awaited Feversham's reply.
+
+The Frenchman seemed to waver. "Bien," he began, spreading his hands.
+And in that moment a shot rang out in the night and startled the whole
+company. Feversham threw back his head; the signs of yielding left his
+face. "Ha!" he cried. "T'ey are arrive." He snatched his wig from his
+lacquey's hands, donned it, and turned again an instant to the mirror
+to adjust the great curls. "Quick, Wentwort'! T'ere is no more time now.
+Make Mistaire Wilding be shot at once. T'en to your regimen'." He faced
+about and took the sword his valet proffered. "Au revoir, messieurs!"
+
+"Serviteur, madame!" And, buckling his sword-belt as he went, he swept
+out, leaving the door wide open, Belmont following, Wentworth saluting
+and the guards presenting arms.
+
+"Come, sir," said the captain in a subdued voice, his eyes avoiding
+Ruth's face.
+
+"I am ready," answered Wilding firmly, and he turned to glance at his
+wife.
+
+She was bending towards him, her hands held out, such a look on her face
+as almost drove him mad with despair, reading it as he did. He made a
+sound deep in his throat before he found words.
+
+"Give me one minute, sir--one minute," he begged Wentworth. "I ask no
+more than that."
+
+Wentworth was a gentleman and not ill-natured. But he was a soldier and
+had received his orders. He hesitated between the instincts of the
+two conditions. And what time he did so there came a clatter of hoofs
+without to resolve him. It was Feversham departing.
+
+"You shall have your minute, sir," said he. "More I dare not give you,
+as you can see.
+
+"From my heart I thank you," answered Mr. Wilding, and from the
+gratitude of his tone you might have inferred that it was his life
+Wentworth had accorded him.
+
+The captain had already turned aside to address his men. "Two of you
+outside, guard that window," he ordered. "The rest of you, in the
+passage. Bestir there!"
+
+"Take your precautions, by all means, sir," said Wilding; "but I give
+you my word of honour I shall attempt no escape."
+
+Wentworth nodded without replying. His eye lighted on Blake--who had
+been seemingly forgotten in the confusion--and on Richard. A kindliness
+for the man who met his end so unflinchingly, a respect for so worthy an
+enemy, actuated the red-faced captain.
+
+"You had better take yourself off, Sir Rowland," said he. "And you, Mr.
+Westmacott--you can wait in the passage with my men."
+
+They obeyed him promptly enough, but when outside Sir Rowland made
+bold to remind the captain that he was failing in his duty, and that
+he should make a point of informing the General of this anon. Wentworth
+bade him go to the devil, and so was rid of him.
+
+Alone, inside that low-ceilinged chamber, stood Ruth and Wilding face
+to face. He advanced towards her, and with a shuddering sob she flung
+herself into his arms. Still, he mistrusted the emotion to which she
+was a prey--dreading lest it should have its root in pity. He patted her
+shoulder soothingly.
+
+"Nay, nay, little child," he whispered in her ear. "Never weep for
+me that have not a tear for myself. What better resolution of the
+difficulties my folly has created?" For only answer she clung closer,
+her hands locked about his neck, her slender body shaken by her silent
+weeping. "Don't pity me," he besought her. "I am content it should be
+so. It is the amend I promised you. Waste no pity on me, Ruth."
+
+She raised her face, her eyes wild and blurred with tears, looked up to
+his.
+
+"It is not pity!" she cried. "I want you, Anthony! I love you, Anthony,
+Anthony!"
+
+His face grew ashen. "It is true, then!" he asked her. "And what you
+said to-night was true! I thought you said it only to detain me."
+
+"Oh, it is true, it is true!" she wailed.
+
+He sighed; he disengaged a hand to stroke her face. "I am happy," he
+said, and strove to smile. "Had I lived, who knows...?"
+
+"No, no, no," she interrupted him passionately, her arms tightening
+about his neck. He bent his head. Their lips met and clung. A knock
+fell upon the door. They started, and Wilding raised his hands gently to
+disengage her pinioning arms.
+
+"I must go, sweet," he said.
+
+"God help me!" she moaned, and clung to him still. "It is I who am
+killing you--I and your love for me. For it was to save me you rode
+hither to-night, never pausing to weigh your own deadly danger. Oh, I
+am punished for having listened to every voice but the voice of my own
+heart where you were concerned. Had I loved you earlier--had I owned it
+earlier..."
+
+"It had still been too late," he said, more to comfort her than because
+he knew it to be so. "Be brave for my sake, Ruth. You can be brave, I
+know--so well. Listen, sweet. Your words have made me happy. Mar not
+this happiness of mine by sending me out in grief at your grief."
+
+Her response to his prayer was brave, indeed. Through her tears came a
+faint smile to overspread her face so white and pitiful.
+
+"We shall meet soon again," she said.
+
+"Aye--think on that," he bade her, and pressed her to him. "Good-bye,
+sweet! God keep you till we meet!" he added, his voice infinitely
+tender.
+
+"Mr. Wilding!" Wentworth's voice called him, and the captain thrust the
+door open a foot or so. "Mr. Wilding!"
+
+"I am coming," he answered steadily. He kissed her again, and on that
+kiss of his she sank against him, and he felt her turn all limp. He
+raised his voice. "Richard!" he shouted wildly. "Richard!"
+
+At the note of alarm in his voice, Wentworth flung wide the door
+and entered, Richard's ashen face showing over his shoulder. In her
+brother's care Wilding delivered his mercifully unconscious wife. "See
+to her, Dick," he said, and turned to go, mistrusting himself now.
+But he paused as he reached the door, Wentworth waxing more and more
+impatient at his elbow. He turned again.
+
+"Dick," he said, "we might have been better friends. I would we had
+been. Let us part so at least," and he held out his hand, smiling.
+
+Before so much gallantry Richard was conquered almost to the point of
+worship; a weak man himself, there was no virtue he could more admire
+than strength. He left Ruth in the high-backed chair in which Wilding's
+tender hands had placed her, and sprang forward, tears in his eyes. He
+wrung Wilding's hands in wordless passion.
+
+"Be good to her, Dick," said Wilding, and went out with Wentworth.
+
+He was marched down the street in the centre of that small party of
+musketeers of Dunbarton's regiment, his thoughts all behind him rather
+than ahead, a smile on his lips. He had conquered at the last. He
+thought of that other parting of theirs, nearly a month ago, on the road
+by Walford. Now, as then, circumstance was the fire that had melted her.
+But the crucible was no longer--as then of pity; it was the crucible of
+love.
+
+And in that same crucible, too, Anthony Wilding's nature had undergone a
+transmutation; his love for Ruth had been purified of that base alloy of
+desire which had driven him into the unworthiness of making her his own
+at all costs; there was no carnal grossness in his present passion; it
+was pure as a religion--the love that takes no account of self, the love
+that makes for joyous and grateful martyrdom. And a joyous and grateful
+martyr would Anthony Wilding have been could he have thought that his
+death would bring her happiness or peace. In such a faith as that he had
+marched--or so he thought blithely to his end, and the smile on his lips
+had been less wistful than it was. Thinking of the agony in which he had
+left her, he almost came to wish--so pure was his love grown--that he
+had not conquered. The joy that at first was his was now all dashed. His
+death would cause her pain. His death! O God! It is an easy thing to be
+a martyr; but this was not martyrdom; having done what he had done he
+had not the right to die. The last vestige of the smile that he had worn
+faded from his tight-pressed lips, tight-pressed as though to endure
+some physical suffering. His face greyed, and deep lines furrowed
+his brow. Thus he marched on, mechanically, amid his marching escort,
+through the murky, fog-laden night, taking no heed of the stir about
+them, for all Weston Zoyland was aroused by now.
+
+Ahead of them, and over to the east, the firing blazed and crackled,
+volley upon volley, to tell them that already battle had been joined
+in earnest. Monmouth's surprise had aborted, and it passed through
+Wilding's mind that to a great extent he was to blame for this. But it
+gave him little care.
+
+At least his indiscretion had served the purpose of rescuing Ruth from
+Lord Feversham's unclean clutches. For the rest, knowing that Monmouth's
+army by far outnumbered Feversham's, he had no doubt that the advantage
+must still lie with the Duke, in spite of Feversham's having been warned
+in the eleventh hour.
+
+Louder grew the sounds of battle. Above the din of firing a swelling
+chorus rose upon the night, startling and weird in such a time and
+place. Monmouth's pious infantry went into action singing hymns, and
+Wentworth, impatient to be at his post, bade his men go faster.
+
+The night was by now growing faintly luminous, and the deathly grey
+light of approaching dawn hung in the mists upon the moor. Objects grew
+visible in bulk at least, if not in form and shape, by the time the
+little company had reached the end of Weston village and come upon
+the deep mud dyke which had been Wentworth's objective--a ditch that
+communicated with the great rhine that served the King's forces so well
+on that night of Sedgemoor.
+
+Within some twenty paces of this Wentworth called a halt, and would have
+had Wilding's hands pinioned behind him, and his eyes blindfolded, but
+that Wilding begged him this might not be done. Wentworth was, as we
+know, impatient; and between impatience and kindliness, perhaps, he
+acceded to Wilding's prayer.
+
+He even hesitated a moment at the last. It was in his mind to speak some
+word of comfort to the doomed man. Then a sudden volley, more terrific
+than any that had preceded it, followed by hoarse cheering away to
+eastward, quickened his impatience. He bade the sergeant lead Mr.
+Wilding forward and stand him on the edge of the ditch. His object was
+that thus the man's body would be disposed of without waste of time.
+This Wilding realized, his soul rebelling against this fate which
+had come upon him in the very hour when he most desired to live. Mad
+thoughts of escape crossed his mind--of a leap across the dyke, and a
+wild dash through the fog. But the futility of it was too appalling.
+The musketeers were already blowing their matches. He would suffer the
+ignominy of being shot in the back, like a coward, if he made any such
+attempt.
+
+And so, despairing but not resigned, he took his stand on the very edge
+of the ditch. In an irony of obligingness he set half of his heels over
+the void, so that he was nicely balanced upon the edge of the cutting,
+and must go backwards and down into the mud when hit.
+
+It was this position he had taken that gave him an inspiration in that
+last moment. The sergeant had moved away out of the line of fire, and he
+stood there alone, waiting, erect and with his head held high, his
+eyes upon the grey mass of musketeers--blurred alike by mist and
+semi-darkness--some twenty paces distant along the line of which glowed
+eight red fuses.
+
+Wentworth's voice rang out with the words of command.
+
+"Blow your matches!"
+
+Brighter gleamed the points of light, and under their steel pots the
+faces of the musketeers, suffused by a dull red glow, sprang for a
+moment out of the grey mass, to fade once more into the general greyness
+at the word, "Cock your matches!"
+
+"Guard your pans!" came a second later the captain's voice, and then:
+
+"Present!"
+
+There was a stir and rattle, and the dark, indistinct figure standing
+on the lip of the ditch was covered by the eight muskets. To the eyes of
+the firing-party he was no more than a blurred shadowy form, showing a
+little darker than the encompassing dark grey.
+
+"Give fire!"
+
+On the word Mr. Wilding lost the delicate, precarious balance he had
+been sustaining on the edge of the ditch, and went over backwards, at
+the imminent risk--as he afterwards related--of breaking his neck.
+At the same instant a jagged, eight-pointed line of flame slashed the
+darkness, and the thunder of the volley pealed forth to lose itself in
+the greater din of battle on Penzoy Pound, hard by.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII. MR. WILDING'S BOOTS
+
+In the filth of the ditch, Mr. Wilding rolled over and lay prone. He
+threw out his left arm, and rested his brow upon it to keep his face
+above the mud. He strove to hold his breath, not that he might dissemble
+death, but that he might avoid being poisoned by the foul gases that,
+disturbed by his weight, bubbled up to choke him. His body half sank
+and settled in the mud, and seen from above, as he was presently seen
+by Wentworth--who ran forward with the sergeant's lanthorn to assure
+himself that the work had been well done--he had all the air of being
+not only dead but already half buried.
+
+And now, for a second, Mr. Wilding was in his greatest danger, and this
+from the very humaneness of the sergeant. The fellow advanced to the
+captain's side, a pistol in his hand. Wentworth held the light aloft and
+peered down into that six feet of blackness at the jacent figure.
+
+"Shall I give him an ounce of lead to make sure, Captain?" quoth the
+sergeant. But Wentworth, in his great haste, had already turned about,
+and the light of his lanthorn no longer revealed the form of Mr.
+Wilding.
+
+"There is not the need. The ditch will do what may remain to be done, if
+anything does. Come on, man. We are wanted yonder."
+
+The light passed, steps retreated, the sergeant muttering, and then
+Wentworth's voice was heard by Wilding some little distance off.
+
+"Bring up your muskets!"
+
+"Shoulder!"
+
+"By the right--turn! March!" And the tramp, tramp of feet receded
+rapidly.
+
+Wilding was already sitting up, endeavouring to get a breath of purer
+air. He rose to his feet, sinking almost to the top of his boots in
+the oozy slime. Foul gases were belched up to envelop him. He seized
+at irregularities in the bank, and got his head above the level of the
+ground. He thrust forward his chin and took great greedy breaths in a
+very gluttony of air--and never came Muscadine sweeter to a drunkard's
+lips. He laughed softly to himself. He was alone and safe. Wentworth
+and his men had disappeared. Away in the direction of Penzoy Pound the
+sounds of battle swelled ever to a greater volume. Cannons were booming
+now, and all was uproar--flame and shouting, cheering and shrieking,
+the thunder of hastening multitudes, the clash of steel, the pounding of
+horses, all blent to make up the horrid din of carnage.
+
+Mr. Wilding listened, and considered what to do. His first impulse was
+to join the fray. But, bethinking him that there could be little place
+for him in the confusion that must prevail by now, he reconsidered the
+matter, and his thoughts returning to Ruth--the wife for whom he had
+been at such pains to preserve himself on the very brink of death--he
+resolved to endanger himself no further for that night.
+
+He dropped back into the ditch, and waded, ankle deep in slime, to the
+other side. There he crawled out, and gaining the moor lay down awhile
+to breathe his lungs. But not for long. The dawn was creeping pale and
+ghostly across the solid earth, and a faint fresh breeze was stirring
+and driving the mist in wispy shrouds before it. If he lingered there he
+might yet be found by some party of Royalist soldiers, and that would be
+to undo all that he had done. He rose, and struck out across the peaty
+ground. None knew the moors better than did he, and had he been with
+Grey's horse that night, it is possible things had fared differently,
+for he had proved a surer guide than did Godfrey, the spy.
+
+At first he thought of making for Bridgwater and Lupton House. By now
+Richard would be on his way thither with Ruth, and Wilding was in haste
+that she should be reassured that he had not fallen to the muskets
+of Wentworth's firing-party. But Bridgwater was far, and he began
+to realize, now that all excitement was past, that he was utterly
+exhausted. Next he thought of Scoresby Hall and his cousin Lord Gervase.
+But he was by no means sure that he might count upon a welcome. Gervase
+had shown no sympathy for Monmouth or his partisans, and whilst he would
+hardly go so far as to refuse Mr. Wilding shelter, still Wilding felt an
+aversion to seeking what might be grudged him. At last he bethought him
+of home. Zoyland Chase was near at hand; but he had not been there since
+his wedding-day, and in the mean time he knew that it had been used as
+a barrack for the militia, and had no doubt that it had been wrecked and
+plundered. Still, it must have walls and a roof, and that, for the time,
+was all he craved, that he might rest awhile and recuperate his wasted
+forces.
+
+A half-hour later he dragged himself wearily up the avenue between the
+elms--looking white as snow in the pale July dawn--to the clearing in
+front of his house.
+
+Desertion was stamped upon the face of it. Shattered windows and hanging
+shutters everywhere. How wantonly they had wrecked it! It might have
+been a church, and the militia a regiment of Cromwell's iconoclastic
+Puritans. The door was locked, but going round he found a window--one
+of the door-windows of his library--hanging loose upon its hinges. He
+pushed it wide, and entered with a heavy heart. Instantly something
+stirred in a corner; a fierce growl was followed by a furious bark, and
+a lithe brown body leapt from the greater into the lesser shadows to
+attack the intruder. But at one word of his the hound checked suddenly,
+crouched an instant, then with a queer, throaty sound bounded forward in
+a wild delight that robbed it on the instant of its voice. It found it
+anon and leapt about him, barking furious joy in spite of all his
+vain endeavours to calm it. He grew afraid lest the dog should draw
+attention. He knew not who--if any--might be in possession of his
+house. The library, as he looked round, showed a scene of wreckage that
+excellently matched the exterior. Not a picture on the walls, not an
+arras, but had been rent to shreds. The great lustre that had hung
+from the centre of the ceiling was gone. Disorder reigned along
+the bookshelves, and yet there and elsewhere there was a certain
+orderliness, suggesting an attempt to straighten up the place after
+the ravagers had departed. It was these signs made him afraid the house
+might be tenanted by such as might prove his enemies.
+
+"Down, Jack," he said to the dog for the twentieth time, patting its
+sleek head. "Down, down!"
+
+But still the dog bounded about him, barking wildly.
+
+"Sh!" he hissed suddenly. Steps sounded in the hall. It was as he
+feared. The door was suddenly thrown open, and the grey morning light
+gleamed upon the long barrel of a musket. After it, bearing it, entered
+a white-haired old man.
+
+He paused on the threshold, measuring the tall disordered stranger who
+stood there, his figure a black silhouette against the window by which
+he had entered.
+
+"What seek you here, sir, in this house of desolation?" asked the voice
+of Mr. Wilding's old servant.
+
+He answered but one word. "Walters!"
+
+The musket dropped with a clatter from the old man's hands. He sank back
+against the doorpost and leaned there an instant; then, whimpering and
+laughing, he came tottering forward--his old legs failing him in this
+excess of unexpected joy--and sank on his knees to kiss his master's
+hand.
+
+Wilding patted the old head, as he had patted the dog's a little while
+ago. He was oddly moved; there was a knot in his throat. No home-coming
+could well have been more desolate. And yet, what home-coming could have
+brought him such a torturing joy as was now his? Oh, it is good to be
+loved, if it be by no more than a dog and an old servant!
+
+In a moment Walters was himself again. He was on his feet, scrutinizing
+Wilding's haggard face and disordered, filthy clothes. He broke into
+exclamations between dismay and reproach, but these Wilding interrupted
+to ask the old man how it happened that he had remained.
+
+"My son John was a sergeant in the troop that quartered itself here,
+sir," Walters explained, "and so they left me alone. But even had it not
+been for that, I scarcely think they would have harmed an old man. They
+were brave fellows for all the mischief they did here, and they seemed
+to have little heart in the service of the Popish King. It was
+the officers drove them on to all this damage, and once they'd
+started--well, there were rogues amongst them saw a chance of plunder,
+and they took it. I have sought to put the place to rights; but they did
+some woeful, wanton mischief."
+
+Wilding sighed. "It's little matter, perhaps, as the place is no longer
+mine.
+
+"No... no longer yours, sir?"
+
+"I'm an attainted outlaw, Walters," he explained. "They'll bestow it on
+some Popish time-server, unless King Monmouth can follow up by greater
+victories to-night's. Have you aught a man may eat or drink?"
+
+Meat and wine, fresh linen and fresh garments did old Walters find him;
+and when he had washed, eaten, and drunk, Mr. Wilding wrapped himself
+in a dressing-gown and laid himself down to sleep on a settle in the
+library, his servant and his dog on guard.
+
+Not above an hour, however, was he destined to enjoy his hard-earned
+rest. The light had grown, meanwhile, and from grey it had turned
+golden, the heralds of the sun being already in the east. In the
+distance the firing had died down to a mere occasional boom.
+
+Suddenly old Walters raised his head to listen. The beat of hoofs was
+drawing rapidly near, so near that presently he rose in alarm, for
+a horseman was pounding up the avenue, had drawn rein at the main
+entrance.
+
+Walters knit his brows in perplexity, and glanced at his master who
+slept on utterly worn out. A silent pause followed, lasting some
+minutes. Then it was the dog that rose with a growl, his coat bristling,
+and an instant later there came a sharp rapping at the hall door.
+
+"Sh! Down, Jack!" whispered Walters, afraid of rousing Mr. Wilding. He
+tiptoed softly across the room, picked up his musket, and, calling the
+dog, went out, a great fear in his heart, but not for himself.
+
+The rapping continued, growing every instant more urgent, so urgent that
+Walters was almost reassured. Here was no enemy, but surely some one
+in need. Walters opened at last, and Mr. Trenchard, grimy of face and
+hands, his hat shorn of its plumes, his clothes torn, staggered with an
+oath across the threshold.
+
+"Walters!" he cried. "Thank God! I thought you'd be here, but I wasn't
+certain. Down, Jack!"
+
+The hound was barking madly again, having recognized an old friend.
+
+"Plague on the dog!" growled Walters. "He'll wake Mr. Wilding."
+
+"Mr. Wilding?" said Trenchard, and checked midway across the hall. "Mr.
+Wilding?"
+
+"He arrived here a couple of hours ago, sir..."
+
+"Wilding here? Oddsheart! I was more than well advised to come. Where is
+he, man?"
+
+"Sh, sir! He's asleep in the library. You'll wake him, you'll wake him!"
+
+But Trenchard never paused. He crossed the hall at a bound, and flung
+wide the library door. "Anthony!" he shouted. "Anthony!" And in the
+background Walters cursed him for a fool. Wilding leapt to his feet,
+awake and startled.
+
+"Wha... Nick!"
+
+"Oons!" roared Nick. "You're choicely found. I came to send to
+Bridgwater for you. We must away at once, man."
+
+"How--away? I thought you were in the fight, Nick."
+
+"And don't I look as if I had been?"
+
+"But then...
+
+"The fight is fought and lost; there's an end to the garboil. Monmouth
+is in full flight with what's left him of his horse. When I quitted the
+field, he was riding hard for Polden Hill." He dropped into a chair, his
+accents grim and despairing, his eyes haggard.
+
+"Lost?" gasped Wilding, and his conscience pricked him for a moment,
+remembering how much it had been his fault--however indirectly--that
+Feversham had been forewarned. "But how lost?" he cried a moment later.
+
+"Ask Grey," snapped Trenchard. "Ask his craven, numskulled lordship. He
+had as good a hand in losing it as any. Oh, it was all most infernally
+mishandled, as has been everything in this ill-starred rising. Grey sent
+back Godfrey, the guide, and attempted in the dark to find his own way
+across the rhine. He missed the ford. What else could the fool have
+hoped? And when he was discovered and Dunbarton's guns began to play on
+us--hell and fire! we ran as if Sedgemoor had been a race-course.
+
+"The rest was but the natural sequel. The foot, seeing our confusion,
+broke. They were rallied again; broke again; and again were rallied; but
+all too late. The enemy was up, and with that damned ditch between us
+there was no getting to close quarters with them. Had Grey ridden round,
+and sought to turn their flank, things might have been--O God!--they
+would have been entirely different. I did suggest it. But for my pains
+Grey threatened to pistol me if I presumed to instruct him in his duty.
+I would to Heaven I had pistolled him where he stood."
+
+Walters, at gaze in the doorway, listened to the bitter tirade. Wilding,
+on the settle, sat silent a moment, his elbows on his knees, his chin
+in his hands, his eyes set and grim as Trenchard's own. Then he mastered
+himself, and waved a hand towards the table where stood food and wine.
+
+"Eat and drink, Nick," he said, "and we'll discuss what's to be done."
+
+"It'll need little discussing," was Nick's savage answer as he rose and
+went to pour himself a cup of wine. "There's but one course open to us
+--instant flight. I am for Minehead to join Hewling's horse, which went
+there yesterday for guns. We might seize a ship somewhere on the coast,
+and thus get out of this infernal country of mine."
+
+They discussed the matter in spite of Trenchard's having said that there
+was nothing to discuss, and in the end Wilding agreed to go with him.
+What choice had he? But first he must go to Bridgwater to reassure his
+wife.
+
+"To Bridgwater?" blazed Trenchard, in a passion at the folly of the
+suggestion. "You're clearly mad! All the King's forces will be there in
+an hour or two."
+
+"No matter," said Wilding, "I must go. I am dead already, as it
+happens." And he related his singular adventure in Feversham's camp last
+night.
+
+Trenchard heard him in amazement. If any suspicion crossed his mind that
+his friend's love affairs had had anything to do with rousing Feversham
+prematurely, he showed no sign of it. But he shook his head at Wilding's
+insistence that he must first go to Lupton House.
+
+"Shalt send a message, Anthony. Walters will find some one to bear it.
+But you must not go yourself."
+
+In the end Mr. Trenchard prevailed upon him to adopt this course,
+however reluctant he might be. Thereafter they proceeded to make their
+preparations. There were still a couple of nags in the stables, in spite
+of the visitation of the militia, and Walters was able to find fresh
+clothes for Mr. Trenchard above-stairs.
+
+A half-hour later they were ready to set out on this forlorn hope of
+escape; the horses were at the door, and Mr. Wilding was in the act
+of drawing on the fresh pair of boots which Walters had fetched him.
+Suddenly he paused, his foot in the leg of his right boot, and sat
+bemused a moment.
+
+Trenchard, watching him, waxed impatient. "What ails you now?" he
+croaked.
+
+Without answering him, Wilding turned to Walters. "Where are the boots
+I wore last night?" he asked, and his voice was sharp--oddly sharp,
+considering how trivial the matter of his speech.
+
+"In the kitchen," answered Walters.
+
+"Fetch me them." And he kicked off again the boot he had half drawn on.
+
+"But they are all befouled with mud, sir."
+
+"Clean them, Walters; clean them and let me have them."
+
+Still Walters hesitated, pointing out that the boots he had brought his
+master were newer and sounder. Wilding interrupted him impatiently. "Do
+as I bid you, Walters." And the old man, understanding nothing, went off
+on the errand.
+
+"A pox on your boots!" swore Trenchard. "What does this mean?"
+
+Wilding seemed suddenly to have undergone a transformation. His gloom
+had fallen from him. He looked up at his old friend and, smiling,
+answered him. "It means, Nick, that whilst these excellent boots that
+Walters would have me wear might be well enough for a ride to the coast
+such as you propose, they are not at all suited to the journey I intend
+to make."
+
+"Maybe," said Nick with a sniff, "you're intending to journey to Tower
+Hill?"
+
+"In that direction," answered Mr. Wilding suavely.
+
+"I am for London, Nick. And you shall come with me."
+
+"God save us! Do you keep a fool's egg under that nest of hair?"
+
+Wilding explained, and by the time Walters returned with the boots
+Trenchard was walking up and down the room in an odd agitation. "Odds my
+life, Tony!" he cried at last. "I believe it is the best thing."
+
+"The only thing, Nick."
+
+"And since all is lost, why..." Trenchard blew out his cheeks and
+smacked fist into palm. "I am with you," said he.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV. JUSTICE
+
+It has fallen to my lot in the course of this veridical chronicle of Mr.
+Anthony Wilding's connection with the Rebellion in the West, and of his
+wedding and post-nuptial winning of Ruth Westmacott, to relate certain
+matters of incident and personality that may be accounted strange. But
+the strangest yet remains to be related. For in spite of all that had
+passed between Sir Rowland Blake and the Westmacotts on that memorable
+night of Sunday to Monday, on which the battle of Sedgemoor was lost
+and won, towards the end of that same month of July we find him not only
+back at Lupton House, but once again the avowed suitor of Mr. Wilding's
+widow. For effrontery this is a matter of which it is to be doubted
+whether history furnishes a parallel. Indeed, until the circumstances
+are sifted it seems wild and incredible. So let us consider these.
+
+On the morrow of Sedgemoor, the town of Bridgwater became
+invested--infested were no whit too strong a word--by the King's forces
+under Feversham and the odious Kirke, and there began a reign of terror
+for the town. The prisons were choked with attainted and suspected
+rebels. From Bridgwater to Weston Zoyland the road was become an avenue
+of gallows, each bearing its repulsive grimace-laden burden; for the
+King's commands were unequivocal, and hanging was the order of the day.
+
+It is not my desire at this stage to surfeit you with the horrors that
+were perpetrated during that hideous week of July, when no man's life
+was safe from the royal butchers. The awful campaign of Jeffries and
+his four associates was yet to follow, but it is doubtful if it could
+compare in ruthlessness with that of Feversham and Kirke. At least, when
+Jeffries came, men were given a trial--or what looked like it--and there
+remained them a chance, however slender, of acquittal, as many lived to
+prove thereafter. With Feversham there was no such chance. And it was
+of this circumstance that Sir Rowland Blake took the fullest and the
+cowardliest advantage.
+
+There can be no doubt that Sir Rowland was a villain. It might be
+urged for him that he was a creature of circumstance, and that had
+circumstances been other it is possible he had been a credit to his
+name. But he was weak in character, and out of that weakness he had
+developed a Herculean strength in villainy. Failure had dogged him in
+everything he undertook. Broken at the gaming-tables, hounded out of
+town by creditors, he was in desperate straits to repair his fortunes
+and, as we have seen, he was not nice in his endeavours to achieve that
+end.
+
+Ruth Westmacott's fair inheritance had seemed an easy thing to conquer,
+and to its conquest he had applied himself to suffer defeat as he had
+suffered it in all things else. But Sir Rowland did not yet acknowledge
+himself beaten, and the Bridgwater reign of terror dealt him a fresh
+hand--a hand of trumps. With this he came boldly to renew the game.
+
+He was as smooth as oil at first, a very penitent, confessing himself
+mad in what he had done on that Sunday night--mad with despair and rage
+at having been defeated in the noble task to which he had turned his
+hands. His penitence might have had little effect upon the Westmacotts
+had he not known how to insinuate that it might be best for them to lend
+an ear to it--and a forgiving one.
+
+"You will tell Mr. Westmacott, Jasper," he had said, when Jasper told
+him that they could not receive him, "that he would be unwise not to see
+me, and the same to Mistress Wilding."
+
+And old Jasper had carried his message, and had told Richard of the
+wicked smile that had been on Sir Rowland's lips when he had uttered it.
+
+Now Richard was in many ways a changed man since that night at Weston
+Zoyland. A transformation seemed to have been wrought in him as odd as
+it was sudden, and it dated from the moment when with tears in his
+eyes he had wrung Wilding's hand in farewell. Where precept had failed,
+Richard found himself converted by example. He contrasted himself in
+that stressful hour with great-souled Anthony Wilding, and saw himself
+as he was, a weakling, strong only in vicious ways. Repentance claimed
+him; repentance and a fine ambition to be worthier, to resemble as
+nearly as his nature would allow him this Anthony Wilding whom he took
+for pattern. He changed his ways, abandoned drink and gaming, and gained
+thereby a healthier countenance. Then in his zeal he overshot his mark.
+He developed a taste for Scripture-reading, bethought him of prayers,
+and even took to saying grace to his meat. Indeed--for conversion,
+when it comes, is a furious thing--the swing of his soul's pendulum
+threatened now to carry him to extremes of virtue and piety. "O Lord!"
+he would cry a score of times a day, "Thou hast brought up my soul from
+the grave; Thou hast kept me alive that I should not go down to the
+pit!"
+
+But underlying all this remained unfortunately the inherent weakness of
+his nature--indeed, it was that very weakness and malleability made this
+sudden and wholesale conversion possible.
+
+Upon hearing Sir Rowland's message his heart fainted, despite his good
+intentions, and he urged that perhaps they had better hear what the
+baronet might have to say.
+
+It was three days after Sedgemoor Fight, and poor Ruth was worn and
+exhausted with her grief--believing Wilding dead, for he had sent no
+message to inform her of his almost miraculous preservation. The thing
+he went to do in London was fraught with such peril that he foresaw
+but the slenderest chance of escaping with his life. Therefore, he had
+argued, why console her now with news that he lived, when in a few days
+the headsman might prove that his end had been but postponed? To do so
+might be to give her cause to mourn him twice. Again he was haunted by
+the thought that, in spite of all, it may have been pity that had so
+grievously moved her at their last meeting. Better, then, to wait;
+better for both their sakes. If he came safely through his ordeal it
+would be time enough to bear her news of his preservation.
+
+In deepest mourning, very white, with dark stains beneath her eyes
+to tell the tale of anguished vigils, she received Sir Rowland in the
+withdrawing-room, her brother at her side. To his expressions of
+deep penitence he found them cold; so he passed on to show them what
+disastrous results might ensue upon a stubborn maintaining of this
+attitude of theirs towards him.
+
+"I have come," he said, his eyes downcast, his face long-drawn, for he
+could play the sorrowful with any hypocrite in England, "to do something
+more than speak of my grief and regret. I have come to offer proof of it
+by service.
+
+"We ask no service of you, sir," said Ruth, her voice a sword of
+sharpness.
+
+He sighed, and turned to Richard. "This were folly," he assured his
+whilom friend. "You know the influence I wield."
+
+"Do I?" quoth Richard, his tone implying doubt.
+
+"You think that the bungled matter at Newlington's may have shaken it?"
+quoth Blake. "With Feversham, perhaps. But Albemarle, remember, trusts
+me very fully. There are ugly happenings in the town here. Men are being
+hung like linen on a washing-day. Be not too sure that yourself are
+free from all danger." Richard paled under the baronet's baleful,
+half-sneering glance. "Be not in too great haste to cast me aside, for
+you may find me useful."
+
+"Do you threaten, sir?" cried Ruth.
+
+"Threaten?" quoth he. He turned up his eyes and showed the whites of
+them. "Is it to threaten to promise you my protection; to show you how I
+can serve you?--than which I ask no sweeter boon of heaven. A word from
+me, and Richard need fear nothing."
+
+"He need fear nothing without that word," said Ruth disdainfully. "Such
+service as he did Lord Feversham the other night..."
+
+"Is soon forgotten," Blake cut in adroitly. "Indeed, 'twill be most
+convenient to his lordship to forget it. Think you he would care to have
+it known that 'twas to such a chance he owes the preservation of his
+army?" He laughed, and added in a voice of much sly meaning, "The times
+are full of peril. There's Kirke and his lambs. And there's no saying
+how Kirke might act did he chance to learn what Richard failed to do
+that night when he was left to guard the rear at Newlington's!"
+
+"Would you inform him of it?" cried Richard, between anger and alarm.
+
+Blake thrust out his hands in a gesture of horrified repudiation.
+"Richard!" he cried in deep reproof and again, "Richard!"
+
+"What other tongue has he to fear?" asked Ruth.
+
+"Am I the only one who knows of it?" cried Blake. "Oh, madam, why will
+you ever do me such injustice? Richard has been my friend--my dearest
+friend. I wish him so to continue, and I swear that he shall find me
+his, as you shall find me yours."
+
+"It is a boon I could dispense with," she assured him, and rose. "This
+talk can profit little, Sir Rowland," said she. "You seek to bargain."
+
+"You shall see how unjust you are," he cried with deep sorrow. "It is
+but fitting, perhaps, after what has passed. It is my punishment. But
+you shall come to acknowledge that you have done me wrong. You shall see
+how I shall befriend and protect him."
+
+That said, he took his leave and went, but he left behind him a shrewd
+seed of fear in Richard's mind, and of the growth that sprang from it
+Richard almost unconsciously transplanted something in the days that
+followed into the heart of Ruth. As a result, to make sure that no harm
+should come to her brother, the last of his name and race, she resolved
+to receive Sir Rowland, resolved in spite of Diana's outspoken scorn, in
+spite of Richard's protests--for though afraid, yet he would not have it
+so--in spite even of her own deep repugnance of the man.
+
+Days passed and grew to weeks. Bridgwater was settling down to peace
+again--to peace and mourning; the Royalist scourge had spread to
+Taunton, and Blake lingered on at Lupton House, an unwelcome but an
+undeniable guest.
+
+His presence was as detestable to Richard now as it was to Ruth, for
+Richard had to submit to the mockery with which the town rake lashed his
+godly bearing and altered ways. More than once in gusts of sudden valour
+the boy urged his sister to permit him to drive the baronet from the
+house and let him do his worst. But Ruth, afraid for Richard, bade him
+wait until the times were more settled. When the royal vengeance had
+slaked its lust for blood it might matter little, perhaps, what tales
+Sir Rowland might elect to carry.
+
+And so Sir Rowland remained and waited. He assured himself that he knew
+how to be patient, and congratulated himself upon that circumstance.
+Wilding dead, a little time must now suffice to blunt the sharp edge of
+his widow's grief; let him but await that time, and the rest should be
+easy, the battle his. With Richard he did not so much as trouble himself
+to reckon.
+
+Thus he determined, and thus no doubt he would have acted but for an
+unforeseen contingency. A miserable, paltry creditor had smoked him out
+in his Somerset retreat, and got a letter to him full of dark hints of
+a debtor's gaol. The fellow's name was Swiney, and Sir Rowland knew him
+for fierce and pertinacious where a defaulting creditor was concerned.
+One only course remained him: to force matters with Wilding's widow. For
+days he refrained, fearing that precipitancy might lose him all; it was
+his wish to do the thing without too much coercion; some, he was not
+coxcomb enough to think--coxcomb though he was--might be dispensed with.
+
+At last one Sunday evening he decided to be done with dallying, and to
+bring Ruth between the hammer and the anvil of his will. It was the
+last Sunday in July, exactly three weeks after Sedgemoor, and the
+odd coincidence of his having chosen such a day and hour you shall
+appreciate anon.
+
+They were on the lawn taking the cool of the evening after an
+oppressively hot day. By the stone seat, now occupied by Lady Horton
+and Diana, Richard lay on the sward at their feet in talk with them,
+and their talk was of Sir Rowland. Diana--gall in her soul to see the
+baronet by way of gaining yet his ends--chid Richard in strong terms for
+his weakness in submitting to Blake's constant presence at Lupton House.
+And Richard meekly took her chiding and promised that, if Ruth would but
+sanction it, things should be changed upon the morrow.
+
+Sir Rowland, all unconscious--reckless, indeed--of this, sauntered with
+Ruth some little distance from them, having contrived adroitly to draw
+her aside. He broke a spell of silence with a dolorous sigh.
+
+"Ruth," said he pensively, "I mind me of the last evening on which you
+and I walked here alone."
+
+She flashed him a glance of fear and aversion, and stood still. Under
+his brow he watched the quick heave of her bosom, the sudden flow and
+abiding ebb of blood in her face--grown now so thin and wistful--and he
+realized that before him lay no easy task. He set his teeth for battle.
+
+"Will you never have a kindness for me, Ruth?" he sighed.
+
+She turned about, her intent to join the others, a dull anger in her
+soul. He sat a hand upon her arm. "Wait!" said he, and the tone in
+which he uttered that one word kept her beside him. His manner changed a
+little. "I am tired of this," said he.
+
+"Why, so am I," she answered bitterly.
+
+"Since we are agreed so far, let us agree to end it."
+
+"It is all I ask."
+
+"Yes, but--alas!--in a different way. Listen now."
+
+"I will not listen. Let me go."
+
+"I were your enemy did I do so, for you would know hereafter a sorrow
+and repentance for which nothing short of death could offer you escape.
+Richard is under suspicion."
+
+"Do you hark back to that?" The scorn of her voice was deadly. Had it
+been herself he desired, surely that tone had quenched all passion in
+him, or else transformed it into hatred. But Blake was playing for a
+fortune, for shelter from a debtor's prison.
+
+"It has become known," he continued, "that Richard was one of the early
+plotters who paved the way for Monmouth's coming. I think that that, in
+conjunction with his betrayal of his trust that night at Newlington's,
+thereby causing the death of some twenty gallant fellows of King
+James's, will be enough to hang him."
+
+Her hand clutched at her heart. "What is't you seek?" she cried. It was
+almost a moan. "What is't you want of me?"
+
+"Yourself," said he. "I love you, Ruth," he added, and stepped close up
+to her.
+
+"O God!" she cried aloud. "Had I a man at hand to kill you for that
+insult!"
+
+And then--miracle of miracles!--a voice from the shrubs by which they
+stood bore to her ears the startling words that told her her prayer was
+answered there and then.
+
+"Madam, that man is here."
+
+She stood frozen. Not more of a statue was Lot's wife in the moment of
+looking behind her than she who dared not look behind. That voice! A
+voice from the dead, a voice she had heard for the last time in the
+cottage that was Feversham's lodging at Weston Zoyland. Her wild eyes
+fell upon Sir Rowland's face. It showed livid; the nether-lip sucked
+in and caught in the strong teeth, as if to prevent an outcry; the eyes
+wild with fright. What did it mean? By an effort she wrenched herself
+round at last, and a scream broke from her to rouse her aunt, her
+cousin, and her brother, and bring them hastening towards her across the
+sweep of lawn.
+
+Before her, on the edge of the shrubbery, a grey figure stood erect and
+graceful, and the face, with its thin lips faintly smiling, its dark
+eyes gleaming, was the face of Anthony Wilding. And as she stared he
+moved forward, and she heard the fall of his foot upon the turf, the
+clink of his spurs, the swish of his scabbard against the shrubs, and
+reason told her that this was no ghost.
+
+She held out her arms to him. "Anthony! Anthony!" She staggered forward,
+and he was no more than in time to catch her as she swayed.
+
+He held her fast against him and kissed her brow. "Sweet," he said,
+"forgive me that I frightened you. I came by the orchard gate, and my
+coming was so timely that I could not hold in my answer to your cry."
+
+Her eyelids fluttered, she drew a long sighing breath, and nestled
+closer to him. "Anthony!" she murmured again, and reached up a hand to
+stroke his face, to feel that it was truly living flesh.
+
+And Sir Rowland, realizing, too, by now that here was no ghost,
+recovered his lost courage. He put a hand to his sword, then withdrew
+it, leaving the weapon sheathed. Here was a hangman's job, not a
+swordsman's, he opined--and wisely, for he had had earlier experience of
+Mr. Wilding's play of steel.
+
+He advanced a step. "O fool!" he snarled. "The hangman waits for you."
+
+"And a creditor for you, Sir Rowland," came the voice of Mr. Trenchard,
+who now pushed forward through those same shrubs that had masked his
+friend's approach. "A Mr. Swiney. 'Twas I sent him from town. He's
+lodged at the Bull, and bellows like one when he speaks of what you owe
+him. There are three messengers with him, and they tell of a debtor's
+gaol for you, sweetheart."
+
+A spasm of fury crossed the face of Blake. "They may have me, and
+welcome, when I've told my tale," said he. "Let me but tell of Anthony
+Wilding's lurking here, and not only Anthony Wilding, but all the rest
+of you are doomed for harbouring him. You know the law, I think," he
+mocked them, for Lady Horton, Diana, and Richard, who had come up,
+stood now a pace or so away in deepest wonder. "You shall know it better
+before the night is out, and better still before next Sunday's come."
+
+"Tush!" said Trenchard, and quoted, "'There's none but Anthony may
+conquer Anthony.'"
+
+"'Tis clear," said Wilding, "you take me for a rebel. An odd mistake!
+For it chances, Sir Rowland, that you behold in me an accredited servant
+of the Secretary of State."
+
+Blake stared, then fell a prey to ironic laughter. He would have spoken,
+but Mr. Wilding plucked a paper from his pocket, and handed it to
+Trenchard.
+
+"Show it him," said he, and Blake's face grew white again as he read the
+lines above Sunderland's signature and observed the seals of office. He
+looked from the paper to the hated smiling face of Mr. Wilding.
+
+"You were a spy?" he said, his tone making a question of the odious
+statement. "A dirty spy?"
+
+"Your incredulity is flattering, at least," said Wilding pleasantly as
+he repocketed the parchment, "and it leads you in the right direction. I
+neither was nor am a spy."
+
+"That paper proves it!" cried Blake contemptuously. Having been a spy
+himself, he was a good judge of the vileness of the office.
+
+"See to my wife, Nick," said Wilding sharply, and made as if to transfer
+her to the care of his friend.
+
+"Nay," said Trenchard, "'tis your own duty that. Let me discharge the
+other for you." And he stepped up to Blake and tapped him briskly on the
+shoulder. "Sir Rowland," said he, "you're a knave." Sir Rowland stared
+at him. "You're a foul thing--a muckworm--Sir Rowland," added Trenchard
+amiably, "and you've been discourteous to a lady, for which may Heaven
+forgive you--I can't."
+
+"Stand aside," Blake bade him, hoarse with passion, blind to all risks.
+"My affair is with Mr. Wilding."
+
+"Aye," said Trenchard, "but mine is with you. If you survive it, you can
+settle what other affairs you please--including, belike, your business
+with Mr. Swiney."
+
+"Not so, Nick," said Wilding suddenly, and turned to Richard. "Here,
+Richard! Take her," he bade his brother-in-law.
+
+"Anthony, you damned shirk-duty, see to your wife. Leave me to my own
+diversions. Sir Rowland," he reminded the baronet, "I have called you a
+knave and a foul thing, and faith! if you want it proven, you need but
+step down the orchard with me."
+
+He saw hesitation lingering in Sir Rowland's face, and he uncurled the
+last of the whip he carried. "I'd grieve to do a violent thing before
+the ladies," he murmured deprecatingly. "I'd never respect myself again
+if I had to drive a gentleman of your quality to the ground of honour
+with a horsewhip. But, as God's my life, if you don't go willingly this
+instant, 'tis what will happen."
+
+Richard's newborn righteousness prompted him to interfere, to seek to
+avert this threatened bloodshed; his humanity urged him to let matters
+be, and his humanity prevailed. Diana watched this foreshadowing of
+tragedy with tight lips, pale cheeks. Justice was to be done at last,
+it seemed, and as her frightened eye fell upon Sir Rowland she knew not
+whether to exult or weep. Her mother--understanding nothing--plied her
+meanwhile with whispered questions.
+
+As for Sir Rowland, he looked into the old rake's eyes agleam with
+wicked mirth, and rage welled up to choke him. He must kill this man.
+
+"Come," said he. "I'll see to your fine friend Wilding afterwards."
+
+"Excellent," said Trenchard, and led the way through the shrubbery to
+the orchard.
+
+Ruth, reviving, looked up. Her glance met Mr. Wilding's; it quickened
+into understanding, and she stirred. "Is it true? Is it really true?"
+she cried. "I am being tortured by this dream again!"
+
+"Nay, sweet, it is true; it is true. I am here. Say, shall I stay?"
+
+She clung to him for answer. "And you are in no danger?"
+
+"In none, sweet. I am Mr. Wilding of Zoyland Chase, free to come and go
+as best shall seem to me." He begged the others to leave them a little
+while, and he led her to the stone seat by the river. He set her at his
+side there and told her the story of his escape from the firing-party,
+and of the inspiration that had come to him on the morrow to make use
+of the letter in his boot which Sunderland had given him for Monmouth
+in the hour of panic. Monmouth's cavalier treatment of him when he had
+arrived in Bridgwater had precluded his delivering that letter at the
+council. There was never another opportunity, nor did he again think of
+the package in the stressful hours that followed. It was not until the
+following morning that he suddenly remembered it lay undelivered, and
+bethought him that it might prove a weapon to win him delivery from the
+dangers that encompassed him.
+
+"It was a slender chance," he told her, "but I employed it. I waited in
+London, in hiding, close upon a fortnight ere I had an opportunity of
+seeing Sunderland. He laughed me to scorn at first, and threatened me
+with the Tower. But I told him the letter was in safe hands and would
+remain there in earnest of his good behaviour, and that did he have me
+arrested it would instantly be laid before the King and bring his own
+head to the block more surely even than my own. It frightened him; but
+it had scarcely done so, sweet, had he known that that precious letter
+was still in my boot, for my boot was on my leg, and my leg was in the
+room with the rest of me.
+
+"He surrendered at last, and gave me papers proving that Trenchard
+and I--for I stipulated for old Nick's safety too--were His Majesty's
+accredited agents in the West. I loathed the title. But..."--he spread
+his hands and smiled--"it was that or widowing you."
+
+She took his face in her hands and stroked it fondly, and they sat thus
+until a dry cough behind them roused them from their joyous silence. Mr.
+Trenchard was sauntering towards them, his left eye tucked farther under
+his hat than usual, his hands behind him.
+
+"'Tis a thirsty evening," he informed them.
+
+"Go, tell Richard so," said Wilding, who knew naught of Richard's
+altered ways.
+
+"I've thought of it; but haply he's sensitive on the score of drinking
+with me again. He has done it twice to his undoing."
+
+"He'll do it a third time, no doubt," said Mr. Wilding curtly, and
+Trenchard, taking the hint, turned with a shrug, and went up the lawn
+towards the house. He found Richard in the porch, where he had
+lingered fearfully, waiting for news. At sight of Mr. Trenchard's grim,
+weather-beaten countenance he came forward suddenly.
+
+"How has it sped?" he asked, his lips twitching on the words.
+
+"Yonder they sit," said Trenchard, pointing down the lawn.
+
+"No, no. I mean... Sir Rowland."
+
+"Oh, Sir Rowland?" cried the old sinner, as though Sir Rowland were
+some matter long forgotten. He sighed. "Alas, poor Swiney! I fear I've
+cheated him."
+
+"You mean?"
+
+"Art slow at inference, Dick. Sir Rowland has passed away in the odour
+of villainy."
+
+Richard clasped nervous hands together and raised his colourless eyes to
+heaven.
+
+"May the Lord have mercy on his soul!" said he.
+
+"May He, indeed!" said Trenchard, when he had recovered from his
+surprise. "But," he added pessimistically, "I doubt the rogue's in
+hell."
+
+Richard's eyes kindled suddenly, and he quoted from the thirtieth Psalm,
+"'I will extol thee, O Lord; for Thou hast lifted me up, and hast not
+made my foes to rejoice over me.'"
+
+Dumbfounded, wondering, indeed, was Westmacott's mind unhinged,
+Trenchard scanned him narrowly. Richard caught the glance and
+misinterpreted it for one of reproof. He bethought him that his joy was
+unrighteous. He stifled it, and forced his lips to sigh "Poor Blake!"
+
+"Poor, indeed!" quoth Trenchard, and adapted a remembered line of his
+play-acting days to suit the case. "The tears live in an onion that
+shall water his grave. Though, perhaps, I am forgetting Swiney." Then,
+in a brisker tone, "Come, Richard. What like is the muscadine you keep
+at Lupton House?"
+
+"I have abjured all wine," said Richard.
+
+"A plague you have!" quoth Trenchard, understanding less and less. "Have
+you turned Mussulman, perchance?"
+
+"No," answered Richard sternly; "Christian."
+
+Trenchard hesitated, rubbing his nose thoughtfully. "Hum," said he at
+length. "Peace be with you, then. I'll leave you here to bay the moon
+to your heart's content. Perhaps Jasper will know where to find me a
+brain-wash." And with a final suspicious, wondering look at the whilom
+bibber, he passed into the house, much exercised on the score of the
+sanity of this family into which his friend Anthony had married.
+
+Outside, the twilight shadows were deepening.
+
+"Shall we home, sweet?" whispered Mr. Wilding. The shadows befriended
+her, a veil for her sudden confusion. She breathed something that seemed
+no more than a sigh, though more it seemed to Anthony Wilding.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mistress Wilding, by Rafael
+Sabatini
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+Project Gutenberg Etext of Mistress Wilding, by Rafael Sabatini
+#1 in our series by Rafael Sabatini
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+Mistress Wilding
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+
+
+
+MISTRESS WILDING
+BY RAFAEL SABATINI
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+I.	 POT-VALIANCE
+
+II.	 SIR ROWLAND TO THE RESCUE
+
+III.	 DIANA SCHEMES
+
+IV.	 TERMS OF SURRENDER
+
+V.       THE ENCOUNTER
+
+VI.	 THE CHAMPION
+
+VII.	 THE NUPTIALS of RUTH WESTMACOTT
+
+VIII.	 BRIDE AND GROOM
+
+IX.	 MR. TRENCHARD'S COUNTERSTROKE
+
+X.	 THEIR OWN PETARD
+
+XI.	 THE MARPLOT
+
+XII.	 AT THE FORD
+
+XIII     "PRO RELIGIONE ET LIBERTATE"
+
+XIV.     HIS GRACE IN COUNSEL
+
+XV.	 LYME OF THE KING
+
+XVI.	 PLOTS AND PLOTTERS
+
+XVII.    MR. WILDING'S RETURN
+
+XVIII.   BETRAYAL
+
+XIX.	 THE BANQUET
+
+XX.	 THE RECKONING
+
+XXI.     THE SENTENCE
+
+XXII.    THE EXECUTION
+
+XXIII.   MR. WILDING'S BOOTS
+
+XXIV.    JUSTICE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+POT-VALIANCE
+
+
+Then drink it thus, cried the rash young fool, and splashed the contents
+of his cup full into the face of Mr. Wilding even as that gentleman, on
+his feet, was proposing to drink to the eyes of the young fool's sister.
+
+The moments that followed were full of interest.  A stillness, a
+brooding, expectant stillness, fell upon the company - and it numbered
+a round dozen - about Lord Gervase's richly appointed board. In the soft
+candlelight the oval table shone like a deep brown pool, in which were
+reflected the gleaming silver and sparkling crystal that seemed to float
+upon it.
+
+Blake sucked in his nether-lip, his florid face a thought less florid
+than its wont, his prominent blue eyes a thought more prominent. Under
+its golden periwig old Nick Trenchard's  wizened countenance was darkened
+by a scowl, and his fingers, long, swarthy, and gnarled, drummed
+fretfully upon the table.  Portly Lord Gervase Scoresby - their host, a
+benign and placid man of peace, detesting turbulence -turned crimson now
+in wordless rage.  The others gaped and stared - some at young Westmacott,
+some at the man he had so grossly affronted - whilst in the shadows of
+the hall a couple of lacqueys looked on amazed, all teeth and eyes.
+
+Mr. Wilding stood, very still and outwardly impasive, the wine trickling
+from his long face, which, if pale, was no paler than its habit, a
+vestige of the smile with which he had proposed the toast still
+lingering on his thin lips, though departed from his eyes.  An elegant
+gentleman was Mr. Wilding, tall, and seeming even taller by virtue of
+his exceeding slenderness. He had the courage to wear his own hair,
+which was of a dark brown and very luxuriant; dark brown too were his
+sombre eyes, low-lidded and set at a downward slant.  From those odd
+eyes of his, his countenance gathered an air of superciliousness
+tempered by a gentle melancholy.  For the rest, it was scored by lines
+that stamped it with the appearance of an age in excess of his thirty
+years.
+
+Thirty guineas' worth of Mechlin at his throat was drenched, empurpled
+and ruined beyond redemption, and on the breast of his blue satin coat
+a dark patch was spreading like a stain of blood.
+
+Richard Westmacott, short, sturdy, and fair-complexioned to the point
+of insipidity, watched him sullenly out of pale eyes, and waited.  It
+was Lord Gervase who broke at last the silence - broke it with an
+oath, a thing unusual in one whose nature was almost woman-mild.
+
+"As God's my life!" he spluttered wrathfully, glowering at Richard.
+"To have this happen in my house!  The young fool shall make apology!"
+
+"With his dying breath," sneered Trenchard, and the old rake's words,
+his tone, and the malevolent look he bent upon the boy increased the
+company's malaise.
+
+"I think," said Mr. Wilding, with a most singular and excessive
+sweetness, "that what Mr. Westmacott has done he has done because
+he apprehended me amiss."
+
+"No doubt he'll say so," opined Trenchard with a shrug, and had
+caution dug into his ribs by Blake's elbow, whilst Richard made haste
+to prove him wrong by saying the contrary.
+
+"I apprehended you exactly, sir," he answered, defiance in his voice
+and wine-flushed face.
+
+"Ha!" clucked Trenchard, irrepressible. "He's bent on self-destruction.
+Let him have his way, in God's name."
+
+But Wilding seemed intent upon showing how long-suffering he could be.
+He gently shook his head.  "Nay, now," said he.  "You thought, Mr.
+Westmacott, that in mentioning your sister, I did so lightly. Is it
+ not so?"
+
+"You mentioned her, and that is all that matters," cried Westmacott.
+"I'll not have her name on your lips at any time or in any place - no,
+nor in any manner." His speech was thick from too much wine.
+
+"You are drunk," cried indignant Lord Gervase with finality.
+
+"Pot-valiant," Trenchard elaborated.
+
+Mr. Wilding set down at last the glass which he had continued to hold
+until that moment.  He rested his hands upon the table, knuckles
+downward, and leaning forward he spoke impressively, his face very
+grave; and those present - knowing him as they did - were one and all
+lost in wonder at his unusual patience.
+
+"Mr. Westmacott," said he, "I do think you are wrong to persist in
+affronting me. You have done a thing that is beyond forgiveness, and
+yet, when I offer you this opportunity of honourably retrieving..."
+He shrugged his shoulders, leaving the sentence incomplete.
+
+The company might have spared its deep surprise at so much mildness.
+There was but the semblance of it. Wilding proceeded thus of purpose
+set, and under the calm mask of his long white face his mind worked
+wickedly and deliberately.  The temerity of Westmacott, whose nature
+was notoriously timid, had surprised him for a moment.  But anon,
+reading the boy's mind as readily as though it had been a scroll
+unfolded for his instruction, he saw that Westmacott, on the strength
+of his position as his sister's brother, conceived himself immune.
+Mr. Wilding's avowed courtship of the lady, the hopes he still
+entertained of winning her, despite the aversion she was at pains to
+show him, gave Westmacott assurance that Mr. Wilding would never
+elect to shatter his all too slender chances by embroiling himself
+in a quarrel with her brother.  And - reading him, thus, aright - Mr.
+Wilding put on that mask of patience, luring the boy into greater
+conviction of the security of his position.  And Richard, conceiving
+himself safe in his entrenchment behind the bulwarks of his brothership
+to Ruth Westmacott, and heartened further by the excess of wine he had
+consumed, persisted in insults he would never otherwise have dared to
+offer.
+
+"Who seeks to retrieve?" he crowed offensively, boldly looking up into
+the other's face.  "It seems you are yourself reluctant."  And he
+laughed a trifle stridently, and looked about him for applause, but
+found none.
+
+"You are overrash," Lord Gervase disapproved him harshly.
+
+"Not the first coward I've seen grow valiant at a table," put in
+Trenchard by way of explanation, and might have come to words with
+Blake on that same score, but that in that moment Wilding spoke again.
+
+"Reluctant to do what?" he questioned amiably, looking Westmacott
+so straightly between the eyes that the boy shifted uneasily on his
+high-backed chair.
+
+Nevertheless, still full of confidence in the unassailability of his
+position, the mad youth answered, "To cleanse yourself of what I threw
+at you."
+
+"Fan me, ye winds!" gasped Nick Trenchard, and looked with expectancy
+ at his friend Wilding.
+
+Now there was one factor with which, in basing with such craven
+shrewdness his calculations upon Mr. Wilding's feelings for his sister,
+young Richard had not reckoned.  He was not to know that Wilding,
+bruised and wounded by Miss Westmacott's scorn of him, had reached
+that borderland where love and hate are so merged that they are scarce
+to be distinguished.  Embittered by the slights she had put upon
+him  - slights which his sensitive, lover's fancy had magnified a
+hundredfold  -  Anthony Wilding's frame of mind was grown peculiar.
+Of his love she would have none; his kindness she seemingly despised.
+So be it; she should taste his cruelty.  If she scorned his wooing
+and forbade him to pursue it, at least it was not hers to deny him
+the power to hurt; and in hurting her that would not be loved by him
+some measure of fierce and bitter consolation seemed to await him.
+
+He realized, perhaps, not quite all this - and to the unworthiness
+of it all he gave no thought.  But he realized enough as he toyed, as
+cat with mouse, with Richard Westmacott, to know that in striking at her
+through the worthless person of this brother whom she cherished - and
+who persisted in affording him this opportunity - a wicked vengeance
+would be his.
+
+Peace-loving Lord Gervase had heaved himself suddenly to his feet at
+Westmacott's last words, still intent upon saving the situation.
+
+"In Heaven's name..." he began, when Mr. Wilding, ever calm and smiling,
+though now a trifle sinister, waved him gently into silence.  But that
+persisting calm of Mr. Wilding's was too much for old Nick Trenchard.
+He rose abruptly, drawing all eyes upon himself.  It was time, he
+thought, he took a hand in this.
+
+In addition to his affection for Wilding and his contempt for Westmacott,
+he was filled with a fear that the latter might become dangerous if not
+crushed at once.  Gifted with a shrewd knowledge of men, acquired during
+a chequered life of much sour experience, old Nick instinctively
+mistrusted Richard.  He had known him for a fool, a weakling, a babbler,
+and a bibber of wine.  Out of such elements a villain is soon compounded,
+and Trenchard had cause to fear the form of villainy that lay ready to
+Richard's hand. For it chanced that Mr. Trenchard was second cousin to
+that famous John Trenchard, so lately tried for treason and acquitted to
+the great joy of the sectaries of the West, and still more lately - but
+yesterday, in fact - fled the country to escape the rearrest ordered in
+consequence of that excessive joy.  Like his more famous cousin, Nick
+Trenchard was one of the Duke of Monmouth's most active agents; and
+Westmacott, like Wilding, Vallancey, and one or two others at that
+board, stood, too, committed to the cause of the Protestant Champion.
+
+Out of his knowledge of the boy Trenchard was led to fear that if he
+were leniently dealt with now, tomorrow, when, sober, he came to
+realize the grossness of the thing he had done and the unlikelihood
+of its being forgiven him, there was no saying but that to protect
+himself he might betray Wilding's share in the plot that was being
+hatched.  That in itself would be bad enough; but there might be worse,
+for he could scarcely betray Wilding without betraying others and - what
+mattered most - the Cause itself.  He must be dealt with out of hand,
+Trenchard opined, and dealt with ruthlessly.
+
+"I think, Anthony," said he, "that we have had words enough.  Shall
+you be disposing of Mr. Westmacott to-morrow, or must I be doing it
+for you?"
+
+With a gasp of dismay young Richard twisted in his chair to confront
+this fresh and unsuspected antagonist.  What danger was this that he
+had overlooked?  Then, even as he turned, Wilding's voice fell on his
+ear, and each word of the few he spoke was like a drop of icy water
+on Westmacott's overheated brain.
+
+"I protest you are vastly kind, Nick. But I intend, myself, to have
+the pleasure of killing Mr. Westmacott." And his smile fell now in
+mockery upon the disillusioned lad.
+
+Crushed by that bolt from the blue, Richard sat as if stunned, the
+flush receding from his face until his very lips were livid.  The shock
+had sobered him, and, sobered, he realized in terror what he had done.
+And yet even sober he was amazed to find that the staff upon which with
+such security he had leaned should have proved rotten.  True he had put
+much strain upon it; but then he had counted that it would stand much
+strain.
+
+He would have spoken, but he lacked words, so stricken was he.  And even
+had he done so it is odds none would have heard him, for the late calm
+was of a sudden turned to garboil.  Every man of that company - with the
+sole exception of Richard himself - was on his feet, and all were
+speaking at once, in clamouring, excited chorus.
+
+Wilding alone  -  the butt of their expostulations - stood quietly
+smiling, and wiped his face at last with a kerchief of finest lawn.
+Dominating the others in the Babel rose the voice of Sir Rowland
+Blake - impecunious Blake; Blake lately of the Guards, who had sold
+his commission as the only thing remaining him upon which he could
+raise money; Blake, that other suitor for Miss Westmacott's hand, the
+suitor favoured by her brother.
+
+"You shall not do it, Mr. Wilding," he shouted, his face crimson.  "No,
+by God! You were shamed forever. He is but a lad, and drunk."
+
+Trenchard eyed the short, powerfully built man beside him, and laughed
+unpleasantly.  "You should get yourself bled one of these days, Sir
+Rowland," he advised.  "There may be no great danger yet; but a man
+can't be too careful when he wears a narrow neckcloth."
+
+Blake - a short, powerfully built man - took no heed of him, but looked
+straight at Mr. Wilding, who, smiling ever, calmly returned the gaze of
+those prominent blue eyes.
+
+"You will suffer me, Sir Rowland," said he sweetly, "to be the judge
+of whom I will and whom I will not meet."
+
+Sir Rowland flushed under that mocking glance and caustic tone.  "But
+he is drunk," he repeated feebly.
+
+"I think," said Trenchard, "that he is hearing something that will
+make him sober."
+
+Lord Gervase took the lad by the shoulder, and shook him impatiently.
+"Well?" quoth he.  "Have you nothing to say?  You did a deal of prating
+just now.  I make no doubt but that even at this late hour if you were
+to make apology..."
+
+"It would be idle," came Wilding's icy voice to quench the gleam of hope
+kindling anew in Richard's breast.  The lad saw that he was lost, and he
+is a poor thing, indeed, who cannot face the worst once that worst is
+shown to be irrevocable.  He rose with some semblance of dignity.
+
+"It is as I would wish," said he, but his livid face and staring eyes
+belied the valour of his words.  He cleared his huskiness from his
+throat.  "Sir Rowland," said he, "will you act for me?"
+
+"Not I!" cried Blake with an oath.  "I'll be no party to the butchery
+of a boy unfledged."
+
+"Unfledged?" echoed Trenchard.  "Body o' me!  'Tis a matter Wilding
+will amend to-morrow.  He'll fledge him, never fear.  He'll wing him
+on his flight to heaven."
