Mistress Wilding

Rafael Sabatini

Chapter 1 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 2 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 3 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 4 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 5 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 6 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 7 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 8 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 9 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.