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.
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.