+
+Of set purpose did Trenchard add this fuel to the blazing fire.  It was
+no part of his views that this encounter should be avoided.  If Richard
+Westmacott were allowed to live after what had passed, there were too
+many tall fellows might go in peril of their lives.
+
+Richard, meanwhile, had turned to the man on his left - young Vallancey,
+a notorious partisan of the Duke of Monmouth's, a hair-brained gentleman
+who was his own worst enemy.
+
+"May I count on you, Ned?" he asked.
+
+"Aye - to the death," said Vallancey magniloquently.
+
+"Mr. Vallancey," said Trenchard with a wry twist of his sharp features,
+"you grow prophetic."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+SIR ROWLAND TO THE RESCUE
+
+
+From Scoresby Hall, near Weston Zoyland, young Westmacott rode home
+that Saturday night to his sister's house in Bridgwater, a sobered
+man and an anguished.  He had committed a folly which was like to
+cost him his life to-morrow.  Other follies had he committed in his
+twenty-five years - for he was not quite the babe that Blake had
+represented him, although he certainly looked nothing like his age.
+But to-night he had contrived to set the crown to all.  He had good
+cause to blame himself and to curse the miscalculation that had
+emboldened him to launch himself upon a course of insult against this
+Wilding, whom he hated with all the currish and resentful hatred of
+the worthless for the man of parts.
+
+But there was more than hate in the affront that he had offered; there
+was calculation - to an even greater extent than we have seen.  It
+happened that through his own fault young Richard was all but
+penniless.  The pious, nonconformist soul of Sir Geoffrey Lupton - the
+wealthy uncle from whom he had had great expectations - had been so
+stirred to anger by Richard's vicious and besotted ways that he had left
+every guinea that was his, every perch of land, and every brick of
+edifice to Richard's half-sister Ruth. At present things were not so bad
+for the worthless boy.  Ruth worshipped him.  He was a sacred charge
+to her from their dead father, who, knowing the stoutness of her soul
+and the feebleness of Richard's, had in dying imposed on her the care
+and guidance of her graceless brother.  But Ruth, in all things strong,
+was weak with Richard out of her very fondness for him.  To what she
+had he might help himself, and thus it was that things were not so bad
+with him at present.  But when Richard's calculating mind came to give
+thought to the future he found that this occasioned him some care.
+Rich ladies, even when they do not happen to be equipped in addition
+with Ruth's winsome beauty and endearing nature, are not wont to go
+unmarried.  It would have pleased Richard best to have had her remain
+a spinster.  But he well knew that this was a matter in which she might
+have a voice of her own, and it behoved him betimes to take wise
+measures where possible husbands were concerned.
+
+The first that came in a suitor's obvious panoply was Anthony Wilding,
+of Zoyland Chase, and Richard watched his advent with foreboding.
+Wilding's was a personality to dazzle any woman, despite - perhaps
+even because of - the reputation for wildness that clung to him.  That
+he was known as Wild Wilding to the countryside is true; but it were
+unfair - as Richard knew - to attach to this too much importance;
+for the adoption of so obvious an alliteration the rude country minds
+needed but a slight encouragement.
+
+ From the first it looked as if Ruth might favour him, and Richard's
+fears assumed more definite shape.  If Wilding married her - and he
+was a bold, masterful fellow who usually accomplished what he aimed
+at - her fortune and estate must cease to be a pleasant pasture land
+for bovine Richard.  The boy thought at first of making terms with
+Wilding; the idea was old; it had come to him when first he had
+counted the chances of his sister's marrying.  But he found himself
+hesitating to lay his proposal before Mr. Wilding.  And whilst he
+hesitated Mr. Wilding made obvious headway.  Still Richard dared not
+do it.  There was a something in Wilding's eye that cried him
+danger.  Thus, in the end, since he could not attempt a compromise with
+this fine fellow, the only course remaining was that of direct
+antagonism - that is to say, direct as Richard understood directness.
+Slander was the weapon he used in that secret duel; the countryside
+was well stocked with stories of Mr. Wilding's many indiscretions.
+I do not wish to suggest that these were unfounded.  Still, the
+countryside, cajoled by its primitive sense of humour into that
+alliteration I have mentioned, found that having given this dog its bad
+name, it was under the obligation of keeping up his reputation.  So it
+exaggerated. Richard, exaggerating those exaggerations in his turn, had
+some details, as interesting and unsavoury as they were in the main
+untrue, to lay before his sister.
+
+Now established love, it is well known, thrives wondrously on slander.
+The robust growth of a maid's feelings for her accepted suitor is but
+further strengthened by malign representations of his character. She
+seizes with joy the chance of affording proof of her great loyalty,
+and defies the world and its evil to convince her that the man to whom
+she has given her trust is not most worthy of it.  Not so, however, with
+the first timid bud of incipient interest.  Slander nips it like a frost;
+in deadliness it is second only to ridicule.
+
+Ruth Westmacott lent an ear to her brother's stories, incredulous only
+until she remembered vague hints she had caught from this person and
+from that, whose meaning was now made clear by what Richard told her,
+which, incidentally, they served to corroborate. Corroboration, too,
+did the tale of infamy receive from the friendship that prevailed
+between Mr. Wilding and Nick Trenchard, the old ne'er-dowell, who in his
+time - as everybody knew - had come so low, despite his gentle birth,
+as to have been one of a company of strolling players.  Had Mr. Wilding
+been other than she now learnt he was, he would surely not cherish an
+attachment for a person so utterly unworthy.  Clearly, they were birds
+of a plumage.
+
+And so, her maiden purity outraged at the thought that she had been in
+danger of lending a willing ear to the wooing of such a man, she had
+crushed this love which she blushed to think was on the point of
+throwing out roots to fasten on her soul, and was sedulous thereafter
+in manifesting the aversion which she accounted it her duty to foster
+for Mr. Wilding.
+
+Richard had watched and smiled in secret, taking pride in the cunning
+way he had wrought this change - that cunning which so often is given
+to the stupid by way of compensation for the intelligence that has been
+withheld them.
+
+And now what time discountenanced, Wilding fumed and fretted all in
+vain, Sir Rowland Blake, fresh from London and in full flight from
+his creditors, flashed like a comet into the Bridgwater heavens.  He
+dazzled the eyes and might have had for the asking the heart and hand
+of Diana Horton - Ruth's cousin.  Her heart, indeed, he had without
+the asking, for Diana fell straightway in love with him and showed it,
+just as he showed that he was not without response to her affection.
+There were some tender passages between them; but Blake, for all his
+fine exterior, was a beggar, and Diana far from rich, and so he rode
+his feelings with a hard grip upon the reins.  And then, in an evil
+hour for poor Diana, young Westmacott had taken him to Lupton House,
+and Sir Rowland had his first glimpse of Ruth, his first knowledge
+of her fortune.  He went down before Ruth's eyes like a man of heart;
+he went down more lowly still before her possessions like a man of
+greed; and poor Diana might console herself with whom she could.
+
+Her brother watched him, appraised him, and thought that in this broken
+gamester he had a man after his own heart; a man who would be ready
+enough for such a bargain as Richard had in mind; ready enough to sell
+what rags might be left him of his honour so that he came by the
+wherewithal to mend his broken fortunes.
+
+The twain made terms.  They haggled like any pair of traders out of
+Jewry, but in the end it was settled - by a bond duly engrossed and
+sealed - that on the day that Sir Rowland married Ruth he should make
+over to her brother certain values that amounted to perhaps a quarter
+of her possessions.  There was no cause to think that Ruth would be
+greatly opposed to this - not that that consideration would have
+weighed with Richard.
+
+But now that all essentials were so satisfactorily determined a vexation
+was offered Westmacott by the circumstance that his sister seemed nowise
+taken with Sir Rowland.  She suffered him because he was her brother's
+friend; on that account she even honoured him with some measure of her
+own friendship; but to no greater intimacy did her manner promise to
+admit him.  And meanwhile, Mr. Wilding persisted in the face of all
+rebuffs.  Under his smiling mask he hid the smart of the wounds she
+dealt him, until it almost seemed to him that from loving her he had
+come to hate her.
+
+It had been well for Richard had he left things as they were and waited.
+Whether Blake prospered or not, leastways it was clear that Wilding
+would not prosper, and that, for the season, was all that need have
+mattered to young Richard.
+
+But in his cups that night he had thought in some dim way to precipitate
+matters by affronting Mr. Wilding, secure, as I have shown, in his
+belief that Wilding would perish sooner than raise a finger against
+Ruth's brother.  And his drunken astuteness, it seemed, had been to his
+mind as a piece of bottle glass to the sight, distorting the image
+viewed through it.
+
+With some such bitter reflection rode he home to his sleepless couch.
+Some part of those dark hours he spent in bitter reviling of Wilding,
+of himself, and even of his sister, whom he blamed for this awful
+situation into which he had tumbled; at other times he wept from
+self-pity and sheer fright.
+
+Once, indeed, he imagined that he saw light, that he saw a way out
+of the peril that hemmed him in.  His mind turned for a moment in
+the direction that Trenchard had feared it might.  He bethought him of
+his association with the Monmouth Cause - into which he had been
+beguiled by the sordid hope of gain - and of Wilding's important
+share in that same business.  He was even moved to rise and ride that
+very night for Exeter to betray to Albemarle the Cause itself, so that
+he might have Wilding laid by the heels.  But if Trenchard had been
+right in having little faith in Richard's loyalty, he had, it seems,
+in fearing treachery made the mistake of giving Richard credit for
+more courage than was his endowment.  For when, sitting up in bed,
+fired by his inspiration, young Westmacott came to consider the
+questions the Lord-Lieutenant of Devon would be likely to ask him, he
+reflected that the answers he must return would so incriminate himself
+that he would be risking his own neck in the betrayal.  He flung
+himself down again with a curse and a groan, and thought no more of
+the salvation that might lie for him that way.
+
+The morning of that last day of May found him pale and limp and all
+a-tremble.  He rose betimes and dressed, but stirred not from his
+chamber till in the garden under his window he heard his sister's
+voice, and that of Diana Horton, joined anon by a man's deeper tones,
+which he recognized with a start as Blake's.  What did the baronet
+here so early?  Assuredly it must concern the impending duel.  Richard
+knew no mawkishness on the score of eavesdropping. He stole to his
+window and lent an ear, but the voices were receding, and to his
+vexation he caught nothing of what was said.  He wondered how soon
+Vallancey would come, and for what hour the encounter had been appointed.
+Vallancey had remained behind at Scoresby Hall last night to make the
+necessary arrangements with Trenchard, who was to act for Mr. Wilding.
+
+Now it chanced that Trenchard and Wilding had business - business of
+Monmouth's - to transact in Taunton that morning; business which
+might not be delayed.  There were odd rumours afloat in the West;
+persistent rumours which had come fast upon the heels of the news of
+Argyle's landing in Scotland; rumours which maintained that Monmouth
+himself was coming over from Holland.  These tales Wilding and his
+associates had ignored.  The Duke, they knew, was to spend the summer
+in retreat in Sweden, with (it was alleged) the Lady Henrietta Wentworth
+to bear him company, and in the mean time his trusted agents were to
+pave the way for his coming in the following spring.  Of late the lack
+of direct news from the Duke had been a source of mystification to
+his friends in the West, and now, suddenly, the information went
+abroad - it was something more than rumour this time - that a letter
+of the greatest importance had been intercepted.  From whom that letter
+proceeded or to whom it was addressed, could not yet be discovered.
+But it seemed clear that it was connected with the Monmouth Cause, and
+it behoved Mr. Wilding to discover what he could.  With this intent he
+rode with Trenchard that Sunday morning to Taunton, hoping that at the
+Red Lion Inn - that meeting-place of dissenters - he might cull
+reliable information.
+
+It was in consequence of this that the meeting with Richard Westmacott
+was not to take place until the evening, and therefore Vallancey came
+not to Lupton House as early as Richard thought he should expect him.
+Blake, however - more no doubt out of a selfish fear of losing a valued
+ally in the winning of Ruth's hand than out of any excessive concern
+for Richard himself - had risen early and hastened to Lupton House,
+in the hope, which he recognized as all but forlorn, of yet being able
+to avert the disaster he foresaw for Richard.
+
+Peering over the orchard wall as he rode by, he caught a glimpse,
+through an opening between the trees, of Ruth herself and Diana on
+the lawn beyond.  There was a wicket gate that stood unlatched, and
+availing himself of this Sir Rowland tethered his horse in the lane
+and threading his way briskly through the orchard came suddenly upon
+the girls.  Their laughter reached him as he advanced, and told him
+they could know nothing yet of Richard's danger.
+
+On his abrupt and unexpected apparition, Diana paled and Ruth flushed
+slightly, whereupon Sir Rowland might have bethought him, had he been
+book-learned, of the axiom, "Amour qui rougit, fleurette; amour qui plit,
+drame du coeur."
+
+He doffed his hat and bowed, his fair ringlets tumbling forward till
+they hid his face, which was exceeding grave.
+
+Ruth gave him good morning pleasantly.  "You London folk are earlier
+risers than we are led to think," she added.
+
+"`Twill be the change of air makes Sir Rowland matutinal," said Diana,
+making a gallant recovery from her agitation.
+
+"I vow," said he, "that I had grown matutinal earlier had I known what
+here awaited me."
+
+"Awaited you?" quoth Diana, and tossed her head archly disdainful.
+"La! Sir Rowland, your modesty will be the death of you."  Archness
+became this lady of the sunny hair, tip-tilted nose, and complexion
+that outvied the apple-blossoms.  She was shorter by a half-head
+than her darker cousin, and made up in sprightliness what she lacked
+of Ruth's gentle dignity. The pair were foils, each setting off the
+graces of the other.
+
+"I protest I am foolish," answered Blake, a shade discomfited.  "But
+I want not for excuse. I have it in the matter that brings me here."
+So solemn was his air, so sober his voice, that both girls felt a
+premonition of the untoward message that he bore.  It was Ruth who
+asked him to explain himself.
+
+"Will you walk, ladies?" said Blake, and waved the hand that still
+held his hat riverwards, adown the sloping lawn.  They moved away
+together, Sir Rowland pacing between his love of yesterday and his
+love of to-day, pressed with questions from both.  He shaded his eyes
+to look at the river, dazzling in the morning sunlight that came over
+Polden Hill, and, standing thus, he unburdened himself at last.
+
+"My news concerns Richard and - Mr. Wilding." They looked at him. Miss
+Westmacott's fine level brows were knit.  He paused to ask, as if
+suddenly observing his absence, "Is Richard not yet risen?"
+
+"Not yet," said Ruth, and waited for him to proceed.
+
+"It does credit to his courage that he should sleep late on such a
+day," said Blake, and was pleased with the adroitness wherewith he
+broke the news.  "He quarrelled last night with Anthony Wilding."
+
+Ruth's hand went to her bosom; fear stared at Blake from out her eyes,
+blue as the heavens overhead; a grey shade overcast the usual warm
+pallor of her face.
+
+"With Mr. Wilding?" she cried.  "That man!" And though she said no more
+her eyes implored him to go on, and tell her what more there might be.
+He did so, and he spared not Wilding.  The task, indeed, was one to
+which he applied himself with a certain zest; whatever might be the
+outcome of the affair, there was no denying that he was by way of
+reaping profit from it by the final overthrow of an acknowledged rival.
+And when he told her how Richard had flung his wine in Wilding's face
+when Wilding stood to toast her, a faint flush crept to her cheeks.
+
+"Richard did well," said she. "I am proud of him."
+
+The words pleased Sir Rowland vastly; but he reckoned without Diana.
+Miss Horton's mind was illumined by her knowledge of herself.  In the
+light of that she saw precisely what capital this tale-bearer sought
+to make.  The occasion might not be without its opportunities for her;
+and to begin with, it was no part of her intention that Wilding should
+be thus maligned and finally driven from the lists of rivalry with
+Blake.  Upon Wilding, indeed, and his notorious masterfulness did she
+found what hopes she still entertained of winning back Sir Rowland.
+
+"Surely," said she, "you are a little hard on Mr. Wilding.  You speak
+as if he were the first gallant that ever toasted lady's eyes."
+
+"I am no lady of his, Diana," Ruth reminded her, with a faint show of heat.
+
+Diana shrugged her shoulders. "You may not love him, but you can't
+ordain that he shall not love you.  You are very harsh, I think.  To me
+it rather seems that Richard acted like a boor."
+
+"But, mistress," cried Sir Rowland, half out of countenance, and
+stifling his vexation, "in these matters it all depends upon the manner."
+
+"Why, yes," she agreed; "and whatever Mr. Wilding's manner, if I know
+him at all, it would be nothing but respectful to the last degree."
+
+"My own conception of respect," said he, "is not to bandy a lady's
+name about a company of revellers."
+
+"Bethink you, though, you said just now, it all depended on the manner,"
+she rejoined. Sir Rowland shrugged and turned half from her to her
+listening cousin.  When all is said, poor Diana appears - despite
+her cunning - to have been short-sighted.  Aiming at a defined advantage
+in the game she played, she either ignored or held too lightly the
+concomitant disadvantage of vexing Blake.
+
+"It were perhaps best to tell us the exact words he used, Sir Rowland,"
+she suggested, "that for ourselves we may judge how far he lacked
+respect."
+
+"What signify the words!" cried Blake, now almost out of temper.  "I
+don't recall them.  It is the air with which he pledged Mistress
+Westmacott."
+
+"Ah yes - the manner," quoth Diana irritatingly.  "We'll let that be.
+Richard threw his wine in Mr. Wilding's face?  What followed then?  What
+said Mr. Wilding?"
+
+Sir Rowland remembered what Mr. Wilding had said, and bethought him that
+it were impolitic in him to repeat it.  At the same time, not having
+looked for this cross-questioning, he was all unprepared with any likely
+answer.  He hesitated, until Ruth echoed Diana's question.
+
+"Tell us, Sir Rowland," she begged him, "what Mr. Wilding said."
+
+Being forced to say something, and being by nature slow-witted and
+sluggish of invention, Sir Rowland was compelled, to his unspeakable
+chagrin, to fall back upon the truth.
+
+"Is not that proof?" cried Diana in triumph. "Mr. Wilding was reluctant
+to quarrel with Richard.  He was even ready to swallow such an affront
+as that, thinking it might be offered him under a misconception of his
+meaning.  He plainly professed the respect that filled him for Mistress
+Westmacott, and yet, and yet, Sir Rowland, you tell us that he lacked
+respect!"
+
+"Madam," cried Blake, turning crimson, "that matters nothing.  It was
+not the place or time to introduce your cousin s name.
+
+"You think, Sir Rowland," put in Ruth, her air grave, judicial almost,
+"that Richard behaved well?"
+
+"As I would like to behave myself, as I would have a son of mine behave
+on the like occasion," Blake protested.  "But we waste words," he cried.
+"I did not come to defend Richard, nor just to bear you this untoward
+news.  I came to consult with you, in the hope that we might find some
+way to avert this peril from your brother."
+
+"What way is possible?" asked Ruth, and sighed.  "I would not... I would
+not have Richard a coward."
+
+"Would you prefer him dead?" asked Blake, sadly grave.
+
+"Sooner than craven - yes," Ruth answered him, very white.
+
+"There is no question of that," was Blake's rejoinder.  "The question
+is that Wilding said last night that he would kill the boy, and what
+Wilding says he does.  Out of the affection that I bear Richard is born
+my anxiety to save him despite himself.  It is in this that I come to
+seek your aid or offer mine.  Allied we might accomplish what singly
+neither of us could."
+
+He had at once the reward of his cunning speech.  Ruth held out her
+hands.  "You are a good friend, Sir Rowland," she said, with a pale
+smile; and pale too was the smile with which Diana watched them.  No
+more than Ruth did she suspect the sincerity of Blake's protestations.
+
+"I am proud you should account me that," said the baronet, taking Ruth's
+hands and holding them a moment; "and I would that I could prove myself
+your friend in this to some good purpose.  Believe me, if Wilding would
+consent that I might take your brother's place, I would gladly do so."
+
+It was a safe boast, knowing as he did that Wilding would consent to
+no such thing; but it earned him a glance of greater kindliness from
+Ruth - who began to think that hitherto perhaps she had done him some
+injustice - and a look of greater admiration from Diana, who saw in him
+her beau-ideal of the gallant lover.
+
+"I would not have you endanger yourself so," said Ruth.
+
+"It might," said Blake, his blue eyes very fierce, "be no great danger,
+after all."  And then dismissing that part of the subject as if, like
+a brave man, the notion of being thought boastful were unpleasant, he
+passed on to the discussion of ways and means by which the coming duel
+might be averted.  But when they came to grips with facts, it seemed
+that Sir Rowland had as little idea of what might be done as had the
+ladies.  True, he began by making the obvious suggestion that Richard
+should tender Wilding a full apology.  That, indeed, was the only door
+of escape, and Blake shrewdly suspected that what the boy had been
+unwilling to do last night - partly through wine, and partly through
+the fear of looking fearful in the eyes of Lord Gervase Scoresby's
+guests - he might be willing enough to do to-day, sober and upon
+reflection.  For the rest Blake was as far from suspecting Mr. Wilding's
+peculiar frame of mind as had Richard been last night.  This his words
+showed.
+
+"I am satisfied," said he, "that if Richard were to go to-day to Wilding
+and express his regret for a thing done in the heat of wine, Wilding
+would be forced to accept it as satisfaction, and none would think that
+it did other than reflect credit upon Richard."
+
+"Are you very sure of that?" asked Ruth, her tone dubious, her glance
+hopefully anxious.
+
+"What else is to be thought?"
+
+"But," put in Diana shrewdly, "it were an admission of Richard's that he
+had done wrong."
+
+"No less," he agreed, and Ruth caught her breath in fresh dismay.
+
+"And yet you have said that he did as you would have a son of yours
+do," Diana reminded him.
+
+"And I maintain it," answered Blake; his wits worked slowly ever.
+It was for Ruth to reveal the flaw to him.
+
+"Do you not understand, then," she asked him sadly, "that such an
+admission on Richard's part would amount to a lie - a lie uttered
+to save himself from an encounter, the worst form of lie, a lie of
+cowardice?  Surely, Sir Rowland, your kindly anxiety for his life
+outruns your anxiety for his honour."
+
+Diana, having accomplished her task, hung her head in silence, pondering.
+
+Sir Rowland was routed utterly.  He glanced from one to the other of
+his companions, and grew afraid that he - the town gallant - might come
+to look foolish in the eyes of these country ladies.  He protested again
+his love for Richard, and increased Ruth's terror by his mention of
+Wilding's swordsmanship; but when all was said, he saw that he had best
+retreat ere he spoiled the good effect which he hoped his solicitude had
+created. And so he spoke of seeking counsel with Lord Gervase Scoresby,
+and took his leave, promising to return by noon.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+DIANA SCHEMES
+
+
+Notwithstanding the brave face Ruth Westmacott had kept during his
+presence, when he departed Sir Rowland left behind him a distress
+amounting almost to anguish in her mind.  Yet though she might suffer,
+there was no weakness in Ruth's nature.  She knew how to endure.  Diana,
+bearing Richard not a tenth of the affection his sister consecrated to
+him, was alarmed for him.  Besides, her own interests urged the averting
+of this encounter.  And so she held in accents almost tearful that
+something must be done to save him.
+
+This, too, appeared to be Richard's own view, when presently - within
+a few minutes of Blake's departure - he came to join them.  They watched
+his approach in silence, and both noted - though with different eyes and
+different feelings - the pallor of his fair face, the dark lines under
+his colourless eyes.  His condition was abject, and his manners, never of
+the best - for there was much of the spoiled child about Richard - were
+clearly suffering from it.
+
+He stood before his sister and his cousin, moving his eyes shiftily from
+one to the other, rubbing his hands nervously together.
+
+"Your precious friend Sir Rowland has been here," said he, and it was
+not clear from his manner which of them he addressed.  "Not a doubt but
+he will have brought you the news." He seemed to sneer.
+
+Ruth advanced towards him, her face grave, her sweet eyes full of
+pitying concern.  She placed a hand upon his sleeve.  "My poor
+Richard.. ." she began, but he shook off her kindly touch, laughing
+angrily - a mere cackle of irritability.
+
+"Odso!" he interrupted her. "It is a thought late for this mock
+kindliness!"
+
+Diana, in the background, arched her brows, then with a shrug turned
+aside and seated herself on the stone seat by which they had been
+standing.  Ruth shrank back as if her brother had struck her.
+
+"Richard!" she cried, and searched his livid face with her eyes.
+"Richard!"
+
+He read a question in the interjection, and he answered it.  "Had you
+known any real care, any true concern for me, you had not given cause
+for this affair," he chid her peevishly.
+
+"What are you saying?" she cried, and it occurred to her at last that
+Richard was afraid.  He was a coward! She felt as she would faint.
+
+"I am saying," said he, hunching his shoulders, and shivering as he
+spoke, yet, his glance unable to meet hers, "that it is your fault that
+I am like to get my throat cut before sunset."
+
+"My fault?" she murmured.  The slope of lawn seemed to wave and swim
+about her.  "My fault?"
+
+"The fault of your wanton ways," he accused her harshly.  "You have so
+played fast and loose with this fellow Wilding that he makes free of
+your name in my very presence, and puts upon me the need to get myself
+killed by him to save the family honour."
+
+He would have said more in this strain, but something in her glance gave
+him pause.  There fell a silence. From the distance came the melodious
+pealing of church bells.  High overhead a lark was pouring out its song;
+in the lane at the orchard end rang the beat of trotting hoofs.  It was
+Diana who spoke presently.  Just indignation stirred her, and, when
+stirred, she knew no pity, set no limits to her speech.
+
+"I think, indeed," said she, her voice crisp and merciless, "that the
+family honour will best be saved if Mr. Wilding kills you.  It is in
+danger while you live.  You are a coward, Richard."
+
+"Diana!" he thundered - he could be mighty brave with women - whilst
+Ruth clutched her arm to restrain her.
+
+But she continued, undeterred: "You are a coward - a pitiful coward,"
+she told him.  "Consult your mirror.  It will tell you what a palsied
+thing you are.  That you should dare so speak to Ruth..."
+
+"Don't!" Ruth begged her, turning.
+
+
+"Aye," growled Richard, "she had best be silent."
+
+Diana rose, to battle, her cheeks crimson.  "It asks a braver man than
+you to compel my obedience," she told him.  "La!" she fumed, "I'll swear
+that had Mr. Wilding overheard what you have said to your sister, you
+would have little to fear from his sword.  A cane would be the weapon
+he'd use on you."
+
+Richard's pale eyes flamed malevolently; a violent rage possessed him
+and flooded out his fear, for nothing can so goad a man as an offensive
+truth.  Ruth approached him again; again she took him by the arm,
+seeking to soothe his over-troubled spirit; but again he shook her off.
+And then to save the situation came a servant from the house.  So lost
+in anger was all Richard's sense of decency that the mere supervention
+of the man would not have been enough to have silenced him could he
+have found adequate words in which to answer Mistress Horton.  But even
+as he racked his mind, the footman's voice broke the silence, and the
+words the fellow uttered did what his presence alone might not have
+sufficed to do.
+
+"Mr. Vallancey is asking for you, sir," he announced.
+
+
+Richard started.  Vallancey!  He had come at last, and his coming was
+connected with the impending duel.  The thought was paralyzing to
+young Westmacott.  The flush of anger faded from his face; its leaden
+hue returned and he shivered as with cold.  At last he mastered himself
+sufficiently to ask:
+
+"Where is he, Jasper?"
+
+"In the library, sir," replied the servant. "Shall I bring him hither?"
+
+"Yes - no," he answered.  "I will come to him."  He turned his back upon
+the ladies, paused a moment, still irresolute.  Then, as by an effort,
+he followed the servant across the lawn and vanished through the ivied
+porch.
+
+As he went Diana flew to her cousin.  Her shallow nature was touched
+with transient pity.  "My poor Ruth..."  she murmured soothingly, and
+set her arm about the other's waist.  There was a gleam of tears in
+the eyes Ruth turned upon her.  Together they came to the granite seat
+and sank to it side by side, fronting the placid river.  There Ruth,
+her elbows on her knees, cradled her chin in her hands, and with a sigh
+of misery stared straight before her.
+
+"It was untrue!" she said at last.  "What Richard said of me was untrue."
+
+"Why, yes," Diana snapped, contemptuous.  "The only truth is that Richard
+is afraid."
+
+Ruth shivered. "Ah, no," she pleaded - she knew how true was the
+impeachment. "Don't say it, Diana."
+
+"It matters little that I say it," snorted Diana impatiently.  "It is
+a truth proclaimed by the first glance at him."
+
+"He is in poor health, perhaps," said Ruth, seeking miserably to excuse
+him.
+
+"Aye," said Diana.  "He's suffering from an ague - the result of a lack
+of courage.  That he should so have spoken to you!  Give me patience,
+Heaven!"
+
+Ruth crimsoned again at the memory of his words; a wave of indignation
+swept through her gentle soul, but was gone at once, leaving an ineffable
+sadness in its room.  What was to be done?  She turned to Diana for
+counsel. But Diana was still whipping up her scorn.
+
+"If he goes out to meet Mr. Wilding, he'll shame himself and every man
+and woman that bears the name of Westmacott," said she, and struck a
+new fear with that into the heart of Ruth.
+
+"He must not go!" she answered passionately.  "He must not meet him!"
+
+Diana flashed her a sidelong glance.  "And if he doesn't, will things
+be mended?" she inquired.  "Will it save his honour to have Mr. Wilding
+come and cane him?"
+
+"He'd not do that?" said Ruth.
+
+"Not if you asked him - no," was Diana's sharp retort, and she caught
+her breath on the last word of it, for just then the Devil dropped
+the seed of a suggestion into the fertile soil of her lovesick soul.
+
+"Diana!" Ruth exclaimed in reproof, turning to confront her cousin.
+But Diana's mind started upon its scheming journey was now travelling
+fast.  Out of that devil's seed there sprang with amazing rapidity
+a tree-like growth, throwing out branches, putting forth leaves,
+bearing already - in her fancy - bloom and fruit.
+
+"Why not?" quoth she after a breathing space, and her voice was gentle,
+her tone innocent beyond compare.  "Why should you not ask him?" Ruth
+frowned, perplexed and thoughtful, and now Diana turned to her with the
+lively eye of one into whose mind has leapt a sudden inspiration.
+"Ruth!" she exclaimed.  "Why, indeed, should you not ask him to forgo
+this duel?"
+
+"How, how could I?" faltered Ruth.
+
+"He'd not deny you; you know he'd not."
+
+"I do not know it," answered Ruth.  "But if I did, how could I ask it?"
+
+"Were I Richard's sister, and had I his life and honour at heart as you
+have, I'd not ask how. If Richard goes to that encounter he loses both,
+remember - unless between this and then he undergoes some change.  Were
+I in your place, I'd straight to Wilding."
+
+"To him?" mused Ruth, sitting up. "How could I go to him?"
+
+"Go to him, yes," Diana insisted.  "Go to him at once - while there is
+yet time."
+
+Ruth rose and moved away a step or two towards the water, deep in
+thought.  Diana watched her furtively and slyly, the rapid rise and
+fall of her maiden breast betraying the agitation that filled her
+as she waited - like a gamester - for the turn of the card that would
+show her whether she had won or lost.  For she saw clearly how Ruth
+might be so compromised that there was something more than a chance
+that Diana would no longer have cause to account her cousin a barrier
+between herself and Blake.
+
+"I could not go alone," said Ruth, and her tone was that of one still
+battling with a notion that is repugnant.
+
+"Why, if that is all," said Diana, "then I'll go with you."
+
+"I can't! I can't! Consider the humiliation."
+
+"Consider Richard rather," the fair temptress made answer eagerly. "Be
+sure that Mr. Wilding will save you all humiliation.  He'll not deny
+you.  At a word from you, I know what answer he will make.  He will
+refuse to push the matter forward - acknowledge himself in the wrong,
+do whatever you may ask him.  He can do it.  None will question his
+courage.  It has been proved too often."  She rose and came to Ruth.
+She set her arm about her waist again, and poured shrewd persuasion
+over her cousin s indecision.  "To-night you'll thank me for this
+thought," she assured her.  "Why do you pause? Are you so selfish as
+to think more of the little humiliation that may await you than of
+Richard's life and honour?"
+
+"No, no," Ruth protested feebly.
+
+"What, then?  Is Richard to go out and slay his honour by a show of fear
+before he is slain, himself, by the man he has insulted?"
+
+"I'll go," said Ruth.  Now that the resolve was taken, she was brisk,
+impatient.  "Come, Diana. Let Jerry saddle for us.  We'll ride to
+Zoyland Chase at once."
+
+They went without a word to Richard who was still closeted with
+Vallancey, and riding forth they crossed the river and took the road
+that, skirting Sedgemoor, runs south to Weston Zoyland.  They rode
+with little said until they came to the point where the road branches
+on the left, throwing out an arm across the moor towards Chedzoy, a mile
+or so short of Zoyland Chase.  Here Diana reined in with a sharp gasp
+of pain.  Ruth checked, and cried to know what ailed her.
+
+"It is the sun, I think," muttered Diana, her hand to her brow.  "I am
+sick and giddy."  And she slipped a thought heavily to the ground.  In
+an instant Ruth had dismounted and was beside her.  Diana was pale,
+which lent colour to her complaint, for Ruth was not to know that the
+pallor sprang from her agitation in wondering whether the ruse she
+attempted would succeed or not.
+
+A short stone's-throw from where they had halted stood a cottage back
+from the road in a little plot of ground, the property of a kindly old
+woman known to both.  There Diana expressed the wish to rest awhile,
+and thither they took their way, Ruth leading both horses and supporting
+her faltering cousin.  The dame was all solicitude.  Diana was led into
+her parlour, and what could be done was done.  Her corsage was loosened,
+water drawn from the well and brought her to drink and bathe her brow.
+
+She sat back languidly, her head lolling sideways against one of the
+wings of the great chair, and languidly assured them she would be better
+soon if she were but allowed to rest awhile.  Ruth drew up a stool to
+sit beside her, for all that her soul fretted at this delay.  What if
+in consequence she should reach Zoyland Chase too late - to find tha
+Mr. Wilding had gone forth already?  But even as she was about to sit,
+it seemed that the same thought had of a sudden come to Diana.  The girl
+leaned forward, thrusting - as if by an effort - some of her faintness
+from her.
+
+"Do not wait for me, Ruth," she begged.
+
+"I must, child."
+
+"You must not;" the other insisted.  "Think what it may mean - Richard's
+life, perhaps.  No, no, Ruth, dear.  Go on; go on to Zoyland.  I'll
+follow you in a few minutes."
+
+"I'll wait for you," said Ruth with firmness.
+
+At that Diana rose, and in rising staggered.  "Then we'll push on at
+once," she gasped, as if speech itself were an excruciating effort.
+
+"But you are in no case to stand!" said Ruth.  "Sit, Diana, sit."
+
+"Either you go on alone or I go with you, but go at once you must.  At
+any moment Mr. Wilding may go forth, and your chance is lost.  I'll not
+have Richard's blood upon my head."
+
+Ruth wrung her hands in her dismay, confronted by a parlous choice.
+Consent to Diana's accompanying her in this condition she could not;
+ride on alone to Mr. Wilding's house was hardly to be thought of, and
+yet if she delayed she was endangering Richard's life.  By the very
+strength of her nature she was caught in the mesh of Diana's scheme.
+She saw that her hesitation was unworthy.  This was no ordinary cause,
+no ordinary occasion.  It was a time for heroic measures.  She must
+ride on, nor could she consent to take Diana.
+
+And so in the end she went, having seen her cousin settled again in
+the high chair, and took with her Diana's feeble assurances that she
+would follow her in a few moments, as soon as her faintness passed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+TERMS OF SURRENDER
+
+
+"MR. WILDING rode at dawn with Mr. Trenchard, madam," announced old
+Walters, the butler at Zoyland Chase.  Old and familiar servant though
+he was, he kept from his countenance all manifestation of the deep
+surprise occasioned him by the advent of Mistress Westmacott, unescorted.
+
+"He rode... at dawn?" faltered Ruth, and for a moment she stood
+irresolute, afraid and pondering in the shade of the great pillared
+porch.  Then she took heart again.  If he rode at dawn, it was not in
+quest of Richard that he went, since it had been near eleven o'clock
+when she had left Bridgwater.  He must have gone on other business first,
+and, doubtless, before he went to the encounter he would be returning
+home.  "Said he at what hour he would return?" she asked.
+
+"He bade us expect him by noon, madam."
+
+This gave confirmation to her thoughts.  It wanted more than half an
+hour to noon already.  "Then he may return at any moment?" said she.
+
+"At any moment, madam," was the grave reply.
+
+She took her resolve.  "I will wait," she announced, to the man's
+increasing if undisplayed astonishment. "Let my horse be seen to."
+
+He bowed his obedience, and she followed him - a slender, graceful
+figure in her dove-coloured riding- habit laced with silver - across
+the stone-flagged vestibule, through the cool gloom of the great hall,
+into the spacious library of which he held the door.
+
+"Mistress Horton is following me," she informed the butler.  "Will you
+bring her to me when she comes?"
+
+Bowing again in silent acquiescence, the white-haired servant closed
+the door and left her.  She stood in the centre of the great room,
+drawing off her riding-gloves, perturbed and frightened beyond all
+reason at finding herself for the first time under Mr. Wilding's roof.
+He was most handsomely housed.  His grandfather, who had travelled in
+Italy, had built the Chase upon the severe and noble lines which there
+he had learnt to admire, and he had embellished its interior, too,
+with many treasures of art which with that intent he had there collected.
+
+She dropped her whip and gloves on to a table, and sank into a chair to
+wait, her heart fluttering in her throat.  Time passed, and in the
+silence of the great house her anxiety was gradually quieted, until at
+last through the long window that stood open came faintly wafted to her
+on the soft breeze of that June morning the sound of a church clock at
+Weston Zoyland chiming twelve.  She rose with a start, bethinking her
+suddenly of Diana, and wondering why she had not yet arrived.  Was the
+child's indisposition graver than she had led Ruth to suppose?  She
+crossed to the windows and stood there drumming impatiently upon the
+pane, her eyes straying idly over the sweep of elm-fringed lawns towards
+the river gleaming silvery here and there between the trees in the
+distance.
+
+Suddenly she caught a sound of hoofs.  Was this Diana?  She sped to the
+other window, the one that stood open, and now she heard the crunch of
+gravel and the champ of bits and the sound of more than two pairs of
+hoofs.  She caught a glimpse of Mr. Wilding and Mr. Trenchard.
+
+She felt the colour flying from her cheeks; again her heart fluttered
+in her throat, and it was in vain that with her hand she sought to
+repress the heaving of her breast.  She was afraid; her every instinct
+bade her slip through the window at which she stood and run from Zoyland
+Chase.  And then she thought of Richard and his danger, and she seemed
+to gather courage from the reflection of her purpose in this house.
+
+Men's voices reached her - a laugh, the harsh cawing of Nick Trenchard.
+
+"A lady!" she heard him cry.  "`Od's heart, Tony!  Is this a time for
+trafficking with doxies?"  She crimsoned an instant at the coarse word
+and set her teeth, only to pale again the next.  The voices were lowered
+so that she heard not what was said; one sharp exclamation she
+recognized to be in Wilding's voice, but caught not the word he uttered.
+There followed a pause, and she stirred uneasily, waiting.  Then came
+swift steps and jangling spurs across the hall, the door opened suddenly,
+and Mr. Wilding, in a scarlet riding-coat, his boots white with dust,
+stood bowing to her from the threshold.
+
+"Your servant, Mistress Westmacott," she heard him murmur.  "My house
+is deeply honoured."
+
+She dropped him a half-curtsy, pale and tongue-tied.  He turned to
+deliver hat and whip and gloves to Walters, who had followed him, then
+closed the door and came forward into the room.
+
+"You will forgive that I present myself thus before you," he said, in
+apology for his dusty raiment.  "But I bethought me you might be in
+haste, and Walters tells me that already have you waited nigh upon an
+hour.  Will you not sit, madam?"  And he advanced a chair.  His long
+white face was set like a mask; but his dark, slanting eyes devoured
+her.  He guessed the reason of her visit.  She who had humbled him,
+who had driven him to the very borders of despair, was now to be humbled
+and to despair before him.  Under the impassive face his soul exulted
+fiercely.
+
+She disregarded the chair he proffered.  "My visit ... has no doubt
+surprised you," she began, tremulous and hesitating.
+
+"I' faith, no," he answered quietly.  "The cause, after all, is not
+very far to seek.  You are come on Richard's behalf."
+
+"Not on Richard's," she answered.  "On my own."  And now that the ice
+was broken, the suspense of waiting over, she found the tide of her
+courage flowing fast.  "This encounter must not take place, Mr.
+Wilding," she informed him.
+
+He raised his eyebrows  -  fine and level as her own  -  his thin lips
+smiled never so faintly.  "It is, I think," said he, "for Richard to
+prevent it  The chance was his last night.  It shall be his again when
+we meet.  If he will express regret . . ."  He left his sentence there.
+In truth he mocked her, though she guessed it not.
+
+"You mean," said she, "that if he makes apology...?"
+
+"What else? What other way remains?"
+
+She shook her head, and, if pale, her face was resolute, her glance
+steady.
+
+"That is impossible," she told him.  "Last night - as I have the
+story - he might have done it without shame.  To-day it is too late.
+To tender his apology on the ground would be to proclaim himself a
+coward."
+
+Mr. Wilding pursed his lips and shifted his position.  "It is difficult,
+perhaps," said he, "but not impossible."
+
+"It is impossible," she insisted firmly.
+
+"I'll not quarrel with you for a word," he answered, mighty agreeable.
+"Call it impossible, if you will.  Admit, however, that it is all I can
+suggest.  You will do me the justice, I am sure, to see that in
+expressing my willingness to accept your brother's expressions of regret
+I am proving myself once more your very obedient servant.  But that it
+is you who ask it -  and whose desires are my commands -  I should let
+no man go unpunished for an insult such as your brother put upon me."
+
+She winced at his words, at the bow with which he had professed himself
+once more her servant.
+
+"It is no clemency that you offer him," she said.  "You leave him a
+choice between death and dishonour."
+
+"He has," Wilding reminded her, "the chance of combat."
+
+She flung back her head impatiently. "I think you mock me," said she.
+
+He looked at her keenly.  "Will you tell me plainly, madam," he begged,
+"what you would have me do?"
+
+She flushed under his gaze, and the flush told him what he sought to
+learn.  There was, of course, another way, and she had thought of it;
+but she lacked -  as well she might, all things considered - the courage
+to propose it.  She had come to Mr. Wilding in the vague hope that he
+himself would choose the heroic part.  And he, to punish for her scorn
+of him this woman whom he loved to hating-point, was resolved that she
+herself must beg it of him.  Whether, having so far compelled her, he
+would grant her prayer or not was something he could not just then
+himself have told you.  She bowed her head in silence, and Wilding,
+that faint smile, half friendliness, half mockery, hovering ever on his
+lips, turned aside and moved softly towards the window.  Her eyes,
+veiled behind the long lashes of their drooping lids, followed him
+furtively.  She felt that she hated him in very truth.  She marked the
+upright elegance of his figure, the easy grace of his movements, the
+fine aristocratic mould of the aquiline face, which she beheld in
+profile; and she hated him the more for these outward favours that must
+commend him to no lack of women.  He was too masterful.  He made her
+realize too keenly her own weakness and that of Richard.  She felt that
+just now he controlled the vice that held her fast - her affection for
+her brother.  And because of that she hated him the more.  "You see,
+Mistress Westmacott," said he, his shoulder to her, his tone sweet to
+the point of sadness, "that there is nothing else." She stood, her eyes
+following the pattern of the parquetry, her foot unconsciously tracing
+it; her courage ebbed, and she had no answer for him.  After a pause
+he spoke again, still without turning.  "If that was not enough to suit
+your ends" - and though he spoke in a tone of ever-increasing sadness,
+there glinted through it the faintest ray of mockery - "I marvel you
+should have come to Zoyland - to compromise yourself to so little
+purpose."
+
+She raised a startled face.  "Com ... compromise myself?" she echoed.
+"Oh!" It was a cry of indignation.
+
+"What else?" quoth he, and turned abruptly to confront her.
+
+"Mistress Horton was.., was with me," she panted, her voice quivering as
+on the brink of tears.
+
+"`Tis unfortunate you should have separated," he condoled.
+
+"But.., but, Mr. Wilding, I ... I trusted to your honour.  I accounted
+you a gentleman.  Surely... surely, sir, you will not let it be known
+that... I came to you?  You will keep my secret?"
+
+"Secret!" said he, his eyebrows raised. "`Tis already the talk of the
+servants' hall.  By to-morrow `twill be the gossip of Bridgwater."
+
+Air failed her  Her blue eyes fixed him in horror out of her stricken
+face.  Not a word had she wherewith to answer him.
+
+The sight of her, thus, affected him oddly.  His passion for her surged
+up, aroused by pity for her plight, and awakened in him a sense of his
+brutality.  A faint flush stirred in his cheeks.  He stepped quickly to
+her, and caught her hand.  She let it lie, cold and inert, within his
+nervous grasp.
+
+"Ruth, Ruth!" he cried, and his voice was for once unsteady.  "Give it
+no thought!  I love you, Ruth.  If you'll but heed that, no breath of
+scandal can hurt you."
+
+She swallowed hard.  "As how?" she asked mechanically.
+
+He bowed low over her hand - so low that his face was hidden from her.
+
+"If you will do me the honour to become my wife ..." he began, but got
+no further, for she snatched away her hand, her cheeks crimsoning, her
+eyes aflame with indignation.  He stepped back, crimsoning too.  She had
+dashed the gentleness from his mood.  He was angered now and tigerish.
+
+"Oh!" she panted.  "It is to affront me!  Is thisthe time or place..."
+
+He cropped her flow of indignant speech ere it was well begun.  He
+caught her in his arms, and held her tight, and so sudden was the act,
+so firm his grip that she had not the thought or force to struggle.
+
+"All time is love's time, all places are love's place," he told her,
+his face close to her own.  "And of all time and places the present
+ever preferable to the wise - for life is uncertain and short at best.
+I bring you worship, and you answer me with scorn.  But I shall prevail,
+and you shall come to love me in very spite of your own self."
+
+She threw back her head, away from his as far as the bonds he had cast
+about her would allow.  "Air! Air!" she panted feebly.
+
+"Oh, you shall have air enough anon," he answered with a half-strangled
+laugh, his passion mounting ever.  "Hark you, now - hark you, for
+Richard's sake, since you'll not listen for my own nor yours. There is
+another course by which I can save both Richard's life and honour.  You
+know it, and you counted upon my generosity to suggest it.  But you
+overlooked the thing on which you should have counted.  You overlooked
+my love.  Count upon that, my Ruth, and Richard shall have naught to
+fear.  Count upon that, and when we meet this evening, Richard and I,
+it is I who will tender the apology, I who will admit that I was wrong
+to introduce your name into that company last night, and that what
+Richard did was a just and well-deserved punishment upon me.  This will
+I do if you'll but count upon my love."
+
+She looked up at him fearfully, yet with flutterings of hope.  "What
+is't you mean?"  she asked him faintly.
+
+"That if you'll promise to be my wife..."
+
+"Your wife!" she interrupted him.  She struggled to free herself,
+released one arm and struck him in the face.  "Let me go, you coward!"
+
+He was answered.  His arms melted from her.  He fell back a pace, very
+white and even trembling, the fire all gone from his eye, which was now
+turned dull and deadly.
+
+"So be it," he said, and strode to the bell-rope. "I'll not offend again.
+I had not offended now" - he continued, in the voice of one offering
+an explanation cold and formal - "but that when first I came into your
+life you seemed to bid me welcome."  His fingers closed upon the crimson
+bell-cord. She guessed his purpose.
+
+"Wait!" she gasped, and put forth her hand.  He paused, the rope in his,
+his eye kindling anew.  "You ... you mean to kill Richard now?"  she
+asked him.
+
+A swift lifting of his brows was his only answer.  He tugged the cord.
+From the distance the peal of the bell reached them faintly.
+
+"Oh, wait, wait!" she begged, her hands pressed against her cheeks.  He
+stood impassible - hatefully impassible. "....... if I were to consent
+to... this ... how... how soon...?" He understood the unfinished
+question.  Interest warmed his face again.  He took a step towards her,
+but by a gesture she seemed to beg him come no nearer.
+
+"If you will promise to marry me within the week, Richard shall have no
+cause to fear either for his life or his honour at my hands."
+
+She seemed now to be recovering her calm.  "Very well," she said, her
+voice singularly steady.  "Let that be a bargain between us.  Spare
+Richard's life and honour - both, remember! - and on Sunday next ..."
+For all her courage her voice quavered and faltered.  She dared add no
+more, lest it should break altogether.
+
+Mr. Wilding drew a deep breath.  Again he would have advanced.  "Ruth!"
+he cried, and some repentance smote him, some shame shook him in his
+purpose.  At that moment it was in his mind to capitulate
+unconditionally; to tell her that Richard should have naught to fear
+from him, and yet that she should go free as the winds.  Her gesture
+checked him.  It was so eloquent of aversion.  He paused in his advance,
+stifled his better feelings, and turned once more, relentless.  The door
+opened and old Walters stood awaiting his commands.
+
+"Mistress Westmacott is leaving," he informed his servant, and bowed
+low and formally in farewell before her.  She passed out without another
+word, the old butler following, and presently through the door that
+remained open came Trenchard, in quest of Mr. Wilding who stood bemused.
+
+Nick sauntered in, his left eye almost hidden by the rakish cock of his
+hat, one hand tucked away under the skirts of his plum-coloured coat,
+the other supporting the stem of a long clay pipe, at which he was
+pulling thoughtfully.  The pipe and he were all but inseparable; indeed,
+the year before in London he had given appalling scandal by appearing
+with it in the Mall, and had there remained him any character to lose,
+he must assuredly have lost it then.
+
+He observed his friend through narrowing eyes - he had small eyes, very
+blue and very bright, in which there usually abode a roguish gleam.
+
+"My sight, Anthony," said he, "reminds me that I am growing old.  I
+wonder did it mislead me on the score of your visitor?"
+
+"The lady who left," said Wilding with a touch of severity, "will be
+Mistress Wilding by this day se'night."
+
+Trenchard took the pipe from his lips, audibly blew out a cloud of
+smoke and stared at his friend.  "Body o' me!" quoth he.  "Is this a
+time for marrying? - with these rumours of Monmouth's coming over."
+
+Wilding made an impatient gesture.  "I thought to have convinced you
+they are idle," said he, and flung himself into a chair at his
+writing-table.
+
+Nick came over and perched himself upon the table's edge, one leg
+swinging in the air.  "And what of this matter of the intercepted
+letter from London to our Taunton friends?"
+
+"I can't tell you.  But of this I am sure, His Grace is incapable of
+anything so rash.  Certain is it that he'll not stir until Battiscomb
+returns to Holland, and Battiscomb is still in Cheshire sounding the
+Duke's friends."
+
+"Yet were I you, I should not marry just at present."
+
+Wilding smiled. "If you were me, you'd never marry at all."
+
+"Faith, no!" said Trenchard.  "I'd as soon play at `hot-cockles,'
+or `Parson-has-lost-his-cloak.'  `Tis a mort more amusing and the
+sooner done with."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+THE ENCOUNTER
+
+
+Ruth Wesmacott rode back like one in a dream, with vague and hazy
+notions of what she saw or did.  So overwrought was she by the interview
+from which she came, her mind so obsessed by it, that never a thought
+had she for Diana and her indisposition until she arrived home to find
+her cousin there before her.  Diana was in tears, called up by the
+reproaches of her mother, Lady Horton - the relict of that fine soldier
+Sir Cholmondeley Horton, of Taunton.
+
+The girl had arrived at Lupton House a half-hour ahead of Miss
+Westmacott, and upon her arrival she had expressed surprise, either
+feigned or real, at finding Ruth still absent.  Detecting the alarm that
+Diana was careful to throw into her voice and manner, her mother
+questioned her, and elicited the story of her faintness and of Ruth's
+having ridden on alone to Mr. Wilding's.  So outraged was Lady Horton
+that for once in a way this woman, usually so meek and ease-loving, was
+roused to an energy and anger with her daughter and her niece that
+threatened to remove Diana at once from the pernicious atmosphere of
+Lupton House and carry her home to Taunton.  Ruth found her still at her
+remonstrances, arrived, indeed, in time for her share of them.
+
+"I have been sore mistaken in you, Ruth!" the dame reproached her.  "I
+can scarce believe it of you.  I have held you up as an example to
+Diana, for the discretion and wisdom of your conduct, and you do this!
+You go alone to Mr. Wilding's house - to Mr. Wilding's, of all men!"
+
+"It was no time for ordinary measures," said Ruth, but she spoke without
+any of the heat of one who defends her conduct.  She was, the slyly
+watchful Diana observed, very white and tired.  "It was no time to think
+of nice conduct.  There was Richard to be saved."
+
+"And was it worth ruining yourself to do that?" quoth Lady Horton, her
+colour high.
+
+"Ruining myself?" echoed Ruth, and she smiled never so weary a smile.
+"I have, indeed, done that, though not in the way you mean."
+
+Mother and daughter eyed her, mystified. "Your good name is blasted,"
+said her aunt, "unless so be that Mr. Wilding is proposing to make you
+his wife."  It was a sneer the good woman could not, in her indignation,
+repress.
+
+"That is what Mr. Wilding has done me the honour to propose," Ruth
+answered bitterly, and left them gaping.  "We are to be married this
+day se'night."
+
+A dead silence followed the calm announcement.  Then Diana rose.  At the
+misery, the anguish that could impress so strange and white a look on
+Ruth's winsome face, she was smitten with remorse, her incipient
+satisfaction dashed.  This was her work; the fruit of her scheming.  But
+it had gone further than she had foreseen; and for all that no result
+could better harmonize with her own ambitions and desires, for the
+moment - under the first shock of that announcement - she felt guilty
+and grew afraid.
+
+"Ruth!" she cried, her voice a whisper of stupefaction.  "Oh, I wish I
+had come with you!"
+
+"But you couldn't; you were faint."  And then - recalling what had
+passed - her mind was filled with sudden concern for Diana, even amid
+her own sore troubles.  "Are you quite yourself again, Diana?" she
+inquired.
+
+Diana answered almost fiercely, "I am quite well." And then, with a
+change to wistfulness, she added, "Oh, I would I had come with you!"
+
+"Matters had been no different," Ruth assured her. "It was a bargain
+Mr. Wilding drove.  It was the price I had to pay for Richard's life and
+honour."  She swallowed hard, and let her hands fall limply to her
+sides.  "Where is Richard?" she inquired.
+
+It was her aunt who answered her.  "He went forth half an hour agone
+with Mr. Vallancey and Sir Rowland."
+
+"Sir Rowland had returned, then?" She looked up quickly.
+
+"Yes," answered Diana.  "But he had achieved nothing by his visit to
+Lord Gervase.  His lordship would not intervene; he swore he hoped the
+cub would be flayed alive by Wilding.  Those were his lordship's words,
+as Sir Rowland repeated them.  Sir Rowland is in sore distress for
+Richard.  He has gone with them to the meeting."
+
+"At least, he has no longer cause for his distress," said Miss
+Westmacott with her bitter smile, and sank as one exhausted to a chair.
+Lady Horton moved to comfort her, her motherliness all aroused for this
+motherless girl, usually so wise and strong, and seemingly wiser and
+stronger than ever in this thing that Lady Horton had deemed a weakness
+and a folly.
+
+Meanwhile, Richard and his two friends were on their way to the moors
+across the river to the encounter with Mr. Wilding.  But before they
+had got him to ride forth, Vallancey had had occasion to regret that
+he stood committed to a share in this quarrel, for he came to know
+Richard as he really was.  He had found him in an abject state, white
+and trembling, his coward's fancy anticipating a hundred times a minute
+the death he was anon to die.
+
+Vallancey had hailed him cheerily.
+
+"The day is yours, Dick," he had cried, when Richard entered the library
+where he awaited him.  "Wild Wilding has ridden to Taunton this morning
+and is to be back by noon.  Odsbud, Dick! - twenty miles and more in the
+saddle before coming on the ground.  Heard you ever of the like madness?
+He'll be stiff as a broom-handle - an easy victim."
+
+Richard listened, stared, and, finding Vallancey's eyes fixed steadily
+upon him, attempted a smile and achieved a horrible grimace.
+
+"What ails you, man?" cried his second, and caught him by the wrist.
+He felt the quiver of the other's limb.  "Stab me!" quoth he, "you are
+in no case to fight.  What the plague ails you?"
+
+"I am none so well this morning," answered Richard feebly.  "Lord
+Gervase's claret," he added, passing a hand across his brow.
+
+"Lord Gervase's claret?" echoed Vallancey in horror, as at some
+outrageous blasphemy.  "Frontignac at ten shillings the bottle!" he
+exclaimed.
+
+"Still, claret never does lie easy on my stomach," Richard explained,
+intent upon blaming Lord Gervase s wine - since he could think of nothing
+else - for his condition.
+
+Vallancey looked at him shrewdly.  "My cock," said he, "if you're to
+fight we'll have to mend your temper."  He took it upon himself to ring
+the bell, and to order up two bottles of Canary and one of brandy. If
+he was to get his man to the ground at all - and young Vallancey had a
+due sense of his responsibilities in that connection - it would be well
+to supply Richard with something to replace the courage that had oozed
+out overnight.  Young Richard, never loath to fortify himself, proved
+amenable enough to the stiffly laced Canary that his friend set before
+him.  Then, to divert his mind, Vallancey, with that rash freedom that
+had made the whole of Somerset know him for a rebel, set himself to
+talk of the Protestant Duke and his right to the crown of England.
+
+He was still at his talk, Richard listening moodily what time he was
+slowly but surely befuddling himself, when Sir Rowland - returning from
+Scoresby Hall - came to bring the news of his lack of success.  Richard
+hailed him noisily, and bade him ring for another glass, adding, with a
+burst of oaths, some appalling threats of how anon he should serve
+Anthony Wilding.  His wits drowned in the stiff liquor Vallancey had
+pressed upon him, he seemed of a sudden to have grown as fierce and
+bloodthirsty as any scourer that ever terrorized the watch.
+
+Blake listened to him and grunted.  "Body o' me!" swore the town gallant.
+"If that's the humour you're going out to fight in, I'll trouble you for
+the eight guineas I won from you at Primero yesterday before you start."
+
+Richard reared himself, by the help of the table, and stood a thought
+unsteadily, his glance laboriously striving to engage Blake's.
+
+"Damn me!" quoth he.  "Your want of faith dishgraces me - and `t
+`shgraces you.  Shalt ha' the guineas when we're back - and not before."
+
+"Hum!" quoth Blake, to whom eight guineas were a consideration in these
+bankrupt days.  "And if you don't come back at all upon whom am I to
+draw?"
+
+The suggestion sank through Dick's half-fuddled senses, and the scare it
+gave him was reflected on his face.
+
+"Damn you, Blake!" swore Vallancey between his teeth.  "Is that a decent
+way to talk to a man who is going out?  Never heed him, Dick!  Let him
+wait for his dirty guineas till we return."
+
+"Thirty guineas?" hiccoughed Richard.  "It was only eight.  Anyhow - wait'll
+I've sli' the gullet of's Mr. Wilding."  He checked on a thought that
+suddenly occurred to him.  He turned to Vallancey with a ludicrous
+solemnity.  "`Sbud!" he swore. "`S a scurvy trick I'm playing the Duke.
+`S treason to him - treason no less."  And he smote the table with his
+open hand.
+
+"What's that?" quoth Blake so sharply, his eyes so suddenly alert that
+Vallancey made haste to cover up his fellow rebel's indiscretion.
+
+"It's  the brandy-and-Canary makes him dream," said he with a laugh,
+and rising as he spoke he announced that it was high time they should
+set out.  Thus he brought about a bustle that drove the Duke's business
+from Richard's mind, and left Blake without a pretext to pursue his
+quest for information.  But the mischief was done, and Blake's
+suspicions were awake.  He bethought him now of dark hints that Richard
+had let fall to Vallancey in the past few days, and of hints less dark
+with which Vallancey - who was a careless fellow at ordinary times - had
+answered.  And now this mention of the Duke and of treason to him - to
+what Duke could it refer but Monmouth?
+
+Blake was well aware of the wild tales that were going round, and he
+began to wonder now was aught really afoot, and was his good friend
+Westmacott in it?
+
+If there was, he bethought him that the knowledge might be of value,
+and it might help to float once more his shipwrecked fortunes.  The
+haste with which Vallancey had proffered a frivolous explanation of
+Richard's words, the bustle with which upon the instant he swept Richard
+and Sir Rowland from the house to get to horse and ride out to
+Bridgwater were in themselves circumstances that went to heighten those
+suspicions of Sir Rowland's.  But lacking all opportunity for
+investigation at the moment, he deemed it wisest to say no more just
+then lest he should betray his watchfulness.
+
+They were the first to arrive upon the ground - an open space on the
+borders of Sedgemoor, in the shelter of Polden Hill.  But they had not
+long to wait before Wilding and Trenchard rode up, attended by a groom.
+Their arrival had an oddly sobering effect upon young Westmacott, for
+which Mr. Vallancey was thankful.  For during their ride he had begun
+to fear that he had carried too far the business of equipping his
+principal with artificial valour.
+
+Trenchard came forward to offer Vallancey the courteous suggestion
+that Mr. Wilding's servant should charge himself with the care of the
+horses of Mr. Westmacott's party, if this would be a convenience to
+them.  Vallancey thanked him and accepted the offer, and thus the
+groom - instructed by Trenchard - led the five horses some distance
+from the spot.
+
+It now became a matter of making preparation, and leaving Richard to
+divest himself of such garments as he might deem cumbrous, Vallancey
+went forward to consult with Trenchard upon the choice of ground. At
+that same moment Mr. Wilding lounged forward, flicking the grass with
+his whip in an absent manner.
+
+ "Mr. Vallancey," he began, when Trenchard turned to interrupt him.
+
+"You can leave it safely to me, Tony," he growled.  "But there is
+something I wish to say, Nick," answered Mr. Wilding, his manner mild.
+"By your leave, then."  And he turned again to Valiancey.  "Will you be
+so good as to call Mr. Westmacott hither?"
+
+Vallancey stared. "For what purpose, sir?" he asked.
+
+"For my purpose," answered Mr. Wilding sweetly.  "It is no longer my
+wish to engage with Mr. Westmacott.
+
+"Anthony!" cried Trenchard, and in his amazement forgot to swear.
+
+"I propose," added Mr. Wilding, "to relieve Mr. Westmacott of the
+necessity of fighting."
+
+Vallancey in his heart thought this might be pleasant news for his
+principal.  Still, he did not quite see how the end was to be attained,
+and said so.
+
+"You shall be enlightened if you will do as I request," Wilding
+insisted, and Vallancey, with a lift of the brows, a snort, and a
+shrug, turned away to comply.
+
+"Do you mean," quoth Trenchard, bursting with indignation, "that you
+will let live a man who has struck you?"
+
+Wilding took his friend affectionately by the arm.  "It is a whim of
+mine," said he.  "Do you think, Nick, that it is more than I can afford
+to indulge?"
+
+"I say not so," was the ready answer; "but .. ."
+
+"I thought you'd not," said Mr. Wilding, interrupting.  "And if any
+does - why, I shall be glad to prove it upon him that he lies."  He
+laughed, and Trenchard, vexed though he was, was forced to laugh with
+him.  Then Nick set himself to urge the thing that last night had
+plagued his mind: that this Richard might prove a danger to the Cause;
+that in the Duke's interest, if not to safeguard his own person from
+some vindictive betrayal, Wilding would be better advised in imposing
+a reliable silence upon him.
+
+"But why vindictive?" Mr. Wilding remonstrated.  "Rather must he have
+cause for gratitude."
+
+Mr. Trenchard laughed short and contemptuously.  "There is," said he,
+"no rancour more bitter than that of the mean man who has offended
+you and whom you have spared.  I beg you'll ponder it."  He lowered
+his voice as he ended his admonition, for Vallancey and Westmacott
+were coming up, followed by Sir Rowland Blake.
+
+Richard, although his courage had been sinking lower and lower in a
+measure as he had grown more and more sober with the approach of the
+moment for engaging, came forward now with a firm step and an arrogant
+mien; for Vallancey had given him more than a hint of what was toward.
+His heart had leapt, not only at the deliverance that was promised him,
+but out of satisfaction at the reflection of how accurately last night
+he had gauged what Mr. Wilding would endure.  It had dismayed him then,
+as we have seen, that this man who, he thought, must stomach any
+affront from him out of consideration for his sister, should have ended
+by calling him to account.  He concluded now that upon reflection
+Wilding had seen his error, and was prepared to make amends that he
+might extricate himself from an impossible situation, and Richard blamed
+himself for having overlooked this inevitable solution and given way
+to idle panic.
+
+Vallancey and Blake watching him, and the sudden metamorphosis that was
+wrought in him, despised him heartily, and yet were glad - for the sake
+of their association with him - that things were as they were.
+
+"Mr. Westmacott," said Wilding quietly, his eyes steadily set upon
+Richard's own arrogant gaze, his lips smiling a little, "I am here not
+to fight, but to apologize."
+
+Richard's sneer was audible to all.  Oh, he was gathering courage fast
+now that there no longer was the need for it.  It urged him to lengths
+of daring possible only to a fool.
+
+"If you can take a blow, Mr. Wilding," said he offensively, "that is
+your own affair."
+
+And his friends gasped at his temerity and trembled for him, not knowing
+what grounds he had for counting himself unassailable.
+
+"Just so," said Mr. Wilding, as meek and humble as a nun, and
+Trenchard, who had expected something very different from him, swore
+aloud and with some circumstance of oaths.  "The fact is," continued
+Mr. Wilding, "that what I did last night, I did in the heat of wine,
+and I am sorry for it.  I recognize that this quarrel is of my
+provoking; that it was unwarrantable in me to introduce the name of
+Mistress Westmacott, no matter how respectfully; and that in doing
+so I gave Mr. Westmacott ample grounds for offence.  For that I beg
+his pardon, and I venture to hope that this matter need go no further."
+
+Vallancey and Blake were speechless in astonishment; Trenchard livid
+with fury.  Westmacott moved a step or two forward, a swagger
+unmistakable in his gait, his nether-lip thrust out in a sneer.
+
+"Why," said he, his voice mighty disdainful, "if Mr. Wilding apologizes,
+the matter hardly can go further."  He conveyed such a suggestion of
+regret at this that Trenchard bounded forward, stung to speech.
+
+"But if Mr. Westmacott's disappointment threatens to overwhelm him,"
+he snapped, very tartly, "I am his humble servant, and he may call
+upon me to see that he's not robbed of the exercise he came to take."
+
+Mr. Wilding set a restraining hand upon Trenchard's arm.
+
+Westmacott turned to him, the sneer, however, gone from his face.
+
+"I have no quarrel with you, sir," said he, with an uneasy assumption
+of dignity.
+
+"It's a want that may be soon supplied," answered Trenchard briskly,
+and, as he afterwards confessed, had not Wilding checked him at that
+moment, he had thrown his hat in Richard's face.
+
+It was Vallancey who saved the situation, cursing in his heart the
+bearing of his principal.
+
+"Mr. Wilding," said he, "this is very handsome in you.  You are of the
+happy few who may tender such an apology without reflection upon your
+courage."
+
+Mr. Wilding made him a leg very elegantly.  "You are vastly kind, sir,"
+said he.
+
+"You have given Mr. Westmacott the fullest satisfaction, and it is
+with an increased respect for you - if that were possible - that I
+acknowledge it on my friend's behalf."
+
+"You are, sir, a very mirror of the elegancies," said Mr. Wilding, and
+Vallancey wondered was he being laughed at.  Whether he was or not, he
+conceived that he had done the only seemly thing.  He had made handsome
+acknowledgment of a handsome apology, stung to it by the currishness
+of Richard.
+
+And there the matter ended, despite Trenchard's burning eagerness to
+carry it himself to a different consummation.  Wilding prevailed upon
+him, and withdrew him from the field.  But as they rode back to Zoyland
+Chase the old rake was bitter in his inveighings against Wilding's
+folly and weakness.
+
+"I pray Heaven," he kept repeating, "that it may not come to cost you
+dear."
+
+"Have done," said Mr. Wilding, a trifle out of patience.  "Could I wed
+the sister having slain the brother?"
+
+And Trenchard, understanding at last, accounted himself a numskull that
+he had not understood before. But he none the less deemed it a pity
+Richardhad been spared.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+THE CHAMPION
+
+
+As vainglorious was Richard Westmacott's retreat from the field of
+unstricken battle as his advance upon it had been inglorious.  He
+spoke with confidence now of the narrow escape that Wilding had had
+at his hands, of the things he would have done to Wilding had not that
+gentleman grown wise in time.  Sir Rowland, who had seen little of
+Richard's earlier stricken condition, was in a measure imposed upon
+by his blustering tone and manner; not so Vallancey, who remembered
+the steps he had been forced to take to bolster up the young man's
+courage sufficiently to admit of his being brought to the encounter.
+Richard so disgusted him that he felt if he did not quit his company
+soon, he would be quarrelling with him himself.  So, congratulating
+him, in a caustic manner that Richard did not relish, upon the happy
+termination of the affair, Vallancey took his leave of him and Blake
+at the cross-roads, pleading business with Lord Gervase, and left them
+to proceed without him to Bridgwater.
+
+Blake, whose suspicions of some secret matter to which Vallancey and
+Richard were wedded, had been earlier excited by Westmacott's
+indiscretions, was full of sly questions now touching the business
+which might be taking Vallancey to Scoresby.  But Richard was too full
+of the subject of the fear he had instilled into Wilding to afford his
+companion much satisfaction on any other score.  Thus they came to
+Lupton House, and as Richard swaggered down the lawn into the presence
+of the ladies - Ruth and her aunt were occupying the stone bench, Diana
+the circular seat about the great oak in the centre of the lawn - he
+was a very different person from the pale, limp creature they had
+beheld there some few hours earlier.  Loud and offensive was he now
+in self-laudation, and so indifferent to all else that he left
+unobserved the little smile, half wistful, half scornful, that visited
+his sister's lips when he sneeringly told how Mr. Wilding had chosen
+that better part of valour which discretion is alleged to be.
+
+It needed Diana, who, blinded by no sisterly affection, saw him exactly
+as he was, and despised him accordingly, to enlighten him.  It may also
+be that in doing so at once she had ends of her own to serve; for Sir
+Rowland was still of the company.
+
+"Mr. Wilding afraid?" she cried, her voice so charged with derision
+that it inclined to shrillness.  "La! Richard, Mr. Wilding was never
+afraid of any man."
+
+"Faith!" said Rowland, although his acquaintance with Mr. Wilding
+was slight and recent.  "It is what I should think.  He does not look
+like a man familiar with fear."
+
+Richard struck something of an attitude, his fair face flushed, his
+pale eyes glittering.  "He took a blow," said he, and sneered.
+
+"There may have been reasons," Diana suggested darkly, and Sir
+Rowland's eyes narrowed at the hint.
+
+Again he recalled the words Richard had let fall that afternoon.
+Wilding and he were fellow workers in some secret business, and
+Richard had said that the encounter was treason to that same
+business, whatever it might be.  And of what it might be Sir Rowland
+had grounds upon which to found at least a guess.  Had perhaps
+Wilding acted upon some similar feelings in avoiding the duel?  He
+wondered; and when Richard dismissed Diana's challenge with a fatuous
+laugh, it was Blake who took it up.
+
+     "You speak, ma'am," said he, "as if you knew that there were
+reasons, and knew, too, what those reasons might be."
+
+Diana looked at Ruth, as if for guidance before replying.  But Ruth sat
+calm and seemingly impassive, looking straight before her.  She was,
+indeed, indifferent  how much Diana said, for in any case the matter
+could not remain a secret long.  Lady Horton, silent too and listening,
+looked a question at her daughter.
+
+And so, after a pause: "I know both," said Diana, her eyes straying
+again to Ruth; and a subtler man than Blake would have read that
+glance and understood that this same reason which he sought so
+diligently sat there before him.
+
+Richard, indeed, catching that sly look of his cousin's, checked his
+assurance, and stood frowning, cogitating.  Then, quite suddenly,
+his voice harsh:
+
+"What do you mean, Diana?" he inquired.
+
+Diana shrugged and turned her shoulder to him. "You had best ask Ruth,"
+said she, which was an answer more or less plain to both the men.
+
+They stood at gaze, Richard looking a thought foolish.  Blake, frowning,
+his heavy lip caught in his strong, white teeth.
+
+Ruth turned to her brother with an almost piteous attempt at a smile.
+She sought to spare him pain by excluding from her manner all suggestion
+that things were other than she desired.
+
+"I am betrothed to Mr. Wilding," said she.
+
+Sir Rowland made a sudden forward movement, drew a deep breath, and
+as suddenly stood still.  Richard looked at his sister as she were mad
+and raving.  Then he laughed, between unbelief and derision.
+
+"It is a jest," said he, but his accents lacked conviction.
+
+"It is the truth," Ruth assured him quietly.
+
+ "The truth?" His brow darkened ominously - stupendously for one so
+fair. "The truth, you baggage...?"  He began and stopped in very fury.
+
+She saw that she must tell him all.
+
+"I promised to wed Mr. Wilding this day se'night so that he saved your
+life and honour," she told him calmly, and added, "It was a bargain
+that we drove."  Richard continued to stare at her.  The thing she
+told him was too big to be swallowed at a mouthful; he was absorbing
+it by slow degrees.
+
+"So now," said Diana, "you know the sacrifice your sister has made to
+save you, and when you speak of the apology Mr. Wilding tendered you,
+perhaps you'll speak of it in a tone less loud."
+
+But the sarcasm was no longer needed.  Already poor Richard was very
+humble, his make-believe spirit all snuffed out.  He observed at last
+how pale and set was his sister's face, and he realized something of
+the sacrifice she had made.  Never in all his life was Richard so near
+to lapsing from the love of himself; never so near to forgetting his
+own interests, and  preferring those of Ruth.  Lady Horton sat silent,
+her heart fluttering with dismay and perplexity.  Heaven had not
+equipped her with a spirit capable of dealing with a situation such as
+this. Blake stood in makebelieve stolidity dissembling his infinite
+chagrin and the stormy emotions warring within him, for some signs of
+which Diana watched his countenance in vain.
+
+"You shall not do it!" cried Richard suddenly.  He came forward and
+laid his hand on his sister's shoulder.  His voice was almost gentle.
+"Ruth, you shall not do this for me. You must not."
+
+"By Heaven, no!" snapped Blake before she could reply.  "You are right,
+Richard.  Mistress Westmacott must not be the scapegoat.  She shall not
+play the part of Iphigenia."
+
+     But Ruth smiled wistfully as she answered him with a question,
+"Where is the help for it?"
+
+Richard knew where the help for it lay, and for once - for just a
+moment - he contemplated danger and even death with equanimity.
+
+"I can take up this quarrel again," he announced.  "I can compel Mr.
+Wilding to meet me."
+
+Ruth's eyes, looking up at him, kindled with pride and admiration.
+It warmed her heart to hear him speak thus, to have this assurance
+that he was anything but the coward she had been so disloyal as to
+deem him; no doubt she had been right in saying that it was his health
+was the cause of the palsy he had displayed that morning; he was a
+little wild, she knew; inclined to sit over-late at the bottle; with
+advancing manhood, she had no doubt, he would overcome this boyish
+failing.  Meanwhile it was this foolish habit - nothing more - that
+undermined the inherent firmness of his nature.  And it comforted her
+generous soul to have this proof that he was full worthy of the
+sacrifice she was making for him.  Diana watched him in some surprise,
+and never doubted but that his offer was impulsive, and that he would
+regret it when his ardour had had time to cool.
+
+"It were idle," said Ruth at last - not that she quite believed it,
+but that it was all-important to her that Richard should not be
+imperilled. "Mr. Wilding will prefer the bargain he has made."
+
+     "No doubt," growled Blake, "but he shall be forced to unmake it."
+He advanced and bowed low before her.  "Madam," said he, "will you grant
+me leave to champion your cause and remove this troublesome Mr. Wilding
+from your path?"
+
+Diana's eyes narrowed; her cheeks paled, partly from fear for Blake,
+partly from vexation at the promptness of an offer that afforded a fresh
+and so eloquent proof of the trend of his affections.
+
+Ruth smiled at him in a very friendly manner, but gently shook her head.
+
+"I thank you, sir," said she.  "But it were more than I could permit.
+This has become a family affair."
+
+There was in her tone something which, despite its friendliness, gave
+Sir Rowland his dismissal.  He was not at best a man of keen
+sensibilities; yet even so, he could not mistake the request to
+withdraw that was implicit in her tone and manner.  He took his leave,
+registering, however, in his heart a vow that he would have his way
+with Wilding.  Thus must he - through her gratitude - assuredly come
+ to have his way with Ruth.
+
+Diana rose and turned to her mother.  "Come," she said, "we'll speed
+Sir Rowland.  Ruth and Richard would perhaps prefer to remain alone."
+
+     Ruth thanked her with her eyes.  Richard, standing beside his
+sister with bent head and moody gaze, did not appear to have heard.
+Thus he remained until he and his half-sister were alone together,
+then he flung himself wearily into the seat beside her, and took her
+hand.
+
+"Ruth," he faltered, "Ruth!"
+
+She stroked his hand, her honest, intelligent eyes bent upon him in a
+look of pity - and to indulge this pity for him, she forgot how much
+herself she needed pity.
+
+"Take it not so to heart," she urged him, her voice low and crooning
+ - as that of a mother to her babe.  "Take it not so to heart, Richard.
+I should have married some day, and, after all, it may well be that
+Mr. Wilding will make me as good a husband as another.  I do believe,"
+she added, her only intent to comfort Richard; "that he loves me; and
+if he loves me, surely he will prove kind."
+
+He flung himself back with an exclamation of angry pain.  He was white
+to the lips, his eyes bloodshot.  "It must not be - it shall not be -
+I'll not endure it!" he cried hoarsely.
+
+"Richard, dear.. ." she began, recapturing the hand he had snatched
+from hers in his gust of emotion.
+
+     He rose abruptly, interrupting her. "I'll go to Wilding now," he
+cried, his voice resolute.  "He shall cancel this bargain he had no
+right to make.  He shall take up his quarrel with me where it stood
+before you went to him."
+
+"No, no, Richard, you must not!" she urged him, frightened, rising too,
+and clinging to his arm.
+
+"I will," he answered. "At the worst he can but kill me.  But at least
+you shall not be sacrificed."
+
+"Sit here, Richard," she bade him.  "There is something you have not
+considered.  If you die, if Mr. Wilding kills you.. ." she paused.
+
+He looked at her, and at the repetition of the fate that would probably
+await him if he persevered in the course he threatened, his purely
+emotional courage again began to fail him.  A look of fear crept
+gradually into his face to take the room of the resolution that had
+been stamped upon it but a moment since.
+
+He swallowed hard.  "What then?" he asked, his voice harsh, and,
+obeying her command and the pressure on his hand, he resumed his
+seat beside her.
+
+She spoke now at length and very gravely, dwelling upon the
+circumstance that he was the head of the family, the last Westmacott
+of his line, pointing out to him the importance of his existence,
+the insignificance of her own.  She was but a girl, a thing of small
+account where the perpetuation of a family was at issue.  After all,
+she must marry somebody some day, she repeated, and perhaps she had
+been foolish in attaching too much importance to the tales she had
+heard of Mr. Wilding.  Probably he was no worse than other men, and
+after all he was a gentleman of wealth and position, such a man as
+half the women in Somerset might be proud to own for husband.
+
+Her arguments and his weakness - his returning cowardice, which made
+him lend an ear to those same arguments - prevailed with him; at
+least they convinced him that he was far too important a person to
+risk his life in this quarrel upon which he had so rashly entered.
+He did not say that he was convinced; but he said that he would give
+the matter thought, hinting that perhaps some other way might present
+itself of cancelling the bargain she had made.  They had a week
+before them, and in any case he promised readily in answer to her
+entreaties - for her faith in him was a thing unquenchable - that he
+would do nothing without taking counsel with her.
+
+Meanwhile Diana had escorted Sir Rowland to the main gates of Lupton
+House, in front of which Miss Westmacott's groom was walking his horse,
+awaiting him.
+
+"Sir Rowland," said she at parting, "your chivalry makes you take this
+matter too deeply to heart. You overlook the possibility that my cousin
+may have good reason for not desiring your interference."
+
+He looked keenly at this little lady to whom a month ago he had been
+on the point of offering marriage.  His coxcombry might readily have
+suggested to him that she was in love with him, but that his conscience
+and inclinations urged him to assure himself that this was not the case.
+
+"What shall that mean, madam?" he asked her.
+
+Diana hesitated.  "What I have said is plain," she answered, and it was
+clear that she held something back.
+
+Sir Rowland flattered himself upon the shrewdnesswith which he read her,
+never dreaming that he had but read just what she intended he should.
+
+He stood squarely before her, shaking his greathead.  "Not plain enough
+for me," he said.  Then his tone softened to one of prayer.  "Tell me,"
+he besought her.
+
+"I can't! I can't!" she cried in feigned distress. "It were too disloyal."
+
+He frowned. He caught her arm and pressed it, his heart sick with
+jealous alarm. "What do you mean? Tell me, tell me, Mistress Horton."
+
+Diana lowered her eyes. "You'll not betray me?" she stipulated.
+
+ "Why, no. Tell me."
+
+She flushed delicately. "I am disloyal to Ruth," she said, "and yet I
+am loath to see you cozened."
+
+"Cozened?" quoth he hoarsely, his egregious vanity in arms.  "Cozened?"
+
+Diana explained. "Ruth was at his house to-day," said she, "closeted
+alone with him for an hour or more."
+
+"Impossible!" he cried.
+
+"Where else was the bargain made?" she asked, and shattered his last
+doubt.  "You know that Mr. Wilding has not been here."
+
+Yet Blake struggled heroically against conviction.
+
+"She went to intercede for Richard," he protested. Miss Horton looked up
+at him, and under her glance Sir Rowland felt that he was a man of
+unfathomable ignorance.  Then she turned aside her eyes and shrugged
+her shoulders `very eloquently.  "You are a man of the world, Sir
+Rowland.  You cannot seriously suppose that any maid would so imperil
+her good name in any cause?"
+
+Darker grew his florid countenance; his bulging eyes looked troubled
+and perplexed.
+
+"You mean that she loves him?" he said, between question and assertion.
+
+Diana pursed her lips.  "You shall draw your own inference," quoth she.
+
+He breathed heavily, and squared his broad shoulders, as one who braces
+himself for battle against an element stronger than himself.
+
+"But her talk of sacrifice?" he cried.
+
+Diana laughed, and again he was stung by her contempt of his
+perceptions.  "Her brother is set against her marrying him," said she.
+"Here was her chance. Is it not very plain?"
+
+Doubt stared from his eyes.  "Why do you tell me this?"
+
+"Because I esteem you, Sir Rowland," she answered very gently. "I would
+not have you meddle in a matter you cannot mend."
+
+"Which I am not desired to mend, say rather," he replied with heavy
+sarcasm.  "She would not have my interference!"  He laughed angrily.
+"I think you are right, Mistress Diana," he said, "and I think that
+more than ever is there the need to kill this Mr. Wilding."
+
+He took his departure abruptly, leaving her scared at the mischief
+she had made for him in seeking to save him from it, and that very
+night he sought out Wilding.
+
+But Wilding was from home again.  Under its placid surface the West
+Country was in a ferment. And if hitherto Mr. Wilding had disdained
+the insistent rumours of Monmouth's coming, his assurance was shaken
+now by proof that the Government, itself, was stirring; for four
+companies of foot and a troop of horse had been that day ordered
+to Taunton by the Deputy-Lieutenant.  Wilding was gone with Trenchard
+to White Lackington in a vain hope that there he might find news to
+confirm his persisting unbelief in any such rashness as was alleged
+on Monmouth's part.
+
+So Blake was forced to wait, but his purpose suffered nothing by delay.
+
+Returning on the morrow, he found Mr. Wilding at table with Nick
+Trenchard, and he cut short the greetings of both men.  He flung his
+hat - a black castor trimmed with a black feather - rudely among the
+dishes on the board.
+
+"I have come to ask you, Mr. Wilding," said he, "to be so good as to
+tell me the colour of that hat."
+
+Mr. Wilding raised one eyebrow and looked aslant at Trenchard, whose
+weather-beaten face was suddenly agrin with stupefaction.
+
+"I could not," said Mr. Wilding, "deny an answer to a question set
+so courteously."  He looked up into Blake's flushed and scowling face
+with the sweetest and most innocent of smiles.  "You'll no doubt disagree
+with me," said he, "but I love to meet a man halfway.  Your hat, sir,
+is as white as virgin snow."
+
+Blake's slow wits were disconcerted for a moment. Then he smiled
+viciously.  "You mistake, Mr. Wilding," said he.  "My hat is black."
+
+Mr. Wilding looked more attentively at the object in dispute.  He was
+in a trifling mood, and the stupidity of this runagate debtor afforded
+him opportunities to indulge it.  "Why, true," said he, "now that I
+come to look, I perceive that it is indeed black."
+
+And again was Sir Rowland disconcerted.  Still he pursued the lesson
+he had taught himself.
+
+"You are mistaken again," said he, "that hat is green."
+
+"Indeed?" quoth Mr. Wilding, like one surprised and he turned to
+Trenchard, who was enjoying himself.  "What is your own opinion of
+it, Nick?"
+
+Thus appealed to, Trenchard's reply was prompt.  "Why, since you ask
+me," said he, "my opinion is that it's a noisome thing not meet for
+a gentleman's table."  And he took it up, and threw it through the
+window.
+
+Sir Rowland was entirely put out of countenance.  Here was a deliberate
+shifting of the quarrel he had come to pick, which left him all at sea.
+It was his duty to himself to take offence at Mr. Trenchard's action.
+But that was not the business on which he had come.  He became angry.
+
+"Blister me!" he cried. "Must I sweep the cloth from the table before
+you'll understand me?"
+
+"If you were to do anything so unmannerly I should have you flung out
+of the house," said Mr. Wilding, "and it would distress me so to treat
+a person of your station and quality.  The hat shall serve your purpose,
+although Mr. Trenchard's concern for my table has removed it.  Our
+memories will supply its absence.  What colour did you say it was?"
+
+"I said it was green," answered Blake, quite ready to keep to the point.
+
+"Nay, I am sure you were wrong," said Wilding with a grave air.
+"Although I admit that since it is your own hat, you should be the best
+judge of its colour, I am, nevertheless, of opinion that it is black."
+
+"And if I were to say that it is white?" asked Blake, feeling mighty
+ridiculous.
+
+"Why, in that case you would be confirming my first impression of it,"
+answered Wilding, and Trenchard let fly a burst of laughter at sight
+of the baronet's furious and bewildered countenance.  "And since
+we are agreed on that," continued Mr. Wilding, imperturbable, "I hope
+you'll join us at supper."
+
+"I'll be damned," roared Blake, "if ever I sit at table of yours, sir."
+
+"Ah!" said Mr. Wilding regretfully.  "Now you become offensive."
+
+"I mean to be," said Blake.
+
+"You astonish me!"
+
+"You lie! I don't," Sir Rowland answered him in triumph.  He had got it
+out at last.
+
+Mr. Wilding sat back in his chair, and looked at him, his face
+inexpressibly shocked.
+
+"Will you of your own accord deprive us of your company, Sir Rowland,"
+he wondered, "or shall Mr. Trenchard throw you after your hat?"
+
+"Do you mean.. ." gasped the other, "that you'll ask no satisfaction
+of me?"
+
+"Not so. Mr. Trenchard shall wait upon your friends to-morrow, and I
+hope you'll afford us then as felicitous entertainment as you do now."
+
+Sir Rowland snorted, and, turning on his heel, made for the door.
+
+"Give you a good night, Sir Rowland," Mr. Wilding called after him.
+"Walters, you rascal, light Sir Rowland to the door."
+
+Poor Blake went home deeply vexed; but it was no more than the beginning
+of his humiliation at Mr. Wilding's hands - for what can be more
+humiliating to a quarrel - seeking man than to have his enemy refuse
+to treat him seriously?  He and Mr. Wilding met next morning, and before
+noon the tale of it had run through Bridgwater that Wild Wilding was at
+his tricks again.  It made a pretty story how twice he had disarmed and
+each time spared the London beau, who still insisted - each time more
+furiously -upon renewing the encounter, till Mr. Wilding had been
+forced to run him through the sword-arm and thus put him out of all case
+of continuing.  It was a story that heaped ridicule upon Sir Rowland
+and did credit to Mr. Wilding.
+
+Richard heard it, and trembled, enraged and impotent.  Ruth heard it,
+and was stirred despite herself to a feeling of gratitude towards
+Wilding for the patience and toleration he had displayed.
+
+There for a while the matter rested, and the days passed slowly.  But
+Sir Rowland's nature - mean at bottom - was spurred to find him some
+other way of wiping out the score that lay `twixt him and Mr. Wilding,
+a score mightily increased by the shame that Mr. Wilding had put upon
+him in that encounter from which - whatever the issue - he had looked
+to cull great credit in Ruth's eyes.
+
+He had been thinking constantly of the incautious words that Richard
+had let fall, thinking of them in conjunction with the startling rumours
+that were now the talk of the whole countryside.  He laid two and two
+together, and the four he found them make afforded him some hope.  Then
+he realized - as he might have realized before had he been shrewder -
+that Richard's mood was one that made him ripe for any villainy.  He
+thought that he was much in error if a treachery existed so black that
+Richard would quail before it, if it but afforded him the means of
+ridding himself and the world of Mr. Wilding.  He was considering how
+best to approach the subject, when it happened that one night when
+Richard sat at play with him in his own lodging, the boy grew talkative
+through excess of wine.  It happened naturally enough that Richard
+sought an ally in Blake, just as Blake sought an ally in Richard.
+Indeed, their fortunes - so far as Ruth was concerned - were bound
+up together.  The baronet saw that Richard, half-fuddled, was ripe for
+any confidences that might aim at the destruction of his enemy.  He
+questioned him adroitly, and drew from him the story of the rising
+that was being planned, and of the share that Mr. Wilding - one of the
+Duke of Monmouth's chief movement-men - bore in the business that was
+toward.
+
+When, towards midnight, Richard Westmacott went home, he left in Sir
+Rowland's hands an instrument which the latter accounted potential not
+only for the destruction of Anthony Wilding, but perhaps also for laying
+the foundations to the building of his own fortunes anew.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+THE NUPTIALS OF RUTH WESTMACOTT
+
+
+Here was Sir Rowland Blake in high fettle at knowing himself armed with
+a portentous weapon for the destruction of Anthony Wilding.  Upon closer
+inspection of it, however, he came to realize - as Richard had realized
+earlier - that it was double-edged, and that the wielding of it must be
+fraught with as much danger for Richard as for their common enemy.  For
+to betray Mr. Wilding and the plot would scarce be possible without
+betraying young Westmacott, and that was unthinkable, since to ruin
+Richard - a thing he would have done with a light heart so far as
+Richard was himself concerned - would be to ruin his own hopes of
+winning Ruth.
+
+Therefore, during the days that followed, Sir Rowland was forced to
+fret in idleness what time his wound was healing; but if his arm was
+invalided, his eyes and ears were sound, and he remained watchful for
+an opportunity to apply the knowledge he had gained.  Richard
+mentioned the subject no more, so that Blake almost came to wonder
+whether the boy remembered what in his cups he had betrayed.
+
+Meanwhile Mr. Wilding moved serene and smiling on his way.  Daily
+there were great armfuls of flowers deposited at Lupton House - his
+lover's offering to his mistress - and no day went by but that some
+richer gift accompanied them.  Now it was a collar of brilliants,
+anon a rope of pearls, again a priceless ring that had been Mr.
+Wilding's mother's.  Ruth received with reluctance these pledges
+of his undesired affection.  It were idle to reject them, considering
+that she was to marry him; yet it hurt her sorely to retain them.
+On her side she made no dispositions for the marriage, but went about
+her daily tasks as though she were to remain a maid at Lupton House
+for a time as yet indefinite.
+
+In Diana, Wilding had - though he was far from guessing it - an
+entirely exceptional ally.  Lady Horton, too, was favourably disposed
+towards him.  A foolish, worldly woman, who never probed beneath life's
+surface, nor indeed dreamed that anything existed in life beyond that
+to which her five senses testified, she was content placidly to
+contemplate the advantages that must accrue to her niece from this
+alliance.
+
+And so mother and daughter in Mr. Wilding's absence pleaded his cause
+with his refractory bride-elect.  But they pleaded it to little real
+purpose.  Something perhaps they achieved in that Ruth grew more or
+less resigned to the fate that awaited her.  By repeating to herself
+the arguments she had employed to Richard - that she must wed some
+day, and that Mr. Wilding would prove no doubt as good a husband as
+another - she came in a measure to believe them.
+
+Richard meanwhile appeared to avoid her.  Lacking the courage to adopt
+the heroic measures which at first he had promised, yet had he grace
+enough to take shame at his inaction.  But if he was idle so far as
+Mr. Wilding was concerned, there was no lack of work for him in other
+connections.  The clouds of war were gathering in that summer sky, and
+about to loose the storm gestating in them upon that fair country of
+the West, and young Westmacott, committed as he stood to the Duke of
+Monmouth's party, was forced to take his share in the surreptitious
+bustle that was toward.  He was away two days in that week, having been
+summoned to a meeting of the leading gentlemen of the party at White
+Lackington, where he was forced into the unwelcome company of his
+future brother-in-law, to meet with courteous, deferential treatment
+from that imperturbable gentleman.
+
+Wilding, indeed, seemed to have forgotten that any quarrel had ever
+existed between them.  For the rest, he came and went, supremely calm,
+as if he were, and knew himself to be, most welcome at Lupton House.
+Thrice in the course of that week of waiting he rode over from Zoyland
+Chase to pay his duty to Mistress Westmacott, and Ruth was persuaded
+on each occasion by her aunt and cousin to receive him.  Indeed, how
+could she well refuse?
+
+His manner was ever all that could be desired.  Gallant, affectionate,
+deferential.  He was in word and look and tone Ruth's most obedient
+servant.  Had she been less prejudiced she must have admired the
+admirable restraint with which he kept all exultation from his manner,
+for, after all, it is difficult to force a victory as he had forced
+his, and not to triumph.
+
+     It is to be feared that during that week he neglected a good deal
+of his duty to the Duke, leaving Trenchard to supply his place and
+undertake tasks of a seditious nature that should have been his own.
+
+At heart, however, in spite of the stories current and the militia at
+Taunton, Wilding remained convinced - as did most of the other leading
+partisans of the Protestant Cause - that no such madness as this
+premature landing could be in contemplation by the Duke.  Besides,
+were it so, they must unfailingly have definite word of it; and they
+had none.
+
+Trenchard was less assured, but Wilding laughed at the old rake's
+forebodings, and serenely went about the business of his marriage.
+
+On the eve of the wedding he paid Ruth his last visit in the quality
+of a lover, and was received by her in the garden.  He found her
+looking paler than her wont, and there was a cloud of sadness on her
+brow, a haunting sadness in her eyes.  It touched him to the soul,
+and for a moment he wavered in his purpose.  He stood beside her - she
+seated on the old lichened seat - and a silence fell between them,
+during which Mr. Wilding's conscience wrestled with his stronger
+passion.  It was his habit to be glib, talking incessantly what time
+he was in her company, and seeing to it that his talk was shallow
+and touched at nothing belonging to the deeps of human life.  Thus
+was it, perhaps, that this sudden and enduring silence affected her
+most oddly; it was as if she had absorbed some notion of what was
+passing in his mind.  She looked up suddenly into his face, so white
+and so composed.  Their eyes met, and he stooped to her suddenly, his
+long brown ringlets tumbling forward.  She feared his kiss, yet never
+moved, staring up with fixed, dilated eyes as if fascinated by his
+dark, brooding gaze.  He paused, hovering above her upturned face as
+hovers the hawk above the dove.
+
+"Child," he said at last, and his voice was soft and winning from very
+sadness, "child, why do you fear me?"
+
+The truth of it went home to her.  She feared him; she feared the
+strength that lay behind that calm; she feared the masterfulness
+of his wild but inscrutably hidden nature; she was afraid to surrender
+to such a man as this, afraid that in the hot crucible of his love
+her own nature would be dissolved, transmuted, and rendered part of
+his.  Yet, though the truth was now made plain to her, she thrust it
+from her.
+
+"I do not fear you," said she, and her voice at least rang fearlessly.
+
+"Do you hate me, then?" he asked.  Her glance grew troubled and fell
+away from his; it sought the calm of the river, gleaming golden in
+the sunset.  There was a pause.  Wilding sighed heavily, and
+straightened himself from his bending posture.
+
+"You should not have sought thus to compel me, she said presently.
+
+"I own it," he answered a thought bitterly.  "I own it.  Yet what hope
+had I but in compulsion?" She returned him no answer.  "You see," he
+said, with increasing bitterness, "you see, that had I not seized the
+chance that was mine to win you by compulsion I had not won you at all."
+
+"It might," said she, "have been better so for both of us."
+
+"Better for neither," he replied.  "Ah, think it not!  In time, I
+swear, you shall not think it.  For you shall come to love me, Ruth,"
+he added with a note of such assurance that she turned to meet again
+his gaze.  He answered the wordless question of her eyes.  "There is,"
+said he, "no love of man for woman, so that the man be not wholly
+unworthy, so that his passion be sincere and strong, that can fail
+in time to arouse response." She smiled a little pitiful smile of
+unbelief. "Were I a boy," he rejoined, his earnestness vibrating now
+in a voice that was usually so calm and level, "offering you
+protestations of a callow worship, you might have cause to doubt me.
+But I am a man, Ruth - a tried, and haply a sinful man, alas! - a
+man who needs you, and who will have you at all costs."
+
+"At all costs?" she echoed, and her lip took on a curl.  "And you call
+this egotism by the name of love! No doubt you are right," she continued
+with an irony that stung him, "for love it is - love of yourself."
+
+"And is not all love of another founded upon the love of self?" he asked
+her, startling her with a question that revealed to her clear-sighted
+mind a truth undreamed of.  "When some day - please Heaven - I come to
+find favour in your eyes, and you come to love me, what will it mean
+but that you have come to find me necessary to yourself and to your
+happiness?  Would you deny me now your love if you felt that you had
+need of mine?  I love you because I love myself, you say.  I grant it
+you.  But you'll confess that if you do not love me yet, it is for the
+same reason, and that when you do come to love me the reason will be
+still the same."
+
+"You are very sure that I shall come to love you, said she, shifting
+woman-like the ground of argument now that she found insecure the place
+on which at first she had taken her stand.
+
+"Were I not, think you I should compel you to the church to-morrow?"
+
+She trembled at his calm assurance.  It was as if she almost feared
+that what he said might come to pass.
+
+"Since you bear such faith in your heart," said she, "were it not
+nobler, more generous, that you should set yourself to win me first
+and wed me afterwards?"
+
+"It is the course I should, myself, prefer," he answered quietly. "But
+it is a course denied me. I was viewed here with disfavour, almost
+denied your house.  What chance had I whilst I might not come near you,
+whilst your mind was poisoned against me by the idle, vicious prattle
+that goes round and round the countryside, increasing ever in bulk from
+constant repetition?"
+
+"Do you say that these tales are groundless?" she asked, with a sudden
+lifting of the eyes, a sudden keen eagerness that did not escape him.
+
+"I would to God I could," he cried, "since from your manner I see that
+would improve me in your sight.  But there is just sufficient truth
+in them to forbid me, as I am, I hope, a gentleman, from giving them
+a full denial.  Yet in what am I worse than my fellows?  Are you of
+those who think a husband should come to them as one whose youth has
+been the youth of cloistered nun?  Heaven knows, I am not one to draw
+parallels `twixt myself and any other, yet you compel me.  Whilst you
+deny me, you receive this fellow Blake - a London night-scourer, a
+broken gamester who has given his creditors leg-bail, and who woos
+you that with your fortune he may close the doors of the debtor's
+gaol that's open to receive him."
+
+"This is unworthy in you," she exclaimed, her tone indignant - so
+indignant that he experienced his first pang of jealousy.
+
+"It would be were I his rival," he answered quietly. "But I am not.
+I have saved you from becoming the prey of such as he by forcing
+you to marry me."
+
+"That I may become the prey of such as you, instead," was her retort.
+
+He looked at her a moment, smiling sadly.  Then, with pardonable
+self-esteem when we think of what manner of man it was with whom
+he now compared himself, "Surely," said he, "it is better to become
+the prey of the lion than the jackal."
+
+"To the victim it can matter little," she answered, and he saw the
+tears gathering in her eyes.
+
+Compassion moved him. It rose in arms to batter down his will, and
+in a weaker man had triumphed.  Mr. Wilding bent his knee and went
+down beside her.
+
+"I swear," he said impassionedly, "that as my wife you shall never
+count yourself a victim.  You shall be honoured by all men, but by
+none more deeply than by him who will ever strive to be worthy of the
+proud title of your husband."  He took her hand and kissed it
+reverentially.  He rose and looked at her.  "To-morrow," he said, and
+bowing low before her went his way, leaving her with emotions that
+found their vent in tears, but defied her maiden mind to understand them.
+
+The morrow came her wedding-day - a sunny day of early June, and Ruth -
+assisted by Diana and Lady Horton - made preparation for her marriage
+as spirited women have made preparation for the scaffold, determined
+to show the world a brave, serene exterior.  The sacrifice was necessary
+for Richard's sake.  That was a thing long since determined.  Yet it
+would have been some comfort to her to have had Richard at her side;
+it would have lent her strength to have had his kiss of thanks for the
+holocaust which for him she was making of all that a woman holds most
+dear and sacred.  But Richard was away - he had been absent since
+yesterday, and none could tell her where he tarried.
+
+With Lady Horton and Diana she took her way to Saint Mary's Church at
+noon, and there she found Mr. Wilding - very fine in a suit of sky-blue
+satin, laced with silver - awaiting her.  And with him was old Lord
+Gervase Scoresby, his friend and cousin, the very incarnation of
+benignity and ruddy health.
+
+For a wonder Nick Trenchard was not at Mr. Wilding's side.  But Nick
+had definitely refused to be of the party, emphasizing his refusal
+by certain choice reflections wholly unflattering to the married
+state.
+
+Some idlers of the town were the only witnesses - and little did they
+guess the extent of the tragedy they were witnessing.  There was no
+music, and the ceremony was brief and soon at an end.  The only
+touch of joy, of festiveness, was that afforded by the choice blooms
+with which Mr. Wilding had smothered nave and choir and altar-rails.
+Their perfume hung heavy as incense in the temple.
+
+"Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?" droned the parson's
+voice, and Wilding smiled defiantly a smile which seemed to answer him,
+"No man.  I have taken her for myself."
+
+Lord Gervase stood forward as her sponsor, and as in a dream Ruth felt
+her hand lying in Mr. Wilding's cool, firm grasp.
+
+The ecclesiastic's voice droned on, his voice hanging like the hum of
+some great Insect upon the scented air.  It was accomplished, and they
+were welded each to the other until death should part them.
+
+Down the festooned nave she came on his arm, her step unfaltering, her
+face calm; black misery in her heart.  Behind followed her aunt and
+cousin and Lord Gervase.  On Mr. Wilding's aquiline face a pale smile
+glimmered, like a beam of moonlight upon tranquil waters, and it abode
+there until they reached the porch and were suddenly confronted by
+Nick Trenchard, red of face for once, perspiring, excited, and
+dust-stained from head to foot.
+
+He had arrived that very instant; and, urged by the fearful news that
+brought him, he had come resolved to pluck Wilding from the altar be
+the ceremony done or not.  But in that he reckoned without Mr. Wilding
+- for he should have known him better than to have hoped to succeed.
+He stepped forward now, and gripped him with his dusty glove by the
+sleeve of his shimmering bridegroom's coat.  His voice came harsh with
+excitement and smouldering rage.
+
+"A word with you, Anthony!"
+
+
+Mr. Wilding turned placidly to regard him.  "What now?" he asked, his
+bride's hand retained in the crook of his elbow.
+
+"Treachery!" snapped Trenchard in a whisper.  "Hell and damnation!
+Step aside, man."
+
+Mr. Wilding turned to Lord Gervase, and begged of him to take charge of
+Mistress Wilding.  "I deplore this interruption," he told her, no whit
+ruffled by what he had heard.  "But I shall rejoin you soon.  Meanwhile,
+his lordship will do the honours for me."  This last he said with his
+eyes moving to Lady Horton and her daughter.
+
+Lord Gervase, in some surprise, but overruled by his cousin's calm,
+took the bride on his arm and led her from the churchyard to the waiting
+carriage.  To this he handed her, and after her her aunt and cousin.
+Then, mounting himself, they drove away, leaving Wilding and Trenchard
+among the tombstones, whither the messenger of evil had meanwhile led
+his friend.  Trenchard rapped out his story briefly.
+
+"Shenke," said he, "who was riding from Lyme with letters for you from
+the Duke, was robbed of his dispatches late last night a mile or so
+this side Taunton."
+
+"Highwaymen?" inquired Mr. Wilding, his tone calm, though his glance
+had hardened.
+
+"Highwaymen?  No!  Government agents belike.  There were two of them,
+he says - for I have the tale from himself - and they met him at the
+Hare and Hounds at Taunton, where he stayed to sup last night.  One
+of them gave him the password, and he conceived him to be a friend.
+But afterwards, growing suspicious, he refused to tell them too much.
+They followed him, it appears, and on the road they overtook and fell
+upon him; they knocked him from his horse, possessed themselves of the
+contents of his wallet, and left him for dead - with his head broken."
+
+Mr. Wilding drew a sharp breath.  His wits worked quickly.  He was,
+he realized, in deadly peril.  One thought he gave to Ruth.  If the
+worst came to pass here was one who would rejoice in her freedom.
+The reflection cut through him like a sword.  He would be loath to die
+until he had taught her to regret him.  Then his mind returned to what
+Trenchard had told him.
+
+"You said a Government agent," he mused slowly. "How would a Government
+agent know the password?"
+
+Trenchard's mouth fell open.  "I had not thought..." he began. Then
+ended with an oath.  "`Tis a traitor from inside."
+
+Wilding nodded.  "It must be one of those who met at White Lackington
+three nights ago," he answered.
+
+Idlers - the witnesses of the wedding - were watching them with interest
+from the path, and others from over the low wall of the churchyard, as
+well they might, for Mr. Wilding's behaviour was, for a bridegroom,
+extraordinary.  Trenchard did not relish the audience.
+
+"We had best away," said he.  "Indeed," he added, "we had best out of
+England altogether before the hue and cry is raised.  The bubble's
+pricked."
+
+Wilding's hand fell on his arm, and its grasp was steady.  Wilding's
+eyes met his, and their gaze was calm.
+
+"Where have you bestowed this messenger?" quoth he.
+
+"He is here in Bridgwater, in bed, at the Bell Inn, whence he sent for
+you to Zoyland Chase.  Suspecting trouble, I rode to him at once myself."
+
+"Come, then," said Wilding.  "We'll go talk with him.  This matter needs
+probing ere we decide on flight.  You do not seem to have sought to
+discover who were the thieves, nor other matters that it may be of use
+to know."
+
+"Rat me!" swore Trenchard.  "I was in haste to bring you news of it.
+Besides, there were other things to talk of.  There is news that
+Albemarle has gone to Exeter, and that Sir Edward Phelips and Colonel
+Luttrell have been ordered to Taunton by the King."
+
+Mr. Wilding stared at him with sudden dismay.
+
+"Odso!" he exclaimed.  "Is King James taking fright at last?"  Then he
+shrugged his shoulders and laughed; "Pshaw!" he cried.  "They are
+starting at a shadow."
+
+"Heaven send," prayed Trenchard, "that the shadow does not prove to
+have a substance immediately behind it."
+
+"Folly!" said Wilding.  "When Monmouth comes, indeed, we shall not lack
+forewarning.  Come," he added briskly.  "We'll see this messenger and
+endeavour to discover who were these fellows that beset him."  And he
+drew Trenchard from among the tombstones to the open path, and thus
+from the churchyard and the eyes of the gaping onlookers.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+BRIDE AND GROOM
+
+
+And so the bridegroom, in all his wedding finery, made his way with
+Trenchard to the Bell Inn, in the High Street, whilst his bride,
+escorted by Lord Gervase, was being driven to Zoyland Chase, of which
+she was now the mistress.
+
+But she was not destined just yet to cross its threshold.  For scarcely
+were they over the river when a horseman barred their way, and called
+upon the driver to pull up.  Lady Horton, in a panic, huddled herself
+in the great coach and spoke of tobymen, whilst Lord Gervase thrust
+his head from the window to discover that the rider who stayed their
+progress was Richard Westmacott.  His lordship hailed the boy, who,
+thereupon, walked his horse to the carriage door.
+
+"Lord Gervase," said he, "will you bid the coachman put about and drive
+to Lupton House?"
+
+Lord Gervase stared at him in hopeless bewilderment.  "Drive to Lupton
+House?" he echoed.  The more he saw of this odd wedding, the less he
+understood of it.  It seemed to the placid old gentleman that he was
+fallen among a parcel of Bedlamites.  "Surely, sir, it is for Mistress
+Wilding to say whither she will be driven," and he drew in his head and
+turned to Ruth for her commands.  But, bewildered herself, she had none
+to give him. It was her turn to lean from the carriage window to ask
+her brother what he meant.
+
+     "I mean you are to drive home again," said he. "There is something
+I must tell you.  When you have heard me it shall be yours to decide
+whether you will proceed or not to Zoyland Chase."
+
+Hers to decide?  How was that possible?  What could he mean?  She
+pressed him with some such questions.
+
+"It means, in short," he answered impatiently, "that I hold your
+salvation in my hands.  For the rest, this is not the time or place
+to tell you more. Bid the fellow put about."
+
+Ruth sat back and looked once more at her companions.  But from none
+did she receive the least helpful suggestion.  Lady Horton made great
+prattle to little purpose; Lord Gervase followed her example, whilst
+Diana, whose alert if trivial mind was the one that might have offered
+assistance, sat silent.  Ruth pondered.  She bethought her of
+Trenchard's sudden arrival at Saint Mary's, his dust-stained person
+and excited manner, and of how he had drawn Mr. Wilding aside with
+news that seemed of moment.  And now her brother spoke of saving her;
+it was a little late for that, she thought.  Outside the coach his
+voice still urged her, and it grew peevish and angry, as was usual
+when he was crossed.  In the end she consented to do his will.  If
+she were to fathom this mystery that was thickening about her there
+seemed to be no other course.  She turned to Lord Gervase.
+
+"Will you do as Richard says?" she begged him.
+
+His lordship blew out his chubby cheeks in his astonishment; he
+hesitated a moment, thinking of his cousin Wilding; then, with a shrug,
+he leaned from the window and gave the order she desired.  The
+carriage turned about, and with Richard following lumbered back across
+the bridge and through the town to Lupton House.  At the door Lord
+Gervase took his leave of them.  He had acted as Ruth had bidden him;
+but he had no wish to be further involved in this affair, whatever
+it might portend.  Rather was it his duty at once to go acquaint Mr.
+Wilding - if he could find him - with what was taking place, and leave
+it to Mr. Wilding to take what measures might seem best to him.  He
+told them so, and having told them, left them.
+
+Richard begged to be alone with his sister, and alone they passed
+together into the library.  His manner was restless; he trembled with
+excitement, and his eyes glittered almost feverishly.
+
+"You may have thought, Ruth, that I was resigned to your marriage
+with this fellow Wilding," he began; "or that for other reasons I
+thought it wiser not to interfere.  If you thought that you wronged
+me.  I - Blake and I - have been at work for you during these last
+days, and I rejoice to say our labours have not been idle."  His
+manner grew assertive, boastful, as he proceeded.
+
+"You know, of course," said she, "that I am married."
+
+He made a gesture of disdain.  "No matter," said he exultantly.
+
+"It matters something, I think," she answered.  "O Richard, Richard,
+why did you not come to me sooner if you possessed the means of
+sparing me this thing?"
+
+He shrugged impatiently; her remonstrance seemed to throw him out of
+temper.  "Oons!" he cried; "I came as soon as was ever possible, and,
+depend upon it, I am not come too late.  Indeed, I think I am come
+in the very nick of time."  He drew a sheet of paper from an inside
+pocket of his coat and slapped it down upon the table.  "There is the
+wherewithal to hang your fine husband," he announced in triumph.
+
+She recoiled.  "To hang him?" she echoed.  With all her aversion to
+Mr. Wilding it was plain she did not wish him hanged.
+
+"Aye, to hang him," Richard repeated, and drew himself to the full
+height of his short stature in pride at the thing he had achieved.
+"Read it."
+
+She took the paper almost mechanically, and for some moments she
+studied the crabbed signature before realizing whose it was.  Then
+she started.
+
+"From the Duke of Monmouth!" she exclaimed.
+
+He laughed.  "Read it," he bade her again, though there was no need
+for the injunction, for already she was deciphering the crabbed hand
+and the atrocious spelling - for His Grace of Monmouth's education had
+been notoriously neglected.  The letter, which was dated from The Hague,
+was addressed "To my good friend W., at Bridgwater."  It began, "Sir,"
+spoke of the imminent arrival of His Grace in the West, and gave
+certain instructions for the collection of arms and the work of
+preparing men for enlistment in his Cause, ending with protestations
+of His Grace's friendship and esteem.
+
+Ruth read the epistle twice before its treasonable nature was made clear
+to her; before she understood the thing that was foreshadowed.  Then she
+raised troubled eyes to her brother's face, and in answer to the question
+of her glance he made clear to her the shrewd means by which they had
+become possessed of this weapon that should destroy their enemy Mr.
+Wilding.
+
+Blake and he, forewarned - he said not how - of the coming of this
+messenger, had lain in wait for him at the Hare and Hounds, at Taunton.
+They had sought at first to become possessed of the letter without
+violence.  But, having failed in this through having aroused the
+messenger's suspicions, they had been forced to follow and attack him
+on a lonely stretch of road, where they had robbed him of the contents
+of his wallet.  Richard added that the letter was, no doubt, one of
+several sent over by Monmouth to some friend at Lyme for distribution
+among his principal agents in the West.  It was regrettable that they
+should have endeavoured to take gentle measures with the courier, as
+this had forewarned him, and he had apparently been led to remove the
+letter's outer wrapper - which, no doubt, bore Wilding's full name
+and address - against the chance of such an attack as they had made
+upon him.  Nevertheless, as it was, that letter "to my good friend W.,"
+backed by Richard's and Blake's evidence of the destination intended
+for it, would be more than enough to lay Mr. Wilding safely by the heels.
+
+"I would to Heaven," he repeated in conclusion, "I could have come in
+time to save you from becoming his wife.  But at least it is in my power
+to make you very speedily his widow."
+
+"That," said Ruth, still retaining the letter, "is what you propose
+to do?"
+
+"What else?"
+
+She shook her head. "It must not be, Richard," she said.  "I'll not
+consent to it."
+
+Taken aback, he stared at her; then laughed unpleasantly.  "Odds my
+life! Are you in love with the man?  Have you been fooling us?"
+
+"No," she answered. "But I'll be no party to his murder."
+
+"Murder, quotha!  Who talks of murder?" Her shrewd eyes searched his
+face.  "How came you by your knowledge that this courier rode to Mr.
+Wilding?" she asked him suddenly, and the swift change that overspread
+his countenance showed her that she had touched him in a tender spot,
+assured her of the thing she had suddenly come to suspect - a suspicion
+which at the same time started from and explained much that had been
+mysterious in Richard's ways of late.  "You had knowledge of this
+conspiracy,"  she pursued, answering her own question before he had time
+to speak, "because you were one of the conspirators."
+
+"At least I am so no longer," he blurted out. "I thank Heaven for that,
+Richard; for your life is very dear to me.  But it would ill become you
+to make such use as this of the knowledge you came by in that manner.
+It were a Judas's act." He would have interrupted her, but her manner
+dominated him.  "You will leave this letter with me, Richard," she
+continued.
+
+"Damn me! no.. ." he began.
+
+"Ah, yes, Richard," she insisted.  "You will give it to me, and I shall
+thank you for the gift.  It shall prove a weapon for my salvation, never
+fear."
+
+"It shall, indeed," he cried, with an ugly laugh; "when I have ridden
+to Exeter to lay it before Albemarle."
+
+"Not so," she answered him.  "It shall be a weapon of defence - not of
+offence.  It shall stand as a buckler between me and Mr. Wilding.  Trust
+me, I shall know how to use it."
+
+"But there is Blake to consider," he expostulated, growing angry. "I am
+pledged to him."
+
+"Your first duty is to me..."
+
+"Tut!" he interrupted. "Blake feels that he owes it to his loyalty to
+lay this letter before the Lord-Lieutenant, and, for that matter, so
+do I."
+
+"Sir Rowland would not cross my wishes in this, she answered him.
+
+"Folly!" he cried, now thoroughly aroused.  "Give me that letter."
+
+"Nay, Richard," she answered, and waved him back.
+
+But he advanced nevertheless.
+
+ "Give it me," he bade her, waxing fierce.  "Gad! It was folly to have
+told you of it.  I had not done so but that I never thought you such a
+fool as to oppose yourself to the thing we intend."
+
+"Listen, Richard.. ." she besought him.
+
+But he was grown insensible to pleadings.
+
+"Give me that letter," he insisted, and caught her wrist.  Her other
+hand, however - the one that held the sheet - was already behind
+her back.
+
+The door was suddenly thrust open, and Diana appeared. "Ruth," she
+announced, "Mr. Wilding is here."
+
+At the mention of that name, Richard let her free.  "Wilding!" he
+ejaculated, his fierceness all blown out of him.  He had imagined that
+already Mr. Wilding would be in full flight.  Was the fellow mad?
+
+"He is following me," said Diana, and, indeed, a step could be heard
+in the passage.
+
+"The letter!" growled Richard in a frenzy, between fear and anger now.
+"Give it me! Give it me do you hear?"
+
+"Sh! You'll betray yourself," she cried.  "He is here."
+
+And at that same moment Mr. Wilding's tall figure, still arrayed in his
+bridegroom's finery of sky-blue satin, loomed in the doorway.  He was
+serene and calm as ever.  Neither the discovery of the plot by the
+abstraction of the messenger's letter, nor Ruth's strange conduct - of
+which he had heard from Lord Gervase - had sufficed to ruffle, outwardly
+at least, the inscrutable serenity of his air and manner.  He paused
+to make his bow, then advanced into the room, with a passing glance at
+Richard still spurred and booted and all dust-stained.
+
+"You appear to have ridden far, Dick," said he, smiling, and Richard
+shivered in spite of himself at the mocking note that seemed to ring
+faintly at the words.  "I saw your friend, Sir Rowland, in the
+garden," he added. "I think he waits for you."
+
+Though Richard could not fail to apprehend the implied dismissal, he
+was minded at first to disregard it.  But Mr. Wilding, turning, held
+the door, addressing Diana.
+
+"Mistress Horton," said he, "will you give us leave?"
+
+Diana curtsied and passed out, and Mr. Wilding's eye falling upon the
+lingering Richard at that moment, Richard thought it best to follow
+her example.  But he went with rage in his heart at being forced to
+leave that precious document behind him.
+
+As Mr. Wilding, his back to her a moment, closed the door, Ruth slipped
+the paper hurriedly into the bosom of her low-necked gown.  He turned to
+her, calm but very grave, and his dark eyes seemed to reproach her.
+
+"This is ill done, Ruth," said he.
+
+"Ill done, or well done," she answered him, "done it is, and shall so
+remain."
+
+He raised his brows.  "Ah," said he, "I appear, then, to have
+misapprehended the situation.  From what Gervase told me, I understood
+it was your brother forced you to return."
+
+"Not forced, sir," she answered him.
+
+"Induced, then," said he. "It but remains me to induce you to repair
+what I think was a mistake."
+
+She shook her head.  "I have returned home for good," said she.
+
+"You'll pardon me," said he, "that I am so egotistical as to prefer
+Zoyland Chase to Lupton House.  Despite the manifold attractions of the
+latter, I do not intend to take up my abode here."
+
+"You are not asked to."
+
+"What, then?"
+
+She hated him for the smile, for his masterful air, which seemed to
+imply that he humoured her because he scorned to use authority, but
+that when he did use it, hers must it be to obey him.  Again she felt
+that everlasting calm, arguing such latent forces, was the thing she
+hated most in him.
+
+"I think I had best be plain with you," said she.  "I have fulfilled
+my part of the bargain that we made.  I intend to do no more.  I
+promised that if you spared my brother, I would go to the altar with
+you to-day.  I have carried out my contract to the letter.  It is at
+an end."
+
+"Indeed," said he; "I think it has not yet begun." He advanced towards
+her, and took her hand.  She yielded it, unwilling though she was.
+"This is unworthy of you, madam," said he, his tone grave and deferential.
+"You think to escape fulfilling the spirit of your bargain by adhering
+to the letter of it.  Not so," he ended, and shook his head, smiling
+gently.  "The carriage is still at your door.  You return with me to
+Zoyland Chase to take possession of your home."
+
+"You mistake," said she, and tore her hand from his.  "You say that what
+I have done is unworthy.  I admit it; but it is with unworthiness that
+we must combat unworthiness.  Was your attitude towards me less unworthy?"
+
+"I'll make amends for it if you'll come home," said he.
+
+"My home is here. You cannot compel me."
+
+"I should be loath to," he admitted, sighing.
+
+"You cannot," she insisted.
+
+"I think I can," said he. "There is a law.."
+
+"A law that will hang you if you invoke it," she cut in quickly.  "This
+much can I safely promise you."
+
+She had need to say no more to tell him everything. At all times
+half a word was as much to Mr. Wilding as a whole sentence to another.
+She saw the tightening of his lips, the hardening of his eyes, beyond
+which he gave no other sign that she had hit him.
+
+"I see," said he.  "It is another bargain that you make.  I do suspect
+there is some trader's blood in the Westmacott veins.  Let us be clear.
+You hold the wherewithal to ruin me, and you will use it if I insist
+upon my husband's rights.  Is it not so?"
+
+She nodded in silence, surprised at the rapidity with which he had read
+the situation.
+
+"I admit," said he, "that you have me between sword and wall."  He
+laughed shortly.  "Let me know more," he begged her.  "Am I to
+understand that so long as I leave you in peace- so long as I do not
+insist upon your becoming my wife in more than name - you will not
+wield the weapon that you hold?"
+
+"You are to understand so," she answered.
+
+He took a turn in the room, very thoughtful.  Not of himself was he
+thinking now, but of the Duke of Monmouth.  Trenchard had told him
+some ugly truths that morning of how in his love-making he appeared
+to have shipwrecked the Cause ere it was well launched.  If this
+letter got to Whitehall there was no gauging - ignorant as he was of
+what was in it - the ruin that might follow; but they had reason to
+fear the worst.  He saw his duty to the Duke most clearly, and he
+breathed a prayer of thanks that Richard had chosen to put that letter
+to such a use as this. He knew himself checkmated; but he was a man who
+knew how to bear defeat in a becoming manner.  He turned suddenly.
+
+"The letter is in your hands?" he inquired.
+
+"It is," she answered.
+
+"May I see it?" he asked.
+
+She shook her head - not daring to show it or betray its whereabouts
+lest he should use force to become possessed of it - a thing, indeed,
+that was very far from his purpose.
+
+He considered a moment, his mind intent now rather upon the Duke's
+interest than his own.
+
+"You know," quoth he, "the desperate enterprise to which I stand
+committed.  But it is a bargain between us that you do not betray me
+nor that enterprise so long as I leave you rid of my presence.
+
+"That is the bargain I propose," said she.
+
+He looked at her a moment with hungry eyes, and she found his glance
+almost more than she could bear, so strong was its appeal.  Besides,
+it may be that she was a thought beglamoured by the danger in which
+he stood, which seemed to invest him with a certain heroic dignity.
+
+"Ruth," he said at length, "it may well be that that which you desire
+may speedily come to pass; it may well be that in the course of this
+rebellion that is hatching you may be widowed.  But at least I know
+that if my head falls it will not be my wife who has betrayed me to
+the axe.  For that much, believe me, I am supremely grateful."
+
+He advanced.  He took her unresisting hand again and bore it to his
+lips, bowing low before her.  Then erect and graceful he turned on his
+heel and left her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+MR. TRENCHARD'S COUNTERSTROKE
+
+
+Now, however much it might satisfy Mr. Wilding to have Ruth's word for
+it that so long as he left her in peace neither he nor the Cause had any
+betrayal to fear from her, Mr. Trenchard was of a very different mind.
+
+He fumed and swore and worked himself into a very passion.  "Zoons, man!"
+he cried, "it would mean utter ruin to you if that letter reached
+Whitehall."
+
+"I realize it; but my mind is easy.  I have her promise."
+
+"A woman's promise!" snorted Trenchard, and proceeded with great
+circumstance of expletives to damn "everything that daggled a petticoat."
+
+"Your fears are idle," Wilding assured him.  "What she says, she will do."
+
+"And her brother?" quoth Trenchard.  "Have you bethought you of that
+canary-bird?  He'll know the letter's whereabouts.  He has cause to fear
+you more than ever now.  Are you sure he'll not be making use of it to
+lay you by the heels?"
+
+Mr. Wilding smiled upon the fury provoked by Trenchard's concern and
+love for him.  "She has promised," he said with an insistent faith that
+was fuel to Trenchard's anger, "and I can depend her word."
+
+"So cannot I," snapped his friend.
+
+"The thing that plagues me most," said Wilding, ignoring the remark,
+"is that we are kept in ignorance of the letter's contents at a time
+when we most long for news.  Not a doubt but it would have enabled us
+to set our minds at ease on the score of these foolish rumours."
+
+"Aye - or else confirmed them," said pessimistic Trenchard.  He wagged
+his head.  "They say the Duke has put to sea already."
+
+"Folly!" Wilding protested.
+
+"Whitehall thinks otherwise.  What of the troops at Taunton?"
+
+"More folly."
+
+"Well-I would you had that letter."
+
+"At least," said Wilding, "I have the superscription, and we know from
+Shenke that no name was mentioned in the letter itself."
+
+"There's evidence enough without it," `Trenchard reminded him, and fell
+soon after into abstraction, turning over in his mind a notion with
+which he had suddenly been inspired.  That notion kept Trenchard
+secretly occupied for a couple of days; but in the end he succeeded
+in perfecting it.
+
+Now it befell that towards dusk one evening early in the week Richard
+Westmacott went abroad alone, as was commonly his habit, his goal being
+the Saracen's Head, where he and Sir Rowland spent many a night over
+wine and cards - to Sir Rowland's moderate profit, for he had not played
+the pigeon in town so long without having acquired sufficient knowledge
+to enable him to play the rook in the country.  As Westmacott was
+passing up the High Street, a black shadow fell athwart the light that
+streamed from the door of the Bell Inn, and out through the doorway
+lurched Mr. Trenchard a thought unsteadily to hurtle so violently
+against Richard that he broke the long stem of the white clay pipe he
+was carrying.  Now Richard was not to know that Mr. Trenchard - having
+informed himself of Mr. Westmacott's evening habits - had been waiting
+for the past half-hour in that doorway hoping that Mr. Westmacott would
+not depart this evening from his usual custom.  Another thing that Mr.
+Westmacott was not to know - considering his youth - was the singular
+histrionic ability which this old rake had displayed in those younger
+days of his when he had been a player, and the further circumstance
+that he had excelled in those parts in which ebriety was to be
+counterfeited.  Indeed, we have it on the word of no less an authority
+on theatrical matters than Mr. Pepys that Mr. Nicholas Trenchard's
+appearance as Pistol in "Henry IV" in the year of the blessed
+Restoration was the talk alike of town and court.
+
+Mr. Trenchard steadied himself from the impact, and, swearing a round
+and awful Elizabethan oath, accused the other of being drunk, then
+struck an attitude to demand with truculence, "Would ye take the wall
+o' me, sir?"
+
+Richard hastened to make himself known to this turbulent roysterer,
+who straightway forgot his grievance to take Westmacott affectionately
+by the hand and overwhelm him with apologies.  And that done,
+Trenchard - who affected the condition known as maudlin drunk - must
+needs protest almost in tears how profound was his love for Richard,
+and insist that the boy return with him to the Bell Inn, that they
+might pledge each other.
+
+Richard, himself sober, was contemptuous of Trenchard so obviously
+obfuscated.  At first it was his impulse to excuse himself, as
+possibly Blake might be already waiting for him; but on second thoughts,
+remembering that Trenchard was Mr. Wilding's most intimate famulus,
+it occurred to him that by a little crafty questioning he might succeed
+in smoking Mr. Wilding's intentions in the matter of that letter - for
+from his sister he had failed to get satisfaction. So he permitted
+himself to be led indoors to a table by the window which stood vacant.
+There were at the time a dozen guests or so in the common-room.
+Trenchard bawled for wine and brandy, and for all that he babbled in
+an irresponsible, foolish manner of all things that were of no matter,
+yet not the most adroit of pumping could elicit from him any such
+information as Richard sought.  Perforce young Westmacott must remain,
+plying him with more and more drink - and being plied in his turn - to
+the end that he might not waste the occasion.
+
+An hour later found Richard much the worse for wear, and Trenchard
+certainly no better.  Richard forgot his purpose, forgot that Blake
+waited for him at the Saracen's Head.  And now Trenchard seemed to be
+pulling himself together.
+
+"I want to talk to you, Richard," said he, and although thick, there
+was in his voice a certain impressive quality that had been absent
+hitherto. "`S a rumour current."  He lowered his voice to a whisper
+almost, and, leaning across, took his companion by the arm.  He
+hiccoughed noisily, then began again. "`S a rumour current, sweetheart,
+that you're disaffected."
+
+Richard started, and his mind flapped and struggled like a trapped bird
+to escape the meshes of the wine, to the end that he might convincingly
+defend himself from such an imputation - so dangerously true.
+
+"`S a lie!" he gasped.
+
+Trenchard shut one eye and owlishly surveyed his companion with the
+other.  "They say," he added, "that you're for forsaking `Duke's party."
+
+"Villainous!" Richard protested.  "I'll sli' throat of any man `t says
+so."  And draining the pewter at his elbow, he smashed it down on the
+table to emphasize his seriousness.
+
+Trenchard replenished it with the utmost promptness, then sat back in
+his tall chair and pulled a moment at the fresh pipe with which he had
+equipped himself.
+
+"I think I espy,"' he quoted presently, "`virtue and valour crouched
+in thine eye.'  And yet.., and yet... if I had cause to think it true,
+I'd... I'd run you through the vitals - jus' so," and he prodded
+Richard's waistcoat with the point of his pipe-stem.  His swarthy face
+darkened, his eyes glittered fiercely.  "Are ye sure ye're norrer foul
+traitor?" he demanded suddenly.  "Are y' sure, for if ye're not..."
+
+He left the terrible menace unuttered, but it was none the less
+understood.  It penetrated the vinous fog that beset the brain of
+Richard, and startled him.
+
+"`Swear I'm not!" he cried.  "`Swear mos' solemnly I'm not."
+
+"Swear?" echoed Trenchard, and his scowl grew darker still.  "Swear?
+A man may swear and yet lie - `a man may smile and smile and be a
+villain.'  I'll have proof of your loyalty to us.  I'll have proof, or
+as there's a heaven above and a hell below, I'll rip you up."
+
+His mien was terrific, and his voice the more threatening in that
+it was not raised above a whisper.
+
+Richard sat back appalled, afraid.
+
+"Wha'. . . what proof'll satisfy you?" he asked.
+
+Trenchard considered it, pulling at his pipe again. "Pledge me the
+Duke," said he at length.  "Ther's truth `n wine.  Pledge me the Duke
+and confusion to His Majesty the goldfinch."  Richard reached for his
+pewter, glad that the test was to be so light.  "Up on your feet, man,"
+grumbled Trenchard.  "On your feet, and see that your words have a ring
+of truth in them."
+
+Richard did as he was bidden, the little reason left him being
+concentrated wholly on the convincing of his fellow tippler.  He rose
+to his feet, so unsteadily that his chair fell over with a bang.  He
+never heeded it, but others in the room turned at the sound, and a
+hush fell in the chamber.  Dominating this came Richard's voice,
+strident with intensity, if thick of utterance.
+
+"Down with Popery, and God save the Protestant Duke!" he cried.  "Down
+with Popery!"  And he looked at Trenchard for applause, and assurance
+that Trenchard no longer thought there was cause to quarrel with him.
+
+Behind him there was a stir in the room that went unheeded by the boy.
+Men nudged their neighbours; some looked frightened and some grinned
+at the treasonable words.
+
+A swift change came over Trenchard.  His drunkenness fell from him
+like a discarded mantle.  He sat like a man amazed.  Then he heaved
+himself to his feet in a fury, and smashed down his pipestem on the
+wooden table, sending its fragments flying.
+
+"Damn me!" he roared.  "Have I sat at table with a traitor?"  And he
+thrust at Richard with his open palm, lightly yet with sufficient force
+to throw Richard off his precarious balance and send him sprawling on
+the sanded floor.  Men rose from the tables about and approached them,
+some few amused, but the majority very grave.  Dodsley, the landlord,
+came hurrying to assist Richard to his feet.
+
+"Mr. Westmacott," he whispered in the rash fool's ear, "you were best
+away."
+
+Richard stood up, leaning his full weight upon the arm the landlord had
+about his waist.  He passed a hand over his brow, as if to brush aside
+the veil that obscured his wits.  What had happened?  What had he said?
+What had Trenchard done?  Why did these fellows stand and gape at him?
+He heard his companion's voice, raised to address the company.
+
+"Gentlemen," he heard him say, "I trust there is none present will
+impute to me any share in such treasonable sentiments as Mr. Westmacott
+has expressed.  But if there is any who questions my loyalty, I have a
+convincing argument for him - in my scabbard."  And he struck his
+sword-hilt with his fist.
+
+Then he clapped on his hat, aslant over the locks of his golden wig,
+and, taking up his whip, he moved with leisurely dignity towards the
+door.  He looked back with a sardonic smile at the ado he was leaving
+behind him, listened a moment to the voices that already were being
+raised in excitement, then closed the door and made his way briskly
+to the stable-yard, where he called for his horse.  He rode out of
+Bridgwater ten minutes later, and took the road to Taunton as the moon
+was rising big and yellow over the hills on his left.  He reached
+Taunton towards ten o'clock that night, having ridden hell-to-leather.
+His first visit was to the Hare and Hounds, where Blake and Westmacott
+had overtaken the courier.  His next to the house where Sir Edward
+Phelips and Colonel Luttrell - the gentlemen lately ordered to Taunton
+by His Majesty - had their lodging.
+
+The fruits of Mr. Trenchard's extraordinary behaviour that night were
+to be seen at an early hour on the following day, when a constable and
+three tything-men came with a Lord-Lieutenant's warrant to arrest Mr.
+Richard Westmacott on a charge of high treason.  They found the young
+man still abed, and most guilty was his panic when they bade him rise
+and dress himself- though little did he dream of the full extent to
+which Mr. Trenchard had enmeshed him, or indeed that Mr. Trenchard
+had any hand at all in this affair. What time he was getting into his
+clothes with a tything-man outside his door and another on guard
+under his window, the constable and his third myrmidon made an
+exhaustive search of the house.  All they found of interest was a letter
+signed "Monmouth," which they took from the secret drawer of a secretary
+in the library; but that, it seemed, was all they sought, for having
+found it, they proceeded no further with their reckless and destructive
+ransacking.
+
+With that letter and the person of Richard Westmacott, the constable
+and his men took their departure, and rode back to Taunton, leaving
+alarm and sore distress at Lupton House.  In her despair poor Ruth was
+all for following her brother, in the hope that at least by giving
+evidence of how that letter came into his possession she might do
+something to assist him.  But knowing, as she did, that he had had
+his share in the treason that was hatching, she had cause to fear
+that his guilt would not lack for other proofs.  It was Diana who urged
+her to repair instead to the only man upon whose resource she might
+depend, provided he were willing to exert it.  That man was Anthony
+Wilding, and whether Diana urged it from motives of her own or out
+of concern for Richard, it would be difficult to say with certainty.
+
+The very thought of going to him for aid, after all that had passed,
+was repugnant to Ruth.  And yet what choice had she?  Convinced by her
+cousin and urged by her affection and duty to Richard, she repressed
+her aversion, and, calling for a horse, rode out to Zoyland Chase,
+attended by a groom.  Wilding by good fortune was at home, hard at
+work upon a mass of documents in that same library where she had
+talked with him on the occasion of her first visit to his home - to the
+home of which she remembered that she was now, herself, the mistress.
+He was preparing for circulation in the West a mass of libels and
+incendiary pamphlets calculated to forward the cause of the Protestant
+Duke.
+
+Dissembling his surprise, he bade old Walters - who left her waiting
+in the hall whilst he went to announce her - to admit her instantly,
+and he advanced to the door to receive and welcome her.
+
+"Ruth," said he, and his face was oddly alight, "you have come at last."
+
+She smiled a wan smile of self-pity.  "I have been constrained," said
+she, and told him what had happened; that her brother had been arrested
+for high treason, and that the constable in searching the house had come
+upon the Monmouth letter she had locked away in her desk.
+
+"And not a doubt," she ended, "but it will be believed that it was to
+Richard the letter was indited by the Duke.  You will remember that its
+only address was `to my good friend, W.,' and that will stand for
+Westmacott as well as Wilding."
+
+Mr. Wilding was fain to laugh at the irony of this surprising turn of
+things of which she brought him news; for he had neither knowledge nor
+suspicion of the machinations of his friend Trenchard, to which these
+events were due.  But noting and respecting her anxiety for her brother,
+he curbed his natural amusement.
+
+"It is a judgment upon you," said he, nevertheless.
+
+"Do you exult?" she asked indignantly.
+
+"No; but I cannot repress my admiration for the ways of Divine Justice.
+If you are come to me for advice, I can but suggest that you should
+follow your brother's captors to Taunton, and inform the lieutenants
+of how the letter came into your power."
+
+She looked at him in anger almost at what seemed a callousness.  "Would
+he believe me, think you?"
+
+"Belike he would not," said Mr. Wilding.  "You can but try."
+
+"If I told them it was addressed to you," she said, eyeing him sternly,
+"does it not occur to you that they would send for you to question you,
+and that if they did so, as you are a gentleman you could not lie
+away my brother's life."
+
+"Why, yes," said he quite calmly, "it does occur to me.  But does it
+not occur to you that by the time they came here they would find me
+gone?"  He laughed at her dismay.  "I thank you, madam, for this
+warning," he added.  "I think I'll bid them saddle for me without delay.
+Too long already have I tarried."
+
+"And must Richard hang?" she asked him fiercely.
+
+Mr. Wilding produced a snuffbox of tortoise shell and gold.  He opened
+it deliberately.  "If he does, you'll admit that he will hang on the
+gallows that he has built himself- although intended for another.
+I'faith! He's not the first booby to be caught in his own springe.
+There is in this a measure of poetic justice.  Poetry and justice! Do
+you know, Ruth, they are two things I have ever loved?"  And he took a
+pinch of choice Bergamot.
+
+"Will you be serious?" she demanded.
+
+"Trenchard would tell you that it were to make an exception from the
+rule of my life," he assured her, smiling.  "Yet even that might I do
+at your bidding."
+
+"But this is a serious matter," she told him angrily. "For Richard,"
+he acknowledged, closing his snuffbox with a snap.  "Tell me, what
+would you have me do?"
+
+Since he asked her thus, she answered him in two words.  "Save him."
+
+"At the cost of my own neck?" quoth he.  "The price is high," he
+reminded her.  "Do you think that Richard is quite worth it?"
+
+"And are you to save yourself at the cost of his?" she counter-questioned.
+"Are you capable of such a baseness?"
+
+He looked at her thoughtfully a moment.  "You have not reflected," said
+he slowly, "that in this affair is involved more than mine or Richard's
+life.  There is a great cause weighing in the balance against all
+personal considerations.  If I accounted Richard of more value to
+Monmouth than I am myself, I should not hesitate in riding to set him
+free by taking his place.  As it is, however, I think I am of the
+greatest conceivable importance to His Grace, whilst if twenty
+Richards perished - frankly - their loss would be something of a gain,
+for Richard has played a traitor's part already.  That is with me the
+first of all considerations."
+
+"Am I of no consideration to you?" she asked him.  And in an agony of
+terror for her brother she now approached him, and, obeying a sudden
+impulse, cast herself upon her knees before him.  "Listen!" she cried.
+
+"Not thus," said he, a frown between his eyes.  He took her by the
+elbows and gently but very firmly brought her to her feet again. "It is
+not fitting you should kneel save at your prayers."
+
+She was standing now, and very close to him, his hands still held her
+elbows, though their touch was so light that she scarce felt it.  To
+release them was easy, and the next second her hands were on his
+shoulders, her brave eyes raised to him.
+
+"Mr. Wilding," she implored him, "you'll not let Richard be destroyed?"
+
+He looked down at her with kindling glance, his arms slipped round her
+lissom waist.  "It is hard to deny you, Ruth," said he.  "Yet not my
+love of my own life compels me; but my duty, my loyalty to the cause
+to which I am pledged.  I were a traitor were I now to place myself
+in peril."
+
+She pressed against him, her face so close to his that her breath
+fanned his cheek, whither a faint colour crept in quick response.
+Despite herself almost, instinctively, unconsciously, she exerted
+the weapons of her sex to bend him to her will.
+
+"You say you love me," she whispered.  "Prove it me now, and I will
+believe you.
+
+"Ah!" he sighed. "And believing me? What then?"
+
+He had himself grimly in hand, yet feared he should not prove strong
+enough to hold himself for long.
+
+"You.., you shall find me your... dutiful wife," she faltered,
+crimsoning.
+
+His arms tightened about her; he crushed her to him, he bent his head
+to hers and his lips burnt the lips she yielded to him as though they
+had been living fire.
+
+Anon, she was to weep in shame - in shame and in astonishment - at
+that instant of surrender, but for the moment she had no thought save
+for her brother.  Exultation filled her.  She accounted that she had
+conquered, and she gloried in the power her beauty gave her, a power
+that had sufficed to melt to water the hard-frozen purposes of this
+self-willed man.  The next instant, however, she was cold again with
+dismay and newborn terror.  He unclasped her arms, he drew back,
+shaking off the hands she had rested upon his shoulders.  His white
+face - the flush had faded from it again - smiled a thought disdainfully.
+
+"You bargain with me," he said.  "But I have some knowledge of your ways
+of trading.  They are overshrewd for an honest gentleman."
+
+"You mean," she gasped, her hand pressed to her heart, her face a
+deathly white, "you mean that you'll not save him?"
+
+"I mean," said he, "that I will have no further bargains with you."
+
+There was such hard finality in his tone that she recoiled, beaten
+and without power, to return to the assault.  She had played and lost.
+She had yielded her lips to his kisses, and - husband though he might
+be in name - shame was her only guerdon.
+
+One look she gave him from out of that face so white and pitiful, then
+with a shudder turned from him and fled his presence.  He sprang after
+her as the door closed, then checked and stood in thought, very grim
+for one who professed to bestow no seriousness on the affairs of life.
+Then he returned slowly to his writing-table, and rummaged there among
+the papers with which it was encumbered, seeking something of which
+he now had need.  Through the open window he heard the retreating beat
+of her horse's hoofs.  He sighed and sat down heavily, to take his long
+square chin in his hand and stare before him at the sunlight on the
+lawn outside.
+
+And whilst he sat thus, Ruth made all haste back to Lupton House to
+tell of the failure that had attended her.  There was nothing left her
+now but to embark upon the forlorn hope of following Richard to Taunton,
+to offer her evidence of how the incriminating letter had come to be
+locked in the drawer in which the constable had discovered it.  Diana
+met her with a face as white as her own and infinitely more startled.
+She had just learnt that Sir Rowland Blake had been arrested also and
+that he had been carried to Taunton together with Richard, and, as a
+consequence, she was as eager now that Ruth should repair to Albemarle
+as she had erstwhile been earnest in urging her to seek out Mr. Wilding;
+indeed, Diana went so far as to offer to accompany her, an offer that
+Ruth gladly, gratefully accepted.
+
+Within an hour Ruth and Diana - in spite of all that poor, docile Lady
+Horton had said to stay them - were riding to Taunton, attended by the
+same groom who had so lately accompanied his mistress to Zoyland Chase.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+THEIR OWN PETARD
+
+
+In a lofty, spacious room of the town hall at Taunton sat Sir Edward
+Phelips and Colonel Luttrell to dispense justice, and with them,
+flanked by one of them on either side of him, sat Christopher Monk,
+Duke of Albemarle, Lord-Lieutenant of Devonshire, who had been summoned
+in all haste from Exeter that he might be present at an examination
+which promised to be of so vast importance.  The three sat at a long
+table at the room's end, attended by two secretaries.
+
+Before them, guarded by constable and tything-men, weaponless, their
+hands pinioned behind them - Blake's arm was healed by now - stood Mr.
+Westmacott and his friend Sir Rowland to answer this grave charge.
+
+Richard, not knowing who might have betrayed him and to what extent,
+was very fearful - having through his connection with the Cause every
+reason so to be.  Blake, on the other hand, conscious of his innocence
+of any plotting, was impatient of his position, and a thought
+contemptuous.  It was he who, upon being ushered by the constable and
+his men into the august presence of the Lord-Lieutenant, clamoured
+to know precisely of what he was accused that he might straightway
+clear himself.
+
+Albemarle reared his great massive head, smothered in a mighty black
+peruke, and scowled upon the florid London beau.  A black-visaged
+gentleman was Christopher Monk.  His pendulous cheeks, it is true,
+were of a sallow pallor, but what with his black wig, black eyebrows,
+dark eyes, and the blue-black tint of shaven beard on his great jaw
+and upper lip, he presented an appearance sombrely sinister.  His
+netherlip was thick and very prominent; deep creases ran from the
+corners of his mouth adown his heavy chin; his eyes were dull and
+lack-lustre, with great pouches under them.  In the main, the air of
+this son of the great Parliamentarian general was stupid, dull,
+unprepossessing.
+
+The creases of his mouth deepened as Blake protested against what he
+termed this outrage that had been done him; he sneered ponderously,
+thrusting further forward his heavily undershot jowl.
+
+"We are informed, sir, of your antecedents," he staggered Blake by
+answering.  "We have learnt the reason why you left London and your
+creditors, and in all my life, sir, I have never known a man more
+ready to turn his hand to treason than a broken gamester.  Your kind
+turns by instinct to such work as this, as a last resource for the
+mending of battered fortunes."
+
+Blake crimsoned from chin to brow.  "I'm forejudged, it, seems," he
+made answer haughtily, tossing his fair locks, his blue eyes glaring
+upon his judges. "May I, at least, know the name of my accuser?"
+
+"You shall receive impartial justice at our hands," put in Phelips,
+whose manner was of a dangerous mildness.  "Depend on that.  Not only
+shall you know the name of your accuser, but you shall be confronted
+by him.  Meanwhile, sirs" - and his glance strayed from Blake's flushed
+and angry countenance to Richard's, pale and timid - "meanwhile, are we
+to understand that you deny the charge?"
+
+"I have heard none as yet," said Sir Rowland insolently.
+
+Albemarle turned to one of the secretaries.  "Read them the indictment,"
+said he, and sank back in his chair, his dull glance upon the prisoners,
+whilst the clerk in a droning voice read from a document which he took
+up.  It impeached Sir Rowland Blake and Mr. Richard Westmacott of
+holding treasonable communication with James Scott, Duke of Monmouth,
+and of plotting against His Majesty's life and throne and the peace of
+His Majesty's realms.
+
+Blake listened with unconcealed impatience to the farrago of legal
+phrases, and snorted contemptuously when the reading came to an end.
+
+Albemarle looked at him darkly.  "I do thank God," said he, "that
+through Mr. Westmacott's folly has this hideous plot, this black and
+damnable treason, been brought to light in time to enable us to stamp
+out this fire ere it is well kindled.  Have you aught to say, sir?"
+
+"I have to say that the whole charge a foul and unfounded lie," said Sir
+Rowland bluntly: "I never plotted in my life against anything but my own
+prosperity, nor against any man but myself."
+
+Albemarle smiled coldly at his colleagues, then turned to Westmacott.
+"And you, sir?" he said.  "Are you as stubborn as your friend?"
+
+"I incontinently deny the charge," said Richard, and he contrived that
+his voice should ring bold and resolute.
+
+"A charge built on air," sneered Blake, "which the first breath of truth
+should utterly dispel.  We have heard the impeachment.  Will Your Grace
+with the same consideration permit us to see the proofs that
+we may lay bare their falseness? It should not be difficult."
+
+"Do you say there is no such plot as is here alleged?" quoth the Duke,
+and smote a paper sharply.
+
+Blake shrugged his shoulders. "How should I know?" he asked.  "I say
+I have no share in any, that I am acquainted with none."
+
+"Call Mr. Trenchard," said the Duke quietly, and an usher who had stood
+tamely by the door at the far end of the room departed on the errand.
+
+Richard started at the mention of that name.  He had a singular dread
+of Mr. Trenchard.
+
+Colonel Luttrell - lean and wiry - now addressed the prisoners, Blake
+more particularly.  "Still," said he, "you will admit that such a plot
+may, indeed, exist?"
+
+"It may, indeed, for aught I know - or care," he added incautiously.
+
+Albemarle smote the table with a heavy hand.  "By God!" he cried in
+that deep booming voice of his, "there spoke a traitor!  You do not
+care, you say, what plots may be hatched against His Majesty's life
+and crown!  Yet you ask me to believe you a true and loyal subject."
+
+Blake was angered; he was at best a short-tempered man.  Deliberately
+he floundered further into the mire.
+
+"I have not asked Your Grace to believe me anything," he answered
+hotly.  "It is all one to me what Your Grace believes me.  I take it
+I have not been fetched hither to be confronted with what Your Grace
+believes.  You have preferred a lying charge against me; I ask for
+proofs, not Your Grace's beliefs and opinions."
+
+"By God, sir, you are a daring rogue!" cried Albemarle.
+
+Sir Rowland's eyes blazed.  "Anon, Your Grace, when, having failed of
+your proofs, you shall be constrained to restore me to liberty, I shall
+ask Your Grace to unsay that word."
+
+Albemarle stared, confounded, and in that moment the door opened, and
+Trenchard sauntered in, cane in hand, his hat under his arm, a wicked
+smile on his wizened face.
+
+Leaving Blake's veiled threat unanswered, the Duke turned to the old
+rake.  "These rogues," said he, pointing to the prisoners, "demand
+proofs ere they will admit the truth of the impeachment."
+
+"Those proofs," said Trenchard, "are already in Your Grace's hands."
+
+"Aye, but they have asked to be confronted with their accuser."
+
+Trenchard bowed.  "Is it your wish, then, that I recite for them the
+counts on which I have based the accusation I laid before Your Grace?"
+
+"If you will condescend so far," said Albemarle.
+
+"Blister me...!" roared Blake, when the Duke interrupted him.
+
+"By God, sir!" he cried, "I'll have no such disrespectful language
+here.  You'll observe the decency of speech and forbear from
+profanities, you damned rogue, or by God!  I'll commit you forthwith."
+
+"I will endeavour," said Blake, with a sarcasm lost on Albemarle,
+"to follow Your Grace's lofty example."
+
+"You will do well, sir," said the Duke, and was shocked that Trenchard
+should laugh at such a moment.
+
+"I was about to protest, sir," said Blake, "that it is monstrous I
+should be accused by Mr. Trenchard. He has but the slightest
+acquaintance with me."
+
+
+Trenchard bowed to him across the chamber.  "Admitted, sir," said he.
+"What should I be doing in bad company?"  An answer this that set
+Albemarle bawling with laughter.  Trenchard turned to the Duke. "I will
+begin, an it please Your Grace, with the expressions used last night
+in my presence at the Bell Inn at Bridgwater by Mr. Richard Westmacott,
+and I will confine myself strictly to those matters on which my
+testimony can be corroborated by that of other witnesses."
+
+Colonel Luttrell interrupted him to turn to Richard. "Do you recall
+those expressions, sir?" he asked him.
+
+Richard winced under the question.  Nevertheless, he braced himself
+to make the best defence he could.  "I have not yet heard," said he,
+"what those expressions were; nor when I hear them must it follow
+that I recognize them as my own.  I must admit to having taken more
+wine, perhaps, than. . . than..."  Whilst he sought the expression
+that he needed Trenchard cut in with a laugh.  "In vino veritas,
+gentlemen," and His Grace and Sir Edward nodded sagely; Luttrell
+preserved a stolid exterior.  He seemed less prone than his
+colleagues to forejudging.
+
+"Will you repeat the expressions used by Mr. Westmacott?" Sir
+Edward begged.
+
+"I will repeat the one that, to my mind, matters most."  Mr. Westmacott,
+getting to his feet and in a loud voice, exclaimed, "God save the
+Protestant Duke!"
+
+"Do you admit it, sir?" thundered Albemarle, his eyes glowering upon
+Richard hesitated a moment, pale and trembling.
+
+"You will waste breath in denying it," said Trenchard suavely, "for
+I have a drawer from the Bell Inn, and two gentlemen who overheard
+you waiting outside."
+
+"I'faith, sir," cried Blake, "what treason was therein that?  If he..."
+
+"Silence!" thundered Albemarle.  "Let Mr. Westmacott speak for himself."
+
+Richard, inspired by the defence Blake had begun, took the same line
+of argument.  "I admit that in the heat of wine I may have used such
+words," said he. "But I deny their intent to be treasonable.  There
+are many men who drink to the prosperity of the late Kings's son..."
+
+"Natural son, sir; natural son," Albemarle amended.  "It is treason
+to speak of him otherwise."
+
+"It will be a treason presently to draw breath," sneered Blake.
+
+"If it be," said Trenchard, "it is a treason you'll not be long
+committing."
+
+"Faith, you are right, Mr. Trenchard," said the Duke with a laugh.
+Indeed, he found Mr. Trenchard a most pleasant and facetious gentleman.
+
+"Still," insisted Richard, endeavouring in spite of these irrelevancies
+to make good his point, "there be many men who drink daily to the
+prosperity of the late King's natural son."
+
+"Aye, sir," answered Albemarle; "but not his prosperity in horrid plots
+against the life of our beloved sovereign."
+
+"True, Your Grace; very true," purred Sir Edward.  "It was not so I
+meant to toast him," cried Richard. Albemarle made an impatient
+gesture, and took up a sheet of paper.  "How, then," he asked, "comes
+this letter - this letter which makes plain the treason upon which the
+Duke of Monmouth is embarked, just as it makes plain your participation
+in it - how comes this letter to be found in your possession?" And he
+waved the letter in the air.
+
+Richard went the colour of ashes.  He faltered a moment, then took
+refuge in the truth, for all that he knew beforehand that the truth
+was bound to ring more false than any lie he could invent.
+
+"That letter was not addressed to me," he stammered.
+
+Albemarle read the subscription, "To my good friend W., at Bridgwater."
+He looked up, a heavy  sneer thrusting his heavy lip still further out.
+"What do you say to that?  Does not 'W' stand for Westmacott?"
+
+"It does not."
+
+"Of course not," said Albemarle with heavy sarcasm.  "It stands for
+Wilkins, or Williams, or ...or ...    What-not."
+
+"Indeed, I can bear witness that it does not," exclaimed Sir Rowland.
+
+"Be silent, sir, I tell you!" bawled the Duke at him again.  "You shall
+bear witness soon enough, I promise you.  To whom, then," he resumed,
+turning again to Richard, "do you say that this letter was addressed?"
+
+"To Mr. Wilding - Mr. Anthony Wilding," Richard answered.
+
+"I would have Your Grace to observe," put in Trench ard quietly,
+"that Mr. Wilding, properly speaking, does not reside in Bridgwater."
+
+"Tush!" cried Albemarle; "the rogue but mentions the first name with a
+'W' that occurs to him.  He's not even an ingenious liar.  And how,
+sir," he asked Richard, "does it come to be in your possession, having
+been addressed, as you say, to Mr. Wilding?"
+
+"Aye, sir," said Sir Edward, blinking his weak eyes.  "Tell us that."
+
+Richard hesitated again, and looked at Blake.  Blake, who by now had
+come to realize that his friend's affairs were not mended by his
+interruptions, moodily shrugged his shoulders, scowling.
+
+"Come, sir," said Colonel Luttrell, engagingly, "answer the question."
+
+"Aye," roared Albemarle; "let your invention have free rein."
+
+Again poor Richard sought refuge in the truth.  "We - Sir Rowland here
+and I - had reason to suspect that he was awaiting such a letter."
+
+"Tell us your reasons, sir, if we are to credit you," said the Duke,
+and it was plain he mocked the prisoner.  It was, moreover, a request
+that staggered Richard.  Still, he sought to find a reason that should
+ sound plausible.
+
+"We inferred it from certain remarks that Mr. Wilding let fall in our
+presence."
+
+"Tell us the remarks, sir," the Duke insisted.
+
+"Indeed, I do not call his precise words to mind, Your Grace.  But
+they were such that we suspicioned him."
+
+"And you would have me believe that hearing words which awoke in you
+such grave suspicions, you kept your suspicions and straightway forgot
+the words.  You're but an indifferent liar."
+
+Trenchard, who was standing by the long table, leaned forward now.
+
+"It might be well, an it please Your Grace," said he, "to waive the
+point, and let us come to those matters which are of greater moment.
+Let him tell Your Grace how he came by the letter."
+
+"Aye," said Albemarle. "We do but waste time. Tell us, then, how came
+the letter into your hands?"
+
+"With Sir Rowland, here, I robbed the courier as he was riding from
+Taunton to Bridgwater."
+
+Albemarle laughed, and Sir Edward smiled.  "You robbed him, eh?" said
+His Grace.  "Very well.  But how did it happen that you knew he had
+the letter upon him, or was it that you were playing the hightobymen,
+and that in robbing him you hoped to find other matters?"
+
+"Not so, sir," answered Richard.  "I sought but the letter."
+
+"And how knew you that he carried it?  Did you learn that, too, from
+Mr. Wilding's indiscretion?"
+
+"Your Grace has said it."
+
+"`Slife! What an impudent rogue have we here!" cried the angry Duke,
+who conceived that Richard was purposely dealing in effrontery.  "Mr.
+Trenchard, I do think we are wasting time.  Be so good as to confound
+them both with the truth of this matter."
+
+"That letter," said Trenchard, "was delivered to them at the Hare and
+Hounds, here at Taunton, by a gentleman who put up at the inn, and was
+there joined by Mr. Westmacott and Sir Rowland Blake.  They opened the
+conversation with certain cant phrases very clearly intended as
+passwords.  Thus: the prisoners said to the messenger, as they seated
+themselves at the table he occupied, `You have the air, sir, of being
+from overseas,' to which the courier answered, `Indeed, yes. I am from
+Holland. 'From the land of Orange,' says one of the prisoners.  `Aye,
+and other things,' replies the messenger.  `There is a fair wind
+blowing,' he adds; to which one of the prisoners, I believe it was
+Sir Rowland, makes answer, `Mayit prosper the Protestant Duke and blow
+Popery to hell.' Thereupon the landlord caught some mention of a
+letter, but these plotters, perceiving that they were perhaps being
+overheard, sent him away to fetch them wine.  A half-hour later the
+messenger took his leave, and the prisoners followed a very few minutes
+afterwards."
+
+Albemarle turned to the prisoners.  "You have heard Mr. Trenchard's
+story.  How do you say - is it true or untrue?"
+
+"You will waste breath in denying it," Trenchard took it again upon
+himself to admonish them.  "For I have with me the landlord of the
+Hare and Hounds, who will corroborate, upon oath, what I have said."
+
+"We do not deny it," put in Blake.  "But we submit that the matter is
+susceptible to explanation."
+
+"You can keep your explanations till your trial, then," snapped
+Albemarle.  "I have heard more than enough to commit the pair of you
+to gaol."
+
+"But, Your Grace," cried Sir Rowland, so fiercely that one of the
+tything-men set a restraining hand upon his shoulder, "I am ready to
+swear that what I did, and what my friend Mr. Westmacott did, was done
+in the interests of His Majesty. We were working to discover this plot."
+
+"Which, no doubt," put in Trenchard slyly, "is the reason why, having
+got the letter, your friend Mr. Westmacott locked it in a desk, and
+you kept silence on the matter."
+
+"You see," exclaimed Albemarle, "how your lies do but serve further
+to bind you in the toils.  It is ever thus with traitors."
+
+"I do think you are a damned traitor, Trenchard," began Blake; "a
+foul..."
+
+But what more he would have said was checked by Albemarle, who
+thundered forth an order for their removal, and then, scarce were
+the words uttered than the door at the far end of the hall was opened,
+and through it came a sound of women's voices.  Richard started, for
+one was the voice of Ruth.
+
+An usher advanced.  "May it please Your Grace, there are two ladies
+here beg that you will hear their evidence in the matter of Mr.
+Westmacott and Sir Rowland Blake."
+
+Albemarle considered a moment.  Trenchard stood very thoughtful.
+
+"Indeed," said the Duke, at last, "I have heard as much as I need hear,"
+and Sir Phelips nodded in token of concurrence.
+
+Not so, however, Colonel Luttrell.  "Still," said he, "in the interests
+of His Majesty, perhaps, we should be doing well to receive them."
+
+Albemarle blew out his cheeks like a man wearied, and stared an instant
+at Luttrell.  Then he shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Admit them, then," he commanded almost peevishly, and Ruth and Diana
+were ushered into the hall.  Both were pale, but whilst Diana was
+fluttered with excitement, Ruth was calm and cool, and it was she who
+spoke in answer to the Duke's invitation.  The burden of her speech
+was a clear, succinct recitation - in which she spared neither Wilding
+nor herself - of how the letter came to have remained in her hands
+and silence to have been preserved regarding it.  Albemarle heard her
+very patiently.
+
+"If what you say is true, mistress," said he, "and God forbid that I
+should be so ungallant as to throw doubt upon a lady's word, it
+certainly explains - although most strangely - how the letter was not
+brought to us at once by your brother and his friend Sir Rowland.  You
+are prepared to swear that this letter was intended for Mr. Wilding?"
+
+"I am prepared to swear it," she replied.
+
+"This is very serious," said the Duke.
+
+"Very serious," assented Sir Edward Phelips.
+
+Albemarle, a little flustered, turned to his colleagues.  "What do you
+say to this?  Were it perhaps well to order Mr. Wilding's apprehension,
+and to have him brought hither?"
+
+"It were to give yourselves useless trouble, gentlemen," said Trenchard,
+with so much assurance that it was plain Albemarle hesitated.
+
+"Beware of Mr. Trenchard, Your Grace," cried Ruth.  "He is Mr. Wilding's
+friend, and if there is a plot he is sure to be in it."
+
+Albemarle, startled, looked at Trenchard.  Had the accusation come from
+either of the men the Duke would have silenced him and abused him; but
+coming from a woman, and so comely a woman, it seemed to His Grace
+worthy at least of consideration.  But nimble Mr. Trenchard was easily
+master of the situation.
+
+"Which, of course," he answered, with fine sarcasm, "is the reason why
+I have been at work for the past four-and-twenty hours to lay proofs
+of this plot before Your Grace."
+
+Albemarle was ashamed of his momentary hesitation.
+
+     "For the rest," said Trenchard, "it is perfectly true that I am
+Mr. Wilding's friend.  But the lady is even more intimately connected
+with him.  It happens that she is his wife."
+
+"His... his wife!" gasped the Duke, whilst Phelips chuckled, and Colonel
+Luttrell's face grew dark.
+
+Trenchard's wicked smile flickered upon his mobile features.  "There
+are rumours current of court paid her by Sir Rowland, there.  Who
+knows?" he questioned most suggestively, arching his brows and
+tightening his lips.  "Wives are strange kittle-kattle, and husbands
+have been known before to grow inconvenient. Upon reflection, Your Grace
+will no doubt discern the precise degree of faith to attach to what this
+lady may tell you against Mr. Wilding."
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Ruth, her cheeks flaming crimson. "But this is
+monstrous!"
+
+"Tis how I should myself describe it," answered Trenchard without shame.
+
+Spurred to it thus, Ruth poured out the entire story of her marriage,
+and so clear and lucid was her statement that it threw upon the affair
+a flood of light, whilst so frank and truthful was her tone, her
+narrative hung so well together, that the Bench began to recover from
+the shock to its faith, and was again in danger of believing her.
+Trenchard saw this and trembled.  To save Wilding for the Cause he had
+resorted to this desperate expedient of betraying that Cause.  It must
+be observed, however, that he had not done so save under the conviction
+that betrayed it was bound to be, and that since that was inevitable
+the thing had better come from him - for Wilding's sake - than from
+Richard Westmacott.  He had taken the bull by the horns in a most
+desperate fashion when he had determined to hoist Richard and Blake
+with their own petard, hoping that, after all, the harm would reach
+no further than the destruction of these two - a purely defensive
+measure.  But now this girl threatened to wreck his scheme just as
+it was being safely steered to harbour.  Suddenly he swung round,
+interrupting her.
+
+"Lies, lies, lies!" he clamoured, and his interruption coming at
+such a time served to impress the Duke most unfavourably - as well
+it might.
+
+"It is our wish to hear this lady out, Mr. Trenchard," the Duke
+reproved him.
+
+But Mr. Trenchard was undismayed.  Indeed, he had just discovered
+a hitherto neglected card, which should put an end to this dangerous
+game.
+
+"I do abhor to hear Your Grace's patience thus abused," he exclaimed
+with some show of heat.  "This lady makes a mock of you.  If you'll
+allow me to ask two questions - or perhaps three - I'll promise
+finally to prick this bubble for you.  Have I Your Grace's leave?"
+
+"Well, well," said Albemarle.  "Let us hear your questions."  And his
+colleagues nodded.
+
+Trenchard turned airily to Ruth.  Behind her Diana sat - an attendant
+had fetched a chair for her - in fear and wonder at what she saw and
+heard, her eyes ever and anon straying to Sir Rowland's back, which
+was towards her.
+
+"This letter, madam," said he, "for the possession of which you have
+accounted in so... so... picturesque a manner, was intended for and
+addressed to Mr. Wilding, you say.  And you are prepared to swear
+to it?"
+
+Ruth turned indignantly to the Bench.  "Must I answer this man's
+questions?" she demanded.
+
+"I think, perhaps, it were best you did," said the Duke, still
+showing her all deference.
+
+She turned to Trenchard, her head high, her eyes full upon his wrinkled,
+cynical face. "I swear, then ..." she began, but he - consummate actor
+that he was and versed in tricks that impress an audience - interrupted
+her, raising one of his gnarled, yellow hands.
+
+"Nay, nay," said he.  "I would not have perjury proved against you.
+I do not ask you to swear.  It will be sufficient if you pronounce
+yourself prepared to swear."
+
+She pouted her lip a trifle, her whole expression manifesting her
+contempt of him.  "I am in no fear of perjuring myself," she answered
+fearlessly.  "And I swear that the letter in question was addressed to
+Mr. Wilding."
+
+"As you will," said Trenchard, and was careful not to ask her how she
+came by her knowledge.  "The letter, no doubt, was in an outer wrapper,
+on which there would be a superscription - the name of the person to
+whom the letter was addressed?" he half questioned, and Luttrell, who
+saw the drift of the question, nodded gravely.
+
+"No doubt," said Ruth.
+
+"Now you will acknowledge, I am sure, madam, that such a wrapper would
+be a document of the greatest importance, as important, indeed, as the
+letter itself, since we could depend upon it finally to clear up this
+point on which we differ.  You will admit so much, I think?"
+
+"Why, yes," she answered, but her voice faltered a little, and her
+glance was not quite so fearless.  She, too, saw at last the pit he
+had dug for her.  He leaned forward, smiling quietly, his voice
+impressively subdued, and launched the bolt that was to annihilate the
+credibility of the story she had told.
+
+"Can you, then, explain how it comes that that wrapper has been
+suppressed?  Can you tell us how - the matter being as you state it - in
+very self-defence against the dangers of keeping such a letter, your
+brother did not also keep that wrapper?"
+
+Her eyes fell away from his face, they turned to Albemarle, who sat
+scowling again, and from him they flickered unsteadily to Phelips and
+Luttrell, and lastly, to Richard, who, very white and with set teeth,
+stood listening to the working of his ruin.
+
+"I... I do not know," she faltered at last.
+
+"Ah!" said Trenchard, drawing a deep breath.  He turned to the Bench.
+"Need I suggest what was the need - the urgent need - for suppressing
+that wrapper?" quoth he.  "Need I say what name was inscribed upon it?
+I think not.  Your Grace's keen insight, and yours, gentlemen, will
+determine what was probable."
+
+Sir Rowland now stood forward, addressing Albemarle.  "Will Your Grace
+permit me to offer my explanation of this?"
+
+Albemarle banged the table.  His patience was at an end, since he came
+now to believe - as Trenchard had earlier suggested - that he had been
+played upon by Ruth.
+
+"Too many explanations have I heard already, sir," he answered.  He
+turned to one of his secretaries.  In his sudden access of choler he
+forgot his colleagues altogether.  "The prisoners are committed for
+trial," said he harshly, and Trenchard breathed freely at last.  But
+the next instant he caught his breath again, for a ringing voice was
+heard without demanding to see His Grace of Albemarle at once, and the
+voice was the voice of Anthony Wilding.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+THE MARPLOT
+
+
+Mr. Wilding's appearance produced as many different emotions as there
+were individuals present.  He made the company a sweeping bow on his
+admission by Albemarle's orders, a bow which was returned by a stare
+from one and all.  Diana eyed him in amazement, Ruth in hope; Richard
+averted his glance from that of his brother-in-law, whilst Sir Rowland
+met it with a scowl of enmity - they had not come face to face since
+the occasion of that encounter in which Sir Rowland's self-love had
+been so rudely handled.  Albemarle's face expressed a sort of
+satisfaction, which was reflected on the countenances of Phelips and
+Luttrell; whilst Trenchard never thought of attempting to dissemble
+his profound dismay.  And this dismay was shared, though not in so deep
+a measure, by Wilding himself.  Trenchard's presence gave him pause;
+for he had been far, indeed, from dreaming that his friend had a hand
+in this affair.  At sight of him all was made clear to Mr. Wilding.
+At once he saw the role which Trenchard had assumed on this occasion,
+saw to the bottom of the motives that had inspired him to take the
+bull by the horns and level against Richard and Blake this accusation
+before they had leisure to level it against himself.
+
+His quick wits having fathomed Trenchard's motive, Mr. Wilding was
+deeply touched by this proof of friendship, and for a second, as
+deeply nonplussed, at loss now how to discharge the task on which he
+came.
+
+
+"You are very choicely come, Mr. Wilding," said Albemarle.  "You will
+be able to resolve me certain doubts which have been set on foot by
+these traitors."
+
+"That," said Mr. Wilding, "is the purpose for which I am here.  News
+reached me of the arrest that had been made.  May I beg that Your Grace
+will place me in possession of the facts that have so far transpired."
+
+It was one of his secretaries who, at Albemarle's bidding, gave Wilding
+the information that he craved.  He listened gravely; then, before
+Albemarle had time to question him on the score of the name that might
+have been upon the enfolding wrapper of the letter, he begged that he
+might confer apart a moment with Mr. Trenchard.
+
+"But Mr. Wilding," said Colonel Luttrell, surprised not to hear the
+immediate denial of the imputation they had expected, "we should first
+like to hear..."
+
+"By your leave, sirs," Wilding interrupted, "I should prefer that you
+ask me nothing until I have consulted with Mr. Trenchard."  He saw
+Luttrell's frown, observed Sir Edward shift his wig to scratch his
+head in sheer perplexity, and caught the fore-shadowing of denial on
+the Duke's face.  So, without giving any of them time to say him nay,
+he added quickly and very seriously, "I am begging this in the interests
+of justice.  Your Grace has told me that some lingering doubt still
+haunts your mind upon the subject of this letter - the other charges
+can matter little, apart from that treasonable document.  It lies
+within my power to resolve such doubts most clearly and finally.  But
+I warn you, sirs, that not one word will I utter in this connection
+until I have had speech with Mr. Trenchard."
+
+There was about his mien and voice a firmness that forewarned Albemarle
+that to insist would be worse than idle.  A slight pause followed his
+words, and Luttrell leaned across to whisper in His Grace's ear; from
+the Duke's other side Sir Edward bent his head forward till it almost
+touched those of his companions.  Blake watched, and was most foolishly
+impatient.
+
+"Your Grace will never allow this!" he cried.
+
+"Eh?" said Albemarle, scowling at him.
+
+"If you allow those two villains to consort together we are all undone,"
+the baronet protested, and ruined what chance there was of Albemarle's
+not consenting.
+
+It was the one thing needed to determine Albemarle.  Like the stubborn
+man he was, there was naught he detested so much as to have his course
+dictated to him.  More than that, in Sir Rowland's anxiety that Wilding
+and Trenchard should not be allowed to confer apart, he smoked a fear
+on Sir Rowland's part, based upon the baronet's consciousness of his
+own guilt.  He turned from him with a sneering smile, and without so
+much as consulting his associates he glanced at Wilding and waved his
+hand towards the door.
+
+"Pray do as you suggest, Mr. Wilding," said he.  "But I depend upon
+you not to tax our patience."
+
+"I shall not keep Mr. Trenchard a moment longer than is necessary,"
+said Wilding, giving no hint of the second meaning in his words.
+
+He stepped to the door, opened it himself, and signed to Trenchard
+to pass out.  The old player obeyed him readily, if in silence.  An
+usher closed the door after them, and in silence they walked together
+to the end of the passage.
+
+"Where is your horse, Nick?" quoth Wilding abruptly.
+
+"What a plague do you mean, where is my horse?" flashed Trenchard.
+"What midsummer frenzy is this?  Damn you for a marplot, Anthony!
+What a pox are you thinking of to thrust yourself in here at such
+a time?"
+
+"I had no knowledge you were in the affair," said Wilding.  "You
+should have told me."  His manner was brisk to the point of dryness.
+"However, there is still time to get you out of it.  Where is your
+horse?"
+
+"Damn my horse!" answered Tren chard in a passion. "You have spoiled
+everything!"
+
+"On the contrary," said Mr. Wilding tartly, "it seems you had done that
+very thoroughly before I arrived.  Whilst I am touched by the regard
+for me which has misled you into turning the tables on Blake and
+Westmacott, yet I do blame you for this betrayal of the Cause."
+
+"There was no help for it."
+
+"Why, no; and that is why you should have left matters where they stood."
+
+Trenchard stamped his foot; indeed, he almost danced in the excess of
+his vexation.  "Left them where they stood!" he echoed.  "Body o' me!
+Where are your wits?  Left them where they stood!  And at any moment
+you might have been taken unawares as a consequence of this accusation
+being lodged against you by Richard or by Blake.  Then the Cause would
+have been betrayed, indeed."
+
+"Not more so than it is now.
+
+"Not less, at least," snapped the player.  "You give me credit for no
+more wit than yourself.  Do you think that I am the man to do things
+by halves?  I have betrayed the plot to Albemarle; but do you imagine
+I have made no provision for what must follow?"
+
+"Provision?" echoed Wilding, staring.
+
+"Aye, provision. God lack! What do you suppose Albemarle will do?"
+
+"Dispatch a messenger to Whitehall with the letter within an hour."
+
+"You perceive it, do you?  And where the plague do you think Nick
+Trenchard'll be what time that messenger rides?"
+
+Mr. Wilding understood.  "Aye, you may stare," sneered Trenchard.
+"A letter that has once been stolen may be stolen again.  The courier
+must go by way of Walford.  I had in my mind arranged the spot, close
+by the ford, where I should fall upon him, rob him of his dispatches,
+and take him - bound hand and foot if necessary - to Vallancey's, who
+lives close by; and there I'd leave him until word came that the
+Duke had landed."
+
+"That the Duke had landed?" cried Wilding. "You talk as though the
+thing were imminent."
+
+"And imminent it is.  For aught we know he may be in England already."
+
+Mr. Wilding laughed impatiently.  "You must forever be building on
+these crack-brained rumours, Nick," said he.
+
+"Rumours!" roared the other.  "Rumours? Ha!" He checked his wild scorn,
+and proceeded in a different key.  "I was forgetting.  You do not know
+the Contents of that stolen letter."
+
+Wilding started.  Underlying his disbelief in the talk of the countryside,
+and even in the military measures which by the King's orders were being
+taken in the West, was an uneasy dread lest they should prove to be well
+founded, lest Argyle's operations in Scotland should be but the
+forerunner of a rash and premature invasion by Monmouth.  He knew the
+Duke was surrounded by such reckless, foolhardy counsellors as Grey and
+Ferguson - and yet he could not think the Duke would ruin all by coming
+before he had definite word that his friends were ready.  He looked at
+Trenchard now with anxious eyes.
+
+"Have you seen the letter, Nick?" he asked, and almost dreaded the reply.
+
+"Albemarle showed it me an hour ago," said Trenchard.
+
+"And it contains?"
+
+"The news we fear. It is in the Duke's own hand, and intimates that he
+will follow it in a few days - in a few days, man in person."
+
+Mr. Wilding clenched teeth and hands.  "God help us all, then!" he
+muttered grimly.
+
+"Meanwhile," quoth Trenchard, bringing him back to the point, "there
+is this precious business here.  I had as choice a plan as could have
+been devised, and it must have succeeded, had you not come blundering
+into it to mar it all at the last moment. That fat fool Albemarle had
+swallowed my impeachment like a draught of muscadine.  Do you hear me?"
+he ended sharply, for Mr. Wilding stood bemused, his thoughts plainly
+wandering.
+
+He let his hand fall upon Trenchard's shoulder.  "No," said he, "I
+wasn't listening.  No matter; for even had I known the full extent
+of your scheme I still must have interfered."
+
+"For the sake of Mistress Westmacott's blue eyes, no doubt," sneered
+Trenchard. "Pah! Wherever there's a woman there's the loss of a man."
+
+"For the sake of Mistress Wilding's blue eyes," his friend corrected
+him.  "I'll allow no brother of hers to hang in my place."
+
+"It will be interesting to see how you will rescue him."
+
+"By telling the truth to Albemarle."
+
+"He'll not believe it."
+
+"I shall prove it," said Wilding quietly.  Trenchard swung round upon
+him in mingled anger and alarm for him.  "You shall not do it!" he
+snarled.  "It is nothing short of treason to the Duke to get
+yourself laid by the heels at such a time as this."
+
+"I hope to avoid it," answered Wilding confidently.
+
+"Avoid it? How?"
+"Not by staying longer here in talk.  That will ruin all.  Away with
+you, Trenchard!"
+
+"By my soul, no!" answered Trenchard.  "I'll not leave you.  If I have
+got you into this, I'll help to get you out again, or stay in it with
+you."
+
+"Bethink you of Monmouth?" Wilding admonished him.
+
+"Damn Monmouth!" was the vicious answer.  "I am here, and here I stay."
+
+"Get to horse, you fool, and ride to Walford as you proposed, there to
+ambush the messenger.  The letter will go to Whitehall none the less
+in spite of what I shall tell Albemarle.  If things go well with me,
+I shall join you at Vallancey's before long."
+
+"Why, if that is your intention," said Trenchard, "I had better stay,
+and we can ride together.  It will make it less uncertain for you."
+
+"But less certain for you."
+
+"The more reason why I should remain."
+
+The door of the hall was suddenly flung open at the far end of the
+corridor, and Albemarle's booming voice, impatiently raised, reached
+them where they stood.
+
+"In any case," added Trenchard, "it seems there is no help for it now."
+
+Mr. Wilding shrugged his shoulders, but otherwise dissembled his
+vexation.  Up the passage floated the constable's voice calling them.
+
+Side by side they moved down, and side by side they stepped once more
+into the presence of Christopher Monk and his associates.
+
+"Sirs, you have not been in haste," was the Duke's ill-humoured greeting.
+
+"We have tarried a little that we might make an end the sooner,"
+answered Trenchard dryly, and this was the first indication he gave
+Mr. Wilding of how naturally - like the inimitable actor that he was -
+he had slipped into his new role.
+
+Albemarle waved the frivolous rejoinder aside. "Come, Mr. Wilding," said
+he, "let us hear what you may have to say.  You are not, I take it,
+about to urge any reasons why these rogues should not be committed?"
+
+"Indeed, Your Grace," said Wilding, "that is what I am about to urge."
+
+Blake and Richard looked at him suddenly, and from him to Trenchard;
+but it was only Ruth whose eyes were shrewd enough to observe the
+altered demeanour of the latter.  Her hopes rose, founded upon this
+oddly assorted pair.  Already in anticipation she was stirred by
+gratitude towards Wilding, and it was in impatient and almost wondering
+awe that she waited for him to proceed.
+
+"I take it, sir," he said, without waiting for Albemarle to express any
+of the fresh astonishment his countenance manifested, "that the
+accusation against these gentlemen rests entirely upon the letter which
+you have been led to believe was addressed to Mr. Westmacott."
+
+The Duke scowled a moment before replying.  "Why," said he, "if it
+could be shown - irrefutably shown - that the letter was not addressed
+to either of them, that would no doubt establish the truth of what they
+say - that they possessed themselves of the letter in the interests
+of His Majesty."  He turned to Luttrell and Phelips, and they nodded
+their concurrence with his view of the matter.  "But," he continued,
+"if you are proposing to prove any such thing, I think you will find
+it difficult."
+
+Mr. Wilding drew a crumpled paper from his pocket.  "When the courier
+whom they robbed, as they have correctly informed you," said he quietly,
+"suspected their design upon the contents of his wallet, he bethought
+him of removing the wrapper from the letter, so that in case the letter
+were seized by them it should prove nothing against any man in
+particular.  He stuffed the wrapper into the lining of his hat,
+preserving it as a proof of his good faith against the time when he
+should bring the letter to its destination, or come to confess that
+it had been taken from him.  That wrapper the courier brought to me,
+and I have it here.  The evidence it will give should be more than
+sufficient to warrant your restoring these unjustly accused gentlemen
+their liberty."
+
+"The courier took it to you?" echoed Albemarle, stupefaction in his
+glance.  "But why to you?"
+
+"Because," said Wilding, and with his left hand he placed the wrapper
+before Albemarle, whilst his right dropped again to his pocket, "the
+letter, as you may see, was addressed to me."
+
+The quiet manner in which he made the announcement conveyed almost
+as great a shock as the announcement itself.
+
+Albemarle took up the wrapper; Luttrell and Phelips craned forward to
+join him in his scrutiny of it.  They compared the two, paper with
+paper, writing with writing.  Then Monk flung one and the other down
+in front of him.
+
+"What lies have I been hearing, then?" he demanded furiously of Trenchard.
+"`Slife I'll make an example of you.  Arrest me that rogue - arrest them
+both," and he half rose from his seat, his trembling hand pointing to
+Wilding and Trenchard.
+
+Two of the tything-men stirred to do his bidding, but in the same
+instant Albemarle found himself looking into the round nozzle of a
+pistol.
+
+"If," said Mr. Wilding, "a finger is laid upon Mr. Trenchard or me I
+shall have the extreme mortification of being compelled to shoot Your
+Grace."
+
+His pleasantly modulated voice was as deliberate and calm as if he were
+offering the Bench a pinch of snuff.  Albemarle's dark visage crimsoned;
+his eyes became at once wicked and afraid.  Sir Edward's cheeks turned
+pale, his glance grew startled.  Luttrell alone, vigilant and dangerous,
+preserved his calm.  But the situation baffled even him.
+
+Behind the two friends the tything-men had come to a terror-stricken
+halt.  Diana had risen from her chair in the excitement of the moment
+and had drawn close to Ruth, who looked on with parted lips and bosom
+that rose and fell.  Even Blake could not stifle his admiration of
+Mr. Wilding's coolness and address.  Richard, on the other hand, was
+concerned only with thoughts for himself, wondering how it would fare
+with him if Wilding and Trenchard succeeded in getting away.
+
+"Nick," said Mr. Wilding, "will you desire those catchpolls behind
+us to stand aside?  If Your Grace raises your voice to call for help,
+if, indeed, any measures are taken calculated to lead to our capture,
+I can promise Your Grace - notwithstanding my profound reluctance to
+use violence - that they will be the last measures you will take in
+life.  Be good enough to open the door, Nick, and to see that the key
+is on the outside."
+
+Trenchard, who was by way of enjoying himself now, stepped briskly down
+the hall to do as his friend bade him, with a wary eye on the
+tything-men.  But never so much as a finger did they dare to lift.  Mr.
+Wilding's calm was too deadly; they had seen a man in earnest before
+this, and they knew his appearance now.  From the doorway Trenchard
+called Mr. Wilding.
+
+"I must be going, Your Grace," said the latter very courteously, "but
+I shall not be so wanting in deference to His Majesty's august
+representatives as to turn my back upon you."  Saying which, he walked
+backwards, holding his pistol level, until he had reached Trenchard and
+the door.  There he paused and made them a deep bow, his manner the
+more mocking in that there was no tinge of mockery perceptible.  "Your
+very obedient servant," said he, and stepped outside.  Trenchard turned
+the key, withdrew it from the lock, and, standing on tiptoe, thrust
+it upon the ledge of the lintel.
+
+Instantly a clamour arose within the chamber.  But the two friends
+never stayed to listen.  Down the passage they sped at the double, and
+out into the courtyard.  Here Ruth's groom, mounted himself, was walking
+his mistress's and Diana's horses up and down whilst he waited; yonder
+one of Sir Edward's stable-boys was holding Mr. Wilding's roan.  Two
+or three men of the Somerset militia, in their red and yellow liveries,
+lounged by the gates, and turned uninterested eyes upon these newcomers.
+
+Wilding approached his wife's groom. "Get down," he said, "I need your
+horse - on the King's business.  Get down, I say," he added impatiently,
+upon noting the fellow's stare, and, seizing his leg, he helped him to
+dismount by almost dragging him from the saddle.  "Up with you, Nick,"
+said he, and Nick very promptly mounted.  "Your mistress will be here
+presently," Wilding told the groom, and, turning on his heel, strode
+to his own mare.  A moment later Trenchard and he vanished through the
+gateway with a tremendous clatter, just as the Lord-Lieutenant, Colonel
+Luttrell, Sir Edward Phelips, the constable, the tything-men, Sir
+Rowland, Richard, and the ladies made their appearance.
+
+Ruth pushed her way quickly to the front.  She feared lest her horse
+and her cousin's being at hand might be used for the pursuit; so urging
+Diana to do the same, she snatched her reins from the hands of the
+dumbfounded groom and leapt nimbly to the saddle.
+
+"After them!" roared Albemarle, and the constable with two of his men
+made a dash for the gateway to raise the hue and cry, whilst the
+militiamen watched them in stupid, inactive wonder.  "Damnation,
+mistress!" thundered the Duke in ever-increasing passion, "hold your
+nag!  Hold your nag, woman!"  For Ruth's horse had become unmanageable,
+and was caracoling about the yard between the men and the gateway in
+such a manner that they dared not attempt to win past her.
+
+"You have scared him with your bellowing," she panted, tugging at the
+bridle, and all but backed into the constable who had been endeavouring
+to get round behind her.  The beast continued its wild prancing, and
+the Duke abated nothing in his furious profanity, until suddenly the
+groom, having relinquished to Diana the reins of the other horse, sprang
+to Ruth's assistance and caught her bridle in a firm grasp which brought
+the animal to a standstill.
+
+"You fool!" she hissed at him, and half raised her whip to strike, but
+checked on the impulse, bethinking her in time that, after all, what
+the poor lad had done he had done thinking her distressed.
+
+The constable and a couple of his fellows won through; others were
+rousing the stable and getting to horse, and in the courtyard all was
+bustle and commotion.  Meanwhile, however, Mr. Wilding and Trenchard
+had made the most of their start, and were thundering through the town.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+AT THE FORD
+
+
+As Mr. Wilding and Nick Trenchard rode hell-to- leather through Taunton
+streets they never noticed a horseman at the door of the Red Lion Inn.
+But the horseman noticed them.  He looked up at the sound of their wild
+approach, started upon recognizing them, and turned in his saddle as
+they swept past him to call upon them excitedly to stop.
+
+"Hi!" he shouted.  "Nick Trenchard!  Hi!  Wilding!" Then, seeing that
+they either did not hear or did not heed him, he loosed a volley of
+oaths, wheeled his horse about, drove home the spurs, and started in
+pursuit.  Out of the town he followed them and along the road towards
+Walford, shouting and clamouring at first, afterwards in a grim and
+angry silence.
+
+Now, despite their natural anxiety for their own safety, Wilding and
+Trenchard had by no means abandoned their project of taking cover by
+the ford to await the messenger whom Albemarle and the others would
+no doubt be sending to Whitehall; and this mad fellow thundering after
+them seemed in a fair way to mar their plan.  As they reluctantly
+passed the spot they had marked out for their ambush, splashed
+through the ford and breasted the rising ground beyond, they took
+counsel.  They determined to stand and meet this rash pursuer.
+Trenchard calmly opined that if necessary they must shoot him; he was,
+I fear, a bloody-minded fellow at bottom, although, it is true he
+justified himself now by pointing out that this was no time to
+hesitate at trifles.  Partly because they talked and partly because
+the gradient was steep and their horses needed breathing, they
+slackened rein, and the horseman behind them came tearing through the
+water of the ford and lessened the distance considerably in the next
+few minutes.
+
+He bethought him of using his lungs once more.  "Hi, Wilding!  Hold,
+damn you!"
+
+"He curses you in a most intimate manner," quoth Trenchard.
+
+Wilding reined in and turned in the saddle.  "His voice has a familiar
+sound," said he.  He shaded his eyes with his hand, and looked down
+the slope at the pursuer, who came on crouching low upon the withers
+of his goaded beast.
+
+"Wait!" the fellow shouted.  "I have news - news for you!"
+
+"It's Vallancey!" cried Wilding suddenly.
+Trenchard too had drawn rein and was looking behind him.  Instead of
+expresing relief at the discovery that this was not an enemy, he
+swore at the trouble to which they had so needlessly put themselves,
+and he was still at his vituperations when Vallancey came up with them,
+red in the face and very angry, cursing them roundly for the folly of
+their mad career, and for not having stopped when he bade them.
+
+"It was no doubt discourteous," said Mr. Wilding "but we took you for
+some friend of the Lord-Lieutenant's."
+
+"Are they after you?" quoth Vallancey, his face of a sudden very
+startled.
+
+"Like enough," said Trenchard, "if they have found their horses yet."
+
+"Forward, then," Vallancey urged them in excitement, and he picked
+up his reins again.  "You shall hear my news as we ride."
+
+"Not so," said Trenchard. "We have business here down yonder at the
+ford."
+
+"Business? What business?"
+
+They told him, and scarce had they got the words out than he cut in
+impatiently.  "That's no matter now.
+
+"Not yet, perhaps," said Mr. Wilding; "but it will be if that letter
+gets to Whitehall."
+
+"Odso!" was the impatient retort, "there's other news travelling to
+Whitehall that will make small-beer of this - and belike it's well on
+its way there already."
+
+"What news is that?" asked Trenchard.  Vallancey told them.  "The Duke
+has landed - he came ashore this morning at Lyme."
+
+"The Duke?" quoth Mr. Wilding, whilst Trenchard merely stared.  "What
+Duke?"
+
+"What Duke! Lord, you weary me!  What dukes be there?  The Duke of
+Monmouth, man."
+
+"Monmouth!" They uttered the name in a breath. "But is this really
+true?" asked Wilding.  "Or is it but another rumour?"
+
+"Remember the letter your friends intercepted," Trenchard bade him.
+
+"I am not forgetting it," said Wilding.
+
+"It's no rumour," Vallancey assured them.  "I was at White Lackington
+three hours ago when the news came to George Speke, and I was riding
+to carry it to you, going by way of Taunton that I might drop word of
+it for our friends at the Red Lion."
+
+Trenchard needed no further convincing; he looked accordingly dismayed.
+But Wilding found it still almost impossible - in spite of what already
+he had learnt - to credit this amazing news.  It was hard to believe
+the Duke of Monmouth mad enough to spoil all by this sudden and
+unheralded precipitation.
+
+"You heard the news at Whitp Lackington?" said he slowly.  "Who carried
+it thither?"
+
+"There were two messengers," answered Vallancey, with restrained
+impatience, "and they were Heywood Dare - who has been appointed
+paymaster to the Duke's forces - and Mr. Chamberlain."
+
+Mr. Wilding was observed for once to change colour.  He gripped Vallancey
+by the wrist.  "You saw them?" he demanded, and his voice had a husky,
+unusual sound.  "You saw them?"
+
+"With these two eyes," answered Vallancey, "and I spoke with them."
+
+It was true, then! There was no room for further doubt.
+
+Wilding looked at Trenchard, who shrugged his shoulders and made a wry
+face.  "I never thought but that we were working in the service of a
+hairbrain," said he contemptuously.
+
+Vallancey proceeded to details.  "Dare and Chamberlain," he informed
+them, "came off the Duke's own frigate at daybreak to-day.  They were
+put ashore at Seatown, and they rode straight to Mr. Speke's with the
+news, returning afterwards to Lyme."
+
+"What men has the Duke with him, did you learn?" asked Wilding.
+
+"Not more than a hundred or so, from what Dare told us."
+
+"A hundred!  God help us all!  And is England to be conquered with a
+hundred men?  Oh, this is midsummer frenzy."
+
+"He counts on all true Protestants to flock to his banner," put in
+Trenchard, and it was not plain whether he expressed a fact or sneered
+at one.
+
+"Does he bring money and arms, at least?" asked Wilding.
+
+"I did not ask," answered Vallancey.  "But Dare told us that three
+vessels had come over, so that it is to be supposed he brings some
+manner of provision with him."
+
+"It is to be hoped so, Vallancey; but hardly to be supposed," quoth
+Trenchard, and then he touched Wilding on the arm and pointed with his
+whip across the fields towards Taunton.  A cloud of dust was rising
+from between tall hedges where ran the road.  "I think it were wise to
+be moving.  At least, this sudden landing of James Scott relieves my
+mind in the matter of that letter."
+
+Wilding, having taken a look at the floating dust that announced the
+oncoming of their pursuers, was now lost in thought.  Vallancey, who,
+beyond excitement at the news of which he was the bearer, seemed to
+have no opinion of his own as to the wisdom or folly of the Duke's
+sudden arrival, looked from one to the other of these two men whom he
+had known as the prime secret agents in the West, and waited
+Trenchard moved his horse a few paces nearer the hedge, whence he
+"Whither now, Anthony?" he asked suddenly.
+
+"You may ask, indeed!" exclaimed Wilding, and his voice was as bitter
+as ever Trenchard had heard it.  "`S heart!  We are in it now!  We had
+best make for Lyme - if only that we may attempt to persuade this
+crack-brained boy to ship back to Holland again, and ship ourselves
+with him."
+
+"There's sense in you at last," grumbled Trenchard.  "But I misdoubt
+me he'll turn back after having come so far.  Have you any money?"
+he asked.  He could be very practical at times.
+
+"A guinea or two. But I can get money at Ilminster."
+
+"And how do you propose to reach Ilminster with these gentlemen by
+way of cutting us off?"
+
+"We'll double back as far as the cross-roads," said Wilding promptly,
+"and strike south over Swell Hill for Hatch.  If we ride hard we can
+do it easily, and have little fear of being followed.  They'll
+naturally take it we have made for Bridgwater."
+
+They acted on the suggestion there and then, Vallancey going with them;
+for his task was now accomplished, and he was all eager to get to Lyme
+to kiss the hand of the Protestant Duke.  They rode hard, as Wilding had
+said they must, and they reached the junction of the roads before their
+pursuers hove in sight.  Here Wilding suddenly detained them again.  The
+road ahead of them ran straight for almost a mile, so that if they took
+it now they were almost sure to be seen presently by the messengers. On
+their right a thickly grown coppice stretched from the road to the
+stream that babbled in the hollow.  He gave it as his advice that they
+should lie hidden there until those who hunted them should have gone
+by.  Obviously that was the only plan, and his companions instantly
+adopted it.  They found a way through a gate into an adjacent field,
+and from this they gained the shelter of the trees.  Trenchard,
+neglectful of his finery and oblivious of the ubiquitous brambles,
+left his horse in Vallancey's care and crept to the edge of the thicket
+that he might take a peep at the pursuers.
+
+They came up very soon, six militiamen in lobster coats with yellow
+facings, and a sergeant, which was what Mr. Trenchard might have
+expected.  There was, however, something else that Mr. Trenchard
+did not expect; something that afforded him considerable surprise.
+At the head of the party rode Sir Rowland Blake - obviously leading
+it - and with him was Richard Westmacott.  Amongst them went a man
+in grey clothes, whom Mr. Trenchard rightly conjectured to be the
+messenger riding for Whitehall. He thought with a smile of what a
+handful he and Wilding would have had had they waited to rob that
+messenger of the incriminating letter that he bore.  Then he checked
+his smile to consider again how Sir Rowland Blake came to head that
+party.  He abandoned the problem, as the little troop swept
+unhesitatingly round to the left and went pounding along the road
+that led northwards to Bridgwater, clearly never doubting which way
+their quarry had sped.
+
+As for Sir Rowland Blake's connection with this pursuit, the town
+gallant had by his earnestness not only convinced Colonel Luttrell
+of his loyalty and devotion to King James, but had actually gone so
+far as to beg that he might be allowed to prove that same loyalty by
+leading the soldiers to the capture of those self-confessed traitors,
+Mr. Wilding and Mr. Trenchard.  From his knowledge of their haunts he
+was confident, he assured Colonel Luttrell, that he could be of service
+to the King in this matter.  The fierce sincerity of his purpose shone
+through his words; Luttrell caught the accent of hate in Sir Rowland's
+tense voice, and, being a shrewd man, he saw that if Mr. Wilding was
+to be taken, an enemy would surely be the best pursuer to accomplish
+it.  So he prevailed, and gave him the trust he sought, in Spite of
+Albemarle's expressed reluctance.  And never did bloodhound set out more
+relentlessly purposeful upon a scent than did Sir Rowland follow now in
+what he believed to be the track of this man who stood between him and
+Ruth Westmacott.  Until Ruth was widowed, Sir Rowland's hopes of her
+must lie fallow; and so it was with a zest that he flung himself into
+the task of widowing her.
+
+As the party passed out of view round the angle of the white road,
+Trenchard made his way back to Wilding to tell him what he had seen
+and to lay before him, for his enucleation, the problem of Blake's
+being the leader of it.  But Wilding thought little of Blake, and
+cared little of what he might be the leader.
+
+"We'll stay here," said he, "until they have passed the crest of the
+hill."
+
+This, Trenchard told him, was his own purpose; for to leave their
+concealment earlier would be to reveal themselves to any of the troopers
+who might happen to glance over his shoulder.
+
+And so they waited some ten minutes or so, and then walked their horses
+slowly and carefully forward through the trees towards the road.  Wilding
+was alongside and slightly ahead of Trenchard; Vallancey followed close
+upon their tails.  Suddenly, as Wilding was about to put his mare at the
+low stone wall, Trenchard leaned forward and caught his bridle.
+
+"Ss!" he hissed. "Horses!"
+
+And now that they halted they heard the hoofbeats clear and close at
+hand; the crackling of undergrowth and the rustle of the leaves through
+which they had thrust their passage had deafened their ears to other
+sounds until this moment.  They checked and waited where they stood,
+barely screened by the few boughs that still might intervene between
+them and the open, not daring to advance, and not daring to retreat
+lest their movements should draw attention to themselves.  They remained
+absolutely still, scarcely breathing, their only hope being that if
+these who came should chance to be enemies they might ride on without
+looking to right or left.  It was so slender a hope that Wilding looked
+to the priming of his pistols, whilst Trenchard, who had none, loosened
+his sword in its scabbard.  Nearer came the riders.
+
+"There are not more than three," whispered Trenchard, who had been
+listening intently, and Mr. Wilding nodded, but said nothing.
+
+Another moment and the little party was abreast of those watchers; a
+dark brown riding-habit flashed into their line of vision, and a blue
+one laced with gold.  At sight of the first Mr. Wilding's eyelids
+flickered; he had recognized it for Ruth's, with whom rode Diana,
+whilst some twenty paces or so behind came Jerry, the groom.  They
+were returning to Bridgwater.
+
+They came along, looking neither to right nor to left, as the three
+men had hoped they would, and they were all but past, when suddenly
+Wilding gave his roan a touch of the spur and bounded forward. Diana's
+horse swerved so that it nearly threw her. Ruth, slightly ahead,
+reined in at once; so, too, did the groom in the rear, and so violently
+in his sudden fear of highwaymen that he brought his horse on to its
+hind legs and had it prancing and rearing madly about the road, so that
+he was hard put to it to keep his seat.
+
+Ruth looked round as Mr. Wilding's voice greeted her.
+
+"Mistress Wilding," he called to her.  "A moment, if I may detain you."
+
+"You have eluded them!" she cried, entirely off her guard in her
+surprise at seeing him, and there echoed through her words a note of
+genuine gladness that almost disconcerted her husband for a moment. The
+next instant a crimson flush overspread her pale face, and her eyes were
+veiled from him, vexation in her heart at having betrayed the lively
+satisfaction it afforded her to see him safe when she feared him
+captured already or at least upon the point of capture.
+
+She had admired him almost unconsciously for his daring at the town hall
+that day, when his strong calm had stood out in such sharp contrast to
+the fluster and excitement of the men about him; of them all, indeed,
+it had seemed to her in those stressful moments that he was the only
+man, and she was - although she did not realize it - in danger of being
+proud of him.  Then again the thing he had done.  He had come
+deliberately to thrust his head into the lion's maw that he might save
+her brother.  It was possible that he had done it in answer to the
+entreaties which she had earlier feared she had poured into deaf ears;
+or it was possible that he had done it spurred by his sense of right
+and justice, which would not permit him to allow another to suffer in
+his stead - however much that other might be caught in the very toils
+that he had prepared for Mr. Wilding himself.  Her admiration, then,
+was swelled by gratitude, and it was a compound of these that had urged
+her to hinder the tything-men from winning past her until he and
+Trenchard should have got well away.
+
+Afterwards, when with Diana and her groom - on a horse which Sir Edward
+Phelips insisted upon lending them - she rode homeward from Taunton,
+there was Diana to keep alive the spark of kindness that glowed at last
+for Wilding in Ruth's breast.  Miss Horton extolled his bravery, his
+chivalry, his nobility, and ended by expressing her envy of Ruth that
+she should have won such a man amongst men for her husband, and wondered
+what it might be that kept Ruth from claiming him for her own as was her
+right.  Ruth had answered little, but she had ridden very thoughtful;
+there was that in the past she found it hard to forgive Wilding.  And
+yet she would now have welcomed an opportunity of thanking him for what
+he had done, of expressing to him something of the respect he had won
+in her eyes by his act of selfdenunciation to save her brother.  This
+chance, it seemed, was given her, for there he stood, with head bared
+before her; and already she thought no longer of seizing the chance,
+vexed as she was at having been surprised into a betrayal of feelings
+whose warmth she had until that moment scarce estimated.
+
+In answer to her cry of "You have eluded them!" he waved a hand towards
+the rising ground and the road to Bridgwater.
+
+"They passed that way but a few moments since," said he, "and by the
+rate at which they were travelling they should be nearing Newton by now.
+In their great haste to catch me they could not pause to look for me so
+close at hand," he added with a smile, "and for that I am thankful."
+
+She sat her horse and answered nothing, which threw her cousin out of
+all patience with her.  "Come, Jerry," Diana called to the groom.  "We
+will walk our horses up the hill."
+
+"You are very good, madam," said Mr. Wilding, and he bowed to the
+withers of his roan.
+
+Ruth said nothing; expressed neither approval nor disapproval of Diana's
+withdrawal, and the latter, with a word of greeting to Wilding, went
+ahead followed by Jerry, who had regained control by now of the beast
+he bestrode.  Wilding watched them until they turned the corner, then
+he walked his mare slowly forward until he was alongside Ruth.
+
+"Before I go," said he, "there is something I should like to say."
+His dark eyes were sombre, his manner betrayed some hesitation.
+
+The diffidence of his tone proved startling to her by virtue of its
+unusualness.  What might it portend, she wondered, and sought with grave
+eyes to read his baffling countenance; and then a wild alarm swept into
+her and shook her spirit in its grip; there was something of which until
+this moment she had not thought - something connected with the fateful
+matter of that letter.  It had stood as a barrier between them, her
+buckler, her sole defence against him.  It had been to her what its
+sting is to the bee - a thing which if once used in self-defence is
+self-destructive. Not, indeed, that she had used it as her sting; it
+had been forced from her by the machinations of Trenchard; but used it
+had been, and was done with; she had it no longer that with it she
+might hold him in defiance, and it did not occur to her that he was no
+longer in case to invoke the law.
+
+Her face grew stony, a dry glitter came to her blue eyes; she cast a
+glance over her shoulder at Diana and her servant.  Wilding observed
+it and read what was passing in her mind; indeed, it was not to be
+mistaken, no more than what is passing in the mind of the recruit who
+looks behind him in the act of charging.  His lips half smiled.
+
+"Of what are you afraid?" he asked her.
+
+"I am not afraid," she answered in husky accents that belied her.
+
+Perhaps to reassure her, perhaps because he thought of his companions
+lurking in the thicket and cared not to have them for his audience,
+he suggested they should go a little way in the direction her cousin had
+taken.  She wheeled her horse, and, side by side, they ambled up the
+dusty road.
+
+"The thing I have to tell you," said he presently, "concerns myself."
+
+"Does it concern me?" she asked him coldly, and her coolness was urged
+partly by her newborn fears, partly to counterbalance such impression
+as her illjudged show of gladness at his safety might have made upon
+his mind.  He flashed her a sidelong glance, the long white fingers of
+his right hand toying thoughtfully with a ringlet of the dark brown
+hair that fell upon the shoulders of his scarlet coat.
+
+
+"Surely, madam," he answered dryly, "what concerns a man may well
+concern his wife."
+
+She bowed her head, her eyes upon the road before her.  "True," said
+she, her voice expressionless.  "I had forgot."
+
+He reined in and turned to look at her; her horse moved on a pace or
+two, then came to a halt, apparently of its own accord.
+
+"I do protest," said he, "you treat me less kindly than I deserve."
+He urged his mare forward until he had come up with her again, and
+then drew rein once more.  "I think that I may lay some claim to - at
+least - your gratitude for what I did to-day."
+
+"It is my inclination to be grateful," said she. She was very wary of
+him.  "Forgive me, if I am still mistrustful."
+
+"But of what?" he cried, a thought impatiently.
+
+"Of you.  What ends did you seek to serve?  Was it to save Richard that
+you came?"
+
+"Unless you think that it was to save Blake," he said ironically.  "What
+other ends do you conceive I could have served?"  She made him no answer,
+and so he resumed after a pause.  "I rode to Taunton to serve you for
+two reasons; because you asked me, and because I would have no innocent
+men suffer in my stead - not even though, as these men, they were but
+caught in their own toils, hoist with the petard they had charged for
+me.  Beyond these two motives, I had no other thought in ruining myself."
+
+"Ruining yourself?" she cried.  Yes, it was true; but she had not
+thought of it until this moment; there had been so much to think of.
+
+"Is it not ruin to be outlawed, to have a price set upon your head,
+as will no doubt a price be set on mine when Albemarle's messenger
+shall have reached Whitehall?  Is it not ruin to have my lands and all
+I own made forfeit to the State, to find myself a beggar, hunted and
+proscribed?  Forgive me that I harass you with this catalogue of my
+misfortunes.  You'll say, no doubt, that I have brought them upon myself
+by compelling you against your will to marry me.
+
+"I'll not deny that it is in my mind," said she, and of set purpose
+stifled pity.
+
+He sighed and looked at her again, but she would not meet his eye, else
+its whimsical expression might have intrigued her.  "Can you deny my
+magnanimity, I wonder?" said he, and spoke almost as one amused.  "All
+I had I sacrificed to do your will, to save your brother from the snare
+of his own contriving against me.  I wonder do you yet realize how much
+I sacrificed to-day at Taunton!  I wonder!"  And he paused, looking at
+her and waiting for some word from her; but she had none for him.
+
+"Clearly you do not, else I think you would show me if only a pretence
+of kindness."  She was looking at him at last, her eyes less hard.  They
+seemed to ask him to explain.  "When you came this morning with the tale
+of how the tables had been turned upon your brother, of how he was caught
+in his own springe, and the letter found in his keeping was before the
+King's folk at Taunton with every appearance of having been addressed to
+him, and not a tittle of evidence to show that it had been meant for me,
+do you know what news it was you brought me?"  He paused a second,
+looking at her from narrowing eyes.  Then he answered his own question.
+"You brought me the news that you were mine to take whensoe'er I
+pleased.  Whilst that letter was in your hands it gave you the power to
+make me your obedient slave.  You might blow upon me as you listed
+whilst you held it, and I was a vane that must turn to your blowing for
+my honour's sake and for the sake of the cause in which I worked.
+Through no rashness of mine must that letter come into the hands of the
+King's friends, else was I dishonoured.  It was an effective barrier
+between us.  So long as you possessed that letter you might pipe as you
+pleased, and I must dance to the tune you set.  And then this morning
+what you came to tell me was that things were changed; that it was mine
+to call the tune.  Had I had the strength to be a villain, you had been
+mine now, and your brother and Sir Rowland might have hanged on the rope
+of their own weaving."
+
+She looked at him in a startled, almost shamefaced manner.  This was an
+aspect of the case she had not considered.
+
+"You realize it, I see," he said, and smiled wistfully.  "Then perhaps
+you realize why you found me so unwilling to do the thing you craved.
+Having treated me ungenerously, you came to cast yourself upon my
+generosity, asking me - though I scarcely think you understood - to
+beggar myself of life itself with all it held for me.  God knows I make
+no pretence to virtue, and yet I think I had been something more than
+human had I not refused you and the bargain you offered - a bargain
+that you would never be called upon to fulfil if I did the thing you
+asked."
+
+At last she interrupted him; she could bear it no longer.
+
+"I had not thought of it!" she cried.  It was a piteous wail that broke
+from her.  "I swear I had not thought of that.  I was all distraught for
+poor Richard's sake.  Oh, Mr. Wilding," she turned to him, holding out
+a hand; her eyes shone, filmed with moisture, "I shall have a kindness
+for you.., all my days for your... generosity to-day."  It was
+lamentably weak, far from the hot expressions which she forced it to
+replace.
+
+"Yes, I was generous," he admitted.  "We will move on as far as the
+cross-roads."  Again they ambled gently forward.  Up the slope from the
+ford Diana and Jerry were slowly climbing; not another human being was
+in sight ahead or behind them.  "After you left me," he continued, "your
+memory and your entreaties lingered with me.  I gave the matter of our
+position thought, and it seemed to me that all was monstrously ill-done.
+I loved you, Ruth, I needed you, and you disdained me.  My love was
+aster of me.  But `neath your disdain it was transmuted oddly." He
+checked the passion that was vibrating in his voice and resumed after
+a pause, in the calm, slow tones, soft and musical, that were his
+own.  "There is scarce the need for so much recapitulation.  When the
+power was mine I bent you unfairly to my will; you did as much by me
+when the power suddenly became yours.  It was a strange war between us,
+and I accepted its conditions.  To-day, when the power was mine again,
+mine to bring you at last to subjection, behold, I have capitulated at
+your bidding, and all that I held - including your own self- have I
+relinquished.  It is perhaps fitting.  Haply I am punished for having
+wed you before I had wooed you."  Again his tone changed, it grew more
+cold, more matter-of-fact.  "I rode this way a little while ago a hunted
+man, my only hope to reach home and collect what moneys and valuables
+I could carry, and make for the coast to find a vessel bound for
+Holland.  I have been engaged, as you know, in stirring up rebellion
+to check the iniquities and persecutions that are toward in a land I
+love.  I'll not weary you with details.  Time was needed for this as
+for all things, and by next spring, perhaps, had matters gone well,
+this vineyard that so carefully and secretly I have been tending, would
+have been, maybe, in condition to bear fruit.  Even now, in the hour of
+my flight, I learn that others have come to force this delicate growth
+into sudden maturity.  There!  Soon ripe, soon rotten.  The Duke of
+Monmouth has landed at Lyme this morning. I am riding to him."
+
+"To what end?" she cried, and he saw in her face a dismay that amounted
+almost to fear, and he wondered  was it for him.
+
+"To place my sword at his service. Were I not encompassed by this ruin,
+I should not have stirred a foot in that direction - so rash, so
+foredoomed to failure is this invasion.  As it is," - he shrugged and
+laughed - "it is the only hope - all forlorn though it may be - for me."
+
+The trammels she had imposed upon her soul fell away at that like bonds
+of cobweb. She laid her hand upon his wrists, tears stood in her eyes;
+her lips quivered.
+
+"Anthony, forgive me," she besought him.  He trembled under her touch,
+under the caress of her voice, and at the sound of his name for the
+first time upon her lips.
+
+"What have I to forgive?" he asked.
+
+"The thing that I did in the matter of that letter."
+
+"You poor child," said he, smiling gently upon her, "you did it in
+self-defence."
+
+"Yet say that you forgive me - say it before you go!" she begged him.
+
+He considered her gravely a moment.  "To what end," he asked, "do you
+imagine that I have talked so much?  To the end that I might show you
+that however I may have wronged you I have at the last made some amends;
+and that for the sake of this, the truest proof of penitence, I may
+have your forgiveness ere I go."
+
+She was weeping softly.  "It was an ill day on which we met," she
+sighed.
+
+"For you - aye."
+
+"Nay - for you.
+
+"We'll say for both of us, then," he compromised.  "See, Ruth, your
+cousin grows weary, and I have a couple of comrades who are no doubt
+impatient to be gone.  It may not be good for us to tarry in these
+parts.  Some amends I have made; but there is one crowning wrong which
+I have done you for which there is but one amend to make."  He paused.
+He steadied himself before continuing.  In his attempt to render his
+voice cold and commonplace he went near to achieving harshness.  "It
+may be that this crackbrained rebellion of which the torch is already
+alight will, if it does no other good in England, at least make a widow
+of you.  When that has come to pass, when I have thus repaired the wrong
+I did you, I hope you'll bear me as kindly as may be in your thought.
+Good-bye, my Ruth!  I would you might have loved me.  I sought to force
+it."  He smiled ever so wanly.  "Perhaps that was my mistake.  It is an
+ill thing to eat one's hay while it is grass."  He raised to his lips
+the little gloved hand that still rested on his wrist.  "God keep you,
+Ruth!" he murmured.
+
+She sought to answer him, but something choked her; a sob was all she
+achieved.  Had he caught her to him in that moment there is little doubt
+but that she had yielded.  Perhaps he knew it; and knowing it kept the
+tighter rein upon desire.  She was as metal molten in the crucible, to
+be moulded by his craftsman's hands into any pattern that he chose.  But
+the crucible was the crucible of pity, not of love; that, too, he knew,
+and, knowing it, forbore.
+
+He dropped her hand, doffed his hat, and, wheeling his horse about,
+touched it with the spur and rode back towards the thicket where his
+friends awaited him.  As he left her, she too wheeled about, as if to
+follow him.  She strove to command her voice that she might recall him;
+but at that same moment Trenchard, hearing his returning hoofs, thrust
+out into the road with Vallancey following at his heels.  The old
+player's harsh voice reached her where she stood, and it was querulous
+with impatience.
+
+"What a plague do you mean, dallying here at such a time, Anthony?" he
+cried, to which Vallancey added: "In God's name, let us push on."
+
+At that she checked her impulse - it may even be that she mistrusted it.
+She paused, lingering undecided for an instant; then, turning her horse
+once more, she ambled up the slope to rejoin Diana.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+"PRO RELIGIONE ET LIBERTATE"
+
+
+The evening was far advanced when Mr. Wilding and his two companions
+descended to Uplyme Common from the heights whence as they rode they had
+commanded a clear view of the fair valley of the Axe, lying now under a
+thin opalescent veil of evening mist.
+
+They had paused at Ilminster for fresh horses, and there Wilding had
+paid a visit to one of his agents from whom he had procured a hundred
+guineas.  Thence they had come south at a sharp pace, and with little
+said. Wilding was moody and thoughtful, filled with chagrin at this
+unconscionable rashness of the man upon whom all his hopes were centred.
+As they cantered briskly across Uplyme Common in the twilight they
+passed several bodies of countrymen, all heading for the town, and one
+group sent up a shout of "God save the Protestant Duke!" as they rode
+past him.
+
+"Amen to that," muttered Mr. Wilding grimly, "for I am afraid that no
+man can."
+
+In the narrow lane by Hay Farm a horseman, going in the opposite
+direction, passed them at the gallop; but they had met several such
+since leaving Ilminster, for indeed the news was spreading fast, and
+the whole countryside was alive with messengers, some on foot and some
+on horseback, but all hurrying as if their lives depended on their
+haste.
+
+They made their way to the Market-Place where Monmouth's declaration -
+that remarkable manifesto from the pen of Ferguson - had been read
+some hours before.  Thence, having ascertained where His Grace was
+lodged, they made their way to the George Inn.
+
+In Coombe Street they found the crowd so dense that they could but with
+difficulty open out a way for their horses through the human press. Not
+a window but was open, and thronged with sight-seers - mostly women,
+indeed, for the men were in the press below.  On every hand resounded
+the cries of "A Monmouth!  A Monmouth!  The Protestant Religion! Religion
+and Liberty," which latter were the words inscribed on the standard
+Monmouth had set up that evening on the Church Cliffs.
+
+In truth, Wilding was amazed at what he saw, and said as much to
+Trenchard.  So pessimistic had been his outlook that he had almost
+expected to find the rebellion snuffed out by the time they reached
+Lyme-of-the-King.  What had the authorities been about that they had
+permitted Monmouth to come ashore, or had Vallancey's information been
+wrong in the matter of the numbers that accompanied the Protestant
+Champion?  Wilding's red coat attracted some attention.  In the dusk its
+colour was almost all that could be discerned of it.
+
+"Here's a militia captain for the Duke!" cried one, and others took up
+the cry, and if it did nothing else it opened a way for them through
+that solid human mass and permitted them to win through to the yard of
+the George Inn.  They found the spacious quadrangle thronged with men,
+armed and unarmed, and on the steps stood a tall, well-knit, soldierly
+man, his hat rakishly cocked, about whom a crowd of townsmen and country
+fellows were pressing with insistence.  At a glance Mr. Wilding
+recognized Captain Venner - raised to the rank of colonel by Monmouth
+on the way from Holland.
+
+Trenchard dismounted, and taking a distracted stable-boy by the arm,
+bade him see to their horses.  The fellow endeavoured to swing himself
+free of the other's tenacious grasp.
+
+"Let me go," he cried. "I am for the Duke!"
+
+"And so are we, my fine rebel," answered Trenchard, holding fast.
+
+"Let me go," the lout insisted. "I am going to enlist."
+
+"And so you shall when you have stabled our nags.  See to him,
+Vallancey; he is brainsick with the fumes of war."
+
+The fellow protested, but Trenchard's way was brisk and short; and so,
+protesting still, he led away their cattle in the end, Vallancey going
+with him to see that he performed this last duty as a stable-boy ere he
+too became a champion militant of the Protestant Cause.  Trenchard sped
+after Wilding, who was elbowing his way through the yokels about the
+steps.  The glare of a newly lighted lamp from the doorway fell full
+upon his long white face as he advanced, and Venner espied and
+recognized him.
+
+"Mr. Wilding!" he cried, and there was a glad ring in his voice, for
+though cobblers, tailors, deserters from the militia, pot-boys,
+stable-boys, and shuffling yokels had been coming in in numbers during
+the past few hours since the Declaration had been read, this was the
+first gentleman that arrived to welcome Monmouth.  The soldier stretched
+out a hand to grasp the newcomer's.  "His Grace will see you this
+instant, not a doubt of it."  He turned and called down the passage.
+"Cragg!"  A young man in a buff coat came forward, and to him Venner
+delivered Wilding and Trenchard that he might announce them to His Grace.
+
+In the room that had been set apart for him abovestairs, Monmouth still
+sat at table.  He had just supped, with but an indifferent appetite, so
+fevered was he by the events of his landing.  He was excited with
+hope - inspired by the readiness with which the men of Lyme and its
+neighbourhood had flocked to his banner - and fretted by anxiety that
+none of the gentry of the vicinity should yet have followed the example
+of the meaner folk, in answer to the messages dispatched at dawn from
+Seaton. The board at which he sat was still cumbered with some glasses
+and platters and vestiges of his repast.  Below him on his right sat
+Ferguson - that prince of plotters - very busy with pen and ink, his
+keen face almost hidden by his great periwig; opposite were Lord Grey,
+of Werke, and Andrew Fletcher, of Saltoun, whilst, standing at the foot
+of the table barely within the circle of candlelight from the branch on
+the polished oak, was Nathaniel Wade, the lawyer, who had fled to Holland
+on account of his alleged complicity in the Rye House plot and was now
+returned a major in the Duke's service.  Erect and soldierly of figure,
+girt with a great sword and with the butt of a pistol protruding from
+his belt, he had little the air of a man whose methods of contention
+were forensic.
+
+"You understand, then, Major Wade," His Grace was saying, his voice
+pleasant and musical.  "It is decided that the guns had best be got
+ashore forthwith and mounted."
+
+Wade bowed.  "I shall set about it at once, Your Grace.  I shall not
+want for help.  Have I Your Grace's leave to go?"
+
+Monmouth nodded, and as Wade passed out, Ensign Cragg entered to
+announce Mr. Wilding and Mr. Trenchard.  The Duke rose to his feet, his
+glance suddenly brightening.  Fletcher and Grey rose with him; Ferguson
+paid no heed, absorbed in his task, which he industriously continued.
+
+"At last!" exclaimed the Duke.  "Admit them, sir."
+
+When they entered, Wilding coming first, his hat under his arm, the Duke
+sprang to meet him, a tall young figure, lithe and slender as a blade of
+steel, and of a steely strength for all his slimness.  He was dressed in
+a suit of purple that became him marvellously well, and on his breast a
+star of diamonds flashed and smouldered like a thing of fire.  He was of
+an exceeding beauty of face, wherein he mainly favoured that "bold,
+handsome woman" that was his mother, without, however, any of his mother's
+insipidity; fine eyes, a good nose, straight and slender, and a mouth
+which, if sensual and indicating a lack of strength, was beautifully
+shaped.  His chin was slightly cleft, the shape of his face a delicate
+oval, framed now in the waving masses of his brown wig.  Some likeness
+to his late Majesty was also discernible, in spite of the wart, out of
+which his uncle James made so much capital.
+
+There was a slight flush on his cheeks, an added lustre in his eye, as
+he took Wilding's hand and shook it heartily before Wilding had time to
+kiss His Grace's.
+
+"You are late," he said, but there was no reproach in his voice.  "We
+had looked to find you here when we came ashore.  You had my letter?"
+
+"I had not, Your Grace," answered Wilding, very grave.  "It was stolen."
+
+"Stolen?" cried the Duke, and behind him Grey pressed forward, whilst
+even Ferguson paused in his writing to raise his piercing eyes and
+listen.
+
+"It is no matter," Wilding reassured him.  "Although stolen, it has but
+gone to Whitehall to-day, when it can add little to the news that is
+already on its way there."
+
+The Duke laughed softly, with a flash of white teeth, and looked past
+Wilding at Trenchard.  Some of the light faded out of his eyes.  "They
+told me Mr. Trenchard..." he began, when Wilding, half turning to his
+friend, explained.
+
+"This is Mr. Nicholas Trenchard - John Trenchard's cousin.
+
+"I bid you welcome, sir," said the Duke, very agreeably, "and I trust
+your cousin follows you."
+
+"Alas," said Trenchard, "my cousin is in France," and in a few brief
+words he related the matter of John Trenchard's home-coming on his
+acquittal and the trouble there had been connected with it.
+
+The Duke received the news in silence.  He had expected good support
+from old Speke's son-in-law.  Indeed, there was a promise that when he
+came, John Trenchard would bring fifteen hundred men from Taunton.  He
+took a turn in the room deep in thought, and there was a pause until
+Ferguson, rubbing his great Roman nose, asked suddenly had Mr. Wilding
+seen the Declaration.  Mr. Wilding had not, and thereupon the plotting
+parson, who was proud of his composition, would have read it to him
+there and then, but that Grey sourly told him the matter would keep,
+and that they had other things to discuss with Mr. Wilding.
+
+This the Duke himself confirmed, stating that there were matters on
+which he would be glad to have their opinion.
+
+He invited the newcomers to draw chairs to the table; glasses were
+called for, and a couple of fresh bottles of Canary went round the
+board.  The talk was desultory for a few moments, whilst Wilding and
+Trenchard washed the dust from their throats; then Monmouth broke the
+ice by asking them bluntly what they thought of his coming thus,
+earlier than was at first agreed.
+
+Wilding never hesitated in his reply.  "Frankly, Your Grace," said he,
+"I like it not at all."
+
+Fletcher looked up sharply, his clear intelligent eyes full upon
+Wilding's calm face, his countenance expressing as little as did
+Wilding's.  Ferguson seemed slightly taken aback. Grey's thick lips
+were twisted in a sneering smile.
+
+"Faith," said the latter with elaborate sarcasm, "in that case it only
+remains for us to ship again, heave anchor, and back to Holland."
+
+"It is what I should advise," said Wilding slowly and quietly, "if I
+thought there was a chance of my advice being taken."  He had a calm,
+almost apathetic way of uttering startling things which rendered them
+doubly startling.  The sneer seemed to freeze on Lord Grey's lips;
+Fletcher continued to stare, but his eyes had grown more round; Ferguson
+scowled darkly.  The Duke's boyish face - it was still very youthful
+despite his six-and-thirty years - expressed a wondering consternation.
+He looked at Wilding, and from Wilding to the others, and his glance
+seemed to entreat them to suggest an answer to him.  It was Grey at last
+who took the matter up.
+
+"You shall explain your meaning, sir, or we must hold you a traitor,"
+he exclaimed.
+
+"King James does that already," answered Wilding with a quiet smile.
+
+"D'ye mean the Duke of York?" rumbled Ferguson's Scottish accent with
+startling suddenness, and Monmouth nodded approval of the correction.
+"If ye mean that bloody papist and fratricide, it were well so to speak
+of him.  Had ye read the Declaration..."
+
+But Fletcher cropped his speech in mid-growth.  He was ever a
+short-tempered man, intolerant of irrelevancies.
+
+"It were well, perhaps," said he, his accent abundantly proclaiming him
+a fellow countryman of Ferguson's, "to keep to the matter before us.
+Mr. Wilding, no doubt, will state the reasons that exist, or that he
+fancies may exist, for giving advice which is hardly worthy of the cause
+to which he stands committed."
+
+"Aye, Fletcher," said Monmouth, "there is sense in you.  Tell us what is
+in your mind, Mr. Wilding."
+
+"It is in my mind, Your Grace, that this invasion is rash, premature,
+and ill-advised."
+
+"Odds life!" cried Grey, and he swung angrily round fully to face the
+Duke, the nostrils of his heavy nose dilating.  "Are we to listen to
+this milksop prattle?"
+
+Nick Trenchard, who had hitherto been silent, cleared his throat so
+noisily that he drew all eyes to himself.
+
+"Your Grace," Mr. Wilding pursued, his air calm and dignified, and
+gathering more dignity from the circumstance that he proceeded as if
+there had been no interruption, "when I had the honour of conferring
+with you at The Hague two months ago, it was agreed that you should
+spend the summer in Sweden - away from politics and scheming, leaving
+the work of preparation to your accredited agents here.  That work I
+have been slowly but surely pushing forward.  It was not to be hurried;
+men of position are not to be won over in a day; men with anything to
+lose need some guarantee that they are not wantonly casting their
+possessions to the winds.  By next spring, as was agreed, all would have
+been ready.  Delay could not have hurt you.  Indeed, with every day by
+which you delayed your coming you did good service to your cause, you
+strengthened its prospects of success; for every day the people's
+burden of oppression and persecution grows more heavy, and the people's
+temper more short; every day, by the methods that he is pursuing, King
+James brings himself into deeper hatred.  This hatred is spreading.  It
+was the business of myself and those others to help it on, until from
+the cottage of the ploughman the infection of anger should have spread
+to the mansion of the squire.  Had Your Grace but given me time, as I
+entreated you, and as you promised me, you might have marched to
+Whitehall with scarce the shedding of a drop of blood; had Your Grace
+but waited until we were ready, England would have so trembled at your
+landing that your uncle's throne would have toppled over `neath the
+shock.  As it is..."  He shrugged his shoulders, sighed and spread his
+hands, leaving his sentence uncompleted.
+
+Monmouth sat sobered by these sober words; the intoxication that had
+come to him from the little measure of success that had attended the
+opening of the listing on Church Cliffs, deserted him now; he saw the
+thing stark and in its true proportions, and not even the shouting of
+the folk in the streets below, crying his name and acclaiming him their
+champion, served to lighten the gloom that Wilding's words cast like a
+cloud over his volatile heart.  Alas, poor Monmouth!  He was ever a
+weathercock, and even as Wilding's words seemed to strike the courage
+out of him, so did Grey's short contemptuous answer restore it.
+
+"As it is, we'll thrust that throne over with our hands," said he after
+a moment's pause.
+
+"Aye," cried Monmouth.  "We'll do it, God helping us!"
+
+"Our dependence and trust is in the Lord of Hosts, in Whose Name we go
+forth," boomed the voice of Ferguson, quoting from his precious
+Declaration.  "The Lord will do that which seemeth good unto Him."
+
+"An unanswerable argument," said Wilding, smiling.  "But the Lord, I am
+told by the gentlemen of your cloth, works in His own good time, and my
+fears are all lest, finding us unprepared of ourselves, the Lord's good
+time be not yet."
+
+"Out on ye, sir," cried Ferguson.  "Ye want for reverence!"
+
+"Common sense will serve us better at the moment," answered Wilding with
+a touch of sharpness.  He turned to the frowning and perplexed Duke -
+whose mind was being tossed this way and that, like a shuttlecock upon
+the battledore of these men's words.  "Your Grace," he said, "forgive me
+that I speak it if hear it you will, or forbid me to say it if your
+resolve is unalterable in this matter."
+
+"It is unalterable," answered Grey for the Duke.
+
+But Monmouth gently overruled him for once.
+
+"Nevertheless, speak by all means, Mr. Wilding.  Whatever you may say,
+you need have no fear that any of us can doubt your good intentions to
+ourselves."
+
+"I thank Your Grace.  What I have to say is but a repetition of the
+first words I uttered at this table.  I would urge Your Grace even now
+to retreat."
+
+"What?  Are you mad?"  It was Lord Grey who asked the impatient question.
+
+"I doubt it's over-late for that," said Fletcher slowly.
+
+"I am not so sure," answered Wilding.  "But I am sure that to attempt it
+were the safer course - the surer in the end.  I myself may not linger
+to push forward the task of stirring up the people, for I am already
+something more than under suspicion.  But there are others who will
+remain to carry on the work after I have departed with Your Grace, if
+Your Grace thinks well.  From the Continent by correspondence we can
+mature our plans.  In a twelvemonth things will be very different, and
+we can return with confidence."
+
+Grey shrugged and turned his shoulder upon Wilding, but said no word.
+There was silence of some few moments.  Andrew Fletcher leaned his elbow
+on the table and took his brow in his great bony hand.  Wilding's words
+seemed an echo of those he himself had spoken a week or two ago, only to
+be overruled by Grey, who swayed the Duke more than did any other - and
+that he did not do so of fell purpose, and seeking deliberately to work
+Monmouth's ruin, no man will ever be able to say with certainty.
+
+Ferguson rose, a tall, spare, stooping figure, and smote the board with
+his fist.  "It is a good cause," he cried, "and God will not leave us
+unless we leave Him."
+
+"Henry the Seventh landed with fewer men than did Your Grace," said Grey,
+"and he succeeded."
+
+"True," put in Fletcher.  "But Henry the Seventh was sure of the support
+of not a few of the nobility, which does not seem to be our case."
+
+Ferguson and Grey stared at him in horror; Monmouth sat biting his lip,
+more bewildered than thoughtful.
+
+"O man of little faith!" roared Ferguson in a passion.  "Are ye to be
+swayed like a straw in the wind?"
+
+"I am no' swayed.  Ye ken this was ever my own view.  I feel, in my
+heart, that what Mr. Wilding says is right.  It is but what I said
+myself, and Captain Matthews with me, before we embarked upon this
+expedition.  We were in danger of ruining all by a needless precipitancy.
+Nay, man, never stare so," he said to Grey, "I am in it now and I am no'
+the man to draw back, nor do I go so far as Mr. Wilding in counselling
+such a course.  We've set our hands to the plough; let us go forward in
+God's name.  Yet I would remind you that what Mr. Wilding says is true.
+Had we waited until next year, we had found the usurper's throne
+tottering under him, and, on our landing, it would have toppled o'er
+of itself."
+
+"I have said already that we'll overset it with our hands," Grey
+answered.
+
+"How many hands have you?" asked a new voice, a crisp, discordant voice,
+much steeped in mockery.  It was Nick Trenchard's.
+
+"Have we another here of Mr. Wilding's mind?" cried Grey, staring at him.
+
+"I am seldom of any other," answered Trenchard.  "We shall no' want for
+hands," Ferguson assured him.  "Had ye arrived earlier ye might have
+seen how readily men enlisted."  He had risen and approached the window
+as he spoke; he pulled it open, to let in the full volume of sound that
+rose from the street below.
+
+"A Monmouth! A Monmouth!" voices shouted.
+
+Ferguson struck a theatrical posture, one long, lean arm stretched
+outward from the shoulder.
+
+"Ye hear them, sirs," he cried, and there was a gleam of triumph in his
+eye.  "That is answer enough to those who want for faith, to the feckless
+ones that think the Lord will abandon those that have set out to serve
+Him," and his glance comprehended Fletcher, Trenchard, and Wilding.
+
+The Duke stirred in his chair, stretched a hand for the bottle and
+filled a glass.  His mercurial spirits were rising again.  He smiled at
+Wilding.
+
+"I think you are answered, sir," said he; "and I hope that like Fletcher
+there, who shared your doubts, you will come to agree that since we have
+set our hands to the plough we must go forward."
+
+"I have said that which I had it on my conscience to say.  Your Grace
+may have found me over-ready with my counsel; at least you shall find me
+no less ready with my sword."
+
+"Odso! That is better."  Grey applauded, and his manner was almost
+pleasant.
+
+"I never doubted it, Mr. Wilding," His Grace replied; "but I should like
+to hear you say that you are convinced - at least in part," and he waved
+his hand towards the window.  It was almost as if he pleaded for
+encouragement.  In common with most men who came in contact with Wilding,
+he had felt the latent force of this man's nature, the strength that was
+hidden under that calm surface, and the acuteness of the judgment that
+must be wedded to it.  He longed to  have the word of such a man that his
+enterprise was not as desperate as Wilding had seemed at first to paint
+it.  But Wilding made no concession to hopes or desires when he dealt
+with facts.
+
+"Men will flock to you, no doubt; persecution has wearied many of the
+country-folk, and they are ready for revolt.  But they are all untrained
+in arms; they are rustics, not soldiers.  If any of the men of position
+were to rally round your standard they would bring the militia, and
+others in their train; they would bring arms, horses, and money, all of
+which Your Grace must be sorely needing."
+
+"They will come," answered the Duke.
+
+"Some, no doubt," Wilding agreed; "but had it been next year, I would
+have answered for it that it would have been no handful had ridden in
+to welcome you.  Scarce a gentleman of Devon or Somerset, of Dorset or
+Hampshire, of Wiltshire or Cheshire but would have hastened to your
+side."
+
+"They will come as it is," the Duke repeated with an almost womanish
+insistence, persisting in believing what he hoped, all evidence apart.
+
+The door opened and Ensign Cragg made his appearance.  "May it please
+Your Grace," he announced, "Mr. Battiscomb has just arrived, and asks
+will Your Grace receive him to-night?"
+
+"Battiscomb!" cried the Duke.  Again his cheek flushed and his eye
+sparkled.  "Aye, in Heaven's name, show him up."
+
+"And may the Lord refresh us with good tidings!" prayed Ferguson devoutly.
+
+Monmouth turned to Wilding.  "It is the agent I sent ahead of me from
+Holland to stir up the gentry from here to the Mersey."
+
+"I know," said Wilding; "we conferred together some weeks since."
+
+"Now you shall see how idle are your fears," the Duke promised him.
+
+And Wilding, who was better informed on that score, kept silence.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+HIS GRACE' IN COUNSEL
+
+
+Mr. Christopher Battiscomb, that mild-mannered Dorchester gentleman,
+who, like Wade, was by vocation a lawyer, was ushered into the Duke's
+presence.  He was dressed in black, and, like Ferguson, was almost
+smothered in a great periwig, which he may have adopted for purposes of
+disguise rather than adornment.  Certainly he had none of that air of
+the soldier of fortune which distinguished his brother of the robe. He
+advanced, hat in hand, towards the table, greeting the company about it,
+and Wilding observed that he wore silk stockings and shoes, upon which
+there rested not a speck of dust.  Mr. Battiscomb was plainly a man who
+loved his ease, since on such a day he had travelled to Lyme in a coach.
+The lawyer bent low to kiss the Duke's hand, and scarce was that formal
+homage paid than questions poured upon him from Grey, from Fletcher,
+and from Ferguson.
+
+"Gentlemen, gentlemen," the Duke entreated them, smiling; and
+remembering their manners they fell silent.
+
+As Wilding afterwards told Trenchard, they reminded him of a parcel of
+saucy lacqueys who take liberties with an upstart master for whom they
+are wanting in respect.
+
+"I am glad to see you, Battiscomb," said Monmouth, when quiet was
+restored, "and I trust I behold in you a bearer of good tidings."
+
+The lawyer's full face was usually pale; to-night it was, in addition,
+solemn, and the smile that haunted his lips was a courtesy smile that
+expressed neither mirth nor satisfaction.  He cleared his throat, as if
+nervous.  He avoided the Duke's question as to the quality of the news
+he brought by answering that he had made all haste to come to Lyme upon
+hearing of His Grace's landing.  He was surprised, he said; as well he
+might be, for the arrangement was that having done his work he was to
+return to Holland and report to Monmouth upon the feeling of the gentry.
+
+"But your news, Battiscomb," the Duke insisted.  "Aye," put in Grey;
+"in Heaven's name, let us hear that."
+
+Again there was the little nervous cough from Battiscomb.  "I have
+scarce had time to complete my round of visits," he temporized.  "Your
+Grace has taken us so by surprise. I... I was with Sir Walter Young at
+Colyton when the news of your landing came some few hours ago."  His
+voice faltered and seemed to die away.
+
+"Well?" cried the Duke.  His brows were drawn together.  Already he
+realized that Battiscomb's tidings were not good, else would he be
+hesitating less in uttering them.  "Is Sir Walter with you, at least?"
+
+"I grieve to say that he is not."
+
+"Not?" It was Grey who spoke, and he followed the ejaculation by an
+oath. "Why not?"
+
+"He is following, no doubt?" suggested Fletcher.
+
+"We may hope, sirs," answered Battiscomb, "that in a few days - when he
+shall have seen the zeal of the countryside - he will be cured of his
+present luke-warmness."  Thus, discreetly, did the man of law break the
+bad news he bore.
+
+Monmouth sank back into his chair like one who has lost some of his
+strength.  "Lukewarmness?" he repeated dully.  "Sir Walter Young
+lukewarm!"
+
+"Even so, Your Grace - alas!" and Battiscomb sighed audibly.
+
+Ferguson's voice boomed forth again to startle them.  "The ox knoweth
+his owner," he cried, "the ass his master's crib; but Israel doth not
+know, my people doth not consider."
+
+Grey pushed the bottle contemptuously across the table to the parson.
+"Drink, man, and get sense, said he, and turned aside to question
+Battiscomb touching others of the neighbourhood upon whom they had
+depended.
+
+"What of Sir Francis Rolles?" he inquired.
+
+Battiscomb answered the question, addressing himself to the Duke.
+
+"Alas! Sir Francis, no doubt, would have been faithful to Your Grace,
+but, unfortunately, Sir Francis is in prison already."
+
+Deeper grew Monmouth's frown; his fingers drummed the table absently.
+Fletcher poured himself wine, his face inscrutable.  Grey threw one leg
+over the other and in a voice that was carefully careless he inquired,
+"And what of Sidney Clifford?"
+
+"He is considering," said Battiscomb.  "I was to have seen him again at
+the end of the month; meanwhile, he would take no resolve."
+
+"Lord Gervase Scoresby?" questioned Grey, less carelessly.
+
+Battiscomb half turned to him, then faced the Duke again as he made
+answer, "Mr. Wilding there, can tell you more concerning Lord Gervase."
+
+All eyes swept round to Wilding who sat in silence, listening;
+Monmouth's were laden with inquiry and some anxiety.  Wilding shook his
+head slowly, sadly.  "You must not depend upon him," he answered; "Lord
+Gervase was not yet ripe.  A little longer and I think I must have won
+him for Your Grace."
+
+"Heaven help us!" exclaimed the Duke in petulant vexation.  "Is no one
+coming in?"
+
+Ferguson swung a hand towards the still open window, drawing attention
+to the sounds without.
+
+"Does Your Grace not hear, that ye can ask?" he cried, almost
+reproachfully; but they scarce heeded him, for Grey was inquiring if Mr.
+Strode might be depended upon to join, and that was a matter that
+claimed the greater attention.
+
+"I think," said Battiscomb, "that he might have been depended upon."
+
+"Might have been?" questioned Fletcher, speaking now for the first time
+since Battiscomb's arrival.
+
+"Like Sir Francis Rolles, he is in prison," the lawyer explained.
+
+Monmouth leaned forward, and his young face looked Careworn now; he
+thrust a slender hand under the brown curls upon his brow.  "Will you
+tell us, Mr. Battiscomb, upon what friends you think that we may count?"
+he said.
+
+Battiscomb pursed his lips a second, pondering.  "I think," said he,
+"that you may count upon Mr. Legge and Mr. Hooper, and possibly upon
+Colonel Churchill, though I cannot say what following they will bring,
+if any. Mr. Trenchard, upon whom we counted for fifteen hundred men of
+Taunton, has been obliged to fly the country to escape arrest."
+
+"We have heard that from Mr. Trenchard's cousin," answered the Duke.
+"What of Prideaux, of Ford?  Is he lukewarm?"
+
+"I was unable to elicit a definite promise from him.  But he was
+favourably disposed to Your Grace."
+
+His Grace made a gesture that seemed to dismiss Prideaux from their
+calculations.  "And Mr. Hucker, of Taunton?"
+
+Battiscomb's manner grew yet more ill at ease.  "Mr. Hucker himself,
+I am sure, would place his sword at your disposal.  But his brother is
+a red-hot Tory."
+
+"Well, well," sighed the Duke, "I take it we must not make certain of
+Mr. Hucker.  Are there any others besides Legge and Hooper upon whom you
+think that we may reckon?"
+
+"Lord Wiltshire, perhaps," said Battiscomb, but with a lack of assurance.
+
+"A plague on perhaps!" exclaimed Monmouth, growing irritable; "I want
+you to name the men of whom you are certain."
+
+Battiscomb stood silent for a moment, pondering.  He looked almost
+foolish, like a schoolboy who hesitates to confess his ignorance of the
+answer to a question set him.
+
+Fletcher swung round, his grey eyes flashing angrily, his accent more
+Scottish than ever.
+
+"Is it that ye're certain o' none, Mr. Battiscomb?" he exclaimed.
+
+"Indeed," said Battiscomb, "I think we may be fairly certain of Mr.
+Legge and Mr. Hooper."
+
+"And of none besides?" questioned Fletcher again.  "Be these the only
+representatives of the flower of England's nobility that is to flock
+to the banner of the cause of England's freedom and religion?"  Scorn
+was stamped on every word of his question.
+
+Battiscomb spread his hands, raised his brows, and said nothing.
+
+"The Lord knows I do not say it exulting," said Fletcher; "but I told
+Your Grace yours was hardly the case of Henry the Seventh, as my Lord
+Grey would have you believe."
+
+"We shall see," snapped Grey, scowling at the Scot.  "The people are
+coming in hundreds - aye, in thousands - the gentry will follow; they
+must."
+
+"Make not too sure, Your Grace - oh, make not too sure," Wilding besought
+the Duke.  "As I have said, these hinds have nothing to lose but their
+lives."
+
+"Faith, can a man lose more?" asked Grey contemptuously.  He disliked
+Wilding by instinct, which was but a reciprocation of the feeling with
+which Wilding was inspired by him.
+
+"I think he can," said Mr. Wilding quietly.  "A man may lose honour, he
+may plunge his family into ruin.  These are things of more weight with
+a gentleman than life."
+
+"Odds death!" blazed Grey, giving a free rein to his dislike of this
+calm gentleman.  "Do you suggest that a man's honour is imperilled in
+His Grace's service?"
+
+"I suggest nothing," answered Wilding, unmoved.  "What I think, I state.
+If I thought a man's honour imperilled in this service, you would not
+see me at this table now.  I can make you no more convincing answer."
+
+Grey laughed unpleasantly, and Wilding, a faint tinge on his
+cheek-bones, measured him with a stern, intrepid look before which his
+lordship's shifty glance was observed to fall.  Wilding's eye, having
+achieved that much, passed from him to the Duke, and its expression
+softened.
+
+"Your Grace sees," said he, "how well founded were the fears I expressed
+that your coming has been premature."
+
+"In God's name, what would you have me do?" cried the Duke, and
+petulance made his voice unsteady.
+
+Mr. Wilding rose, moved out of his habitual calm by the earnestness that
+pervaded him.  "It is not for me to say again what I would have Your
+Grace do.  Your Grace has heard my views, and those of these gentlemen.
+It is for Your Grace to decide."
+
+"You mean whether I will go forward with this thing?  What alternative
+have I?"
+
+"No alternative," put in Grey with finality.  "Nor is alternative needed.
+We'll carry this through in spite of timorous folk and birds of ill-omen
+that croak to aifright us."
+
+"Our service is the service of the Lord," cried Ferguson, returning from
+the window in the embrasure of which he had been standing; "the Lord
+cannot but destine it to prevail."
+
+"Ye said so before," quoth Fletcher testily.  "We need here men, money,
+and weapons  -  not divinity."
+
+"You are plainly infected with Mr. Wilding's disease," sneered Grey.
+
+"Ford," cried the Duke, who saw Wilding's eyes flash fire; "you go too
+fast.  Mr. Wilding, you will not heed his lordship."
+
+"I should not be likely to do so, Your Grace,"  answered Wilding, who
+had resumed his seat.
+
+"What shall that mean?" quoth Grey, leaping to his feet.
+
+"Make it quite clear to him, Tony," whispered Trenchard coaxingly;
+but Mr. Wilding was not as lost as were these immediate followers of
+the Duke's to all sense of the respect due to His Grace.
+
+"I think," said Wilding quietly, "that you have forgotten something."
+
+"Forgotten what?" bawled Grey.
+
+"His Grace's presence."
+
+His lordship turned crimson, his anger swelled to think that the very
+terms of the rebuke precluded his allowing his feelings a free rein.
+
+Monmouth leaned forward.  "Sit down," he said to Grey, and Grey, so
+lately called to the respect he owed His Grace, obeyed him.  "You will
+both promise me that this affair shall go no further.  I know you will
+do it if I ask you, particularly when you remember how few are the
+followers upon whom I may depend.  I am not in case to lose either of
+you through foolish words uttered in a heat which, in both your hearts,
+is born, I know, of your loyalty to me."
+
+Grey's coarse, elderly face took on a sulky look, his heavy lips were
+pouted, his glance sullen.  Mr. Wilding, on the contrary, smiled across
+the table.
+
+"For my part I very gladly give Your Grace the undertaking," said he,
+and took care not to observe the sneer that altered the line of Lord
+Grey's lips.  His lordship, too, was forced to give the same pledge,
+and he followed it up by inveighing sturdily against the suggestion that
+they should retreat.
+
+"I do protest," he exclaimed, "that those who advise Your Grace to do
+anything but go forward boldly now, are evil counsellors.  If you put
+back to Holland, you may leave every hope behind.  There will be no
+second coming for you.  Your influence will have been dissipated.  Men
+will not trust you another time.  I do not think that even Mr. Wilding
+can deny the truth of this."
+
+"I am by no means sure," said Wilding, and Fletcher looked at him with
+eyes that were full of understanding.  This sturdy Scot, the only soldier
+worthy of the name in the Duke's following, who, ever since the project
+had first been mooted, had held out against it, counselling delay, was
+in sympathy with Mr. Wilding.
+
+Monmouth rose, his face anxious, his voice fretful.  "There can be no
+retreat for me, gentlemen.  Though many that we depended upon are not
+here to join us, yet let us remember that Heaven is on our side, and
+that we are come to fight in the sacred cause of religion and a nation's
+emancipation from the thraldom of popery, oppression, and superstition.
+Let this dispel such doubts as yet may linger in our minds."
+
+His words had a brave sound, but, when analysed, they but formed a
+paraphrase of what Grey and Ferguson had said.  It was his destiny to be
+a mere echo of the minds of other men, just as he was now the tool of
+these two, one of whom plotted, seemingly, because plotting was a
+disease that had got into his blood; the other for reasons that may have
+been of ambition or of revenge - no man will ever know for certain.
+
+In the chamber they shared, Trenchard and Mr. Wilding reviewed that
+night the scene so lately enacted, in which one had taken an active
+part, the other been little more than a spectator.  Trenchard had come
+from the Duke's presence entirely out of conceit with Monmouth and his
+cause, contemptuous of Ferguson, angry with Grey, and indifferent
+towards Fletcher.
+
+"I am committed, and I'll not draw back," said he; "but I tell you,
+Anthony, my heart is not confederate with my hand in this.  Bah!"
+he railed.  "We serve a man of straw, a Perkin, a very pope of a fellow."
+
+Mr. Wilding sighed.  "He's scarce the man for such an undertaking," said
+he.  "I fear we have been misled."
+
+Trenchard was drawing off his boots.  He paused in the act.  "Aye," said
+he, "misled by our blindness. What else, after all, should we have
+expected of him?" he cried contemptuously.  "The Cause is good; but its
+leader -  Pshaw!  Would you have such a puppet as that on the throne of
+England?"
+
+"He does not aim so high."
+
+"Be not so sure.  We shall hear more of the black box anon, and of the
+marriage certificate it contains. `Twould not surprise me if they were
+to produce forgeries of the one and the other to prove his father's
+marriage to Lucy Walters.  Anthony, Anthony!  To what a business are we
+wedded?"
+
+Mr. Wilding, already abed, turned impatiently.  "Things cried aloud to
+be redressed; a leader was necessary, and none other offered.  That is
+the whole story.  But our chance is slender, and it might have been
+great."
+
+"That rake-hell, Ford, Lord Grey has made it so," grumbled Trenchard,
+busy with his stockings.  "This sudden coming is his work.  You heard
+what Fletcher said - how he opposed it when first it was urged." He
+paused, and looked up suddenly.  "Blister me!" he cried, "is it his
+lordship's purpose, think you, to work the ruin of Monmouth?"
+
+"What are you saying, Nick?"
+
+"There are certain rumours current touching His Grace and Lady Grey.
+A man like Grey might well resort to some such scheme of vengeance."
+
+"Get to sleep, Nick," said Wilding, yawning; "you are dreaming already.
+Such a plan would be over elaborate for his lordship's mind.  It would
+ask a villainy parallel with your own."
+
+Trenchard climbed into bed, and settled himself under the coverlet.
+
+"Maybe," said he, "and maybe not; but I think that were it not for that
+cursed business of the letter Richard Westmacott stole from us, I should
+be going my ways to-morrow and leaving His Grace of Monmouth to go his."
+
+"Aye, and I'd go with you," answered Wilding.  "I've little taste for
+suicide; but we are in it now."
+
+"`Twas a sad pity you meddled this morning in that affair at Taunton,"
+mused Trenchard wistfully.  "A sadder pity you were bitten with a taste
+for matrimony," he added thoughtfully, and blew out the rushlight.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+LYME OF THE KING
+
+
+On the next day, which was Friday, the country folk continued to come
+in, and by evening Monmouth's forces amounted to a thousand foot and a
+hundred and fifty horse.  The men were armed as fast as they were
+enrolled, and scarce a field or quiet avenue in the district but
+resounded to the tramp of feet, the rattle of weapons, and the sharp
+orders of the officers who, by drilling, were converting this raw
+material into soldiers.  On the Saturday the rally of the Duke's
+standard was such that Monmouth threw off at last the gloomy forebodings
+that had burdened his soul since that meeting on Thursday night.  Wade,
+Holmes, Foulkes, and Fox were able to set about forming the first four
+regiments - the Duke's, and the Green, the White, and the Yellow.
+Monmouth's spirits continued to rise, for he had been joined by now by
+Legge and Hooper - the two upon whom Battiscomb had counted - and by
+Colonel Joshua Churchill, of whom Battiscomb had been less certain.
+Captain Matthews brought news that Lord Wiltshire and the gentlemen of
+Hampshire might be expected if they could force their way through
+Albemarle's militia, which was already closing round Lyme.
+
+Long before evening willing fellows were being turned away in hundreds
+for lack of weapons.  In spite of Monmouth's big talk on landing, and of
+the rumour that had gone out, that he could arm thirty thousand men, his
+stock of arms was exhausted by a mere fifteen hundred.  Trenchard, who
+now held a Major's rank in the horse attached to the Duke's own regiment,
+was loud in his scorn of this state of things; Mr. Wilding was sad, and
+his depression again spread to the Duke after a few words had passed
+between them towards evening.  Fletcher was for heroic measures.  He
+looked only ahead now, like the good soldier that he was; and, already,
+he began to suggest a bold dash for Exeter, for weapons, horses, and
+possibly the militia as well, for they had ample evidence that the men
+composing it might easily be induced to desert to the Duke's side.
+
+The suggestion was one that instantly received Mr. Wilding's heartiest
+approval.  It seemed to fill him suddenly with hope, and he spoke of it,
+indeed, as an inspiration which, if acted upon, might yet save the
+situation.  The Duke was undecided as ever; he was too much troubled
+weighing the chances for and against, and he would decide upon nothing
+until he had consulted Grey and the others.  He would summon a council
+that night, he promised, and the matter should be considered.
+
+But that council was never to be called, for Andrew Fletcher's
+association with the rebellion was drawing rapidly to its close, and
+there was that to happen in the next few hours which should counteract
+all the encouragement with which the Duke had been fortified that day.
+Towards evening little Heywood Dare, the Taunton goldsmith, who had
+landed at Seatown and gone out with the news of the Duke's arrival, rode
+into Lyme with forty horse, mounted, himself, upon a beautiful charger
+which was destined to be the undoing of him.
+
+News came, too, that the Dorset militia were at Bridport, eight miles
+away, whereupon Wilding and Fletcher postponed all further suggestion
+of the dash for Exeter, proposing that in the mean time a night attack
+upon Bridport might result well.  For once Lord Grey was in agreement
+with them, and so the matter was decided.  Fletcher went down to arm and
+mount, and all the world knows the story of the foolish, ill-fated
+quarrel which robbed Monmouth of two of his most valued adherents.  By
+ill-luck the Scot's eyes lighted upon the fine horse that Dare had
+brought from Ford Abbey.  It occurred to him that nothing could be more
+fitting than that the best man should sit upon the best horse, and he
+forthwith led the beast from the stables and was about to mount when
+Dare came forth to catch him in the very act.  The goldsmith was a rude,
+peppery fellow, who did not mince his words.
+
+"What a plague are you doing with that horse?" he cried.
+
+Fletcher paused, one foot in the stirrup, and looked the fellow up and
+down.  "I am mounting it," said he, and proceeded to do as he said.
+
+But Dare caught him by the tails of his coat and brought him back to
+earth.
+
+"You are making a mistake, Mr. Fletcher," he cried angrily.  "That horse
+is mine."
+
+Fletcher, whose temper was by no means of the most peaceful, kept
+himself with difficulty in hand at the indignity Dare offered him.
+
+"Yours?" quoth he.
+
+"Aye, mine.  I brought it from Ford Abbey myself."
+
+"For the Duke's service," Fletcher reminded him.  "For my own, sir; for
+my own I would have you know."  And brushing the Scot aside, he caught
+the bridle, and sought to wrench it from Fletcher's hand.
+
+But Fletcher maintained his hold.  "Softly, Mr. Dare," said he.  "Ye're
+a trifle o'er true to your name, as you once told his late Majesty
+yourself."
+
+"Take your hands from my horse," Dare shouted, very angry.
+
+Several loiterers in the yard gathered round to watch the scene, culling
+diversion from it and speculating upon the conclusion it might have.
+One rash young fellow offered audibly to lay ten to one that Paymaster
+Dare would have the best of the argument.
+
+Dare overheard, and was spurred on.
+
+"I will, by God!" he answered. "Come, Mr. Fletcher!" And he shook the
+bridle again.
+
+There was a dull flush showing through the tan of Fletcher's skin.  "Mr.
+Dare," said he, "this horse is no more yours than mine.  It is the
+Duke's, and I, as one o' the leaders, claim it in the Duke's service."
+
+"Aye, sir," cried an onlooker, encouraging Fletcher, and did the
+mischief.  It so goaded Dare to have his antagonist in this trifling
+matter supported that he utterly lost his head.
+
+"I have said the horse is mine, and I repeat it.  Let go the bridle -
+let it go!"  Still, Fletcher, striving hard to keep his calm, clung to
+the reins.  "Let it go, you damned, thieving Scot!" screamed Dare in a
+fury, and struck Fletcher with his whip.
+
+It was unfortunate for them both that he should have had that switch in
+his hand at such a time, but more unfortunate still was it that Fletcher
+should have had a pistol in his belt.  The Scot dropped the bridle at
+last; dropped it to pluck forth the weapon.
+
+"Hi! I did not.. ." began Dare, who had stood appalled by what he had
+done in the second or two that had passed since he had delivered the
+blow.  The rest of his sentence was drowned in the report of Fletcher's
+pistol, and Dare dropped dead on the rough cobbles of the yard.
+
+Ferguson has left it on record - and, presumably, he had Fletcher's word
+for it - that it was no part of the Scot's intent to do Mr. Dare a
+mischief.  He had but drawn the pistol to intimidate him into better
+manners, but in his haste he accidentally pulled the trigger.
+
+However that may be, there was Dare as dead as the stones on which he
+lay, and Fletcher with a smoking pistol in his hand.
+
+After that all was confusion.  Fletcher was seized by those who had
+witnessed the deed; there was none thought it an accident; indeed,
+they were all ready enough to say that Fletcher had received excessive
+provocation.  He was haled to the presence of the Duke with whom were
+Grey and Wilding at the time; and old Dare's son - an ensign in
+Goodenough's company - came clamouring for vengeance backed by such
+goodly numbers that the distraught Duke was forced to show at least the
+outward seeming of it.
+
+Wilding, who knew the value of this Scottish soldier of fortune who had
+seen so much service, strenuously urged his enlargement.  It was not a
+time to let the fortunes of a cause suffer through such an act as this,
+deplorable though it might be.  The evidence showed that Fletcher had
+been provoked; he had been struck, a thing that might well justify the
+anger in the heat of which he had done this thing.  Grey was stolid and
+silent, saying nothing either for or against the man who had divided
+with him under the Duke the honours of the supreme command.
+
+Monmouth, white and horror-stricken, sat and listened first to Wilding,
+then to Dare, and lastly to Fletcher himself.  But it was young Dare -
+Dare and his followers, who prevailed.  They were too numerous and
+turbulent, and they must at all costs be conciliated, or there was no
+telling to what extremes they might not go.  And so there was an end
+to the share of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun in this undertaking - the end
+of the only man who was of any capacity to pilot it through the troubled
+waters that lay before it.  Monmouth placed him under arrest and sent
+him aboard the frigate again, ordering her captain to sail at once.
+That was the utmost Monmouth could do to save him.
+
+Wilding continued to plead with the Duke after Fletcher's removal, and
+to such good purpose that at last Monmouth determined that Fletcher
+should rejoin them later, when the affair should have blown over, and he
+sent word accordingly to the Scot.  Even in this there were
+manifestations of antagonism between Mr. Wilding and Lord Grey, and it
+almost seemed enough that Wilding should suggest a course for Lord Grey
+instantly to oppose it.
+
+The effects of Fletcher's removal were not long in following.  On the
+morrow came the Bridport affair, and Grey's shameful conduct when, had
+he stood his ground, victory must have been assured the Duke's forces
+instead of just that honourable retreat by which Colonel Wade so
+gallantly saved the situation.  Mr. Wilding did not mince his words in
+putting it that Grey had run away.
+
+In his room at the George Inn, Monmouth, deeply distressed, asked
+Wilding and Colonel Matthews what action he should take in the matter -
+how deal with Grey.
+
+"There is no other general in Europe would ask that, Your Grace,"
+answered Matthews gravely, and Mr. Wilding added without an instant's
+hesitation that His Grace's course was plain.
+
+"It would be an unwise thing to expose the troops to the chance of more
+such happenings."
+
+Monmouth dismissed them and sent for Grey, and he seemed resolved to
+deal with him as he deserved.  Yet an hour later, when Wilding, Matthews,
+Wade, and the others were ordered to attend the Duke in council, there
+was his lordship seemingly on as good terms as ever with His Grace.
+
+They were assembled to discuss the next step which it might be advisable
+to take, for the militia was closing in around them, and to remain
+longer in Lyme would be to be caught there as in a trap.  It was Grey
+who advanced the first suggestion, his assurance no whit abated by the
+shameful thing that had befallen, by the cowardice which he had betrayed.
+
+"That we must quit Lyme we are all agreed," said he.  "I would propose
+that Your Grace march north to Gloucester, where our Cheshire friends
+will assemble to meet us."
+
+Colonel Matthews reminded the Duke of Andrew Fletcher's proposal that
+they should make a raid upon Exeter with a view to seizing arms, of
+which they stood so sorely in need.
+
+This Mr. Wilding was quick to support.  "Not only that, Your Grace,"
+he said, "but I am confident that with very little inducement the
+greater portion of the militia will desert to us as soon as we appear.
+
+"What assurance can you give of that?" asked Grey, his heavy lip
+protruded.
+
+"I take it," said Mr. Wilding, "that in such matters no man can give an
+assurance of anything.  I speak with knowledge of the country and the
+folk from which the militia is enlisted.  I offer it as my opinion that
+the militia is favourably disposed to Your Grace.  I can do no more.
+
+"If Mr. Wilding says so, Your Grace," put in Matthews, "I have no doubt
+he has sound reasons upon which to base his opinion.
+
+"No doubt," said Monmouth.  "Indeed, I had already thought of the step
+that you suggest, Colonel Matthews, and what Mr. Wilding says causes me
+to look upon it still more favourably."
+
+Grey frowned.  "Consider, Your Grace," he said earnestly, "that you are
+in no case to fight at present."
+
+"What fighting do you suggest there would be?" asked the Duke.
+
+"There is Albemarle between us and Exeter."
+
+"But with the militia," Wilding reminded him; "and if the militia
+deserts him for Your Grace, in what case will Albemarle find himself?"
+
+"And if the militia does not desert?  If you should be proven wrong,
+sir?  What then?  What then?" asked Grey.
+
+"Aye - true - what then, Mr. Wilding?" quoth the Duke, already wavering.
+
+Wilding considered a moment, all eyes upon him.  "Even then," said he
+presently, "I do maintain that in this dash for Exeter lies Your Grace's
+greatest chance of success.  We can deliver battle if need be.  Already
+we are three thousand strong..."
+
+Grey interrupted him rudely.  "Nay," he insisted.  "You must not
+presume upon that.  We are not yet fit to fight.  It is His Grace's
+business at present to drill and discipline his troops and induce more
+friends to join him."
+
+"Already we are turning men away because we have no weapons to put into
+their hands," Wilding reminded them, and a murmur of approval ran round,
+which but served to anger Grey the more, to render more obstinate his
+opposition.
+
+"But all that come in are not unprovided," was his lordship's retort.
+"There are the Hampshire gentry and their friends.  They will come armed,
+and so will others if we have patience.
+
+"Aye," said Wilding, "and if you have patience enough there will be
+troops the Parliament will send against us.  They, too, will be armed,
+I can assure your lordship."
+
+"In God's name let us keep from wrangling," the Duke besought them.
+"It is difficult enough to determine for the best.  If the dash to
+Exeter were successful..."
+
+"It cannot be," Grey interrupted again.
+
+The liberties he took with Monmouth and which Monmouth permitted him
+might well be a source of wonder to all who heard them.  Monmouth paused
+now in his interrupted speech and looked about him a trifle wearily.
+
+"It seems idle to insist," said Mr. Wilding; "such is the temper of Your
+Grace's counsellors, that we get no further than contradictions."  Grey's
+bold eyes were upon Wilding as he spoke.  "I would remind Your Grace,
+and I am sure that many present will agree with me, that in a desperate
+enterprise a sudden unexpected movement will often strike terror."
+
+"That is true," said Monmouth, but apparently without enthusiasm, and
+having approved what was urged on one side, he looked at Grey, as if
+waiting to hear what might be said on the other.  His indecision was
+pitiful - tragical, indeed, in the leader of so bold an enterprise.
+
+"We should do better, I think," said Grey, "to deal with the facts as we
+know them."
+
+"It is what I am endeavouring to do, Your Grace," protested Wilding, a
+note of despair in his voice. "Perhaps some other gentleman will put
+forward better counsel than mine."
+
+"Aye! In Heaven's name let us hope so," snorted Grey; and Monmouth,
+catching the sudden flash of Mr. Wilding's eye, set a hand upon his
+lordship's arm as if to urge him to be gentler.  But he continued, "When
+men talk of striking terror by sudden movements they build on air."
+
+"I had hardly thought to hear that from your lordship," said Mr.
+Wilding, and he permitted himself that tight-lipped smile that gave his
+face so wicked a look.
+
+"And why not?" asked Grey, stupidly unsuspicious.
+
+"Because I had thought you might have concluded otherwise from your own
+experience at Bridport this morning."
+
+Grey got angrily to his feet, rage and shame flushing his face, and it
+needed Ferguson and the Duke to restore him to some semblance of calm.
+Indeed, it may well be that it was to complete this that His Grace
+decided there and then that they should follow Grey's advice and go by
+way of Taunton, Bridgwater, and Bristol to Gloucester.  He was, like all
+weak men, of conspicuous mental short-sightedness.  The matter of the
+moment was ever of greater importance to him than any result that might
+attend it in the future.
+
+He insisted that Wilding and Grey should shake hands before the breaking
+up of that most astounding council, and as he had done last night, he
+now again imposed upon them his commands that they must not allow this
+matter to go further.
+
+Mr. Wilding paved the way for peace by making an apology within
+limitations.
+
+"If, in my zeal to serve Your Grace to the best of my ability, I have
+said that which Lord Grey thinks fit to resent, I would bid him consider
+my motive rather than my actual words."
+
+But when all had gone save Ferguson, the chaplain approached the
+preoccupied and distressed Duke with counsel that Mr. Wilding should be
+sent away from the army.
+
+"Else there'll be trouble `twixt him and Grey," the plotting parson
+foretold.  "We'll be having a repetition of the unfortunate Fletcher and
+Dare affair, and I think that has cost Your Grace enough already."
+
+"Do you suggest that I dismiss Wilding?" cried the Duke.  "You know his
+influence, and the bad impression his removal would leave."
+
+Ferguson stroked his long lean jaw.  "No, no," said he; "all I suggest
+is that you find Mr. Wilding work to do elsewhere."
+
+"Elsewhere?" the Duke questioned.  "Where else?"
+
+"I have thought of that, too.  Send him to London to see Danvers and to
+stir up your friends there.  And," he added, lowering his voice, "give
+him discretion to see Sunderland if he thinks well."
+
+The proposition pleased Monmouth, and it seemed to please Mr. Wilding no
+less when, having sent for him, the Duke communicated it to him in
+Ferguson's presence.
+
+Upon this mission Mr. Wilding set out that very night, leaving Nick
+Trenchard in despair at being separated from him at a time when there
+seemed to be every chance that such a separation might be eternal.
+
+Monmouth and Ferguson may have conceived they did a wise thing in
+removing a man who was instinctively spoiling for a little sword-play
+with my Lord Grey.  It is odds that had he remained, the brewing storm
+between the pair would have come to a head.  Had it done so, it is more
+than likely, from what we know of Mr. Wilding's accomplishments, that he
+had given Lord Grey his quietus.  And had that happened, it is to be
+inferred from history that it is possible the Duke of Monmouth's
+rebellion might have had a less disastrous issue.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+PLOTS AND PLOTTERS
+
+
+Mr. Wilding left Monmouth's army at Lyme on Sunday, the 14th of June, and
+rejoined it at Bridgwater exactly three weeks later.  In the meanwhile a
+good deal had happened, yet the happenings on every hand had fallen far
+short of the expectations aroused in Mr. Wilding's mind, now by one
+circumstance, now by another.  In reaching London he had experienced no
+difficulty.  Men travelling in that direction were not subjected to the
+scrutiny that fell to the share of those travelling from it towards the
+West, or, rather, to the scrutiny ordained by the Government; for
+Wilding had more than one opportunity of observing how very lax and
+indifferent were the constables and tything-men - particularly in
+Somerset and Wiltshire - in the performance of this duty.  Wayfarers
+were questioned as a matter of form, but in no case did Wilding hear of
+any one being detained upon suspicion.  This was calculated to raise
+his drooping hopes, pointing as it did to the general favouring of
+Monmouth that was toward.  He grew less despondent on the score of the
+Duke's possible ultimate success, and he came to hope that the efforts
+he went to exert would not be fruitless.
+
+But rude were the disappointments that awaited him in town.  London,
+like the rest of the country, was not ready.  There were not wanting men
+who favoured Monmouth; but no rising had been organized, and the Duke's
+partisans were not disposed to rashness.
+
+Wilding lodged at Covent Garden, in a house recommended to him by
+Colonel Danvers, and there - an outlaw himself - he threw himself with
+a will into his task.  He heard of the burning of Monmouth's Declaration
+by the common hangman at the Royal Exchange, and of the bill passed by
+the Commons to make it treason for any to assert that Lucy Walters was
+married to the late King.  He attended meetings at the "Bull's Head,"
+in Bishopsgate, where he met Disney and Danvers, Payton and Lock; but
+though they talked and argued at prodigious length, they did naught
+besides.  Danvers, who was their hope in town, definitely refused to
+have a hand in anything that was not properly organized, and in common
+with the others urged that they should wait until Cheshire had risen,
+as was reported that it must.
+
+Meanwhile, troops had gone west under Kirke and Churchill, and the
+Parliament had voted nearly half a million for the putting down of the
+rebellion.  London was flung into a fever of excitement by the news that
+was reaching it.  The position was not quite as Monmouth's advisers
+- before coming over from Holland - had represented that it would be.
+They had thought that out of fear of tumults about his own person,
+King James would have been compelled to keep near him what troops he
+had, sparing none to be sent against Monmouth.  This, King James had not
+done; he had all but emptied London of soldiery, and, considering the
+general disaffection, no moment could have been more favourable than
+this for a rising in London itself.  The confusion that must have
+resulted from the recalling of troops would have given Monmouth not
+only a mighty grip of the West, but would have heartened those who
+- like Sunderland himself - were sitting on the wall, to declare
+themselves for the Protestant Champion.  This Wilding saw, and almost
+frenziedly did he urge it upon Danvers that all London needed at the
+moment was a resolute leader.  But the Colonel still held back; indeed,
+he had neither truth nor valour; he was timid, and used deceit to mask
+his timidity; he urged frivolous reasons for inaction, and when Wilding
+waxed impatient with him, he suggested that Wilding himself should head
+the rising if he were so confident of its success.  And Wilding would
+have done it but that, being unknown in London, he had no reason to
+suppose that men would flock to him if he raised the Duke's banner.
+
+Later, when the excitement grew and rumours ran through town that
+Monmouth had now a following of twenty thousand men and that the King's
+forces were falling back before him, and discontent was rife at the
+commissioning of Catholic lords to levy troops, Wilding again pressed
+the matter upon Danvers.  Surely no moment could be more propitious.
+But again he received the same answer, that Danvers had lacked time to
+organize matters sufficiently; that the Duke's coming had taken him by
+surprise.
+
+Lastly came the news that Monmouth had been crowned at Taunton amid the
+wildest enthusiasm, and that there were now in England two men each of
+whom called himself King James the Second.  This was the excuse that
+Danvers needed to be rid of a business he had not the courage to
+transact to a finish. He swore that he washed his hands of Monmouth's
+affairs; that the latter had broken faith with him and the promise he
+had made him in having himself proclaimed King.  He protested that
+Monmouth had done ill, and prophesied that his act would alienate from
+him the numerous republicans who, like Danvers, had hitherto looked to
+him for the country's salvation.  Wilding himself was appalled at the
+news for Monmouth was indeed going further than men had been given to
+understand.  Nevertheless, for his own sake, in very self-defence now,
+if out of no motives of loyalty to the Duke, he must urge forward the
+fortunes of this man.  He had high words with Danvers, and the two might
+have quarrelled before long but for the sudden arrest of Disney, which
+threw Danvers into such a panic that he fled incontinently, abandoning
+in body, as he already appeared to have abandoned in spirit, the
+Monmouth Cause.
+
+The arrest of Disney struck a chill into Wilding.  From his lodging at
+Covent Garden he had communicated cautiously with Sunderland a few days
+after his arrival, building upon certain information he had received
+from the Duke at parting as to Sunderland's attachment to the Cause.  He
+had carefully chosen his moment for making this communication, having a
+certain innate mistrust of a man who so obviously as Sunderland was
+running with the hare and hunting with the hounds.  He had sent a letter
+to the Secretary of State when London was agog with the Axminster
+affair, and the tale - of which Sir Edward Phelips wrote to Colonel
+Berkeley as "the shamefullest story that you ever heard" - of how
+Albemarle's forces and the Somerset militia had run before Monmouth in
+spite of their own overwhelming numbers.  This promised ill for James,
+particularly when it was perceived as perceived it was - that this
+running away was not all cowardice, not all "the shamefullest story"
+that Phelips accounted it.  It was an expression of good-will towards
+Monmouth on the part of the militia of the West, and it was confidendy
+expected that the next news would be that these men who had decamped
+before him would presently be found to have ranged themselves under his
+banner.
+
+Sunderland had given no sign that he had received Wilding's
+communication.  And Wilding drew his own contemptuous conclusions of
+the Secretary of State's cautious policy.  It was a fortnight later
+- when London was settling down again from the diversion of excitement
+created by the news of Argyle's defeat in Scotland - before Mr. Wilding
+attempted to approach Sunderland again.  He awaited a favourable
+opportunity, and this he had when London was thrown into consternation
+by the alarming news of the Duke of Somerset's urgent demand for
+reinforcements. Unless he had them, he declared, the whole country was
+lost, as he could not get the militia to stand, whilst Lord Stawell's
+regiment were all fled and mostly gone over to the rebels at Bridgwater.
+
+This was grave news, but it was followed in a few days by graver.  The
+affair at Philips Norton was exaggerated by report into a wholesale
+defeat of the loyal army, and it was reported - on, apparently, such
+good authority that it received credence in quarters that might have
+waited for official news - that the Duke of Albemarle had been slain
+by the militia which had mutinied and deserted to Monmouth.
+
+It was while this news was going round that Sunderland - in a moment of
+panic - at last vouchsafed an answer to Mr. Wilding's letters, and he
+vouchsafed it in person, just as Wilding - particularly since Disney's
+arrest - was beginning to lose all hope.  He came one evening to Mr.
+Wilding's lodgings in Covent Garden, unattended and closely muffled,
+and he remained closeted with the Duke's ambassador for nigh upon an
+hour, at the end of which he entrusted Mr. Wilding with a letter for
+the Duke, very brief but entirely to the point, which expressed him
+Monmouth's most devoted servant.
+
+"You may well judge, sir," he had said at parting, "that this is not
+such a letter as I should entrust to any man."
+
+Mr. Wilding had bowed gravely, and gravely he had expressed himself
+sensible of the exceptional honour his lordship did him by such a trust.
+
+"And I depend upon you, sir, as you are a man of honour, to take such
+measures as will ensure against its falling into any but the hands for
+which it is intended."
+
+"As I am a man of honour, you may depend upon me," Mr. Wilding solemnly
+promised.  "Will your lordship give me three lines above your signature
+that will save me from molestation; thus you will facilitate the
+preservation of this letter."
+
+"I had already thought of that," was Sunderland's answer, and he placed
+before Mr. Wilding three lines of writing signed and sealed which
+enjoined all, straitly, in the King's name to suffer the bearer to
+pass and repass and to offer him no hindrance.
+
+On that they shook hands and parted, Sunderland to return to Whitehall
+and his obedience to the King James whom he was ready to betray as soon
+as he saw profit for himself in the act, Mr. Wilding to return to
+Somerset to the King James in whom his faith was scant, indeed, but with
+whom his fortunes were irrevocably bound up.
+
+Meanwhile, Monmouth was back in Bridgwater, his second occupation of
+which town was not being looked upon with unmixed favour.  The
+inhabitants had suffered enough already from his first visit; his
+return there, after the Philips Norton affair of which such grossly
+exaggerated reports had reached London, and which, in point of fact,
+had been little better than a drawn battle - had been looked upon with
+dread by some, with disfavour by others, and with dismay by not a few
+who viewed in this an augury of failure.
+
+Now Sir Rowland Blake, who since his pursuit of Mr. Wilding and
+Trenchard on the occasion of their flight from Taunton had - in spite
+of his failure on that occasion - been more or less in the service of
+Albemarle and the loyal army, saw in this indisposition towards Monmouth
+of so many of Bridgwater's inhabitants great possibilities of profit to
+himself.
+
+He was at Lupton House, the guest of his friend Richard Westmacott, and
+the open suitor of Ruth, entirely ignoring the circumstance that she was
+nominally the wife of Mr. Wilding - this to the infinite chagrin of Miss
+Horton, who saw all her scheming likely to go for nothing.
+
+In his heart of hearts it was a matter of not the slightest consequence
+to Sir Rowland whether James Stuart or James Scott occupied the throne
+of England.  His own affairs gave him more than enough to think of, and
+these disturbances in the West were very welcome to him, since they
+rendered difficult any attempt to trace him on the part of his London
+creditors.  It happens, however, very commonly that enmity to an
+individual will lead to enmity to the cause which that individual
+espouses.  Thus may it have been with Sir Rowland.  His hatred of
+Wilding and his keen desire to see Wilding destroyed had made him a
+zealous partisan of the loyal cause.  Richard Westmacott, easily swayed
+and overborne by the town rake, whose vices made him seem to Richard the
+embodiment of all that is splendid and enviable in man, had become
+practically the baronet's tool, now that he had abandoned Monmouth's
+Cause.  Sir Rowland had not considered it beneath the dignity of his
+name and station to discharge in Bridgwater certain functions that made
+him more or less a spy.  And so reliable had been the information he
+had sent Feversham and Albemarle during Monmouth's first occupation of
+the town, that he had won by now their complete confidence.
+
+The second occupation and its unpopularity with many of those who
+earlier - if lukewarm - had been partisans of the Duke, swelled the
+number of loyally inclined people in Bridgwater, and suddenly inspired
+Sir Rowland with a scheme by which at a blow he might snuff out the
+rebellion.
+
+This scheme involved the capture of the Duke, and the reward of success
+should mean far more to Blake than the five thousand pounds at which the
+value of the Duke's head had already been fixed by Parliament.  He needed
+a tool for this, and he even thought of Westmacott and Lupton House, but
+afterwards preferred a Mr. Newlington, who was in better case to assist
+him.  This Newlington, an exceedingly prosperous  merchant and one of the
+richest men perhaps in the whole West of England, looked with extreme
+disfavour upon Monmouth, whose advent had paralyzed his industries to an
+extent that was costing him a fine round sum of money weekly.
+
+He was now in alarm lest the town of Bridgwater should be made to pay
+dearly for having harboured the Protestant Duke - he had no faith
+whatever in the Protestant Duke's ultimate prevailing - and that he, as
+one of the town's most prominent and prosperous citizens, might be
+amongst the heaviest sufferers in spite of his neutrality.  This
+neutrality he observed because it was hardly safe in that disaffected
+town for a man to proclaim himself a loyalist.
+
+To him Sir Rowland expounded his audacious plan... He sought out the
+merchant in his handsome mansion on the night of that Friday which had
+witnessed Monmouth's return, and the merchant, honoured by the visit of
+this gallant - ignorant as he was of the gentleman's fame in town
+- placed himself entirely and instantly at his disposal, though the hour
+was late.  Sounding him carefully, and finding the fellow most amenable
+to any scheme that should achieve the salvation of his purse and
+industries, Blake boldly laid his plan before him.  Startled at first,
+Mr. Newlington upon considering it became so enthusiastic that he
+hailed Sir Rowland as his deliverer, and heartily promised his
+cooperation.  Indeed, it was Mr. Newlington who was, himself, to take
+the first step.
+
+Well pleased with his evening's work, Sir Rowland went home to Lupton
+House and to bed.  In the morning he broached the matter to Richard. He
+had all the vanity of the inferior not only to lessen the appearance of
+his inferiority, but to clothe himself in a mantle of importance; and it
+was this vanity urged him to acquaint Richard with his plans in the very
+presence of Ruth.
+
+They had broken their fast, and they still lingered in the dining-room,
+the largest and most important room in Lupton House.  It was cool and
+pleasant here in contrast to the heat of the July sun, which, following
+upon the late wet weather, beat fiercely on the lawn, the window-doors
+to which stood open.  The cloth had been raised, and Diana and her
+mother had lately left the room.  Ruth, in the window-seat, at a small
+oval table, was arranging a cluster of roses in an old bronze bowl.
+Sir Rowland, his stiff short figure carefully dressed in a suit of brown
+camlet, his fair wig very carefully curled, occupied a tall-backed
+armchair near the empty fireplace.  Richard, perched on the table's
+edge, swung his shapely legs idly backwards and forwards and cogitated
+upon a pretext to call for a morning draught of last October's ale.
+
+ Ruth completed her task with the roses and turned her eyes upon her
+brother.
+
+"You are not looking well, Richard," she said, which was true enough,
+for much hard drinking was beginning to set its stamp on Richard, and
+young as he was, his insipidly fair face began to display a bloatedness
+that was exceedingly unhealthy.
+
+"Oh, I am well enough," he answered almost peevishly, for these allusions
+to his looks were becoming more frequent than he savoured.
+
+"Gad!" cried Sir Rowland's deep voice, "you'll need to be well.  I have
+work for you to-morrow, Dick."
+
+Dick did not appear to share his enthusiasm.  "I am sick of the work you
+discover for us, Rowland," he answered ungraciously.
+
+But Blake showed no resentment.  "Maybe you'll find the present task
+more to your taste.  If it's deeds of derring-do you pine for, I am the
+man to satisfy you."  He smiled grimly, his bold grey eyes glancing
+across at Ruth, who was observing him, listening.
+
+Richard sneered, but offered him no encouragement to proceed.
+
+"I see," said Blake, "that I shall have to tell you the whole story
+before you'll credit me.  Shalt have it, then. But..." and he checked
+on the word, his face growing serious, his eye wandering to the door,
+"I would not have it overheard - not for a king's ransom," which was
+more literally true than he may have intended it to be.
+
+Richard looked over his shoulder carelessly at the door.
+
+"We have no eavesdroppers," he said, and his voice bespoke his contempt
+of the gravity of this news of which Sir Rowland made so much in
+anticipation.  He was acquainted with Sir Rowland's ways, and the
+importance of them.  "What are you considering?" he inquired.
+
+"To end the rebellion," answered Blake, his voice cautiously lowered.
+
+Richard laughed outright.  "There are several others considering that
+- notably His Majesty King James, the Duke of Albemarle, and the Earl of
+Feversham.  Yet they don't appear to achieve it."
+
+"It is in that particular," said Blake complacently, "that I shall
+differ from them." He turned to Ruth, eager to engage her in the
+conversation, to flatter her by including her in the secret.  Knowing
+the loyalist principles she entertained, he had no reason to fear that
+his plans could other than meet her approval.  "What do you say,
+Mistress Ruth?" Presuming upon his friendship with her brother, he had
+taken to calling her by that name in preference to the other which he
+could not bring himself to give her.  "Is it not an object worthy of a
+gentleman's endeavour?"
+
+"If you can save so many poor people from encompassing their ruin by
+following that rash young man the Duke of Monmouth, you will indeed be
+doing a worthy deed."
+
+Blake rose, and made her a leg.  "Madam," said he, "had aught been
+wanting to cement my resolve, your words would supply it to me.  My plan
+is simplicity itself.  I propose to capture Monmouth and his principal
+agents, and deliver them over to the King.  And that is all."
+
+"A mere nothing," croaked Richard.
+
+"Could more be needed?" quoth Blake.  "Once the rebel army is deprived
+of its leaders it will melt and dissolve of itself.  Once the Duke is
+in the hands of his enemies there will be nothing left to fight for.
+Is it not shrewd?"
+
+"You are telling us the object rather than the plan," Ruth reminded him.
+"If the plan is as good as the object..."
+
+"As good?" he echoed, chuckling.  "You shall judge."  And briefly he
+sketched for her the springe he was setting with the help of Mr.
+Newlington.  "Newlington is rich; the Duke is in straits for money.
+Newlington goes to-day to offer him twenty thousand pounds; and the Duke
+is to do him the honour of supping at his house to-morrow night to fetch
+the money.  It is a reasonable request for Mr. Newlington to make
+under the circumstances, and the Duke cannot - dare not refuse it."
+
+"But how will that advance your project?" Ruth inquired, for Blake had
+paused again, thinking that the rest must be obvious.
+
+"In Mr. Newlington's orchard I propose to post a score or so of men,
+well armed.  Oh!  I shall run no risks of betrayal by engaging
+Bridgwater folk.  I'll get the fellows I need from General Feversham.
+We take Monmouth at supper, as quietly as may be, with what gentlemen
+happen to have accompanied him.  We bind and gag the Duke, and we
+convey him with all speed and quiet out of Bridgwater.  Feversham shall
+send a troop to await me a mile or so from the town on the road to
+Weston Zoyland.  We shall join them with our captive, and thus convey
+him to the Royalist General.  Could aught be simpler or more infallible?"
+
+Richard had slipped from the table.  He had changed his mind on the
+subject of the importance of the business Blake had in view.  Excited by
+it, he clapped his friend on the back approvingly.
+
+"A great plan!" he cried. "Is it not, Ruth?"
+
+"It should be the means of saving hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives,"
+said she, "and so it deserves to prosper.  But what of the officers who
+may be with the Duke?" she inquired.
+
+"There are not likely to be many - half a dozen, say.  We shall have to
+make short work of them, lest they should raise an alarm."  He saw her
+glance clouding.  "That is the ugly part of the affair," he was quick
+to add, himself assuming a look of sadness. He sighed.  "What help is
+there?" he asked.  "Better that those few should suffer than that, as
+you yourself have said, there should be some thousands of lives lost
+before this rebellion is put down.  Besides," he continued, "Monmouth's
+officers are far-seeing, ambitious men, who have entered into this
+affair to promote their own personal fortunes.  They are gamesters who
+have set their lives upon the board against a great prize, and they know
+it.  But these other poor misguided people who have gone out to fight
+for liberty and religion - it is these whom I am striving to rescue."
+
+His words sounded fervent, his sentiments almost heroic.  Ruth looked at
+him, and wondered had she misjudged him in the past.  She sighed.  Then
+she thought of Wilding.  He was on the other side, but where was he?
+Rumour ran that he was dead; that he and Grey had quarrelled at Lyme, and
+that Wilding had been killed as a result.  Had it not been for Diana,
+who strenuously bade her attach no credit to these reports, she would
+readily have believed them.  As it was she waited, wondering, thinking
+of him always as she had seen him on that day at Walford when he had
+taken his leave of her, and more than once, when she pondered the words
+he had said, the look that had invested his drooping eyes, she found
+herself with tears in her own.  They welled up now, and she rose hastily
+to her feet.
+
+She looked a moment at Blake who was watching her keenly, speculating
+upon this emotion of which she betrayed some sign, and wondering might
+not his heroism have touched her, for, as we have seen, he had arrayed
+a deed of excessive meanness, a deed worthy, almost, of the Iscariot,
+in the panoply of heroic achievement.
+
+"I think," she said, "that you are setting your hand to a very worthy
+and glorious enterprise, and I hope, nay, I am sure, that success must
+attend your efforts."  He was still bowing his thanks when she passed
+out through the open window-doors into the sunshine of the garden.
+
+Sir Rowland swung round upon Richard.  "A great enterprise, Dick," he
+cried; "I may count upon you for one?"
+
+"Aye," said Dick, who had found at last the pretext that he needed,
+"you may count on me.  Pull the bell, we'll drink to the success of
+the venture."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+MR. WILDING'S RETURN
+
+
+The preparations to be made for the momentous coup Sir Rowland meditated
+were considerable.  Mr. Newlington was yet to be concerted with and
+advised, and, that done, Sir Rowland had to face the difficulty of
+eluding the Bridgwater guards and make his way to Feversham's camp at
+Somerton to enlist the general's cooperation to the extent that we
+have seen he looked for.  That done, he was to return and ripen his
+preparations for the business he had undertaken.  Nevertheless, in spite
+of all that lay before him, he did not find it possible to leave Lupton
+House without stepping out into the garden in quest of Ruth.  Through
+the window, whilst he and Richard were at their ale, he had watched her
+between whiles, and had lingered, waiting; for Diana was with her, and
+it was not his wish to seek her whilst Diana was at hand.  Speak with
+her, ere he went, he must.  He was an opportunist, and now, he fondly
+imagined, was his opportunity.  He had made that day, at last, a
+favourable impression upon Richard's sister; he had revealed himself in
+an heroic light, and egregiously misreading the emotion she had shown
+before withdrawing, he was satisfied that did he strike now victory must
+attend him.  He sighed his satisfaction and pleasurable anticipation.
+He had been wary and he had known how to wait; and now, it seemed to him,
+he was to be rewarded for his patience.  Then he frowned, as another
+glance showed him that Diana still lingered with her cousin; he wished
+Diana at the devil.  He had come to hate this fair-haired doll to whom
+he had once paid court.  She was too continually in his way, a constant
+obstacle in his path, ever ready to remind Ruth of Anthony Wilding when
+Sir Rowland most desired Anthony Wilding to be forgotten; and in Diana's
+feelings towards himself such a change had been gradually wrought that
+she had come to reciprocate his sentiments - to hate him with all the
+bitter hatred into which love can be by scorn transmuted.  At first her
+object in keeping Ruth's thoughts on Mr. Wilding, in pleading his cause,
+and seeking to present him in a favourable light to the lady whom he had
+constrained to become his wife, had been that he might stand a barrier
+between Ruth and Sir Rowland to the end that Diana might hope to see
+revived - faute de mieux, since possible in no other way - the feelings
+that once Sir Rowland had professed for herself.  The situation was rich
+in humiliations for poor, vain, foolishly crafty Diana, and these
+humiliations were daily rendered more bitter by Sir Rowland's unwavering
+courtship of her cousin in despite of all that she could do.
+
+In the end the poison of them entered her soul, corroded her sentiments
+towards him, dissolved the love she had borne him, and transformed it
+into venom.  She would not have him now if he did penitence for his
+disaffection by going in sackcloth and crawling after her on his knees
+for a full twelvemonth.  But neither should he have Ruth if she could
+thwart his purpose.  On that she was resolved.
+
+Had she but guessed that he watched them from the windows, waiting for
+her to take her departure, she had lingered all the morning, and all
+the afternoon if need be, at Ruth's side.  But being ignorant of the
+circumstance - believing that he had already left the house - she
+presently quitted Ruth to go indoors, and no sooner was she gone than
+there was Blake replacing her at Ruth's elbow.  Mistress Wilding met
+him with unsmiling, but not ungentle face.
+
+"Not yet gone, Sir Rowland?" she asked him, and a less sanguine man
+had been discouraged by the words.
+
+"It may be forgiven me that I tarry at such a time," said he, "when we
+consider that I go, perhaps - to return no more."  It was an inspiration
+on his part to assume the role of the hero going forth to a possible
+death.  It invested him with noble, valiant pathos which could not, he
+thought, fail of its effect upon a woman's mind.  But he looked in vain
+for a change of colour, be it never so slight, or a quickening of the
+breath.  He found neither; though, indeed, her deep blue eyes seemed
+to soften as they observed him.
+
+     "There is danger in this thing that you are undertaking?" said she,
+between question and assertion.
+
+"It is not my wish to overstate it; yet I leave you to imagine what the
+risk may be."
+
+"It is a good cause," said she, thinking of the poor, deluded, humble
+folk that followed Monmouth's banner, whom Blake's fine action was to
+rescue from impending ruin and annihilation, "and surely Heaven will be
+on your side."
+
+"We must prevail," cried Blake with kindling eye, and you had thought
+him a fanatic, not a miserable earner of blood-money.  "We must
+prevail, though some of us may pay dearly for the victory.  I have a
+foreboding..."  He paused, sighed, then laughed and flung back his head,
+as if throwing off some weight that had oppressed him.
+
+It was admirably played; Nick Trenchard, had he observed it, might have
+envied the performance; and it took effect with her, this adding of a
+prospective martyr's crown to the hero's raiment he had earlier donned.
+It was a master-touch worthy of one who was deeply learned - from the
+school of foul experience - in the secret ways that lead to a woman's
+favour.  In a pursuit of this kind there was no subterfuge too mean,
+no treachery too base for Sir Rowland Blake.
+
+"Will you walk, mistress?" he said, and she, feeling that it were an
+unkindness not to do his will, assented gravely.  They moved down the
+sloping lawn, side by side, Sir Rowland leaning on his cane, bareheaded,
+his feathered hat tucked under his arm.  Before them the river's smooth
+expanse, swollen and yellow with the recent rains, glowed like a sheet
+of copper, so that it blurred the sight to look upon it long.
+
+A few steps they took with no word uttered, then Sir Rowland spoke.
+"With this foreboding that is on me," said he, "I could not go without
+seeing you, without saying something that I may never have another
+chance of saying; something that - who knows? - but for the emprise to
+which I am now wedded you had never heard from me."
+
+He shot her a furtive, sidelong glance from under his heavy, beetling
+brows, and now, indeed, he observed a change ripple over the composure
+of her face like a sudden breeze across a sheet of water.  The deep
+lace collar at her throat rose and fell, and her fingers toyed nervously
+with a ribbon of her grey bodice.  She recovered in an instant, and
+threw up entrenchments against the attack she saw he was about to make.
+
+"You exaggerate, I trust," said she.  "Your forebodings will be proved
+groundless.  You will return safe and sound from this venture, as indeed
+I hope you may."
+
+That was his cue. "You hope it?" he cried, arresting his step, turning,
+and imprisoning her left hand in his right.  "You hope it?  Ah, if you
+hope for my return, return I will; but unless I know that you will have
+some welcome for me such as I desire from you, I think..." his voice
+quivered cleverly, "I think, perhaps, it were well if... if my
+forebodings were not as groundless as you say they are. Tell me, Ruth..."
+
+But she interrupted him.  It was high time, she thought.  Her face he
+saw was flushed, her eyes had hardened somewhat.  Calmly she disengaged
+her hand.
+
+"What is't you mean?" she asked.  "Speak, Sir Rowland, speak plainly,
+that I may give you a plain answer."
+
+It was a challenge in which another man had seen how hopeless was his
+case, and, accepting defeat, had made as orderly a retreat as still was
+possible.  But Sir Rowland, stricken in his vanity, went headlong on
+to utter rout.
+
+"Since you ask me in such terms I will be plain, indeed," he answered
+her.  "I mean.. ."  He almost quailed before the look that met him from
+her intrepid eyes.  "Do you not see my meaning, Ruth?"
+
+"That which I see," said she, "I do not believe, and as I would not
+wrong you by any foolish imaginings, I would have you plain with me."
+
+Yet the egregious fool went on.  "And why should you not believe your
+senses?" he asked her, between anger and entreaty.  "Is it wonderful
+that I should love you? Is it...?"
+
+"Stop!"  She drew back a pace from him.  There was a moment's silence,
+during which it seemed she gathered her forces to destroy him, and,
+in the spirit, he bowed his head before the coming storm.  Then, with a
+sudden relaxing of the stiffness her lissom figure had assumed, "I think
+you had better leave me, Sir Rowland," she advised him.  She half turned
+and moved a step away; he followed with lowering glance, his upper lip
+lifting and laying bare his powerful teeth.  In a stride he was beside
+her.
+
+"Do you hate me, Ruth?" he asked her hoarsely.
+
+"Why should I hate you?" she counter-questioned, sadly.  "I do not even
+dislike you," she continued in a more friendly tone, adding, as if by
+way of explaining this phenomenon, "You are my brother's friend.  But
+I am disappointed in you, Sir Rowland.  You had, I know, no intention
+of offering me disrespect; and yet it is what you have done."
+
+"As how?" he asked.
+
+"Knowing me another's wife..."
+
+He broke in tempestuously.  "A mock marriage!  If it is but that scruple
+stands between us..."
+
+"I think there is more," she answered him.  "You compel me to hurt you;
+I do so as the surgeon does - that I may heal you."
+
+"Why, thanks for nothing," he made answer, unable to repress a sneer.
+Then, checking himself, and resuming the hero-martyr posture, "I go,
+mistress," he told her sadly, "and if I lose my life to-night, or
+to-morrow, in this affair..."
+
+"I shall pray for you," said she; for she had found him out at last,
+perceived the nature of the bow he sought to draw across her
+heart-strings, and, having perceived it, contempt awoke in her.  He had
+attempted to move her by unfair, insidious means.
+
+He fell back, crimson from chin to brow.  He stifled the wrath that
+welled up, threatening to choke him.  He was a short-necked man, of the
+sort - as Trenchard had once reminded him - that falls a prey to
+apoplexy, and surely he was never nearer it than at that moment.  He
+made her a profound bow, bending himself almost in two before her in a
+very irony of deference; then, drawing himself up again, he turned and
+left her.
+
+The plot which with some pride he had hatched and the reward he looked
+to cull from it, were now to his soul as ashes to his lips.  What could
+it profit him to destroy Monmouth so that Anthony Wilding lived?  For
+whether she loved Wilding or not, she was Wilding's wife.  Wilding,
+nominally, at least, was master of that which Sir Rowland coveted; not
+her heart, indeed, but her ample fortune.  Wilding had been a
+stumbling-block to him since he had come to Bridgwater; but for Wilding
+he might have run a smooth course; he was still fool enough to hug
+that dear illusion to his soul.  Somewhere in England - if not dead
+already - this Wilding lurked, an outlaw, whom any might shoot down at
+sight.  Sir Rowland swore he would not rest until he knew that Anthony
+Wilding cumbered the earth no more - leastways, not the surface of it.
+
+He went forth to seek Newlington.  The merchant had sent his message to
+the rebel King, and had word in answer that His Majesty would be
+graciously pleased to sup at Mr. Newlington's at nine o'clock on the
+following evening, attended by a few gentlemen of his immediate
+following.  Sir Rowland received the news with satisfaction, and sighed
+to think that Mr. Wilding - still absent, Heaven knew where - would not
+be of the party.  It was reported that on the Monday Monmouth was to
+march to Gloucester, hoping there to be joined by his Cheshire friends,
+so that it seemed Sir Rowland had not matured his plan a day too soon.
+He got to horse, and contriving to win out of Bridgwater, rode off to
+Somerton to concert with Lord Feversham concerning the men he would need
+for his undertaking.
+
+That night Richard made free talk of the undertaking to Diana and to
+Ruth, loving, as does the pusillanimous, to show himself engaged in
+daring enterprises.  Emulating his friend Sir Rowland, he held forth
+with prolixity upon the great service he was to do the State, and Ruth,
+listening to him, was proud of his zeal, the sincerity of which it
+never entered her mind to doubt.
+
+Diana listened, too, but without illusions concerning Master Richard,
+and she kept her conclusions to herself.
+
+During the afternoon of the morrow, which was Sunday, Sir Rowland
+returned to Bridgwater, his mission to Feversham entirely successful,
+and all preparations made.  He completed his arrangements, and towards
+eight o'clock that night the twenty men sent by Feversham - they had
+slipped singly into the town - began to muster in the orchard at the
+back of Mr. Newlington's house.
+
+It was just about that same hour that Mr. Wilding, saddle-worn and
+dust-clogged in every pore, rode into Bridgwater, and made his way to
+the sign of The Ship in the High Street, overlooking the Cross where
+Trenchard was lodged.  His friend was absent - possibly gone with his
+men to the sermon Ferguson was preaching to the army in the Castle
+Fields.  Having put up his horse, Mr. Wilding, all dusty as he was,
+repaired straight to the Castle to report himself to Monmouth.
+
+He was informed that His Majesty was in council.  Nevertheless, urging
+that his news was of importance, he begged to be instantly announced.
+After a pause, he was ushered into a lofty, roomy chamber where, in
+the fading daylight, King Monmouth sat in council with Grey and Wade,
+Matthews, Speke, Ferguson, and others.  At the foot of the table stood
+a sturdy country-fellow, unknown to Wilding.  It was Godfrey, the spy,
+who was to act as their guide across Sedgemoor that night; for the
+matter that was engaging them just then was the completion of their
+plans for the attack that was to be made that very night upon Feversham's
+unprepared camp - a matter which had been resolved during the last few
+hours as an alternative preferable to the retreat towards Gloucester
+that had at first been intended.
+
+Wilding was shocked at the change that had been wrought in Monmouth's
+appearance during the few weeks since last he had seen him.  His face
+was thin, pale, and haggard, his eyes were more sombre, and beneath them
+there were heavy, dark stains of sleeplessness and care, his very voice,
+when presently he spoke, seemed to have lost the musical timbre that had
+earlier distinguished it; it was grown harsh and rasping.  Disappointment
+after disappointment, set down to ill-luck, but in reality the fruit of
+incompetence, had served to sour him.  The climax had been reached in
+the serious desertions after the Philips Norton fight, and the flight of
+Paymaster Goodenough with the funds for the campaign.  The company sat
+about the long oak table on which a map was spread, and Colonel Wade was
+speaking when Wilding entered.
+
+On his appearance Wade ceased, and every eye was turned upon the
+messenger from London.  Ferguson, fresh from his sermon, sat with elbows
+resting on the table, his long chin supported by his hands, his eyes
+gleaming sharply under the shadow of his wig which was pulled down in
+front to the level of his eyebrows.
+
+It was the Duke who addressed Mr. Wilding, and the latter's keen ears
+were quick to catch the bitterness that underlay his words.
+
+"We are glad to see you, sir; we had not looked to do so again."
+
+"Not looked to do so, Your Gr... Majesty!" he echoed, plainly not
+understanding, and it was observed that he stumbled over the Duke's new
+title.
+
+"We had imagined that the pleasures of the town were claiming your entire
+attention."
+
+Wilding looked from one to the other of the men before him, and on the
+face of all he saw a gravity that amounted to disapproval of him.
+
+"The pleasures of the town?" said he, frowning, and again - "the
+pleasures of the town?  There is something in this that I fear I do not
+understand."
+
+"Do you bring us news that London has risen?" asked Grey suddenly.
+
+"I would I could," said Wilding, smiling wistfully.  "Is it a laughing
+matter?" quoth Grey angrily.
+
+"A smiling matter, my lord," answered Wilding, nettled.  "Your lordship
+will observe that I did but smile."
+
+"Mr. Wilding," said Monmouth darkly, "we are not pleased with you."
+
+"In that case," returned Wilding, more and more irritated, "Your Majesty
+expected of me more than was possible to any man."
+
+"You have wasted your time in London, sir," the Duke explained.  "We
+sent you thither counting upon your loyalty and devotion to ourselves.
+What have you done?"
+
+"As much as a man could..." Wilding began, when Grey again interrupted
+him.
+
+"As little as a man could," he answered.  "Were His Grace not the most
+foolishly clement prince in Christendom, a halter would be your reward
+for the fine things you have done in London."
+
+Mr. Wilding stiffened visibly, his long white face grew set, and his
+slanting eyes looked wicked.  He was not a man readily moved to anger,
+but to be greeted in such words as these by one who constituted himself
+the mouthpiece of him for whom Wilding had incurred ruin was more than
+he could bear with equanimity; that the risks to which he had exposed
+himself in London - where, indeed, he had been in almost hourly
+expectation of arrest and such short shrift as poor Disney had - should
+be acknowledged in such terms as these, was something that turned him
+almost sick with disgust.  To what manner of men had he leagued himself?
+He looked Grey steadily between the eyes.
+
+"I mind me of an occasion on which such a charge of foolish clemency
+might, indeed - and with greater justice - have been levelled against
+His Majesty," said he and his calm was almost terrible.
+
+His lordship grew pale at the obvious allusion to Monmouth's mild
+treatment of him for his cowardice at Bridport, and his eyes were as
+baleful as Wilding's own at that moment.  But before he could speak,
+Monmouth had already answered Mr. Wilding.
+
+"You are wanting in respect to us, sir," he admonished him.
+
+Mr. Wilding bowed to the rebuke in a submission that seemed ironical.
+The blood mounted slowly to Monmouth's cheeks.
+
+"Perhaps," put in Wade, who was anxious for peace, "Mr. Wilding has some
+explanation to offer us of his failure."
+
+His failure!  They took too much for granted.  Stitched in the lining
+of his boot was the letter from the Secretary of State.  To have
+achieved that was surely to have achieved something.
+
+"I thank you, sir, for supposing it," answered Wilding, his voice hard
+with self-restraint; "I have indeed an explanation."
+
+"We will hear it," said Monmouth condescendingly, and Grey sneered,
+thrusting out his bloated lips.
+
+"I have to offer the explanation that Your Majesty is served in London
+by cowards; self-sufficient and self-important cowards who have hindered
+me in my task instead of helping me.  I refer particularly to Colonel
+Danvers."
+
+Grey interrupted him.  "You have a rare effrontery, sir - aye, by God!
+Do you dare call Danvers a coward?"
+
+"It is not I who so call him; but the facts.  Colonel Danvers has run
+away.
+
+"Danvers gone?" cried Ferguson, voicing the consternation of all.
+
+Wilding shrugged and smiled; Grey's eye was offensively upon him.  He
+elected to answer the challenge of that glance.  "He has followed the
+illustrious example set him by other of Your Majesty's devoted
+followers," said Wilding.
+
+Grey rose suddenly.  This was too much.  "I'll not endure it from this
+knave!" he cried, appealing to Monmouth.
+
+Monmouth wearily waved him to a seat; but Grey disregarded the command.
+
+"What have I said that should touch your lordship?" asked Wilding, and,
+smiling sardonically, he looked into Grey's eyes.
+
+"It is not what you have said.  It is what you have inferred."
+
+"And to call me knave!" said Wilding in a mocking horror.
+
+The repression of his anger lent him a rare bitterness, and an almost
+devilishly subtle manner of expressing wordlessly what was passing in
+his mind. There was not one present but gathered from his utterance of
+those five words that he did not hold Grey worthy the honour of being
+called to account for that offensive epithet.  He made just an
+exclamatory protest, such as he might have made had a woman applied the
+term to him.
+
+Grey turned from him slowly to Monmouth.  "It might be well," said he,
+in his turn controlling himself at last, "to place Mr. Wilding under
+arrest."
+
+Mr. Wilding's manner quickened on the instant from passive to active
+anger.
+
+"Upon what charge, sir?" he demanded sharply.  In truth it was the only
+thing wanting that, after all that he had undergone, he should be
+arrested.  His eyes were upon the Duke's melancholy face, and his anger
+was such that in that moment he vowed that if Monmouth acted upon this
+suggestion of Grey's he should not have so much as the consolation of
+Sunderland's letter.
+
+"You have been wanting in respect to us, sir," the Duke answered him.
+He seemed able to do little more than repeat himself.  "You return
+from London empty-handed, your task unaccomplished, and instead of a
+becoming contrition, you hector it here before us in this manner."  He
+shook his head.  "We are not pleased with you, Mr. Wilding."  "But, Your
+Grace," exclaimed Wilding, "is it my fault that your London agents had
+failed to organize the rising?  That rising should have taken place, and
+it would have taken place had Your Majesty been more ably represented
+there."
+
+"You were there, Mr. Wilding," said Grey with heavy sarcasm.
+
+"Would it no' be better to leave Mr. Wilding's affair until afterwards?"
+suggested Ferguson at that moment.  "It is already past eight, Your
+Majesty, and there be still some details of this attack to settle that
+your officers may prepare for it, whilst Mr. Newlington awaits Your
+Majesty to supper at nine."
+
+"True," said Monmouth, ever ready to take a solution offered by another.
+"We will confer with you again later, Mr. Wilding."
+
+Wilding bowed, accepting his dismissal.  "Before I go, Your Majesty,
+there are certain things I would report..." he began.
+
+"You have heard, sir," Grey broke in. "Not now.  This is not the time."
+
+"Indeed, no. This is not the time, Mr. Wilding," echoed the Duke.
+
+Wilding set his teeth in the intensity of his vexation.
+
+"What I have to tell Your Majesty is of importance, he exclaimed, and
+Monmouth seemed to waver, whilst Grey looked disdainful unbelief of the
+importance of any communication Wilding might have to make.
+
+"We have little time, Your Majesty," Ferguson reminded Monmouth.
+
+"Perhaps," put in friendly Wade, "Your Majesty might see Mr. Wilding at
+Mr. Newlington's."
+
+"Is it really necessary?" quoth Grey.
+
+This treatment of him inspired Mr. Wilding with malice.  The mere
+mention of Sunderland's letter would have changed their tone.  But he
+elected by no such word to urge the importance of his business.  It
+should be entirely as Monmouth should elect or be constrained by these
+gentlemen about his council-table.
+
+"It would serve two purposes," said Wade, whilst Monmouth still
+considered.  "Your Majesty will be none too well attended, your officers
+having this other matter to prepare for.  Mr. Wilding would form another
+to swell your escort of gentlemen."
+
+"I think you are right, Colonel Wade," said Monmouth.  "We sup at Mr.
+Newlington's at nine o'clock, Mr. Wilding.  We shall expect you to
+attend us there.  Lieutenant Cragg," said His Grace to the young officer
+who had admitted Wilding, and who had remained at attention by the door,
+"you may reconduct Mr. Wilding."
+
+Wilding bowed, his lips tight to keep in the anger that craved
+expression.  Then, without another word spoken, he turned and departed.
+
+"An insolent, overbearing knave!" was Grey's comment upon him after he
+had left the room.
+
+"Let us attend to this, your lordship," said Speke, tapping the map.
+"Time presses," and he invited Wade to continue the matter that
+Wilding's advent had interrupted.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+BETRAYAL
+
+
+Still smarting under the cavalier treatment he had received, Mr. Wilding
+came forth from the Castle to find Trenchard awaiting him among the
+crowd of officers and men that thronged the yard.
+
+Nick linked his arm through his friend's and led him away.  They quitted
+the place in silence, and in silence took their way south towards the
+High Street, Nick waiting for Mr. Wilding to speak, Mr. Wilding's mind
+still in turmoil at the things he had endured.  At last Nick halted
+suddenly and looked keenly at his friend in the failing light.
+
+"What a plague ails you, Tony?" said he sharply.  "You are as silent as
+I am impatient for your news."
+
+Wilding told him in brief, disdainful terms of the reception they had
+given him at the Castle, and of how they had blamed him for the
+circumstance that London had failed to proclaim itself for Monmouth.
+
+Trenchard snarled viciously.  "`Tis that mongrel Grey," said he.  "Oh,
+Anthony, to what an affair have we set our hands?  Naught can prosper
+with that fellow in it."  He laid his hand on Wilding's arm and lowered
+his voice.  "As I have hinted before, `twould not surprise me if time
+proved him a traitor.  Failure attends him everywhere, and so unfailingly
+that one wonders is not failure invited by him.  And that fool Monmouth!
+Pshaw!  See what it is to serve a weakling.  With another in his place
+and the country disaffected as it is, we had been masters of England by
+now."
+
+Two ladies passed them at that moment, cloakedand hooded, walking
+briskly.  One of them turned to look at Trenchard, who, waving his arms
+in wild gesticulation, was a conspicuous object.  She checked in her
+walk, arresting her companion.
+
+"Mr. Wilding!" she exclaimed.  It was Lady Horton.
+
+"Mr. Wilding!" cried Diana, her companion.
+
+Wilding doffed his hat and bowed, Trenchard following his example.
+
+"We had scarce looked to see you in Bridgwater again," said the mother,
+her mild, pleasant countenance reflecting the satisfaction it gave her
+to behold him safe and sound.
+
+"There have been moments," answered Wilding, "when myself I scarce
+expected to return.  Your ladyship's greeting shows me what I had lost
+had I not done so."
+
+"You are but newly arrived?" quoth Diana, scanning him in the gloaming.
+
+"From London, an hour since."
+
+"An hour?" she echoed, and observed that he was still booted and
+dust-stained.  "You will have been to Lupton House?"
+
+A shadow crossed his face, his glance seemed to grow clouded, all of
+which watchful Diana did not fail to observe.  "Not yet," said he.
+
+"You are a laggard," she laughed at him, and he felt the blood driven
+back upon his heart.  What did she mean?  Was it possible she suggested
+that he should be welcome, that his wife's feelings towards him had
+undergone a change?  His last parting from her on the road near Walford
+had been ever in his mind.
+
+"I have had weighty business to transact, he replied, and Trenchard
+snorted, his mind flying back to the council-room at the Castle, and
+what his friend had told him.
+
+"But now that you have disposed of that you will sup with us," said Lady
+Horton, who was convinced that since Ruth had gone to the altar with
+him he was Ruth's lover in spite of the odd things she had heard.
+Appearances with Lady Horton counted for everything, and all that
+glittered was gold to her.
+
+"I would," he answered, "but that I am to sup at Mr. Newlington's with
+His Majesty.  My visit must wait until to-morrow."
+
+"Let us hope," said Trenchard, "that it waits no longer."  He was
+already instructed touching the night attack on Feversham's camp on
+Sedgemoor, and thought it likely Wilding would accompany them.
+
+"You are going to Mr. Newlington's?" said Diana, and Trenchard thought
+she had turned singularly pale.  Her hand was over her heart, her eyes
+wide.  She seemed about to add something, but checked herself.  She
+took her mother's arm.  "We are detaining Mr. Wilding, mother," said
+she, and her voice quivered as if her whole being were shaken by some
+gusty agitation.  They spoke their farewells briefly, and moved on. A
+second later Diana was back at their side again.
+
+"Where are you lodged, Mr. Wilding?" she inquired.
+
+"With my friend Trenchard - at the sign of The Ship, by the Cross."
+
+
+She briefly acknowledged the information, rejoined her mother, and
+hurried away with her.
+
+Trenchard stood staring after them a moment.  "Odd!" said he; "did you
+mark that girl's discomposure?"
+
+But Wilding's thoughts were elsewhere.  "Come, Nick!  If I am to render
+myself fit to sit at table with Monmouth, we'll need to hasten."
+
+They went their way, but not so fast as went Diana, urging with her her
+protesting and short-winded mother.
+
+"Where is your mistress?" the girl asked excitedly of the first servant
+she met at Lupton House.
+
+"In her room, madam," the man replied, and to Ruth's room went Diana
+breathlessly, leaving Lady Horton gaping after her and understanding
+nothing.
+
+Ruth, who was seated pensive by her window, rose on Diana's impetuous
+entrance, and in the deepening twilight she looked almost ghostly in her
+gown of shimmering white satin, sewn with pearls about the neck of the
+low-cut bodice.
+
+"Diana!" she cried. "You startled me."
+
+"Not so much as I am yet to do," answered Diana, breathing excitement.
+She threw back the wimple from her head, and pulling away her cloak,
+tossed it on to the bed.  "Mr. Wilding is in Bridgwater," she announced.
+
+There was a faint rustle from the stiff satin of Ruth's gown.  "Then..."
+her voice shook slightly.  "Then ... he is not dead," she said, more
+because she felt that she must say something than because her words
+fitted the occasion.
+
+"Not yet," said Diana grimly.
+
+"Not yet?"
+
+"He sups to-night at Mr. Newlington's," Miss Horton exclaimed in a voice
+pregnant with meaning.
+
+"Ah!"  It was a cry from Ruth, sharp as if she had been stabbed.  She
+sank back to her seat by the window, smitten down by this sudden news.
+
+There was a pause, which fretted Diana, who now craved knowledge of what
+might be passing in her cousin's mind.  She advanced towards Ruth and
+laid a trembling hand on her shoulder, where the white gown met the
+ivory neck.  "He must be warned," she said.
+
+"But.., but how?" stammered Ruth.  "To warn him were to betray Sir
+Rowland."
+
+"Sir Rowland?" cried Diana in high scorn.
+
+"And... and Richard," Ruth continued.
+
+"Yes, and Mr. Newlington, and all the other knaves that are engaged in
+this murderous business.  Well?" she demanded.  "Will you do it, or
+must I?"
+
+"Do it?" Ruth's eyes sought her cousin's white, excited face in the
+quasi-darkness.  "But have you thought of what it will mean? Have you
+thought of the poor people that will perish unless the Duke is taken and
+this rebellion brought to an end?"
+
+"Thought of it?" repeated Diana witheringly.  "Not I.  I have thought
+that Mr. Wilding is here and like to have his throat cut before an hour
+is past."
+
+"Tell me, are you sure of this?" asked Ruth.
+
+"I have it from your husband's own lips," Diana answered, and told her
+in a few words of her meeting with Mr. Wilding.
+
+Ruth sat with hands folded in her lap, her eyes on the dim violet
+after-glow in the west, and her mind wrestling with this problem that
+Diana had brought her.
+
+"Diana," she cried at last, "what am I to do?"
+
+"Do?" echoed Diana.  "Is it not plain?  Warn Mr. Wilding."
+
+"But Richard?"
+
+"Mr. Wilding saved Richard's life..."
+
+"I know.  I know.  My duty is to warn him."
+
+"Then why hesitate?"
+
+"My duty is also to keep faith with Richard, to think of those poor
+misguided folk who are to be saved by this," cried Ruth in an agony.
+"If Mr. Wildin is warned, they will all be ruined."
+
+Diana stamped her foot impatiently.  "Had I thought to find you in this
+mind, I had warned him myself;" said she.
+
+"Ah! Why did you not?"
+
+"That the chance of doing so might be yours.  That you might thus repay
+him the debt in which you stand."
+
+"Diana, I can't!"  The words broke from her in a sob.
+
+But whatever her interest in Mr. Wilding for her own sake, Diana's prime
+intent was the thwarting Sir Rowland Blake.  If Wilding were warned of
+what manner of feast was spread at Newlington's, Sir Rowland would be
+indeed undone.
+
+"You think of Richard," she exclaimed, "and you know that Richard is to
+have no active part in the affair - that he will run no risk.  They have
+assigned him but a sentry duty that he may warn Blake and his followers
+if any danger threatens them."
+
+"It is not of Richard's life I am thinking, but of his honour, of his
+trust in me.  To warn Mr. Wilding were... to commit an act of betrayal."
+
+"And is Mr. Wilding to be slaughtered with his friends?" Diana asked her.
+"Resolve me that.  Time presses.  In half an hour it will be too late."
+
+That allusion to the shortness of the time brought Ruth an inspiration.
+Suddenly she saw a way.  Wilding should be saved, and yet she would not
+break faith with Richard nor ruin those others.  She would detain him,
+and whilst warning him at the last moment, in time for him to save
+himself; not do so until it must be too late for him to warn the others.
+Thus she would do her duty by him, and yet keep faith with Richard and
+Sir Rowland.  She had resolved, she thought, the awful difficulty that
+had confronted her.  She rose suddenly, heartened by the thought.
+
+"Give me your cloak and wimple," she bade Diana, and Diana flew to do
+her bidding.  "Where is Mr. Wilding lodged?" she asked.
+
+"At the sign of The Ship - overlooking the Cross, with Mr. Trenchard.
+Shall I come with you?"
+
+"No," answered Ruth without hesitation.  "I will go alone."  She drew
+the wimple well over her head, so that in its shadows her face might lie
+concealed, and hid her shimmering white dress under Diana's cloak.
+
+She hastened through the ill-lighted streets, never heeding the rough
+cobbles that hurt her feet, shod in light indoor wear, never heeding
+the crowds that thronged her way.  All Bridgwater was astir with
+Monmouth's presence; moreover, there had been great incursions from
+Taunton and the surrounding country, the women-folk of the Duke-King's
+followers having come that day to Bridgwater to say farewell to father
+and son, husband and brother, before the army marched - as was still
+believed - to Gloucester.
+
+The half-hour was striking from Saint Mary's - the church in which she
+had been married - as Ruth reached the door of the sign of The Ship.  She
+was about to knock, when suddenly it opened, and Mr. Wilding himself,
+with Trenchard immediately behind him, stood confronting her.  At sight
+of him a momentary weakness took her.  He had changed from his hard-used
+riding-garments into a suit of roughly corded black silk, which threw
+into relief the steely litheness of his spare figure.  His dark brown
+hair was carefully dressed, diamonds gleamed in the cravat of snowy
+lace at his throat.  He was uncovered, his hat under his arm, and he
+stood aside to make way for her, imagining that she was some woman of
+the house.
+
+"Mr. Wilding," said she, her heart fluttering in her throat.  "May
+I... may I speak with you?"
+
+He leaned forward, seeking to pierce the shadows of her wimple; he had
+thought he recognized the voice, as his sudden start had shown; and yet
+he disbelieved his ears.  She moved her head at that moment, and the
+light streaming out from a lamp in the passage beat upon her white face.
+
+"Ruth!" he cried, and came quickly forward.  Trenchard, behind him,
+looked on and scowled with sudden impatience.  Mr. Wilding's
+philanderings with this lady had never had the old rake's approval.
+Too much trouble already had resulted from them.
+
+"I must speak with you at once.  At once!" she urged him, her tone
+fearful.
+
+"Are you in need of me?" he asked concernedly.
+
+"In very urgent need," said she.
+
+"I thank God," he answered without flippancy.  "You shall find me at
+your service. Tell me."
+
+"Not here; not here," she answered him.
+
+"Where else?" said he. "Shall we walk?"
+
+"No, no." Her repetitions marked the deep excitement that possessed her.
+"I will go in with you."  And she signed with her head towards the door
+from which he was barely emerged.
+
+"`Twere scarce fitting," said he, for being confused and full of
+speculation on the score of her need, he had for the moment almost
+overlooked the relations in which they stood.  In spite of the ceremony
+through which they had gone together, Mr. Wilding still mostly thought
+of her as of a mistress very difficult to woo.
+
+"Fitting?" she echoed, and then after a pause, "Am I not your wife?"
+she asked him in a low voice, her cheeks crimsoning.
+
+"Ha!  `Pon honour, I had almost forgot," said he, and though the burden
+of his words seemed mocking, their tone was sad.
+
+Of the passers-by that jostled them a couple had now paused to watch a
+scene that had an element of the unusual in it.  She pulled her wimple
+closer to her face, took him by the arm, and drew him with her into
+the house.
+
+"Close the door," she bade him, and Trenchard, who had stood aside that
+they might pass in, forestalled him in obeying her.  "Now lead me to
+your room, said she, and Wilding in amaze turned to Trenchard as if
+asking his consent, for the lodging, after all, was Trenchard's.
+
+"I'll wait here," said Nick, and waved his hand towards an oak bench
+that stood in the passage. "You had best make haste," he urged his
+friend; "you are late already.  That is, unless you are of a mind to set
+the lady's affairs before King Monmouth's. And were I in your place,
+Anthony, faith I'd not scruple to do it. For after all," he added under
+his breath, "there's little choice in rotten apples."
+
+Ruth waited for some answer from Wilding that might suggest he was
+indifferent whether he went to Newlington's or not; but he spoke no
+word as he turned to lead the way above-stairs to the indifferent
+parlour which with the adjoining bedroom constituted Mr. Trenchard's
+lodging - and his own, for the time being.
+
+Having assured herself that the curtains were closely drawn, she put by
+her cloak and hood, and stood revealed to him in the light of the three
+candles, burning in a branch upon the bare oak table, dazzlingly
+beautiful in her gown of ivory-white.
+
+He stood apart, cogitating her with glowing eyes, the faintest smile
+between question and pleasure hovering about his thin mouth.  He had
+closed the door, and stood in silence waiting for her to make known to
+him her pleasure.
+
+"Mr. Wilding..." she began, and straightway he interrupted her.
+
+"But a moment since you did remind me that I have the honour to be your
+husband," he said with grave humour.  "Why seek now to overcloud that
+fact?  I mind me that the last time we met you called me by another name.
+But it may be," he added as an afterthought, "you are of opinion that I
+have broken faith with you."
+
+"Broken faith?  As how?"
+
+"So!" he said, and sighed.  "My words were of so little account that
+they have been, I see, forgotten.  Yet, so that I remember them, that
+is what chiefly matters.  I promised then - or seemed to promise - that
+I would make a widow of you, who had made a wife of you against your
+will.  It has not happened yet.  Do not despair.  This Monmouth quarrel
+is not yet fought out.  Hope on, my Ruth."
+
+She looked at him with eyes wide open - lustrous eyes of sapphire in a
+face of ivory.  A faint smile parted her lips, the reflection of the
+thought in her mind that had she, indeed, been eager for his death she
+would not be with him at this moment; had she desired it, how easy would
+her course have been.
+
+"You do me wrong to bid me hope for that," she answered him, her tones
+level.  "I do not wish the death of any man, unless..." She paused; her
+truthfulness urged her too far.
+
+"Unless?" said he, brows raised, polite interest on his face.
+
+"Unless it be His Grace of Monmouth."
+
+He considered her with suddenly narrowed eyes. "You have not by chance
+sought me to talk politics?" said he.  "Or..." and he suddenly caught
+his breath, his nostrils dilating with rage at the bare thought that
+leapt into his mind.  Had Monmouth, the notorious libertine, been to
+Lupton House and persecuted her with his addresses?  "Is it that you are
+acquainted with His Grace?" he asked.
+
+"I have never spoken to him!" she answered, with no suspicion of what
+was in his thoughts.
+
+In his relief he laughed, remembering now that Monmouth's affairs were
+too absorbing just at present to leave him room for dalliance.
+
+"But you are standing," said he, and he advanced a chair.  "I deplore
+that I have no better hospitality to offer you.  I doubt if I ever shall
+again.  I am told that Albemarle did me the honour to stable his knackers
+in my hall at Zoyland."
+
+She took the chair he offered her, sinking to it like one physically
+weary, a thing he was quick to notice.  He watched her, his body eager,
+his soul trammelling it with a steely restraint.  "Tell me, now," said
+he, "in what you need me."
+
+She was silent a moment, pondering, hesitation and confusion seeming to
+envelop her.  A pink flush rose to colour the beautiful pillar of neck
+and overspread the delicate half-averted face.  He watched it, wondering.
+
+"How long," she asked him, her whole intent at present being to delay
+him and gain time.  "How long have you been in Bridgwater?"
+
+"Two hours at most," said he.
+
+"Two hours! And yet you never came to... to me.  I heard of your
+presence, and I feared you might intend to abstain from seeking me."
+
+He almost held his breath while she spoke, caught in amazement.  He was
+standing close beside her chair, his right hand rested upon its tall
+back.
+
+"Did you so intend?" she asked him.
+
+"I told you even now," he answered with hard-won calm, "that I had made
+you a sort of promise."
+
+"I ... I would not have you keep it," she murmured. She heard his
+sharply indrawn breath, felt him leaning over her, and was filled with
+an unaccountable fear.
+
+"Was it to tell me this you came?" he asked her, his voice reduced to a
+whisper.
+
+"No... yes," she answered, an agony in her mind, which groped for some
+means to keep him by her side until his danger should be overpast.  That
+much she owed him in honour if in nothing else.
+
+"No - yes?" he echoed, and he had drawn himself erect again.  "What is't
+you mean, Ruth?"
+
+"I mean that it was that, yet not quite only that."
+
+"Ah!"  Disappointment vibrated faintly in his clamation.  "What else?"
+
+"I would have you abandon Monmouth's following," she told him.
+
+He stared a moment, moved away and round where he could confront her.
+The flush had now faded from her face.  This he observed and the heave
+of her bosom in its low bodice.  He knit his brows, perplexed.  Here was
+surely more than at first might seem.
+
+"Why so?" he asked.
+
+"For your own safety's sake," she answered him.
+
+"You are oddly concerned for that, Ruth."
+
+"Concerned - not oddly."  She paused an instant, swallowed hard, and
+then continued.  "I am concerned too for your honour, and there is no
+honour in following his banner.  He has crowned himself King, and so
+proved himself a self-seeker who came dissembled as the champion of a
+cause that he might delude poor ignorant folk into flocking to his
+standard and helping him to his ambitious ends."
+
+"You are wondrously well schooled," said he. "Whose teachings do you
+recite me? Sir Rowland Blake's?"
+
+At another time the sneer might have cut her.  At the moment she was too
+intent upon gaining time.  The means to it mattered little.  The more
+she talked to no purpose, the more at random was their discourse, the
+better would her ends be served.
+
+"Sir Rowland Blake?" she cried. "What is he to me?"
+
+"Ah, what? Let me set you the question rather."
+
+"Less than nothing," she assured him, and for some moments afterwards it
+was this Sir Rowland who served them as a topic for their odd interview.
+On the overmantel the pulse of time beat on from a little wooden clock.
+His eyes strayed to it; it marked the three-quarters.  He bethought him
+suddenly of his engagement.  Trenchard, below-stairs, supremely
+indifferent whether Wilding went to Newlington's or not, smoked on,
+entirely unconcerned by the flight of time.
+
+"Mistress," said Wilding suddenly, "you have not yet told me in what you
+seek my service.  Indeed, we seem to have talked to little purpose.  My
+time is very short."
+
+"Where are you going?" she asked him, and fearfully she shot a sidelong
+glance at the timepiece.  It was still too soon, by at least five
+minutes.
+
+He smiled, but his smile was singular.  He began to suspect at last that
+her only purpose - to what end he could not guess - was to detain him.
+
+"`Tis a singularly sudden interest in my doings, this," said he quietly.
+"What is't you seek of me?"  He reached for the hat he had cast upon the
+table when they had entered.  "Tell me briefly.  I may stay no longer."
+
+She rose, her agitation suddenly increasing, afraid that after all he
+would escape her.  "Where are you going?" she asked.  "Answer me that,
+and I will tell you why I came."
+
+"I am to sup at Mr. Newlington's in His Majesty's company.
+
+"His Majesty's?"
+
+"King Monmouth's," he explained impatiently. "Come, Ruth.  Already I am
+late."
+
+"If I were to ask you not to go," she said slowly, and she held out her
+hands to him, her glance most piteous - and that was not acting - as
+she raised it to meet his own, "would you not stay to pleasure me?"
+
+He considered her from under frowning eyes.  "Ruth," he said, and he
+took her hands, "there is here something that I do not understand.
+What is't you mean?"
+
+"Promise me that you will not go to Newlington's, and I will tell you."
+
+"But what has Newlington to do with...?  Nay, I am pledged already
+to go."
+
+She drew closer to him, her hands upon his shoulders.  "Yet if I ask
+you - I, your wife?" she pleaded, and almost won him to her will.
+
+But suddenly he remembered another occasion on which, for purposes of
+her own, she had so pleaded.  He laughed softly, mockingly.
+
+"Do you woo me, Ruth, who, when I wooed you, would have none of me?"
+
+She drew back from him, crimsoning.  "I think I had better go," said
+she.  "You have nothing but mockery for me.  It was ever so.  Who
+knows?" she sighed as she took up her mantle.  "Had you but observed
+more gentle ways, you... you..." She paused, needing to say no more.
+"Good-night!" she ended, and made shift to leave.  He watched her,
+deeply mystified.  She had gained the door when suddenly he moved.
+
+"Wait!" he cried.  She paused, and turned to look over her shoulder,
+her hand apparently upon the latch.  "You shall not go until you have
+told me why you besought me to keep away from Newlington's.  What is
+it?" he asked, and paused suddenly, a flood of light breaking in upon
+his mind.  "Is there some treachery afoot?" he asked her, and his eye
+went wildly to the clock.  A harsh, grating sound rang through the room.
+"What are you doing?" he cried.  "Why have you locked the door?"  She
+was tugging and fumbling desperately to extract the key, her hands all
+clumsy in her nervous haste.  He leapt at her, but in that moment the
+key came away in her hand.  She wheeled round to face him, erect,
+defiant almost.
+
+"Here is some devilry!" he cried. "Give me that key."
+
+He had no need for further questions.  Here was a proof more eloquent
+than words to his ready wit.  Sir Rowland or Richard, or both, were in
+some plot for the Duke's ruin - perhaps assassination.  Had not her
+very words shown that she herself was out of all sympathy with Monmouth?
+He was out of sympathy himself.  But not to the extent of standing by to
+see his throat cut.  She would have the plot succeed - whatever it might
+be and yet that he himself be spared.  There his thoughts paused; but
+only for a moment.  He saw suddenly in this, not a proof of concern born
+of love but of duty towards him who had imperilled himself once - and for
+all time, indeed - that he might save her brother and Sir Rowland.
+
+He told her what had been so suddenly revealed to him, taxing her with
+it.  She acknowledged it, her wits battling to find some way by which
+she might yet gain a few moments more.  She would cling to the key, and
+though he should offer her violence, she would not let it go without a
+struggle, and that struggle must consume the little time yet wanting to
+make it too late for him to save the Duke, and - what imported more -
+thus save herself from betraying her brother's trust.  Another fear
+leapt at her suddenly.  If through deed of hers Monmouth was spared
+that night, Blake, in his despair and rage, might slake his vengeance
+upon Richard.
+
+"Give me that key," he demanded, his voice cold and quiet, his face set.
+
+"No, no," she cried, setting her hand behind her.  "You shall not go,
+Anthony. You shall not go."
+
+"I must," he insisted, still cold, but oh! so determined.  "My honour's
+in it now that I know."
+
+"You'll go to your death," she reminded him.
+
+He sneered.  "What signifies a day or so?  Give me the key."
+
+"I love you, Anthony!" she cried, livid to the lips.
+
+"Lies!" he answered her contemptuously.  "The key!"
+
+"No," she answered, and her firmness matched his own.  "I will not have
+you slain."
+
+"`Tis not my purpose - not just yet.  But I must save the others.  God
+forgive me if I offer violence to a woman," he added, "and lay rude
+hands upon her.  Do not compel me to it."  He advanced upon her, but
+she, lithe and quick, evaded him, and sprang for the middle of the room.
+He wheeled about, his selfcontrol all slipping from him now.  Suddenly
+she darted to the window, and with the hand that clenched the key she
+smote a pane with all her might.  There was a smash of shivering glass,
+followed an instant later by a faint tinkle on the stones below, and
+the hand that she still held out covered itself all with blood.
+
+"O God!" he cried, the key and all else forgotten.  "You are hurt."
+
+"But you are saved," she cried, overwrought, and staggered, laughing
+and sobbing, to a chair, sinking her bleeding hand to her lap, and
+smearing recklessly her spotless, shimmering gown.
+
+He caught up a chair by its legs, and at a single blow smashed down the
+door - a frail barrier after all.  "Nick!" he roared.  "Nick!" He tossed
+the chair from him and vanished into the adjoining room to reappear a
+moment later carrying basin and ewer, and a shirt of Trenchard's - the
+first piece of linen he could find.
+
+She was half fainting, and she let him have his swift, masterful way.
+He bathed her hand, and was relieved to find that the injury was none
+so great as the flow of blood had made him fear.  He tore Trenchard's
+fine cambric shirt to shreds - a matter on which  Trenchard afterwards
+commented in quotations from at least three famous Elizabethan
+dramatists.  He bound up her hand, just as Nick made his appearance at
+the splintered door, his mouth open, his pipe, gone out, between his
+fingers.  He was followed by a startled serving-wench, the only other
+person in the house, for every one was out of doors that night.
+
+Into the woman's care Wilding delivered his wife, and without a word
+to her he left the room, dragging Trenchard with him.  It was striking
+nine as they went down the stairs, and the sound brought as much
+satisfaction to Ruth above as dismay to Wilding below.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+THE BANQUET
+
+
+It was striking nine.  Therefore, Ruth thought that she had achieved her
+object, Wilding imagined that all was lost.  It needed the more tranquil
+mind of Nicholas Trenchard to show him the fly in madam's ointment,
+after Wilding, in half a dozen words, had made him acquainted with the
+situation.
+
+"What are you going to do?" asked Trenchard.
+
+"Run to Newlington's and warn the Duke - if still in time."
+
+"And thereby precipitate the catastrophe?  Oh, give it thought.  It is
+all it needs.  You are taking it for granted that nine o'clock is the
+hour appointed for King Monmouth's butchery."
+
+"What else?" asked Wilding, impatient to be off.
+
+They were standing in the street under the sign of The Ship, by which
+Jonathan Edney Mr. Trenchard's landlord - distinguished his premises and
+the chandler's trade he drove there.  Trenchard set a detaining hand on
+Mr. Wilding's arm.
+
+"Nine o'clock is the hour appointed for supper.  It is odds the Duke
+will be a little late, and it is more than odds that when he does
+arrive, the assassins will wait until the company is safely at table and
+lulled by good eating and drinking.  You had overlooked that, I see.  It
+asks an old head for wisdom, after all.  Look you, Anthony.  Speed to
+Colonel Wade as fast as your legs can carry you, and get a score of men.
+Then find some fellow to lead you to Newlington's orchard, and if only
+you do not arrive too late you may take Sir Rowland and his cut-throats
+in the rear and destroy them to a man before they realize themselves
+attacked.  I'll reconnoitre while you go, and keep an eye on the front
+of the house.  Away with you!"
+
+Ordinarily Wilding was a man of a certain dignity, but you had not
+thought it had you seen him running in silk stockings and silver-buckled
+shoes at a headlong pace through the narrow streets of Bridgwater, in
+the direction of the Castle.  He overset more than one, and oaths
+followed him from these and from others whom he rudely jostled out of
+his path.  Wade was gone with Monmouth, but he came upon Captain Slape,
+who had a company of scythes and musketeers incorporated in the Duke's
+own regiment, and to him Wilding gasped out the news and his request for
+a score of men with what breath was left him.
+
+Time was lost - and never was time more precious - in convincing Slape
+that this was no old wife's tale.  At last, however, he won his way and
+twenty musketeers; but the quarter-past the hour had chimed ere they
+left the Castle.  He led them forth at a sharp run, with never a
+thought for the circumstance that they would need their breath anon,
+perhaps for fighting, and he bade the man who guided them take them by
+back streets that they might attract as little attention as possible.
+
+Within a stone's-throw of the house he halted them, and sent one forward
+to reconnoitre, following himself with the others as quietly and
+noiselessly as possible.  Mr. Newlington's house was all alight, but
+from the absence of uproar - sounds there were in plenty from the main
+street, where a dense throng had collected to see His Majesty go
+in - Mr. Wilding inferred with supreme relief that they were still in
+time.  But the danger was not yet past.  Already, perhaps, the assassins
+were penetrating - or had penetrated - to the house; and at any moment
+such sounds might greet them as would announce the execution of their
+murderous design.
+
+Meanwhile Mr. Trenchard, having relighted his pipe, and set his hat
+rakishly atop his golden wig, strolled up the High Street, swinging his
+long cane very much like a gentleman taking the air in quest of an
+appetite for supper.  He strolled past the Cross and on until he came to
+the handsome mansion - one of the few handsome houses in Bridgwater
+- where opulent Mr. Newlington had his residence.  A small crowd had
+congregated about the doors, for word had gone forth that His Majesty
+was to sup there.  Trenchard moved slowly through the people, seemingly
+uninterested, but, in fact, scanning closely every face he encountered.
+Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he espied in the indifferent
+light Mr. Richard Westmacott.
+
+Trenchard passed him, jostling him as he went, and strolled on some few
+paces, then turned, and came slowly back, and observed that Richard had
+also turned and was now watching him as he approached.  He was all but
+upon the boy when suddenly his wrinkled face lighted with recognition.
+
+"Mr. Westmacott!" he cried, and there was surprise in his voice.
+
+Richard, conscious that Trenchard must no doubt regard him as a
+turn-tippet, flushed, and stood aside to give passage to the other. But
+Mr. Trenchard was by no means minded to pass.  He clapped a hand on
+Richard's shoulder.  "Nay," he cried, between laughter and feigned
+resentment.  "Do you bear me ill-will, lad?"
+
+Richard was somewhat taken aback.  "For what should I bear you ill-will,
+Mr. Trenchard?" quoth he.
+
+Trenchard laughed frankly, and so uproariously that his hat over-jauntily
+cocked was all but shaken from his head.  "I mind me the last time we
+met, I played you an unfair trick," said he.  His tone bespoke the very
+highest good-humour.  He slipped his arm through Richard's.  "Never bear
+an old man malice, lad," said he.
+
+"I assure you that I bear you none," said Richard, relieved to find that
+Trenchard apparently knew nothing of his defection, yet wishing that
+Trenchard would go his ways, for Richard's task was to stand sentry
+there.
+
+"I'll not believe you till you afford me proof," Trenchard replied.
+"You shall come and wash your resentment down in the best bottle of
+Canary the White Cow can furnish us."
+
+"Not now, I thank you," answered Richard.
+
+"You are thinking of the last occasion on which I drank with you," said
+Trenchard reproachfully.
+
+"Not so. But ... but I am not thirsty."
+
+"Not thirsty?" echoed Trenchard.  "And is that a reason?  Why, lad, it
+is the beast that drinks only when he thirsts.  And in that lies one of
+the main differences between beast and man.  Come on" - and his arm
+effected a gentle pressure upon Richard's, to move him thence.  But at
+that moment, down the street with a great rumble of wheels, cracking of
+whips and clatter of hoofs, came a coach, bearing to Mr. Newlington's
+King Monmouth escorted by his forty life-guards.  Cheering broke from
+the crowd as the carriage drew up, and the Duke-King as he alighted
+turned his handsome face, on which shone the ruddy glow of torches,
+to acknowledge these loyal acclamations.  He passed up the steps,
+at the top of which Mr. Newlington - fat and pale and monstrously
+overdressed - stood bowing to welcome his royal visitor.  Host and guest
+vanished, followed by some six officers of Monmouth's, among whom were
+Grey and Wade.  The sight-seers flattened themselves against the walls
+as the great lumbering coach put about and went off again the way it had
+come, the life-guards following after.
+
+Trenchard fancied that he caught a sigh of relief from Richard, but the
+street was noisy at the time and he may well have been mistaken.
+
+"Come," said he, renewing his invitation, "we shall both be the better
+for a little milk of the White Cow."
+
+     Richard wavered almost by instinct.  The White Cow, he knew, was
+famous for its sack; on the other hand, he was pledged to Sir Rowland
+to stand guard in the narrow lane at the back where ran the wall of
+Mr. Newlington's garden.  Under the gentle suasion of Trenchard's arm,
+he moved a few steps up the street; then halted, his duty battling with
+his inclination.
+
+"No, no," he muttered. "If you will excuse me..."
+
+"Not I," said Trenchard, drawing from his hesitation a shrewd inference
+as to Richard's business.
+
+"To drink alone is an abomination I'll not be guilty of."
+
+"But..." began the irresolute Richard.
+
+"Shalt urge me no excuses, or we'll quarrel.  Come," and he moved on,
+dragging Richard with him.
+
+A few steps Richard took unwillingly under the other's soft compulsion;
+then, having given the matter thought - he was always one to take the
+line of least resistance - he assured himself that his sentryship was
+entirely superfluous; the matter of Blake's affair was an entire secret,
+shared only by those who had a hand in it.  Blake was quite safe from
+all surprises; Trenchard was insistent and it was difficult to deny
+him; and the sack at the White Cow was no doubt the best in Somerset.
+He gave himself up to the inevitable and fell into step alongside his
+companion who babbled aimlessly of trivial matters.  Trenchard felt the
+change from unwilling to willing companionship, and approved it.
+
+They mounted the three steps and entered the common room of the inn.
+It was well thronged at the time, but they found places at the end of a
+long table, and there they sat and discussed the landlady's Canary for
+the best part of a half-hour, until a sudden spatter of musketry, near
+at hand, came to startle the whole room.
+
+There was a momentary stillness in the tavern, succeeded by an excited
+clamouring, a dash for the windows and a storm of questions, to which
+none could return any answer. Richard had risen with a sudden
+exclamation, very pale and scared of aspect. Trenchard tugged at his
+sleeve.
+
+"Sit down," said he. "Sit down. It will be nothing."
+
+"Nothing?" echoed Richard, and his eyes were suddenly bent on Trenchard
+in a look in which suspicion was now blent with terror.
+
+A second volley of musketry crackled forth at that moment, and the next
+the whole street was in an uproar.  Men were running and shots resounded
+on every side, above all of which predominated the cry that His Majesty
+was murdered.
+
+In an instant the common room of the White Cow was emptied of every
+occupant save two - Trenchard and Westmacott.  Neither of them felt the
+need to go forth in quest of news.  They knew how idle was the cry in
+the streets.  They knew what had taken place, and knowing it, Trenchard
+smoked on placidly, satisfied that Wilding had been in time, whilst
+Richard stood stricken and petrified by dismay at realizing, with even
+greater certainty, that something had supervened to thwart, perhaps to
+destroy, Sir Rowland.  For he knew that Blake's party had gone forth
+armed with pistols only, and intent not to use even these save in the
+last extremity; to avoid noise they were to keep to steel.  This
+knowledge gave Richard positive assurance that the volleys they had
+heard must have been fired by some party that had fallen upon Blake's
+men and taken them by surprise.
+
+And it was his fault!  He was the traitor to whom perhaps a score of men
+owed their deaths at that moment!  He had failed to keep watch as he had
+undertaken.  His fault it was - No! not his, but this villain's who sat
+there smugly taking his ease and pulling at his pipe.
+
+At a blow Richard dashed the thing from his companion's mouth and
+fingers.
+
+Trenchard looked up startled.
+
+"What the devil...?" he began.
+
+"It is your fault, your fault!" cried Richard, his eyes blazing, his
+lips livid.  "It was you who lured me hither."
+
+Trenchard stared at him in bland surprise.  "Now, what a plague is't
+you're saying?" he asked, and brought Richard to his senses by awaking
+in him the instinct of self-preservation.
+
+How could he explain his meaning without betraying himself? - and surely
+that were a folly, now that the others were no doubt disposed of.  Let
+him, rather, bethink him of his own safety.  Trenchard looked at him
+keenly, with well-assumed intent to read what might be passing in his
+mind, then rose, paid for the wine, and expressed his intention of going
+forth to inquire into these strange matters that were happening in
+Bridgwater.
+
+Meanwhile, those volleys fired in Mr. Newlington's orchard had caused
+- as well may be conceived - an agitated interruption of the superb
+feast Mr. Newlington had spread for his noble and distinguished
+guests.  The Duke had for some days been going in fear of his life, for
+already he had been fired at more than once by men anxious to earn the
+price at which his head was valued; instantly he surmised that whatever
+that firing might mean, it indicated some attempt to surprise him with
+the few gentlemen who attended him.
+
+The whole company came instantly to its feet, and Colonel Wade stepped
+to a window that stood open - for the night was very warm.  The Duke
+turned for explanation to his host; the trader, however, professed
+himself entirely unable to offer any.  He was very pale and his limbs
+were visibly trembling, but then his agitation was most natural.  His
+wife and daughter supervened at that moment, in their alarm entering
+the room unceremoniously, in spite of the august presence, to inquire
+into the meaning of this firing, and to reassure themselves that their
+father and his illustrious guests were safe.
+
+
+From the windows they could observe a stir in the gardens below.  Black
+shadows of men flitted to and fro, and a loud, rich voice was heard
+calling to them to take cover, that they were betrayed.  Then a sheet of
+livid flame blazed along the summit of the low wall, and a second volley
+of musketry rang out, succeeded by cries and screams from the assailed
+and the shouts of the assailers who were now pouring into the garden
+through the battered doorway and over the wall.  For some moments
+steel rang on steel, and pistol-shots cracked here and there to the
+accompaniment of voices, raised some in anger, some in pain.  But it
+was soon over, and a comparative stillness succeeded.
+
+A voice called up from the darkness under the windows to know if His
+Majesty was safe.  There had been a plot to take him; but the
+ambuscaders had been ambuscaded in their turn, and not a man of them
+remained - which was hardly exact, for under a laurel bush, scarce
+daring to breathe, lay Sir Rowland Blake, livid with fear and fury,
+and bleeding from a rapier scratch in the cheek, but otherwise unhurt.
+
+In the room above, Monmouth had sunk wearily into his chair upon hearing
+of the design there had been against his life.  A deep, bitter melancholy
+enwrapped his spirit.  Lord Grey's first thoughts flew to the man he
+most disliked - the one man missing from those who had been bidden to
+accompany His Majesty, whose absence had already formed the subject of
+comment.  Grey remembered this bearing before the council that same
+evening, and his undisguised resentment of the reproaches levelled
+against him.
+
+"Where is Mr. Wilding?" he asked suddenly, his voice dominating the din
+of talk that filled the room. "Do we hold the explanation of his
+absence?"
+
+Monmouth looked up quickly, his beautiful eyes ineffably sad, his weak
+mouth drooping at the corners. Wade turned to confront Grey.
+
+"Your lordship does not suggest that Mr. Wilding can have a hand in
+this?"
+
+"Appearances would seem to point in that direction,"  answered Grey,
+and in his wicked heart he almost hoped it might be so.
+
+"Then appearances speak truth for once," came a bitter, ringing voice.
+They turned, and there on the threshold stood Mr. Wilding.  Unheard he
+had come upon them.  He was bareheaded and carried his drawn sword.
+There was blood upon it, and there was blood on the lace that half
+concealed the hand that held it; otherwise - and saving that his shoes
+and stockings were sodden with the dew from the long grass in the
+orchard - he was as spotless as when he had left Ruth in Trenchard's
+lodging; his face, too, was calm, save for the mocking smile with which
+he eyed Lord Grey.
+
+Monmouth rose on his appearance, and put his hand to his sword in alarm.
+Grey whipped his own from the scabbard, and placed himself slightly in
+front of his master as if to preserve him.
+
+"You mistake, sirs," said Wilding quietly.  "The hand I have had in this
+affair has been to save Your Majesty from your enemies.  At the moment
+I should have joined you, word was brought me of the plot that was laid,
+of the trap that was set for you.  I hastened to the Castle and obtained
+a score of musketeers of Slape's company.  With those I surprised the
+murderers lurking in the garden there, and made an end of them.  I
+greatly feared I should not come in time; but it is plain that Heaven
+preserves Your Majesty for better days."
+
+In the revulsion of feeling, Monmouth's eyes shone moist.  Grey sheathed
+his sword with an awkward laugh, and a still more awkward word of
+apology to Wilding.  The Duke, moved by a sudden impulse to make amends
+for his unworthy suspicions, for his perhaps unworthy reception of
+Wilding earlier that evening in the council-room, drew the sword on
+which his hand still rested.  He advanced a step.
+
+"Kneel, Mr. Wilding," he said in a voice stirred by emotion.  But
+Wilding's stern spirit scorned this all too sudden friendliness of
+Monmouth's as much as he scorned the accolade at Monmouth's hands.
+
+"There are more pressing matters to demand Your Majesty's attention,"
+said Mr. Wilding coldly, advancing to the table as he spoke, and
+taking up a napkin to wipe his blade, "than the reward of an unworthy
+servant."
+
+Monmouth felt his sudden enthusiasm chilled by that tone and manner.
+
+"Mr. Newlington," said Mr. Wilding, after the briefest of pauses, and
+the fat, sinful merchant started forward in alarm.  It was like a
+summons of doom.  "His Majesty came hither, I am informed, to receive
+at your hands a sum of money - twenty thousand pounds - towards the
+expenses of the campaign.  Have you the money at hand?"  And his eye,
+glittering between cruelty and mockery, fixed itself upon the merchant's
+ashen face.
+
+"It... it shall be forthcoming by morning," stammered Newlington.
+
+"By morning?" cried Grey, who, with the others, watched Mr. Newlington
+what time they all wondered at Mr. Wilding's question and the manner
+of it.
+
+"You knew that I march to-night," Monmouth reproached the merchant.
+
+"And it was to receive the money that you invited His Majesty to do you
+the honours of supping with you here," put in Wade, frowning darkly.
+
+The merchant's wife and daughter stood beside him watching him, and
+plainly uneasy.  Before he could make any reply, Mr. Wilding spoke
+again.
+
+"The circumstance that he has not the money by him is a little odd - or
+would be were it not for what has happened.  I would submit, Your
+Majesty, that you receive from Mr. Newlington not twenty thousand pounds
+as he had promised you, but thirty thousand, and that you receive it not
+as a loan as was proposed, but as a fine imposed upon him in consequence
+of... his lack of care in the matter of his orchard."
+
+Monmouth looked at the merchant very sternly.  "You have heard Mr.
+Wilding's suggestion," said he. "You may thank the god of traitors it
+was made, else we might have thought of a harsher course.  You shall
+pay the money by ten o'clock to-morrow to Mr. Wilding, whom I shall
+leave behind for the sole purpose of collecting it."  He turned from
+Newlington in plain disgust.  "I think, sirs, that here is no more to
+be done.  Are the streets safe, Mr. Wilding?"
+
+"Not only safe, Your Majesty, but the twenty men of Slape's and your own
+life-guards are waiting to escort you.
+
+"Then in God's name let us be going," said Monmouth, sheathing his sword
+and moving towards the door.  Not a second time did he offer to confer
+the honour of knighthood upon his saviour.
+
+Mr. Wilding turned and went out to marshal his men.  The Duke and his
+officers followed more leisurely.  As they reached the door, a woman's
+cry broke the silence behind them.  Monmouth turned.  Mr. Newlington,
+purple of face and his eyes protruding horridly, was beating the air
+with his hands.  Suddenly he collapsed, and crashed forward with arms
+flung out amid the glass and silver of the table all spread with the
+traitor's banquet to which he had bidden his unsuspecting victim.
+
+His wife and daughter ran to him and called him by name, Monmouth
+pausing a moment to watch them from the doorway with eyes unmoved.
+But Mr. Newlington answered, not their call, for he was dead.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+THE RECKONING
+
+
+Ruth had sped home through the streets unattended, as she had come,
+heedless of the rude jostlings and ruder greetings she met with from
+those she passed; heedless, too, of the smarting of her injured hand,
+for the agony of her soul was such that it whelmed all minor sufferings
+of the flesh.
+
+In the dining-room at Lupton House she came upon Diana and Lady Horton
+at supper, and her appearance - her white and distraught face and
+blood-smeared gown - brought both women to their feet in alarmed inquiry,
+no less than it brought Jasper, the butler, to her side with ready
+solicitude.  Ruth answered him that there was no cause for fear, that
+she was quite well - had scratched her hand, no more; and with that
+dismissed him.  When she was alone with her aunt and cousin, she sank
+into a chair and told them what had passed `twixt her husband and
+herself and most of what she said was Greek to Lady Horton.
+
+"Mr. Wilding has gone to warn the Duke," she ended, and the despair of
+her tone was tragical.  "I sought to detain him until it should be too
+late - I thought I had done so, but.., but... Oh, I am afraid, Diana!"
+
+"Afraid of what?" asked Diana. "Afraid of what?"
+
+And she came to Ruth and set an arm in comfort about her shoulders.
+
+"Afraid that Mr. Wilding might reach the Duke in time to be destroyed
+with him," her cousin answered. "Such a warning could but hasten on the
+blow."
+
+Lady Horton begged to be enlightened, and was filled with horror
+when - from Diana - enlightenment was hers.  Her sympathies were all
+with the handsome Monmouth, for he was beautiful and should therefore
+be triumphant; poor Lady Horton never got beyond externals.  That her
+nephew and Sir Rowland, whom she had esteemed, should be leagued in this
+dastardly undertaking against that lovely person horrified her beyond
+words.  She withdrew soon afterwards, having warmly praised Ruth's
+action in warning Mr. Wilding - unable to understand that it should be
+no part of Ruth's design to save the Duke - and went to her room to
+pray for the preservation of the late King's handsome son.
+
+Left alone with her cousin, Ruth gave expression to the fears for
+Richard by which she was being tortured.  Diana poured wine for her and
+urged her to drink; she sought to comfort and reassure her.  But as
+moments passed and grew to hours and still Richard did not appear,
+Ruth's fears that he had come to harm were changed to certainty.  There
+was a moment when, but for Diana's remonstrances, she had gone forth in
+quest of news.  Bad news were better than this horror of suspense.  What
+if Wilding's warning should have procured help, and Richard were slain
+in consequence?  Oh, it was unthinkable!  Diana, white of face, listened
+to and shared her fears.  Even her shallow nature was stirred by the
+tragedy of Ruth's position, by dread lest Richard should indeed have met
+his end that night.  In these moments of distress, she forgot her hopes
+of triumphing over Blake, of punishing him for his indifference to
+herself.
+
+At last, at something after midnight, there came a fevered rapping at
+the outer door.  Both women started up, and with arms about each other,
+in their sudden panic, stood there waiting for the news that must be
+here at last.
+
+The door of the dining-room was flung open; the women recoiled in their
+dread of what might come; then Richard entered, Jasper's startled
+countenance showing behind him.
+
+He closed the door, shutting out the wondering servant, and they saw
+that, though his face was ashen and his limbs all a-tremble, he showed
+no sign of any hurt or effort.  His dress was as meticulous as when
+last they had seen him.  Ruth flew to him, flung her arms about his
+neck, and pressed him to her.
+
+"Oh, Richard, Richard!" she sobbed in the immensity of her relief.
+"Thank God! Thank God!"
+
+He wriggled peevishly in her embrace, disengaged her arms, and put her
+from him almost roughly. "Have done!" he growled, and, lurching past
+her, he reached the table, took up a bottle, and brimmed himself a
+measure.  He gulped the wine avidly, set down the cup, and shivered.
+"Where is Blake?" he asked.
+
+"Blake?" echoed Ruth, her lips white.  Diana sank into a chair,
+watchful, fearful and silent, taking now no glory in the thing she had
+encompassed.
+
+Richard beat his hands together in a passion of dismay.  "Is he not
+here?" he asked, and groaned, "O God!"  He flung himself all limp into
+a chair.  "You have heard the news, I see," he said.
+
+"Not all of it," said Diana hoarsely, leaning forward.  "Tell us what
+passed."
+
+He moistened his lips with his tongue.  "We were betrayed," he said in
+a quivering voice.  "Betrayed!  Did I but know by whom..."  He broke
+off with a bitter laugh and shrugged, rubbing his hands together and
+shivering till his shoulders shook.  "Blake's party was set upon by
+half a company of musketeers.  Their corpses are strewn about old
+Newlington's orchard.  Not one of them escaped.  They say that
+Newlington himself is dead."  He poured himself more wine.
+
+Ruth listened, her eyes burning, the rest of her as cold as ice.
+"But...but.., oh, thank God that you at least are safe, Dick!"
+
+"How did you escape?" quoth Diana.
+
+"How?" He started as if he had been stung.  He laughed in a high,
+cracked voice, his eyes wild and bloodshot.  "How? Perhaps it is just
+as well that Blake has gone to his account.  Perhaps.. ."  He checked
+on the word, and started to his feet; Diana screamed in sheer aifright.
+Behind her the windows had been thrust open so violently that one of
+the panes was shivered.  Blake stood under the lintel, scarce
+recognizable, so smeared was his face with the blood escaping from the
+wound his cheek had taken.  His clothes were muddied, soiled, torn, and
+disordered.
+
+Framed there against the black background of the night, he stood and
+surveyed them for a moment, his aspect terrific.  Then he leapt forward,
+baring his sword as he came.  An incoherent roar burst from his lips as
+he bore straight down upon Richard.
+
+"You damned, infernal traitor!" he cried.  "Draw, draw!  Or die like the
+muckworm that you are."
+
+Intrepid, her terror all vanished now that there was the need for
+courage, Ruth confronted him, barring his passage, a buckler to her
+palsied brother.
+
+"Out of my way, mistress, or I'll be doing you a mischief."
+
+"You are mad, Sir Rowland," she told him in a voice that did something
+towards restoring him to his senses.
+
+His fierce eyes considered her a moment, and he controlled himself
+to offer an explanation.  "The twenty that were with me lie stark
+under the stars in Newlington's  garden," he told her, as Richard
+had told her already.  "I escaped by a miracle, no less, but for what?
+Feversham will demand of me a stern account of those lives, whilst
+if I am found in Bridgwater there will be a short shrift for me at the
+rebel hands - for my share in this affair is known, my name on every
+lip in the town.  And why?" he asked with a sudden increase of
+fierceness.  "Why?  Because that craven villain there betrayed me."
+
+"He did not," she answered in so assured a voice that not only did it
+give him pause, but caused Richard, cowering behind her, to raise his
+head in wonder.
+
+Sir Rowland smiled his disbelief, and that smile, twisting his
+blood-smeared countenance, was grotesque and horrible.  "I left him to
+guard our backs and give me warning if any approached," he informed her.
+"I knew him for too great a coward to be trusted in the fight; so I gave
+him a safe task, and yet in that he failed me-failed me because he had
+betrayed and sold me."
+
+"He had not.  I tell you he had not," she insisted. "I swear it."
+
+He stared at her.  "There was no one else for it," he made answer, and
+bade her harshly stand aside.
+
+Diana, huddled together, watched and waited in horror for the end of
+these consequences of her work.
+
+Blake made a sudden movement to win past Ruth.  Richard staggered to
+his feet intent on defending himself; but he was swordless; retreat to
+the door suggested itself, and he had half turned to attempt to gain it,
+when Ruth's next words arrested him, petrified him.
+
+"There was some one else for it, Sir Rowland," she cried.  "It was not
+Richard who betrayed you.  It ... it was I."
+
+"You?"  The fierceness seemed all to drop away from him, whelmed in the
+immensity of his astonishment. "You?" Then he laughed loud in scornful
+disbelief.  "You think to save him," he said.
+
+"Should I lie?" she asked him, calm and brave.
+
+He stared at her stupidly; he passed a hand across his brow, and looked
+at Diana.  "Oh, it is impossible!" he said at last.
+
+"You shall hear," she answered, and told him how at the last moment she
+had learnt not only that her husband was in Bridgwater, but that he was
+to sup at Newlington's with the Duke's party.
+
+"I had no thought of betraying you or of saving the Duke," she said.
+"I knew how justifiable was what you intended.  But I could not let Mr.
+Wilding go to his death.  I sought to detain him, warning him only
+when I thought it would be too late for him to warn others.  But you
+delayed overlong, and..."
+
+A hoarse inarticulate cry from him came to interrupt her at that point.
+One glimpse of his face she had and of the hand half raised with sword
+pointing towards her, and she closed her eyes, thinking that her sands
+were run.  And, indeed, Blake's intention was just then to kill her.
+That he should owe his betrayal to her was in itself cause enough to
+enrage him, but that her motive should have been her desire to save
+Wilding - Wilding of all men! - that was the last straw.
+
+Had he been forewarned that Wilding was to be one of Monmouth's party at
+Mr. Newlington's, his pulses would have throbbed with joy, and he would
+have flung himself into his murderous task with twice the zest he had
+carried to it.  And now he learnt that not only had she thwarted his
+schemes against Monmouth, but had deprived him of the ardently sought
+felicity of widowing her.  He drew back his arm for the thrust;
+Diana huddled into her chair too horror-stricken to speak or move:
+Richard - immediately behind his sister - saw nothing of what was
+passing, and thought of nothing but his own safety.
+
+Then Blake paused, stepped back, returned his sword to its scabbard, and
+bending himself - but whether to bow or not was not quite plain - he
+took some paces backwards, then turned and went out by the window as he
+had come.  But there was a sudden purposefulness in the way he did it
+that might have warned them this withdrawal was not quite the retreat
+it seemed.
+
+They watched him with many emotions, predominant among which was relief,
+and when he was gone Diana rose and came to Ruth.
+
+"Come," she said, and sought to lead her from the room.
+
+But there was Richard now to be reckoned with, Richard from whom the
+palsy was of a sudden fallen, now that the cause of it had withdrawn.
+He had his back to the door, and his weak mouth was pursed up into a
+semblance of resolution, his pale eyes looked stern, his white eyebrows
+bent together in a frown.
+
+"Wait," he said.  They looked at him, and the shadow of a smile almost
+flitted across Diana's face.  He stepped to the door, and, opening it,
+held it wide.  "Go, Diana," he said. "Ruth and I must understand each
+other."
+
+Diana hesitated.  "You had better go, Diana," said her cousin, whereupon
+Mistress Horton went.
+
+Hot and fierce came the recriminations from Richard's lips when he and
+his sister were alone, and Ruth weathered the storm bravely until it was
+stemmed again by fresh fear in Richard.  For Blake had suddenly
+reappeared.  He came forward from his window; his manner composed and
+full of resolution.  Young Westmacott recoiled, the heat all frozen out
+of him. But Blake scarce looked at him, his smouldering glance was all
+for Ruth, who watched him with incipient fear, despite herself.
+
+"Madam," he said, "`tis not to be supposed a mind holding so much
+thought for a husband's safety could find room for any concern as to
+another's.  I will ask you, natheless, to consider what tale I am to
+bear Lord Feversham."
+
+"What tale?" said she.
+
+"Aye - that will account for what has chanced; for my failure to
+discharge the task entrusted me, and for the slaughter of an officer of
+his and twenty men.
+
+"Why ask me this?" she demanded half angrily; then suddenly bethinking
+her of how she had ruined his enterprise, and of the position in which
+she had placed him, she softened.  Her clear mind held justice very
+dear.  She approached.  "Oh, I am sorry - sorry, Sir Rowland," she cried.
+
+He sneered.  He had wiped some of the blood from his face, but still
+looked terrible enough.
+
+"Sorry!" said he, and laughed unpleasantly. "You'll come with me to
+Feversham and tell him what you did," said he.
+
+"I?" She recoiled in fear.
+
+"At once" he informed her.
+
+"Wha... what's that?" faltered Richard, calling up his manhood, and
+coming forward.  "What are you saying, Blake?"
+
+Sir Rowland disdained to heed him.  "Come, mistress," he said, and
+putting forward his hand he caught her wrist and pulled her roughly
+towards him.  She struggled to free herself, but he leered evilly
+upon her, no whit discomposed by her endeavours.  Though short of
+stature, he was a man of considerable bodily strength, and she, though
+tall, was slight of frame.  He released her wrist, and before she
+realized what he was about he had stooped, passed an arm behind her
+knees, another round her waist, and, swinging her from her feet,
+took her up bodily in his arms.  He turned about, and a scream broke
+from her.
+
+"Hold!" cried Richard. "Hold, you madman!"
+
+"Keep off, or I'll make an end of you before I go," roared Blake over
+his shoulder, for already he had turned about and was making for the
+window, apparently no more hindered by his burden than had she been
+a doll.
+
+Richard sprang to the door.  "Jasper!" he bawled.  "Jasper!" He had no
+weapons, as we have seen, else it may be that he had made an attempt to
+use them.
+
+Ruth got a hand free and caught at the windowframe as Blake was leaping
+through.  It checked their progress, but did not sensibly delay it.  It
+was unfortunately her wounded hand with which she had sought to cling,
+and with an angry, brutal wrench Sir Rowland compelled her to unclose
+her grasp.  He sped down the lawn towards the orchard, where his horse
+was tethered.  And now she knew in a subconscious sort of way why he had
+earlier withdrawn.  He had gone to saddle for this purpose.
+
+She struggled now, thinking that he would be too hampered to compel her
+to his will.  He became angry, and set her down beside his horse, one
+arm still holding her.
+
+"Look you, mistress," he told her fiercely, "living or dead, you come
+with me to Feversham.  Choose now."
+
+His tone was such that she never doubted he would carry out his threat.
+And so in dull despair she submitted, hoping that Feversham might be a
+gentleman and would recognize and respect a lady.  Half fainting, she
+allowed him to swing her to the withers of his horse.  Thus they
+threaded their way in the dim starlit night through the trees towards
+the gate.
+
+It stood open, and they passed out into the lane. There Sir Rowland put
+his horse to the trot, which he increased to a gallop when he was over
+the bridge and clear of the town.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+THE SENTENCE
+
+
+Mr. Wilding, as we know, was to remain at Bridgwater for the purpose of
+collecting from Mr. Newlington the fine which had been imposed upon him.
+It is by no means clear whether Monmouth realized the fullness of the
+tragedy at the merchant's house, and whether he understood that,
+stricken with apoplexy at the thought of parting with so considerable a
+portion of his fortune, Mr. Newlington had not merely fainted, but had
+expired under His Grace's eyes.  If he did realize it he was cynically
+indifferent, and lest we should be doing him an injustice by assuming
+this we had better give him the benefit of the doubt, and take it that
+in the subsequent bustle of departure, his mind filled with the prospect
+of the night attack to be delivered upon his uncle's army at-Sedgemoor,
+he thought no more either of Mr. Newlington or of Mr. Wilding.  The
+latter, as we know, had no place in the rebel army; although a man of
+his hands, he was not a trained soldier, and notwithstanding that he may
+fully have intended to draw his sword for Monmouth when the time came,
+yet circumstances had led to his continuing after Monmouth's landing
+the more diplomatic work of movement-man, in which he had been engaged
+for the months that had preceded it.
+
+So it befell that when Monmouth's army marched out of Bridgwater at
+eleven o'clock on that Sunday night, not to make for Gloucester and
+Cheshire, as was generally believed, but to fall upon the encamped
+Feversham at Sedgemoor and slaughter the royal army in their beds, Mr.
+Wilding was left behind.  Trenchard was gone, in command of his troop
+of horse, and Mr. Wilding had for only company his thoughts touching
+the singular happenings of that busy night.
+
+He went back to the sign of The Ship overlooking the Cross, and,
+kicking off his sodden shoes, he supped quietly in the room of which
+shattered door and broken window reminded him of his odd interview with
+Ruth, and of the comedy of love she had enacted to detain him there.
+The thought of it embittered him; the part she had played seemed to
+his retrospective mind almost a wanton's part - for all that in name
+she was his wife.  And yet, underlying a certain irrepressible nausea,
+came the reflection that, after all, her purpose had been to save his
+life.  It would have been a sweet thought, sweet enough to have overlaid
+that other bitterness, had he not insisted upon setting it down entirely
+to her gratitude and her sense of justice.  She intended to repay the
+debt in which she had stood to him since, at the risk of his own life
+and fortune, he had rescued her brother from the clutches of the
+Lord-Lieutenant at Taunton.
+
+He sighed heavily as he thought of the results that had attended his
+compulsory wedding of her.  In the intensity of his passion, in the
+blindness of his vanity, which made him confident - gloriously
+confident - that did he make himself her husband, she herself would make
+of him her lover before long, he had committed an unworthiness of which
+it seemed he might never cleanse himself in life.  There was but one
+amend, as he had told her.  Let him make it, and perhaps she would - out
+of gratitude, if out of no other feeling - come to think more kindly of
+him; and that night it seemed to him as he sat alone in that mean
+chamber that it were a better and a sweeter thing to earn some measure
+of her esteem by death than to continue in a life that inspired her
+hatred and resentment.  From which it will be seen how utterly he
+disbelieved the protestations she had uttered in seeking to detain him.
+They were - he was assured - a part of a scheme, a trick, to lull him
+while Monmouth and his officers were being butchered.  And she had gone
+the length of saying she loved him!  He regretted that, being as he was
+convinced of its untruth.  What cause had she to love him?  She hated
+him, and because she hated him she did not scruple to lie to him - once
+with suggestions and this time with actual expression of affection - that
+she might gain her ends: ends that concerned her brother and Sir Rowland
+Blake.  Sir Rowland Blake!  The name was a very goad to his passion and
+despair.
+
+He rose from the table and took a turn in the room, moving noiselessly
+in his stockinged feet.  He felt the need of air and action; the
+weariness of his flesh incurred in his long ride from London was cast
+off or forgotten.  He must go forth.  He picked up his fine shoes of
+Spanish leather, but as luck would have it - little though he guessed
+the extent just then - he found them hardening, though still damp from
+the dews of Mr. Newlington's garden.  He cast them aside, and, taking
+a key from his pocket, unlocked an oak cupboard and withdrew the heavy
+muddy boots in which he had ridden from town.  He drew them on and,
+taking up his hat and sword, went down the creaking stairs and out into
+the street.
+
+Bridgwater had fallen quiet by now; the army was gone and townsfolk
+were in their beds.  Moodily, unconsciously, yet as if guided by a sort
+of instinct, he went down the High Street, and then turned off into
+the narrower lane that led in the direction of Lupton House.  By the
+gates of this he paused, recalled out of his abstraction and rendered
+aware of whither his steps had led him by the sight of the hall door
+standing open, a black figure silhouetted against the light behind it.
+What was happening here?  Why were they not abed like all decent folk?
+
+The figure called to him in a quavering voice.  "Mr. Wilding!  Mr.
+Wilding!" for the light beating upon his face and figure from the open
+door had revealed him.  The form came swiftly forward, its steps
+pattering down the walk, another slenderer figure surged in its place
+upon the threshold, hovered there an instant, then plunged down into
+the darkness to come after it.  But the first was by now upon Mr.
+Wilding.
+
+"What is it, Jasper?" he asked, recognizing the old servant.
+
+"Mistress Ruth!" wailed the fellow, wringing his hands.  "She.., she has
+been ... carried off."  He got it out in gasps, winded by his short run
+and by the excitement that possessed him.
+
+No word said Wilding.  He just stood and stared, scarcely understanding,
+and in that moment they were joined by Richard.  He seized Wilding by
+the arm.  "Blake has carried her off," he cried.
+
+"Blake?" said Mr. Wilding, and wondered with a sensation of nausea was
+it an ordinary running away. But Richard's next words made it plain to
+him that it was no amorous elopement, nor even amorous abduction.
+
+"He has carried her to Feversham... for her betrayal of his to-night's
+plan to seize the Duke."
+
+That stirred Mr. Wilding.  He wasted no time in idle questions or idler
+complainings.  "How long since?" he asked, and it was he who clutched
+Richard now, by the shoulder and with a hand that hurt.
+
+"Not ten minutes ago," was the quavering answer.
+
+"And you were at hand when it befell?" cried Wilding, the scorn in his
+voice rising superior to his agitation and fears for Ruth.  "You were at
+hand, and could neither prevent nor follow him?"
+
+"I'll go with you now, if you'll give chase," whimpered Richard, feeling
+himself for once the craven that he was.
+
+"If?" echoed Wilding scornfully, and dragged him past the gate and up
+towards the house even as he spoke.  "Is there room for a doubt of it?
+Have you horses, at least?"
+
+"To spare," said Richard as they hurried on. They skirted the house and
+found the stable door open as Blake had left it.  Old Jasper followed
+with a lamp which burned steadily, so calm was the air of that July
+night.  In three minutes they had saddled a couple of nags; in five they
+were riding for the bridge and the road to Weston Zoyland.
+
+"It is a miracle you remained in Bridgwater," said Richard as they rode.
+"How came you to be left behind?"
+
+"I had a task assigned me in the town against the Duke's return
+to-morrow," Wilding explained, and he spoke almost mechanically, his
+mind full of - anguished by - thoughts of Ruth.
+
+"Against the Duke's return?" cried Richard, first surprised and then
+thinking that Wilding spoke at random.  "Against the Duke's return?" he
+repeated.
+
+"That is what I said?"
+
+"But the Duke is marching to Gloucester."
+
+"The Duke is marching by circuitous ways to Sedgemoor," answered Wilding,
+never dreaming that at this time of day there could be the slightest
+imprudence in saying so much, indeed, taking little heed of what he
+said, his mind obsessed by the other, to him, far weightier matter.
+
+"To Sedgemoor?" gasped Westmacott.
+
+"Aye - to take Feversham by surprise - to destroy King James's soldiers
+in their beds.  He should be near upon the attack by now.  But there!
+Spur on and save your breath if we are to overtake Sir Rowland."
+
+They pounded on through the night at a breakneck pace which they never
+slackened until, when within a quarter of a mile or so of Penzoy Pound,
+where the army was encamped and slumbering by now, they caught sight of
+the musketeers' matches glowing in the dark ahead of them.  An outpost
+barred their progress; but Richard had the watchword, and he spurred
+ahead shouting "Albemarle," and the soldiers fell back and gave them
+passage.  On they galloped, skirting Penzoy Pound and the army sleeping
+in Utter unconsciousness of the fate that was creeping stealthily upon
+it out of the darkness and mists across the moors; they clattered on
+past Langmoor Stone and dashed straight into the village, Richard never
+drawing rein until he reached the door of the cottage where Feversham
+was lodged.
+
+They had come not only at a headlong pace, but in a headlong manner,
+without quite considering what awaited them at the end of their ride in
+addition to their object of finding Ruth.  It was only now, as he drew
+rein before the lighted house and caught the sound of Blake's raised
+voice pouring through an open window on the ground floor, that Richard
+fully realized what manner of rashness he was committing.  He was too
+late to rescue Ruth from Blake.  What more could he look to achieve?
+His hope had been that with Wilding's help he might snatch her from Sir
+Rowland before the latter reached his destination.  But now - to enter
+Feversham's presence and in association with so notorious a rebel as
+Mr. Wilding were a piece of folly of the heroic kind that Richard did
+not savour.  Indeed, had it not been for Wilding's masterful presence,
+it is more than odds he had turned tail, and ridden home again to bed.
+
+But Wilding, who had leapt nimbly to the ground, stood waiting for
+Richard to dismount, impatient now that from the sound of Sir Rowland's
+voice he had assurance that Richard had proved an able guide.  The young
+man got down, but might yet have hesitated had not Wilding caught him by
+the arm and whirled him up the steps, through the open door, past the
+two soldiers who kept it, and who were too surprised to stay him,
+straight into the long, low-ceilinged chamber where Feversham, attended
+by a captain of horse, was listening to Blake's angry narrative of that
+night's failure.
+
+Mr. Wilding's entrance was decidedly sensational.  He stepped quickly
+forward, and, taking Blake who was still talking, all unconscious of
+those behind him, by the collar of his coat, he interrupted him in the
+middle of an impassioned period, wrenched him backwards off his feet,
+and dashed him with a force almost incredible into a heap in a corner
+of the room.  There for some moments the baronet lay half dazed by the
+shock of his fall.
+
+A long table, which seemed to divide the chamber in two, stood between
+Lord Feversham and his officer and Mr. Wilding and Ruth - by whose side
+he had now come to stand in Blake's room.
+
+There was an exclamation, half anger, half amazement, at Mr. Wilding's
+outrage upon Sir Rowland, and the captain of horse sprang forward.  But
+Wilding raised his hand, his face so composed and calm that it was
+impossible to think him conceiving any violence, as indeed he protested
+at that moment.
+
+"Be assured, gentlemen," he said, "that I have no further rudeness to
+offer any so that this lady is suffered to withdraw with me."  And he
+took in his own a hand that Ruth, amazed and unresisting, yielded up
+to him.  That touch of his seemed to drive out her fears and to restore
+her confidence; the mortal terror in which she had been until his coming
+dropped from her now.  She was no longer alone and abandoned to the
+vindictiveness of rude and violent men.  She had beside her one in whom
+experience had taught her to have faith.
+
+Louis Duras, Marquis de Blanquefort, and Earl of Feversham, coughed with
+mock discreetness under cover of his hand.  "Ahem!"
+
+He was a comely man with a long nose, good lowlidded eyes, a humorous
+mouth, and a weak chin; at a glance he looked what he was, a weak,
+good-natured sensualist.  He was resplendent at the moment in a blue
+satin dressing-gown stiff with gold lace, for he had been interrupted
+by Blake's arrival in the very act of putting himself to bed, and his
+head - divested of his wig - was bound up in a scarf of many colours.
+
+At his side, the red-coated captain, arrested by the general's sardonic
+cough, stood, a red-faced, freckled boy, looking to his superior for
+orders.
+
+"I t'ink you `ave `urt Sare Rowland," said Feversham composedly in his
+bad English.  "Who are you, sare?"
+
+"This lady's husband," answered Wilding, whereupon the captain stared
+and Feversham's brows went up in surprised amusement.
+
+"So-ho! T'at true?" quoth the latter in a tone suggesting that it
+explained everything to him.  "T'is gif a differen' colour to your story,
+Sare Rowlan'."  Then he added in a chuckle, "Ho, ho - l'amour!" and
+laughed outright.
+
+Blake, gathering together his wits and his limbs at the same time, made
+shift to rise.
+
+"What a plague does their relationship matter?" he began.  He would have
+added more, but the Frenchman thought this question one that needed
+answering.
+
+"Parbleu!" he swore, his amusement rising.  "It seem to matter
+somet'ing."
+
+"Damn me!" swore Blake, red in the face from pale that he had been.  "Do
+you conceive that if I had run away with his wife for her own sake I had
+fetched her to you?"  He lurched forward as he spoke, but kept his
+distance from Wilding, who stood between Ruth and him.
+
+Feversham bowed sardonically.  "You are a such flatterer, Sare Rowlan',"
+said he, laughter bubbling in his words.
+
+Blake looked his scorn of this trivial Frenchman, who, upon scenting
+what appeared to be the comedy of an outraged husband overtaking the man
+who had carried off his wife, forgot the serious business, a part of
+which Sir Rowland had already imparted to him.  Captain Wentworth - a
+time-serving gentleman - smiled with this French general of a British
+army that he might win the great man's favour.
+
+"I have told your lordship," said Blake, froth on his lips, "that the
+twenty men I had from you, as well as Ensign Norris, are dead in
+Bridgwater, and that my plan to carry off King Monmouth has come to
+ruin, all because we were betrayed by this woman.  It is now my further
+privilege to point out to your lordship the man to whom she sold us."
+
+Feversham misliked Sir Rowland's arrogant tone, misliked his angry,
+scornful glance.  His eyes narrowed, the laughter faded slowly from his
+face.
+
+"Yes, yes, I remember," said he; "t'is lady, you have tole us, betray
+you.  Ver' well.  But you have not tole us who betray you to t'is lady."
+And he looked inquiringly at Blake.
+
+The baronet's jaw dropped; his face lost some of its high colour.  He
+was stunned by the question as the bird is stunned that flies headlong
+against a pane of glass.  He had crashed into an obstruction so
+transparent that he had not seen it.
+
+"So!" said Feversham, and he stroked the cleft of his chin.  "Captain
+Wentwort', be so kind as to call t'e guard."
+
+Wentworth moved to obey, but before he had gone round the table, Blake
+had looked behind him and espied Richard shrinking by the door.
+
+"By heaven!" he cried, "I can more than answer your lordship's question."
+
+Wentworth stopped, looking at Feversham.
+
+"Voyons," said the General.
+
+"I can place you in possession of the man who has wrought our ruin.  He
+is there," and he pointed theatrically to Richard.
+
+Feversham looked at the limp figure in some bewilderment.  Indeed, he
+was having a most bewildering evening - or morning, rather, for it was
+even then on the stroke of one o'clock.  "An' who are you, sare?" he
+asked.
+
+Richard came forward, nerving himself for what was to follow.  It had
+just occurred to him that he held a card which should trump any trick
+of Sir Rowland's vindictiveness, and the prospect heartened and
+comforted him.
+
+"I am this lady's brother, my lord," he answered, and his voice was
+fairly steady.
+
+"Tiens!" said Feversham, and, smiling, he turned to Wentworth.
+
+"Quite a family party, sir," said the captain, smiling back.
+
+"Oh! mais tout--fait," said the General, laughing outright, and then
+Wilding created a diversion by leading Ruth to a chair that stood at
+the far end of the table, and drawing it forward for her.  "Ah, yes,"
+said Feversham airily, "let Madame sit."
+
+"You are very good, sir," said Ruth, her voice brave and calm.
+
+"But somewhat lacking in spontaneity," Wilding criticized, which set
+Wentworth staring and the Frenchman scowling.
+
+"Shall I call the guard, my lord?" asked Wentworth crisply.
+
+"I t'ink yes," said Feversham, and the captain gained the door, and
+spoke a word to one of the soldiers without.
+
+"But, my lord," exclaimed Blake in a tone of protest, "I vow you are too
+ready to take this fellow's word."
+
+"He `as spoke so few," said Feversham.
+
+"Do you know who he is?"
+
+"You `af `eard `im say - t'e lady's `usband."
+
+"Aye - but his name," cried Blake, quivering with anger.  "Do you know
+ that it is Wilding?"
+
+The name certainly made an impression that might have flattered the man
+to whom it belonged.  Feversham's whole manner changed; the trivial air
+of persiflage that he had adopted hitherto was gone on the instant, and
+his brow grew dark.
+
+"T'at true?" he asked sharply.  "Are you Mistaire Wildin' - Mistaire
+Antoine Wildin'?"
+
+"Your lordship's most devoted servant," said Wilding suavely, and made
+a leg.
+
+Wentworth in the background paused in the act of reclosing the door to
+stare at this gentleman whose name Albemarle had rendered so excellently
+well known.
+
+"And you to dare come `ere?" thundered Feversham, thoroughly roused by
+the other's airy indifference.  "You to dare come `ere - into my ver'
+presence?"
+
+Mr. Wilding smiled conciliatingly.  "I came for my wife, my lord,"
+he reminded him.  "It grieves me to intrude upon your lordship at so
+late an hour, and indeed it was far from my intent.  I had hoped to
+overtake Sir Rowland before he reached you."
+
+"Nom de Dieu!" swore Feversham.  "Ho! A so great effrontery!" He swung
+round upon Blake again.  "Sare Rowlan'," he bade him angrily, "be so
+kind to tell me what `appen in Breechwater - everyt'ing!"
+
+Blake, his face purple, seemed to struggle for breath and words.  Mr.
+Wilding answered for him.
+
+"Sir Rowland is so choleric, my lord," he said in his pleasant, level
+voice, "that perhaps the tale would come more intelligibly from me.
+Believe me that he has served you to the best of his ability.
+Unfortunately for the success of your choice plan of murder, I had news
+of it at the eleventh hour, and with a party of musketeers I was able
+to surprise and destroy your cut-throats in Mr. Newlington's garden.
+You see, my lord, I was to have been one of the victims myself, and I
+resented the attentions that were intended me.  I had no knowledge that
+Sir Rowland had contrived to escape, and, frankly, it is a thing I
+deplore more than I can say, for had that not happened much trouble
+might have been saved and your lordship's rest had not been disturbed."
+
+"But t'e woman?" cried Feversham impatiently.  "How is she come into
+this galare?"
+
+"It was she who warned him," Blake got out, "as already I have had the
+honour to inform your lordship."
+
+"And your lordship cannot blame her for that," said Wilding.  "The lady
+is a most loyal subject of King James; but she is also, as you observe,
+a dutiful wife.  I will add that it was her intention to warn me only
+when too late for interference.  Sir Rowland, as it happened, was
+slow in..."
+
+"Silence!" blazed the Frenchman.  "Now t'at I know who you are, t'at
+make a so great difference.  Where is t'e guard, Wentwort'?"
+
+"I hear them," answered the captain, and from the street came the
+tramp of their marching feet.
+
+Feversham turned again to Blake.  "T'e affaire `as `appen' so," he said,
+between question and assertion, summing up the situation as he
+understood it.  "T'is rogue," and he pointed to Richard, "`ave betray
+your plan to `is sister, who betray it to `er `usband, who save t'e
+Duc de Monmoot'. N'est-ce pas?"
+
+"That is so," said Blake, and Ruth scarcely thought it worth while to
+add that she had heard of the plot not only from her brother, but from
+Blake as well.  After all, Blake's attitude in the matter, his action
+in bringing her to Feversham for punishment, and to exculpate himself,
+must suffice to cause any such statement of hers to be lightly received
+by the General.
+
+She sat in an anguished silence, her eyes wide, her face pale, and
+waited for the end of this strange business.  In her heart she did
+permit herself to think that it would be difficult to assemble a group
+of men less worthy of respect.  Choleric and vindictive Blake, foolish
+Feversham, stupid Wentworth, and timid Richard - even Richard did not
+escape the unfavourable criticism they were undergoing in her
+subconscious mind.  Only Wilding detached in that assembly - as he had
+detached in another that she remembered - and stood out in sharp relief
+a very man, calm, intrepid, self-possessed; and if she was afraid, she
+was more afraid for him than for herself.  This was something that,
+perhaps, she scarcely realized just then; but she was to realize it
+soon.
+
+Feversham was speaking again, asking Blake a fresh question. "And who
+betray you to t'is rogue?"
+
+"To Westmacott?" cried Blake.  "He was in the plot with me.  He was
+left to guard the rear, to see that we were not taken by surprise, and
+he deserted his post.  Had he not done that, there had been no disaster,
+in spite of Mr. Wilding's intervention."
+
+Feversham's brow was dark, his eyes glittered as they rested on the
+traitor.
+
+"T'at true, sare?" he asked him.
+
+"Not quite," put in Mr. Wilding.  "Mr. Westmacott, I think, was
+constrained away.  He did not intend..."
+
+"Tais-toi!" blazed Feversham.  "Did I interrogate you?  It is for
+Mistaire Westercott to answer."  He set a hand on the table and leaned
+forward towards Wilding, his face very malign.  "You shall to answer
+for yourself, Mistaire Wildin'; I promise you you shall to answer for
+yourself."  He turned again to Richard.  "Ek, bien?" he snapped.  "Will
+you speak?"
+
+Richard came forward a step; he was certainly nervous, and certainly
+pale; but neither as pale nor as nervous as from our knowledge of
+Richard we might have looked to see him at that moment.
+
+"It is in a measure true," he said. "But what Mr. Wilding has said is
+more exact.  I was induced away.  I did not dream any could know of the
+plan, or that my absence could cause this catastrophe."
+
+"So you went, eh, vaurien?  You t'ought t'at be to do your duty, eh?
+And it was you who tole your sistaire?"
+
+"I may have told her, but not before she had the tale already from
+Blake."
+
+Feversham sneered and shrugged.  "Natural you will not speak true.  A
+traitor I `ave observe' is always liar."
+
+
+Richard drew himself up; he seemed invested almost with a new dignity.
+"Your lordship is pleased to account me a traitor?" he inquired.
+
+"A dam' traitor," said his lordship, and at that moment the door opened,
+and a sergeant, with six men following him, stood at the salute upon the
+threshold.  "A la bonne heure!" his lordship hailed them.  "Sergean',
+you will arrest t'is rogue and t'is lady," - he waved his hand from
+Richard to Ruth - "and you will take t'em to lock..up."
+
+The sergeant advanced towards Richard, who drew a step away from him.
+Ruth rose to her feet in agitation.  Mr. Wilding interposed himself
+between her and the guard, his hand upon his sword.
+
+"My lord," he cried, "do they teach no better courtesy in France?"
+
+Feversham scowled at him, smiling darkly.  "I shall talk wit' you soon,
+sare," said he, his words a threat.
+
+"But, my lord.. ." began Richard.  "I can make it very plain I am no
+traitor..."
+
+"In t'e mornin'," said Feversham blandly, waving his hand, and the
+sergeant took Richard by the shoulder.
+
+But Richard twisted from his grasp.  "In the morning will be too late,"
+he cried.  "I have it in my power to render you such a service as you
+little dream of."
+
+"Take `im away," said Feversham wearily.
+
+"I can save you from destruction," bawled Richard, "you and your army."
+
+Perhaps even now Feversham had not heeded him but for Wilding's sudden
+interference.
+
+"Silence, Richard!" he cried to him.  "Would you betray...?"  He checked
+on the word; more he dared not say; but he hoped faintly that he had
+said enough.
+
+Feversham, however, chanced to observe that this man who had shown
+himself hitherto so calm looked suddenly most singularly perturbed.
+
+"Eh?" quoth the General.  "An instan', Sergean'.  What is t'is,
+eh?" - and he looked from Wilding to Richard.
+
+"Your lordship shall learn at a price," cried Richard.
+
+"Me, I not bargain wit' traitors," said his lordship stiffly.
+
+"Very well, then," answered Richard, and he folded his arms dramatically.
+"But no matter what your lordship's life may be hereafter, you will
+never regret anything more bitterly than you shall regret this by
+sunrise if indeed you live to see it."
+
+Feversham shifted uneasily on his feet.  "`What you say?" he asked.
+"What you mean?"
+
+"You shall know at a price," said Richard again.
+
+Wilding, realizing the hopelessness of interfering now, stood gloomily
+apart, a great bitterness in his soul at the indiscretion he had
+committed in telling Richard of the night attack that was afoot.
+
+"Your lordship shall hear my price, but you need not pay it me until you
+have had an opportunity of verifying the information I have to give you.
+
+"Tell me," said Feversham after a brief pause, during which he
+scrutinized the young man's face.
+
+"If your lordship will promise liberty and safe-conduct to my sister and
+myself."
+
+"Tell me," Feversham repeated.
+
+"When you have promised to grant me what I ask in return for my
+information."
+
+"Yes, if I t'ink your information is wort'"
+
+"I am content," said Richard.  He inclined his head and loosed the
+quarrel of his news.  "Your camp is slumbering, your officers are all
+abed with the exception of the outpost on the road to Bridgwater.  What
+should you say if I told you that Monmouth and all his army are marching
+upon you at this very moment, will probably fall upon you before another
+hour is past?"
+
+Wilding uttered a groan, and his hands fell to his sides.  Had
+Feversham observed this he might have been less ready with his sneering
+answer.
+
+"A lie!" he answered, and laughed.  "My fren', I `ave myself been
+to-night, at midnight, on t'e moore, and I `ave `eard t'e army of t'e
+Duc de Monmoot' marching to Bristol on t'e road - what you call t'e
+road, Wentwort'?"
+
+"The Eastern Causeway, my lord," answered the captain.
+
+"Voil!" said Feversham, and spread his hands. "What you say now, eh?"
+
+"That that is part of Monmouth's plan to come at you across the moors,
+by way of Chedzoy, avoiding your only outpost, and falling upon you in
+your beds, all unawares.  Lord! sir, do not take my word for it.  Send
+out your scouts, and I dare swear they'll not need go far before they
+come upon the enemy."
+
+Feversham looked at Wentworth.  His lordship's face had undergone a
+change.
+
+"What you t'ink?" he asked.
+
+"Indeed, my lord, it sounds so likely," answered Wentworth, "that...
+that... I marvel we did not provide against such a contingency."
+
+"But I `ave provide'!" cried this nephew of the great Turenne.
+"Ogelt'orpe is on t'e moor and Sare Francis Compton.  If t'is is true,
+`ow can t'ey `ave miss Monmoot'?  Send word to Milor' Churchill at
+once, Wentwort'.  Let t'e matter be investigate' - at once,
+Wentwort' - at once!" The General was dancing with excitement.
+Wentworth saluted and turned to leave the room.  "If you `ave tole me
+true," continued Feversham, turning now to Richard, "you shall `ave t'e
+price you ask, and t'e t'anks of t'e King's army.  But if not..."
+
+"Oh, it's true enough," broke in Wilding, and his voice was like a
+groan, his face overcharged with gloom.
+
+Feversham looked at him; his sneering smile returned.
+
+"Me, I not remember," said he, "that Mr. Westercott `ave include you in
+t'e bargain."
+
+Nothing had been further from Wilding's thoughts than such a suggestion.
+And he snorted his disdain.  The sergeant had fallen back at Feversham's
+words, and his men lined the wall of the chamber.  The General bade
+Richard be seated whilst he waited.  Sir Rowland stood apart, leaning
+wearily against the wainscot, waiting also, his dull wits not quite
+clear how Richard might have come by so valuable a piece of information,
+his evil spirit almost wishing it untrue, in his vindictiveness, to the
+end that Richard might pay the price of having played him false and
+Ruth the price of having scorned him.
+
+Feversham meanwhile was seeking - with no great success - to engage Mr.
+Wilding in talk of Monmouth, against whom Feversham harboured in
+addition to his political enmity a very deadly personal hatred; for
+Feversham had been a suitor to the hand of the Lady Henrietta Wentworth,
+the woman for whom Monmouth - worthy son of his father - had practically
+abandoned his own wife; the woman with whom he had run off, to the great
+scandal of court and nation.
+
+Despairing of drawing any useful information from Wilding, his lordship
+was on the point of turning to Blake, when quick steps and the rattle
+of a scabbard sounded without; the door was thrust open without
+ceremony, and Captain Wentworth reappeared.
+
+"My lord," he cried, his manner excited beyond aught one could have
+believed possible in so phlegmatic-seeming a person, "it is true.
+We are beset."
+
+"Beset!" echoed Feversham. "Beset already?"
+
+"We can hear them moving on the moor.  They are crossing the Langmoor
+Rhine.  They will be upon us in ten minutes at the most.  I have roused
+Colonel Douglas, and Dunbarton's regiment is ready for them."
+
+Feversham exploded.  "What else `ave you done?" he asked.  "Where is
+Milor' Churchill?"
+
+"Lord Churchill is mustering his men as quietly as may be that they
+may be ready to surprise those who come to surprise us.  By Heaven, sir,
+we owe a great debt to Mr. Westmacott.  Without his information we
+might have had all our throats cut whilst we slept."
+
+"Be so kind to call Belmont," said Feversham. "Tell him to bring my
+clot'es."
+
+Wentworth turned and went out again to execute the General's orders.
+Feversham spoke to Richard. "We are oblige', Mr. Westercott," said he.
+"We are ver' much oblige'."
+
+Suddenly from a little distance came the roll of drums.  Other sounds
+began to stir in the night outside to tell of a waking army.
+
+Feversham stood listening.  "It is Dunbarton's," he murmured.  Then,
+with some show of heat, "Ah, pardieu!" he cried.  "But it was a dirty
+t'ing t'is Monmoot' `ave prepare'.  It is murder; it is not t'e war.
+
+"And yet," said Wilding critically, "it is a little more like war
+than the Bridgwater affair to which your lordship gave your sanction."
+
+Feversham pursed his lips and considered the speaker.  Wentworth
+reentered, followed by the Earl's valet carrying an armful of garments.
+His lordship threw off his dressing-gown and stood forth in shirt and
+breeches.
+
+"Mais dpche-toi, donc, Belmont!" said he.  "Nous nous battons!  Ii faut
+que je m'habille."  Belmont, a little wizened fellow who understood
+nothing of this topsy-turveydom, hastened forward, deposited his armful
+on the table, and selected a finely embroidered waistcoat, which he
+proceeded to hold for his master.  Wriggling into it, Feversham rapped
+out his orders.
+
+     "Captain Wentwort', you will go to your regimen at once.  But
+first, ah - wait.  Take t'ose six men and Mistaire Wilding.  `Ave `im
+shot at once; you onderstan', eh? Good. Allons, Belmont! my cravat."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+THE EXECUTION
+
+
+Captain Wentworth clicked his heels together and saluted.  Blake, in the
+background, drew a deep breath - unmistakably of satisfaction, and his
+eyes glittered.  A muffled cry broke from Ruth, who rose instantly from
+her chair, her hand on her bosom.  Richard stood with fallen jaw, amazed,
+a trifle troubled even, whilst Mr. Wilding started more in surprise than
+actual fear, and approached the table.
+
+"You heard, sir," said Captain Wentworth.
+
+"I heard," answered Mr. Wilding quietly.  "But surely not aright.  One
+moment, sir," and he waved his hand so compellingly that, despite the
+order he had received, the phlegmatic captain hesitated.
+
+Feversham, who had taken the cravat - a yard of priceless Dutch lace -
+from the hands of his valet, and was standing with his back to the
+company at a small and very faulty mirror that hung by the overmantel,
+looked peevishly over his shoulder.
+
+"My lord," said Wilding, and Blake, for all his hatred of this man,
+marvelled at a composure that did not forsake him even now, "you are
+surely not proposing to deal with me in this fashion -not seriously,
+my lord?"
+
+"Ah, ca!" said the Frenchman.  "T'ink it a jest if you please.  What for
+you come `ere?"
+
+"Assuredly not for the purpose of being shot," said Wilding, and
+actually smiled.  Then, in the tones of one discussing a matter that is
+grave but not of surpassing gravity, he continued: "It is not that I
+fail to recognize that I may seem to have incurred the rigour of the
+law; but these matters must be formally proved against me.  I have
+affairs to set in order against such a consummation."
+
+"Ta, ta!" snapped Feversham.  "T'at not regard me.  Weutwort', you `ave
+`eard my order."  And he returned to his mirror and the nice adjustment
+of his neckwear.
+
+"But, my lord," insisted Wilding, "you have not the right - you have not
+the power so to proceed against me.  A man of my quality is not to be
+shot without a trial."
+
+"You can `ang if you prefer," said Feversham indifferently, drawing out
+the ends of his cravat and smoothing them down upon his breast.  He
+faced about briskly.  "Give me t'at coat, Belmont.  His Majesty `ave
+empower me to `ang or shoot any gentlemens of t'e partie of t'e Duc t'e
+Monmoot' on t'e spot.  I say t'at for your satisfaction.  And look, I
+am desolate' to be so quick wit' you, but please to consider t'e
+circumstance.  T'e enemy go to attack. Wentwort' must go to his
+regimen', and my ot'er officers are all occupi'.  You comprehen' I `ave
+not t'e time to spare you - n'est-ce-pas?" - Wentworth's hand touched
+Wilding on the shoulder.  He was standing with head slightly bowed, his
+brows knit in thought.  He looked round at the touch, sighed and smiled.
+
+Belmont held the coat for his master, who slipped into it, and flung at
+Wilding what was intended for a consolatory sop.  "It is fortune de
+guerre, Mistaire Wilding.  I am desolate'; but it is fortune of t'e war."
+
+"May it be less fortunate for your lordship, then," said Wilding dryly,
+and was on the point of turning, when Ruth's voice came in a loud cry to
+startle him and to quicken his pulses.
+
+"My lord!" It was a cry of utter anguish.
+
+Feversham, settling his gold-laced coat comfortably to his figure,
+looked at her.  "Madame?" said he.
+
+But she had nothing to say.  She stood, deathly white, slightly bent
+forward, one hand wringing the other, her eyes almost wild, her bosom
+heaving frantically.
+
+"Hum!" said Feversham, and he loosened and removed the scarf from his
+head.  He shrugged slightly and looked at Wentworth.  "Finissons!"
+said he.
+
+The word and the look snapped the trammels that bound Ruth's speech.
+
+"Five minutes, my lord!" she cried imploringly.  "Give him five minutes
+- and me, my lord!"
+
+Wilding, deeply shaken, trembled now as he awaited Feversham's reply.
+
+The Frenchman seemed to waver.  "Bien," he began, spreading his hands.
+And in that moment a shot rang out in the night and startled the whole
+company.  Feversham threw back his head; the signs of yielding left
+his face.  "Ha!" he cried.  "T'ey are arrive."  He snatched his wig from
+his lacquey's hands, donned it, and turned again an instant to the
+mirror to adjust the great curls.  "Quick, Wentwort'!  T'ere is no more
+time now.  Make Mistaire Wilding be shot at once.  T'en to your regimen'."
+He faced about and took the sword his valet proffered.  "Au revoir,
+messieurs!"
+
+"Serviteur, madame!"  And, buckling his sword-belt as he went, he swept
+out, leaving the door wide open, Belmont following, Wentworth saluting
+and the guards presenting arms.
+
+"Come, sir," said the captain in a subdued voice, his eyes avoiding
+Ruth's face.
+
+"I am ready," answered Wilding firmly, and he turned to glance at his
+wife.
+
+She was bending towards him, her hands held out, such a look on her face
+as almost drove him mad with despair, reading it as he did.  He made a
+sound deep in his throat before he found words.
+
+"Give me one minute, sir - one minute," he begged Wentworth.  "I ask no
+more than that."
+
+Wentworth was a gentleman and not ill-natured.  But he was a soldier
+and had received his orders.  He hesitated between the instincts of the
+two conditions.  And what time he did so there came a clatter of hoofs
+without to resolve him.  It was Feversham departing.
+
+"You shall have your minute, sir," said he.  "More I dare not give you,
+as you can see.
+
+"From my heart I thank you," answered Mr. Wilding, and from the
+gratitude of his tone you might have inferred that it was his life
+Wentworth had accorded him.
+
+The captain had already turned aside to address his men.  "Two of you
+outside, guard that window," he ordered.  "The rest of you, in the
+passage.  Bestir there!"
+
+"Take your precautions, by all means, sir," said Wilding; "but I give
+you my word of honour I shall attempt no escape."
+
+Wentworth nodded without replying.  His eye lighted on Blake - who had
+been seemingly forgotten in the confusion - and on Richard.  A
+kindliness for the man who met his end so unflinchingly, a respect
+for so worthy an emeny, actuated the red-faced captain.
+
+"You had better take yourself off, Sir Rowland," said he.  "And you,
+Mr. Westmacott - you can wait in the passage with my men."
+
+They obeyed him promptly enough, but when outside Sir Rowland made bold
+to remind the captain that he was failing in his duty, and that he
+should make a point of informing the General of this anon.  Wentworth
+bade him go to the devil, and so was rid of him.
+
+Alone, inside that low-ceilinged chamber, stood Ruth and Wilding face to
+face.  He advanced towards her, and with a shuddering sob she flung
+herself into his arms.  Still, he mistrusted the emotion to which she
+was a prey - dreading lest it should have its root in pity.  He patted
+her shoulder soothingly.
+
+"Nay, nay, little child," he whispered in her ear.  "Never weep for me
+that have not a tear for myself.  What better resolution of the
+difficulties my folly has created?"  For only answer she clung closer,
+her hands locked about his neck, her slender body shaken by her silent
+weeping.  "Don't pity me," he besought her.  "I am content it should be
+so.  It is the amend I promised you.  Waste no pity on me, Ruth."
+
+She raised her face, her eyes wild and blurred with tears, looked up
+to his.
+
+"It is not pity!" she cried.  "I want you, Anthony!  I love you,
+Anthony, Anthony!"
+
+His face grew ashen.  "It is true, then!" he asked her.  "And what you
+said to-night was true!  I thought you said it only to detain me."
+
+"Oh, it is true, it is true!" she wailed.
+
+He sighed; he disengaged a hand to stroke her face.  "I am happy," he
+said, and strove to smile.  "Had I lived, who knows...?"
+
+"No, no, no," she interrupted him passionately, her arms tightening
+about his neck.  He bent his head.  Their lips met and clung.  A knock
+fell upon the door.  They started, and Wilding raised his hands gently
+to disengage her pinioning arms.
+
+"I must go, sweet," he said.
+
+"God help me!" she moaned, and clung to him still.  "It is I who am
+killing you - I and your love for me.  For it was to save me you rode
+hither to-night, never pausing to weigh your own deadly danger.  Oh,
+I am punished for having listened to every voice but the voice of my
+own heart where you were concerned.  Had I loved you earlier - had I
+owned it earlier..."
+
+"It had still been too late," he said, more to comfort her than because
+he knew it to be so.  "Be brave for my sake, Ruth.  You can be brave, I
+know - so well.  Listen, sweet.  Your words have made me happy.  Mar not
+this happiness of mine by sending me out in grief at your grief."
+
+Her response to his prayer was brave, indeed.  Through her tears came a
+faint smile to overspread her face so white and pitiful.
+
+"We shall meet soon again," she said.
+
+"Aye - think on that," he bade her, and pressed her to him.  "Good-bye,
+sweet!  God keep you till we meet!" he added, his voice infinitely
+tender.
+
+"Mr. Wilding!" Wentworth's voice called him, and the captain thrust
+the door open a foot or so.  "Mr. Wilding!"
+
+"I am coming," he answered steadily.  He kissed her again, and on that
+kiss of his she sank against him, and he felt her turn all limp.  He
+raised his voice.  "Richard!" he shouted wildly.  "Richard!"
+
+At the note of alarm in his voice, Wentworth flung wide the door and
+entered, Richard's ashen face showing over his shoulder.  In her
+brother's care Wilding delivered his mercifully unconscious wife.
+"See to her, Dick," he said, and turned to go, mistrusting himself now.
+But he paused as he reached the door, Wentworth waxing more and more
+impatient at his elbow.  He turned again.
+
+"Dick," he said, "we might have been better friends.  I would we had
+been.  Let us part so at least," and he held out his hand, smiling.
+
+Before so much gallantry Richard was conquered almost to the point of
+worship; a weak man himself, there was no virtue he could more admire
+than strength.  He left Ruth in the high-backed chair in which Wilding's
+tender hands had placed her, and sprang forward, tears in his eyes.  He
+wrung Wilding's hands in wordless passion.
+
+"Be good to her, Dick," said Wilding, and went out with Wentworth.
+
+He was marched down the street in the centre of that small party of
+musketeers of Dunbarton's regiment, his thoughts all behind him rather
+than ahead, a smile on his lips.  He had conquered at the last.  He
+thought of that other parting of theirs, nearly a month ago, on the
+road by Walford.  Now, as then, circumstance was the fire that had
+melted her.  But the crucible was no longer - as then of pity; it
+was the crucible of love.
+
+And in that same crucible, too, Anthony Wilding's nature had undergone
+a transmutation; his love for Ruth had been purified of that base alloy
+of desire which had driven him into the unworthiness of making her his
+own at all costs; there was no carnal grossness in his present passion;
+it was pure as a religion - the love that takes no account of self, the
+love that makes for joyous and grateful martyrdom.  And a joyous and
+grateful martyr would Anthony Wilding have been could he have thought
+that his death would bring her happiness or peace.  In such a faith as
+that he had marched - or so he thought blithely to his end, and the
+smile on his lips had been less wistful than it was.  Thinking of the
+agony in which he had left her, he almost came to wish - so pure was his
+love grown - that he had not conquered.  The joy that at first was his
+was now all dashed.  His death would cause her pain.  His death! O God!
+It is an easy thing to be a martyr; but this was not martyrdom; having
+done what he had done he had not the right to die.  The last vestige
+of the smile that he had worn faded from his tight-pressed lips
+tight-pressed as though to endure some physical suffering.  His face
+greyed, and deep lines furrowed his brow.  Thus he marched on,
+mechanically, amid his marching escort, through the murky, fog-laden
+night, taking no heed of the stir about them, for all Weston Zoyland
+was aroused by now.
+
+Ahead of them, and over to the east, the firing blazed and crackled,
+volley upon volley, to tell them that already battle had been joined
+in earnest.  Monmouth's surprise had aborted, and it passed through
+Wilding's mind that to a great extent he was to blame for this.  But
+it gave him little care.
+
+At least his indiscretion had served the purpose of rescuing Ruth from
+Lord Feversham's unclean clutches.  For the rest, knowing that
+Monmouth's army by far outnumbered Feversham's, he had no doubt that
+the advantage must still lie with the Duke, in spite of Feversham's
+having been warned in the eleventh hour.
+
+Louder grew the sounds of battle.  Above the din of firing a swelling
+chorus rose upon the night, startling and weird in such a time and
+place.  Monmouth's pious infantry went into action singing hymns, and
+Wentworth, impatient to be at his post, bade his men go faster.
+
+The night was by now growing faintly luminous, and the deathly grey
+light of approaching dawn hung in the mists upon the moor.  Objects
+grew visible in bulk at least, if not in form and shape, by the time
+the little company had reached the end of Weston village and come
+upon the deep mud dyke which had been Wentworth's objective - a ditch
+that communicated with the great rhine that served the King's forces
+so well on that night of Sedgemoor.
+
+Within some twenty paces of this Wentworth called a halt, and would
+have had Wilding's hands pinioned behind him, and his eyes blindfolded,
+but that Wilding begged him this might not be done.  Wentworth was, as
+we know, impatient; and between impatience and kindliness, perhaps, he
+acceded to Wilding's prayer.
+
+He even hesitated a moment at the last.  It was in his mind to speak
+some word of comfort to the doomed man.  Then a sudden volley, more
+terrific than any that had preceded it, followed by hoarse cheering
+away to eastward, quickened his impatience.  He bade the sergeant
+lead Mr. Wilding forward and stand him on the edge of the ditch.  His
+object was that thus the man's body would be disposed of without waste
+of time.  This Wilding realized, his soul rebelling against this fate
+which had come upon him in the very hour when he most desired to live.
+Mad thoughts of escape crossed his mind - of a leap across the dyke,
+and a wild dash through the fog.  But the futility of it was too
+appalling.  The musketeers were already blowing their matches.  He would
+suffer the ignominy of being shot in the back, like a coward, if he
+made any such attempt.
+
+And so, despairing but not resigned, he took his stand on the very edge
+of the ditch.  In an irony of obligingness he set half of his heels over
+the yoid, so that he was nicely balanced upon the edge of the cutting,
+and must go backwards and down into the mud when hit.
+
+It was this position he had taken that gave him an inspiration in that
+last moment.  The sergeant had moved away out of the line of fire, and
+he stood there alone, waiting, erect and with his head held high, his
+eyes upon the grey mass of musketeers - blurred alike by mist and
+semi-darkness - some twenty paces distant along the line of which glowed
+eight red fuses.
+
+Wentworth's voice rang out with the words of command.
+
+"Blow your matches!"
+
+Brighter gleamed the points of light, and under their steel pots the
+faces of the musketeers, suffused by a dull red glow, sprang for a
+moment out of the grey mass, to fade once more into the general
+greyness at the word, "Cock your matches!"
+
+"Guard your pans!" came a second later the captain's voice, and then:
+
+"Present!"
+
+There was a stir and rattle, and the dark, indistinct figure standing
+on the lip of the ditch was covered by the eight muskets.  To the eyes
+of the firing-party he was no more than a blurred shadowy form, showing
+a little darker than the encompassing dark grey.
+
+"Give fire!"
+
+On the word Mr. Wilding lost the delicate, precarious balance he had
+been sustaining on the edge of the ditch, and went over backwards, at
+the imminent risk - as he afterwards related - of breaking his neck.
+At the same instant a jagged, eight-pointed line of flame slashed the
+darkness, and the thunder of the volley pealed forth to lose itself in
+the greater din of battle on Penzoy Pound, hard by.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+MR. WILDING'S BOOTS
+
+
+In the filth of the ditch, Mr. Wilding rolled over and lay prone.  He
+threw out his left arm, and rested his brow upon it to keep his face
+above the mud.  He strove to hold his breath, not that he might
+dissemble death, but that he might avoid being poisoned by the foul
+gases that, disturbed by his weight, bubbled up to choke him.  His body
+half sank and settled in the mud, and seen from above, as he was
+presently seen by Wentworth - who ran forward with the sergeant's
+lanthorn to assure himself that the work had been well done - he had all
+the air of being not only dead but already half buried.
+
+And now, for a second, Mr. Wilding was in his greatest danger, and this
+from the very humaneness of the sergeant.  The fellow advanced to the
+captain's side, a pistol in his hand.  Wentworth held the light aloft
+and peered down into that six feet of blackness at the jacent figure.
+
+"Shall I give him an ounce of lead to make sure, Captain?" quoth the
+sergeant.  But Wentworth, in his great haste, had already turned about,
+and the light of his lanthorn no longer revealed the form of Mr. Wilding.
+
+"There is not the need.  The ditch will do what may remain to be done,
+if anything does.  Come on, man.  We are wanted yonder."
+
+The light passed, steps retreated, the sergeant muttering, and then
+Wentworth's voice was heard by Wilding some little distance off.
+
+"Bring up your muskets!"
+
+"Shoulder!"
+
+"By the right - turn! March!" And the tramp, tramp of feet receded
+rapidly.
+
+Wilding was already sitting up, endeavouring to get a breath of purer
+air.  He rose to his feet, sinking almost to the top of his boots in
+the oozy slime.  Foul gases were belched up to envelop him.  He seized
+at irregularities in the bank, and got his head above the level of the
+ground.  He thrust forward his chin and took great greedy breaths in a
+very gluttony of air - and never came Muscadine sweeter to a drunkard's
+lips.  He laughed softly to himself.  He was alone and safe.  Wentworth
+and his men had disappeared.  Away in the direction of Penzoy Pound the
+sounds of battle swelled ever to a greater volume.  Cannons were booming
+now, and all was uproar - flame and shouting, cheering and shrieking,
+the thunder of hastening multitudes, the clash of steel, the pounding of
+horses, all blent to make up the horrid din of carnage.
+
+Mr. Wilding listened, and considered what to do.  His first impulse was
+to join the fray.  But, bethinking him that there could be little place
+for him in the confusion that must prevail by now, he reconsidered the
+matter, and his thoughts returning to Ruth - the wife for whom he had
+been at such pains to preserve himself on the very brink of death - he
+resolved to endanger himself no further for that night.
+
+He dropped back into the ditch, and waded, ankle deep in slime, to the
+other side.  There he crawled out, and gaining the moor lay down awhile
+to breathe his lungs.  But not for long.  The dawn was creeping pale
+and ghostly across the solid earth, and a faint fresh breeze was
+stirring and driving the mist in wispy shrouds before it.  If he
+lingered there he might yet be found by some party of Royalist soldiers,
+and that would be to undo all that he had done.  He rose, and struck
+out across the peaty ground.  None knew the moors better than did he,
+and had he been with Grey's horse that night, it is possible things had
+fared differently, for he had proved a surer guide than did Godfrey,
+the spy.
+
+At first he thought of making for Bridgwater and Lupton House.  By now
+Richard would be on his way thither with Ruth, and Wilding was in haste
+that she should be reassured that he had not fallen to the muskets of
+Wentworth's firing-party.  But Bridgwater was far, and he began to
+realize, now that all excitement was past, that he was utterly exhausted.
+Next he thought of Scoresby Hall and his cousin Lord Gervase.  But he
+was by no means sure that he might count upon a welcome.  Gervase had
+shown no sympathy for Monmouth or his partisans, and whilst he would
+hardly go so far as to refuse Mr. Wilding shelter, still Wilding felt
+an aversion to seeking what might be grudged him.  At last he bethought
+him of home.  Zoyland Chase was near at hand; but he had not been there
+since his wedding-day, and in the mean time he knew that it had been
+used as a barrack for the militia, and had no doubt that it had been
+wrecked and plundered.  Still, it must have walls and a roof, and that,
+for the time, was all he craved, that he might rest awhile and
+recuperate his wasted forces.
+
+A half-hour later he dragged himself wearily up the avenue between the
+elms - looking white as snow in the pale July dawn - to the clearing in
+front of his house.
+
+Desertion was stamped upon the face of it. Shattered windows and
+hanging shutters everywhere.  How wantonly they had wrecked it!  It
+might have been a church, and the militia a regiment of Cromwell's
+iconoclastic Puritans.  The door was locked, but going round he found
+a window - one of the door - windows of his library hanging loose upon
+its hinges.  He pushed it wide, and entered with a heavy heart.
+Instantly something stirred in a corner; a fierce growl was followed by
+a furious bark, and a lithe brown body leapt from the greater into the
+lesser shadows to attack the intruder.  But at one word of his the hound
+checked suddenly, crouched an instant, then with a queer, throaty sound
+bounded forward in a wild delight that robbed it on the instant of its
+voice.  It found it anon and leapt about him, barking furious joy in
+spite of all his vain endeavours to calm it.  He grew afraid lest the
+dog should draw attention.  He knew not who - if any - might be in
+possession of his house.  The library, as he looked round, showed a
+scene of wreckage that excellently matched the exterior.  Not a picture
+on the walls, not an arras, but had been rent to shreds.  The great
+lustre that had hung from the centre of the ceiling was gone.  Disorder
+reigned along the bookshelves, and yet there and elsewhere there was a
+certain orderliness, suggesting an attempt to straighten up the place
+after the ravagers had departed.  It was these signs made him afraid
+the house might be tenanted by such as might prove his enemies.
+
+"Down, Jack," he said to the dog for the twentieth time, patting its
+sleek head.  "Down, down!"
+
+But still the dog bounded about him, barking wildly.
+
+"Sh!" he hissed suddenly.  Steps sounded in the hall.  It was as he
+feared.  The door was suddenly thrown open, and the grey morning light
+gleamed upon the long barrel of a musket.  After it, bearing it, entered
+a white-haired old man.
+
+He paused on the threshold, measuring the tall disordered stranger who
+stood there, his figure a black silhouette against the window by which
+he had entered.
+
+"What seek you here, sir, in this house of desolation?"  asked the voice
+of Mr. Wilding's old servant.
+
+He answered but one word. "Walters!"
+
+The musket dropped with a clatter from the old man's hands.  He sank
+back against the doorpost and leaned there an instant; then, whimpering
+and laughing, he came tottering forward - his old legs failing him in
+this excess of unexpected joy - and sank on his knees to kiss his
+master's hand.
+
+Wilding patted the old head, as he had patted the dog's a little
+while ago.  He was oddly moved; there was a knot in his throat.  No
+home-coming could well have been more desolate.  And yet, what
+home-coming could have brought him such a torturing joy as was now
+his?  Oh, it is good to be loved, if it be by no more than a dog and
+an old servant!
+
+In a moment Walters was himself again.  He was on his feet, scrutinizing
+Wilding's haggard face and disordered, filthy clothes.  He broke into
+exclamations between dismay and reproach, but these Wilding interrupted
+to ask the old man how it happened that he had remained.
+
+"My son John was a sergeant in the troop that quartered itself here,
+sir," Walters explained, "and so they left me alone.  But even had it
+not been for that, I scarcely think they would have harmed an old man.
+They were brave fellows for all the mischief they did here, and they
+seemed to have little heart in the service of the Popish King.  It was
+the officers drove them on to all this damage, and once they'd started
+- well, there were rogues amongst them saw a chance of plunder, and they
+took it.  I have sought to put the place to rights; but they did some
+woeful, wanton mischief."
+
+Wilding sighed. "It's little matter, perhaps, as the place is no longer
+mine.
+
+"No... no longer yours, sir?"
+
+"I'm an attainted outlaw, Walters," he explained.  "They'll bestow it
+on some Popish time-server, unless King Monmouth can follow up by
+greater victories  to-night's.  Have you aught a man may eat or drink?"
+
+Meat and wine, fresh linen and fresh garments did old Walters find him;
+and when he had washed, eaten, and drunk, Mr. Wilding wrapped himself in
+a dressing-gown and laid himself down to sleep on a settle in the
+library, his servant and his dog on guard.
+
+Not above an hour, however, was he destined to enjoy his hard-earned
+rest.  The light had grown, meanwhile, and from grey it had turned
+golden, the heralds of the sun being already in the east.  In the
+distance the firing had died down to a mere occasional boom.
+
+Suddenly old Walters raised his head to listen.  The beat of hoofs was
+drawing rapidly near, so near that presently he rose in alarm, for a
+horseman was pounding up the avenue, had drawn rein at the main entrance.
+
+Walters knit his brows in perplexity, and glanced at his master who
+slept on utterly worn out.  A silent pause followed, lasting some
+minutes.  Then it was the dog that rose with a growl, his coat bristling,
+and an instant later there came a sharp rapping at the hall door.
+
+"Sh! Down, Jack!" whispered Walters, afraid of rousing Mr. Wilding.  He
+tiptoed softly across the room, picked up his musket, and, calling the
+dog, went out, a great fear in his heart, but not for himself.
+
+The rapping continued, growing every instant more urgent, so urgent
+that Walters was almost reassured.  Here was no enemy, but surely some
+one in need.  Walters opened at last, and Mr. Trenchard, grimy of face
+and hands, his hat shorn of its plumes, his clothes torn, staggered
+with an oath across the threshold.
+
+"Walters!" he cried.  "Thank God!  I thought you'd be here, but I wasn't
+certain.  Down, Jack!"
+
+The hound was barking madly again, having recognized an old friend.
+
+"Plague on the dog!" growled Walters.  "He'll wake Mr. Wilding."
+
+"Mr. Wilding?" said Trenchard, and checked midway across the hall.  "Mr.
+Wilding?"
+
+"He arrived here a couple of hours ago, sir..."
+
+"Wilding here?  Oddsheart!  I was more than well advised to come.  Where
+is he, man?"
+
+"Sh, sir!  He's asleep in the library.  You'll wake him, you'll wake
+him!"
+
+But Trenchard never paused.  He crossed the hall at a bound, and flung
+wide the library door.  "Anthony!"  he shouted.  "Anthony!"  And in the
+background Walters cursed him for a fool.  Wilding leapt to his feet,
+awake and startled.
+
+"Wha... Nick!"
+
+"Oons!" roared Nick.  "You're choicely found.  I came to send to
+Bridgwater for you.  We must away at once, man."
+
+"How - away? I thought you were in the fight, Nick."
+
+"And don't I look as if I had been?"
+
+"But then..
+
+"The fight is fought and lost; there's an end to the garboil.  Monmouth
+is in full flight with what's left him of his horse.  When I quitted the
+field, he was riding hard for Polden Hill."  He dropped into a chair,
+his accents grim and despairing, his eyes haggard.
+
+"Lost?" gasped Wilding, and his conscience pricked him for a moment,
+remembering how much it had been his fault - however indirectly - that
+Feversham had been forewarned.  "But how lost?" he cried a moment later.
+
+"Ask Grey," snapped Trenchard.  "Ask his craven, numskulled lordship.
+He had as good a hand in losing it as any.  Oh, it was all most
+infernally mishandled, as has been everything in this ill-starred rising.
+Grey sent back Godfrey, the guide, and attempted in the dark to find his
+own way across the rhine.  He missed the ford.  What else could the fool
+have hoped?  And when he was discovered and Dunbarton's guns began to
+play on us - hell and fire! we ran as if Sedgemoor had been a race-course.
+
+"The rest was but the natural sequel.  The foot, seeing our confusion,
+broke.  They were rallied again; broke again; and again were rallied;
+but all too late.  The enemy was up, and with that damned ditch between
+us there was no getting to close quarters with them.  Had Grey ridden
+round, and sought to turn their flank, things might have been - O God! -
+they would have been entirely different.  I did suggest it.  But for
+my pains Grey threatened to pistol me if I presumed to instruct him in
+his duty.  I would to Heaven I had pistolled him where he stood."
+
+Walters, at gaze in the doorway, listened to the bitter tirade.  Wilding,
+on the settle, sat silent a moment, his elbows on his knees, his chin
+in his hands, his eyes set and grim as Trenchard's own.  Then he
+mastered himself, and waved a hand towards the table where stood food
+and wine.
+
+"Eat and drink, Nick," he said, "and we'll discuss what's to be done."
+
+"It'll need little discussing," was Nick's savage answer as he rose and
+went to pour himself a cup of wine.  "There's but one course open to us
+ - instant flight.  I am for Minehead to join Hewling's horse, which
+went there yesterday for guns.  We might seize a ship somewhere on the
+coast, and thus get out of this infernal country of mine."
+
+They discussed the matter in spite of Trenchard's having said that
+there was nothing to discuss, and in the end Wilding agreed to go with
+him.  What choice had he?  But first he must go to Bridgwater to
+reassure  his wife.
+
+"To Bridgwater?" blazed Trenchard, in a passion at the folly of the
+suggestion.  "You're clearly mad!  All the King's forces will be there
+in an hour or two."
+
+"No matter," said Wilding, "I must go.  I am dead already, as it
+happens."  And he related his singular adventure in Feversham's camp
+last night.
+
+Trenchard heard him in amazement.  If any suspicion crossed his mind
+that his friend's love affairs had had anything to do with rousing
+Feversham prematurely, he showed no sign of it.  But he shook his head
+at Wilding's insistence that he must first go to Lupton House.
+
+"Shalt send a message, Anthony.  Walters will find some one to bear it.
+But you must not go yourself."
+
+In the end Mr. Trenchard prevailed upon him to adopt this course,
+however reluctant he might be.  Thereafter they proceeded to make their
+preparations.  There were still a couple of nags in the stables,
+in spite of the visitation of the militia, and Walters was able to find
+fresh clothes for Mr. Trenchard above-stairs.
+
+A half-hour later they were ready to set out on this forlorn hope of
+escape; the horses were at the door, and Mr. Wilding was in the act of
+drawing on the fresh pair of boots which Walters had fetched him.
+Suddenly he paused, his foot in the leg of his right boot, and sat
+bemused a moment.
+
+
+Trenchard, watching him, waxed impatient.  "What ails you now?" he
+croaked.
+
+Without answering him, Wilding turned to Walters. "Where are the boots
+I wore last night?" he asked, and his voice was sharp - oddly sharp,
+considering how trivial the matter of his speech.
+
+"In the kitchen," answered Walters.
+
+"Fetch me them." And he kicked off again the boot he had half drawn on.
+
+"But they are all befouled with mud, sir."
+
+"Clean them, Walters; clean them and let me have them."
+
+Still Walters hesitated, pointing out that the boots he had brought his
+master were newer and sounder.  Wilding interrupted him impatiently.
+"Do as I bid you, Walters." And the old man, understanding nothing, went
+off on the errand.
+
+"A pox on your boots!" swore Trenchard.  "What does this mean?"
+
+Wilding seemed suddenly to have undergone a transformation.  His gloom
+had fallen from him.  He looked up at his old friend and, smiling,
+answered him.  "It means, Nick, that whilst these excellent boots that
+Walters would have me wear might be well enough for a ride to the coast
+such as you propose, they are not at all suited to the journey I intend
+to make."
+
+"Maybe," said Nick with a sniff, "you're intending to journey to
+Tower Hill?"
+
+"In that direction," answered Mr. Wilding suavely.
+
+"I am for London, Nick.  And you shall come with me."
+
+"God save us!  Do you keep a fool's egg under that nest of hair?"
+
+Wilding explained, and by the time Walters returned with the boots
+Trenchard was walking up and down the room in an odd agitation.  "Odds
+my life, Tony!" he cried at last.  "I believe it is the best thing."
+
+"The only thing, Nick."
+
+"And since all is lost, why.. ." Trenchard blew out his cheeks and
+smacked fist into palm.  "I am with you," said he.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+JUSTICE
+
+
+It has fallen to my lot in the course of this veridical chronicle of Mr.
+Anthony Wilding's connection with the Rebellion in the West, and of his
+wedding and post-nuptial winning of Ruth Westmacott, to relate certain
+matters of incident and personality that may be accounted strange.  But
+the strangest yet remains to be related.  For in spite of all that had
+passed between Sir Rowland Blake and the Westmacotts on that memorable
+night of Sunday to Monday, on which the battle of Sedgemoor was lost and
+won, towards the end of that same month of July we find him not only
+back at Lupton House, but once again the avowed suitor of Mr. Wilding's
+widow.  For effrontery this is a matter of which it is to be doubted
+whether history furnishes a parallel.  Indeed, until the circumstances
+are sifted it seems wild and incredible.  So letus consider these.
+
+On the morrow of Sedgemoor, the town of Bridgwater became invested -
+infested were no whit too strong a word - by the King's forces under
+Feversham and the odious Kirke, and there began a reign of terror for
+the town.  The prisons were choked with attainted and suspected rebels.
+From Bridgwater to Weston Zoyland the road was become an avenue of
+gallows, each bearing its repulsive gemmace-laden burden; for the King's
+commands were unequivocal, and hanging was the order of the day.
+
+It is not my desire at this stage to surfeit you with the horrors that
+were perpetrated during that hideous week of July, when no man's life
+was safe from the royal butchers.  The awful campaign of Jeifreys and
+his four associates was yet to follow, but it is doubtful if it could
+compare in ruthlessness with that of Feversham and Kirke.  At least,
+when Jeifreys came, men were given a trial - or what looked like it -
+and there remained them a chance, however slender, of acquittal, as
+many lived to prove thereafter.  With Feversham there was no such
+chance.  And it was of this circumstance that Sir Rowland Blake took the
+fullest and the cowardliest advantage.
+
+There can be no doubt that Sir Rowland was a villain.  It might be urged
+for him that he was a creature of circumstance, and that had
+circumstances been other it is possible he had been a credit to his
+name.  But he was weak in character, and out of that weakness he had
+developed a Herculean strength in villainy.  Failure had dogged him in
+everything he undertook.  Broken at the gaming-tables, hounded out of
+town by creditors, he was in desperate straits to repair his fortunes
+and, as we have seen, he was not nice in his endeavours to achieve that
+end.
+
+Ruth Westmacott's fair inheritance had seemed an easy thing to conquer,
+and to its conquest he had applied himself to suffer defeat as he had
+suffered it in all things else.  But Sir Rowland did not yet acknowledge
+himself beaten, and the Bridgwater reign of terror dealt him a fresh
+hand - a hand of trumps.  With this he came boldly to renew the game.
+
+He was as smooth as oil at first, a very penitent, confessing himself
+mad in what he had done on that Sunday night - mad with despair and
+rage at having been defeated in the noble task to which he had turned
+his hands.  His penitence might have had little effect upon the
+Westmacotts had he not known how to insinuate that it might be best
+for them to lend an ear to it - and a forgiving one.
+
+"You will tell Mr. Westmacott, Jasper," he had said, when Jasper told
+him that they could not receive him, "that he would be unwise not to
+see me, and the same to Mistress Wilding."
+
+And old Jasper had carried his message, and had told Richard of the
+wicked smile that had been on Sir Rowland's lips when he had uttered it.
+
+Now Richard was in many ways a changed man since that night at Weston
+Zoyland.  A transformation seemed to have been wrought in him as odd as
+it was sudden, and it dated from the moment when with tears in his eyes
+he had wrung Wilding's hand in farewell.  Where precept had failed,
+Richard found himself converted by example.  He contrasted himself in
+that stressful hour with great-souled Anthony Wilding, and saw himself
+as he was, a weakling, strong only in vicious ways.  Repentance claimed
+him; repentance and a fine ambition to be worthier, to resemble as
+nearly as his nature would allow him this Anthony Wilding whom he took
+for pattern.  He changed his ways, abandoned drink and gaming, and
+gained thereby a healthier countenance.  Then in his zeal he overshot
+his mark.  He developed a taste for Scripture-reading, bethought him of
+prayers, and even took to saying grace to his meat.  Indeed - for
+conversion, when it comes, is a furious thing - the swing of his soul's
+pendulum threatened now to carry him to extremes of virtue and piety.
+"O Lord!" he would cry a score of times a day, "Thou hast brought up my
+soul from the grave; Thou hast kept me alive that I should not go down
+to the pit!"
+
+But underlying all this remained unfortunately the inherent weakness of
+his nature - indeed, it was that very weakness and malleability made
+this sudden and wholesale conversion possible.
+
+Upon hearing Sir Rowland's message his heart fainted, despite his good
+intentions, and he urged that perhaps they had better hear what the
+baronet might have to say.
+
+It was three days after Sedgemoor Fight, and poor Ruth was worn and
+exhausted with her grief- believing Wilding dead, for he had sent no
+message to inform her of his almost miraculous preservation.  The
+thing he went to do in London was fraught with such peril that he
+foresaw but the slenderest chance of escaping with his life.  Therefore,
+he had argued, why console her now with news that he lived, when in a
+few days the headsman might prove that his end had been but postponed?
+To do so might be to give her cause to mourn him twice.  Again he was
+haunted by the thought that, in spite of all, it may have been pity
+that had so grievously moved her at their last meeting. Better, then,
+to wait; better for both their sakes.  If he came safely through his
+ordeal it would be time enough to bear her news of his preservation.
+
+In deepest mourning, very white, with dark stains beneath her eyes
+to tell the tale of anguished vigils, she received Sir Rowland in the
+withdrawing-room, her brother at her side.  To his expressions of deep
+penitence he found them cold; so he passed on to show them what
+disastrous results might ensue upon a stubborn maintaining of this
+attitude of theirs towards him.
+
+"I have come," he said, his eyes downcast, his face long-drawn, for he
+could play the sorrowful with any hypocrite in England, "to do something
+more than speak of my grief and regret.  I have come to offer proof of
+it by service.
+
+"We ask no service of you, sir," said Ruth, her voice a sword of
+sharpness.
+
+He sighed, and turned to Richard.  "This were folly," he assured his
+whilom friend.  "You know the influence I wield."
+
+"Do I?" quoth Richard, his tone implying doubt.  "You think that the
+bungled matter at Newlington's may have shaken it?" quoth Blake.  "With
+Feversham, perhaps.  But Albemarle, remember, trusts me very fully.
+There are ugly happenings in the town here.  Men are being hung like
+linen on a washing-day.  Be not too sure that yourself are free from
+all danger." Richard paled under the baronet's baleful, half-sneering
+glance.  "Be not in too great haste to cast me aside, for you may find
+me useful."
+
+"Do you threaten, sir?" cried Ruth.
+
+"Threaten?" quoth he.  He turned up his eyes and showed the whites of
+them.  "Is it to threaten to promise you my protection; to show you
+how I can serve you? - than which I ask no sweeter boon of heaven.
+A word from me, and Richard need fear nothing."
+
+"He need fear nothing without that word," said Ruth disdainfully.  "Such
+service as he did Lord Feversham the other night..."
+
+"Is soon forgotten," Blake cut in adroitly.  "Indeed, `twill be most
+convenient to his lordship to forget it.  Think you he would care to
+have it known that `twas to such a chance he owes the preservation of
+his army?"  He laughed, and added in a voice of much sly meaning,
+"The times are full of peril.  There's Kirke and his lambs.  And there's
+no saying how Kirke might act did he chance to learn what Richard failed
+to do that night when he was left to guard the rear at Newlington's!"
+
+"Would you inform him of it?" cried Richard, between anger and alarm.
+
+Blake thrust out his hands in a gesture of horrified repudiation.
+"Richard!" he cried in deep reproof and again, "Richard!"
+
+"What other tongue has he to fear?" asked Ruth.  "Am I the only one who
+knows of it?" cried Blake.  "Oh, madam, why will you ever do me such
+injustice?  Richard has been my friend - my dearest friend.  I wish him
+so to continue, and I swear that he shall find me his, as you shall
+find me yours.
+
+"It is a boon I could dispense with," she assured him, and rose.  "This
+talk can profit little, Sir Rowland," said she.  "You seek to bargain."
+
+"You shall see how unjust you are," he cried with deep sorrow.  "It is
+but fitting, perhaps, after what has passed.  It is my punishment.  But
+you shall come to acknowledge that you have done me wrong.  You shall
+see how I shall befriend and protect him."
+
+That said, he took his leave and went, but he left behind him a shrewd
+seed of fear in Richard's mind, and of the growth that sprang from it
+Richard almost unconsciously transplanted something in the days that
+followed into the heart of Ruth.  As a result, to make sure that no
+harm should come to her brother, the last of his name and race, she
+resolved to receive Sir Rowland, resolved in spite of Diana's outspoken
+scorn, in spite of Richard's protests - for though afraid, yet he would
+not have it so - in spite even of her own deep repugnance of the man.
+
+Days passed and grew to weeks.  Bridgwater was settling down to peace
+again - to peace and mourning; the Royalist scourge had spread to
+Taunton, and Blake lingered on at Lupton House, an unwelcome but an
+undeniable guest.
+
+His presence was as detestable to Richard now as it was to Ruth, for
+Richard had to submit to the mockery with which the town rake lashed
+his godly bearing and altered ways.  More than once in gusts of sudden
+valour the boy urged his sister to permit him to drive the baronet
+from the house and let him do his worst.  But Ruth, afraid for Richard,
+bade him wait until the times were more settled.  When the royal
+vengeance had slaked its lust for blood it might matter little, perhaps,
+what tales Sir Rowland might elect to carry.
+
+And so Sir Rowland remained and waited.  He assured himself that he knew
+how to be patient, and congratulated himself upon that circumstance.
+Wilding dead, a little time must now suffice to blunt the sharp edge of
+his widow's grief; let him but await that time, and the rest should be
+easy, the battle his.  With Richard he did not so much as trouble
+himself to reckon.
+
+Thus he determined, and thus no doubt he would have acted but for an
+unforeseen contingency.  A miserable, paltry creditor had smoked him out
+in his Somerset retreat, and got a letter to him full of dark hints of
+a debtor's gaol.  The fellow's name was Swiney, and Sir Rowland knew him
+for fierce and pertinacious where a defaulting creditor was concerned.
+One only course remained him: to force matters with Wilding's widow.
+For days he refrained, fearing that precipitancy might lose him all; it
+was his wish to do the thing without too much coercion; some, he was
+not coxcomb enough to think - coxcomb though he was - might be dispensed
+with.
+
+At last one Sunday evening he decided to be done with dallying, and to
+bring Ruth between the hammer and the anvil of his will.  It was the
+last Sunday in July, exactly three weeks after Sedgemoor, and the odd
+coincidence of his having chosen such a day and hour you shall
+appreciate anon.
+
+They were on the lawn taking the cool of the evening after an
+oppressively hot day.  By the stone seat, now occupied by Lady Horton
+and Diana, Richard lay on the sward at their feet in talk with them,
+and their talk was of Sir Rowland.  Diana - gall in her soul to see
+the baronet by way of gaining yet his ends - chid Richard in strong
+terms for his weakness in submitting to Blake's constant presence at
+Lupton House.  And Richard meekly took her chiding and promised that,
+if Ruth would but sanction it, things should be changed upon the morrow.
+
+Sir Rowland, all unconscious - reckless, indeed - of this, sauntered
+with Ruth some little distance from them, having contrived adroitly
+to draw her aside.  He broke a spell of silence with a dolorous sigh.
+
+"Ruth," said he pensively, "I mind me of the last evening on which you
+and I walked here alone."
+
+She flashed him a glance of fear and aversion, and stood still.  Under
+his brow he watched the quick heave of her bosom, the sudden flow and
+abiding ebb of blood in her face - grown now so thin and wistful - and
+he realized that before him lay no easy task.  He set his teeth for
+battle.
+
+"Will you never have a kindness for me, Ruth?" he sighed.
+
+She turned about, her intent to join the others, a dull anger in her
+soul.  He sat a hand upon her arm.  "Wait!" said he, and the tone in
+which he uttered that one word kept her beside him.  His manner changed
+a little.  "I am tired of this," said he.
+
+"Why, so am I," she answered bitterly.
+
+"Since we are agreed so far, let us agree to end it."
+
+"It is all I ask."
+
+"Yes, but - alas! - in a different way.  Listen now."
+
+"I will not listen. Let me go.
+
+"I were your enemy did I do so, for you would know hereafter a sorrow
+and repentance for which nothing short of death could offer you escape.
+Richard is under suspicion."
+
+"Do you hark back to that?"  The scorn of her voice was deadly.  Had it
+been herself he desired, surely that tone had quenched all passion in
+him, or else transformed it into hatred.  But Blake was playing for a
+fortune, for shelter from a debtor's prison.
+
+"It has become known," he continued, "that Richard was one of the early
+plotters who paved the way for Monmouth's coming.  I think that that, in
+conjunction with his betrayal of his trust that night at Newlington's,
+thereby causing the death of some twenty gallant fellows of King
+James's, will be enough to hang him."
+
+Her hand clutched at her heart.  "What is't you seek?" she cried.  It
+was almost a moan.  "What is't you want of me?"
+
+"Yourself," said he.  "I love you, Ruth," he added, and stepped close
+up to her.
+
+"O God!" she cried aloud.  "Had I a man at hand to kill you for that
+insult!"
+
+And then - miracle of miracles! - a voice from the shrubs by which they
+stood bore to her ears the startling words that told her her prayer was
+answered there and then.
+
+"Madam, that man is here."
+
+She stood frozen.  Not more of a statue was Lot's wife in the moment of
+looking behind her than she who dared not look behind.  That voice!  A
+voice from the dead, a voice she had heard for the last time in the
+cottage that was Feversham's lodging at Weston Zoyland.  Her wild eyes
+fell upon Sir Rowland's face.  It showed livid; the nether-lip sucked in
+and caught in the strong teeth, as if to prevent an outcry; the eyes
+wild with fright.  What did it mean?  By an effort she wrenched herself
+round at last, and a scream broke from her to rouse her aunt, her cousin,
+and her brother, and bring them hastening towards her across the sweep
+of lawn.
+
+Before her, on the edge of the shrubbery, a grey figure stood erect
+and graceful, and the face, with its thin lips faintly smiling, its dark
+eyes gleaming, was the face of Anthony Wilding.  And as she stared he
+moved forward, and she heard the fall of his foot upon the turf, the
+clink of his spurs, the swish of his scabbard against the shrubs, and
+reason told her that this was no ghost.
+
+She held out her arms to him.  "Anthony!  Anthony!"  She staggered
+forward, and he was no more than in time to catch her as she swayed.
+
+He held her fast against him and kissed her brow.  "Sweet," he said,
+"forgive me that I frightened you.  I came by the orchard gate, and my
+coming was so timely that I could not hold in my answer to your cry."
+
+Her eyelids fluttered, she drew a long sighing breath, and nestled
+closer to him.  "Anthony!" she murmured again, and reached up a hand
+to stroke his face, to feel that it was truly living flesh.
+
+And Sir Rowland, realizing, too, by now that here was no ghost,
+recovered his lost courage.  He put a hand to his sword, then withdrew
+it, leaving the weapon sheathed.  Here was a hangman's job, not a
+swordsman's, he opined - and wisely, for he had had earlier experience
+of Mr. Wilding's play of steel.
+
+He advanced a step.  "O fool!" he snarled.  "The hangman waits for you."
+
+"And a creditor for you, Sir Rowland," came the voice of Mr. Trenchard,
+who now pushed forward through those same shrubs that had masked his
+friend's approach.  "A Mr. Swiney.  `Twas I sent him from town.  He's
+lodged at the Bull, and bellows like one when he speaks of what you owe
+him.  There are three messengers with him, and they tell of a debtor's
+gaol for you, sweetheart."
+
+A spasm of fury crossed the face of Blake.  "They may have me, and
+welcome, when I've told my tale," said he.  "Let me but tell of Anthony
+Wilding's lurking here, and not only Anthony Wilding, but all the rest
+of you are doomed for harbouring him.  You know the law, I think," he
+mocked them, for Lady Horton, Diana, and Richard, who had come up, stood
+now a pace or so away in deepest wonder.  "You shall know it better
+before the night is out, and better still before next Sunday's come."
+
+"Tush!" said Trenchard, and quoted, "`There's none but Anthony may
+conquer Anthony.'"
+
+"`Tis clear," said Wilding, "you take me for a rebel.  An odd mistake!
+For it chances, Sir Rowland, that you behold in me an accredited servant
+of the Secretary of State."
+
+Blake stared, then fell a prey to ironic laughter.  He would have spoken,
+but Mr. Wilding plucked a paper from his pocket, and handed it to
+Trenchard.
+
+"Show it him," said he, and Blake's face grew white again as he read the
+lines above Sunderland's signature and observed the seals of office.  He
+looked from the paper to the hated smiling face of Mr. Wilding.
+
+"You were a spy?" he said, his tone making a question of the odious
+statement.  "A dirty spy?"
+
+"Your incredulity is flattering, at least," said Wilding pleasantly as
+he repocketed the parchment, "and it leads you in the right direction.
+I neither was nor am a spy."
+
+"That paper proves it!" cried Blake contemptuously.  Having been a spy
+himself,' he was a good judge of the vileness of the office.
+
+"See to my wife, Nick," said Wilding sharply, and made as if to transfer
+her to the care of his friend.
+
+"Nay," said Trenchard, "`tis your own duty that. Let me discharge the
+other for you."  And he stepped up to Blake and tapped him briskly on
+the shoulder.  "Sir Rowland," said he, "you're a knave."  Sir Rowland
+stared at him.  "You're a foul thing - a muckworm - Sir Rowland," added
+Trenchard amiably, "and you've been discourteous to a lady, for which
+may Heaven forgive you - I can't."
+
+"Stand aside," Blake bade him, hoarse with passion, blind to all risks.
+"My affair is with Mr. Wilding."
+
+"Aye," said Trenchard, "but mine is with you. If you survive it, you can
+settle what other affairs you please - including, belike, your business
+with Mr. Swiney."
+
+"Not so, Nick," said Wilding suddenly, and turned to Richard.  "Here,
+Richard!  Take her," he bade his brother-in-law.
+
+"Anthony, you damned shirk-duty, see to your wife.  Leave me to my own
+diversions.  Sir Rowland," he reminded the baronet, "I have called you
+a knave and a foul thing, and faith! if you want it proven, you need
+but step down the orchard with me."
+
+He saw hesitation lingering in Sir Rowland's face, and he uncurled the
+last of the whip he carried.  "I'd grieve to do a violent thing before
+the ladies," he murmured deprecatingly.  "I'd never respect myself
+again if I had to drive a gentleman of your quality to the ground of
+honour with a horsewhip.  But, as God's my life, if you don't go
+willingly this instant, `tis what will happen."
+
+Richard's newborn righteousness prompted him to interfere, to seek to
+avert this threatened bloodshed; his humanity urged him to let matters
+be, and his humanity prevailed.  Diana watched this foreshadowing of
+tragedy with tight lips, pale cheeks.  Justice was to be done at last,
+it seemed, and as her frightened eye fell upon Sir Rowland she knew
+not whether to exult or weep.  Her mother - understanding nothing -
+plied her meanwhile with whispered questions.
+
+As for Sir Rowland, he looked into the old rake's eyes agleam with
+wicked mirth, and rage welled up to choke him.  He must kill this man.
+
+"Come," said he.  "I'll see to your fine friend Wilding afterwards."
+
+"Excellent," said Trenchard, and led the way through the shrubbery to
+the orchard.
+
+Ruth, reviving, looked up.  Her glance met Mr. Wilding's; it quickened
+into understanding, and she stirred.  "Is it true? Is it really true?"
+she cried. "I am being tortured by this dream again!"
+
+"Nay, sweet, it is true; it is true.  I am here.  Say, shall I stay?"
+
+She clung to him for answer.  "And you are in no danger?"
+
+"In none, sweet.  I am Mr. Wilding of Zoyland Chase, free to come and go
+as best shall seem to me.  He begged the others to leave them a little
+while, and he led her to the stone seat by the river.  He set her at his
+side there and told her the story of his escape from the firing-party,
+and of the inspiration that had come to him on the morrow to make use
+of the letter in his boot which Sunderland had given him for Monmouth
+in the hour of panic.  Monmouth's cavalier treatment of him when he had
+arrived in Bridgwater had precluded his delivering that letter at the
+council.  There was never another opportunity, nor did he again think
+of the package in the stressful hours that followed.  It was not until
+the following morning that he suddenly remembered it lay undelivered,
+and bethought him that it might prove a weapon to win him delivery from
+the dangers that encompassed him.
+
+"It was a slender chance," he told her, "but I employed it.  I waited in
+London, in hiding, close upon a fortnight ere I had an opportunity of
+seeing Sunderland.  He laughed me to scorn at first, and threatened me
+with the Tower.  But I told him the letter was in safe hands and would
+remain there in earnest of his good behaviour, and that did he have me
+arrested it would instantly be laid before the King and bring his own
+head to the block more surely even than my own.  It frightened him; but
+it had scarcely done so, sweet, had he known that that precious letter
+was still in my boot, for my boot was on my leg, and my leg was in the
+room with the rest of me.
+
+"He surrendered at last, and gave me papers proving that Trenchard and
+I - for I stipulated for old Nick's safety too - were His Majesty's
+accredited agents in the West.  I loathed the title. But . ." - he
+spread his hands and smiled - "it was that or widowing you."
+
+She took his face in her hands and stroked it fondly, and they sat
+thus until a dry cough behind them roused them from their joyous
+silence.  Mr. Trenchard was sauntering towards them, his left eye
+tucked farther under his hat than usual, his hands behind him.
+
+"`Tis a thirsty evening," he informed them.
+
+"Go, tell Richard so," said Wilding, who knew naught of Richard's
+altered ways.
+
+"I've thought of it; but haply he's sensitive on the score of drinking
+with me again.  He has done it twice to his undoing."
+
+"He'll do it a third time, no doubt," said Mr. Wilding curtly, and
+Trenchard, taking the hint, turned with a shrug, and went up the lawn
+towards the house.  He found Richard in the porch, where he had
+lingered fearfully, waiting for news.  At sight of Mr. Trenchard's grim,
+weather-beaten countenance he came forward suddenly.
+
+"How has it sped?" he asked, his lips twitching on the words.
+
+"Yonder they sit," said Trenchard, pointing down the lawn.
+
+"No, no. I mean... Sir Rowland."
+
+"Oh, Sir Rowland?" cried the old sinner, as though Sir Rowland were some
+matter long forgotten.  He sighed.  "Alas, poor Swiney!  I fear I've
+cheated him."
+
+"You mean?"
+
+"Art slow at inference, Dick. Sir Rowland has passed away in the odour
+of villainy."
+
+Richard clasped nervous hands together and raised his colourless eyes to
+heaven.
+
+"May the Lord have mercy on his soul!" said he.
+
+"May He, indeed!" said Trenchard, when he had recovered from his
+surprise.  "But," he added pessimistically, "I doubt the rogue's in
+hell."
+
+Richard's eyes kindled suddenly, and he quoted from the thirtieth Psalm,
+"'I will extol thee, O Lord; for Thou hast lifted me up, and hast not
+made my foes to rejoice over me.'"
+
+Dumbfounded, wondering, indeed, was  Westmacott's mind unhinged,
+Trenchard scanned him narrowly.  Richard caught the glance and
+misinterpreted it for one of reproof.  He bethought him that his joy was
+unrighteous.  He stifled it, and forced his lips to sigh "Poor Blake!"
+
+"Poor, indeed!" quoth Trenchard, and adapted a remembered line of his
+play-acting days to suit the case.  "The tears live in an onion that
+shall water his grave.  Though, perhaps, I am forgetting Swiney." Then,
+in a brisker tone, "Come, Richard.  What like is the muscadine you keep
+at Lupton House?"
+
+"I have abjured all wine," said Richard.
+
+"A plague you have!" quoth Trenchard, understanding less and less.
+"Have you turned Mussuman, perchance?"
+
+"No," answered Richard sternly; "Christian."
+
+Trenchard hesitated, rubbing his nose thoughtfully.  "Hum," said he at
+length.  "Peace be with you, then.  I'll leave you here to bay the moon
+to your heart's content.  Perhaps Jasper will know where to find me a
+brain-wash."  And with a final suspicious, wondering look at the whilom
+bibber, he passed into the house, much exercised on the score of the
+sanity of this family into which his friend Anthony had married.
+
+Outside, the twilight shadows were deepening.
+
+"Shall we home, sweet?" whispered Mr. Wilding.  The shadows befriended
+her, a veil for her sudden confusion.  She breathed something that
+seemed no more than a sigh, though more it seemed to Anthony Wilding.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg Etext of Mistress Wilding, by Rafael Sabatini
+
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