Segrave, too, had been silent, of course. In his mind there was neither suspense nor calm. It was utter, dull and blank despair which assailed him, the ruin of his fondest hopes, an awful abyss of disgrace, of punishment, of death at best, which seemed to yawn before him from the other side of the baize-covered table.
Instinct—that ever-present instinct of self-control peculiar to the gently-bred race of mankind—caused him to make frantic efforts to keep himself and his nerves in check. He would—even at this moment of complete ruin—have given the last shreds of his worldly possessions to be able to steady the febrile movements of his hand.
The pack of cards was on the table, just as Endicott had put it down, after dealing, with the exception of the queen of hearts in front of Segrave and the lucky king of diamonds on which Lambert was still mechanically gazing.
He was undoubtedly moved by the desire to hide the trembling of his hands and the gathering tears in his eyes when he began idly to scatter the pack upon the table, spreading out the cards, fingering them one by one, setting his teeth the while lest that latent cry of misery should force its way across his lips.
Suddenly he paused in this idle fingering of the cards. His eyes which already were burning with hot tears, seemed to take on an almost savage glitter. A hoarse cry escaped his parched lips.
"In the name of Heaven, Master Segrave, what ails you?" cried Endicott with well-feigned concern.
Segrave's hand wandered mechanically to his own neck; he tugged at the fastening of his lace collar, as if, in truth, he were choking.
"The king. . . . The king of diamonds," he murmured in a hollow voice. "Two . . . two kings of diamonds. . . ."
He laughed, a long, harsh laugh, the laugh of a maniac, or of a man possessed, whilst one long thin finger pointed tremblingly to the card still held by Richard Lambert, and then to its counterpart in the midst of the scattered pack.
That laugh seemed to echo all round the room. Dames and cavaliers, players and idlers, looked up to see whence that weird sound had come. Instinctively the crowd drew nigh, dice and cards were pushed aside. Some strange drama was being enacted between two young men, more interesting even than the caprices of Fortune.
But already Endicott and also Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse had followed the beckonings of Segrave's feverish hand.
There could be no mistake in what they saw nor yet in the ominous consequences which it foretold. There was a king of diamonds in the scattered pack of cards upon the table, and yet the card which Lambert held, in consequence of which he had just won two hundred pounds, was also the king of diamonds.
"Two kings of diamonds . . . by all that's damnable!" quoth Lord Walterton, who had been the first to draw nigh.
"But in Heaven's name, what does it all mean?" exclaimed Lambert, gazing at the two cards, hearing the comments round him, yet utterly unable to understand.
Segrave jumped to his feet.
"It means, young man," he ejaculated in a wild state of frenzy, maddened by his losses, his former crime, his present ruin, "it means that you are a damned thief."
And with frantic, excited gesture he gathered up the cards and threw them violently into Richard Lambert's face.
A curious sound went round the room—a gasp, hardly a cry—and all those present held their breath, silent, appalled at the terrible tragedy expressed by these two young men standing face to face on the brink of a deathly and almost blasphemous conflict.
Mistress Endicott was the first to utter a cry.
"Silence! silence!" she shouted shrilly. "Master Segrave, I adjure you to be silent. . . . I'll not permit you to insult my guest."
Already Lambert had made a quick movement to throw himself on Segrave. The elemental instinct of self-defense, of avenging a terrible insult by physical violence, rose within him, whispering of strength and power, of the freedom, muscle-giving life of the country as against the enervating, weakening influence of the town.
He knew that in a hand-to-hand struggle with the feverish, emaciated townsman, he, the country-bred lad, the haunter of woods and cliffs, the dweller of the Thanet smithy, would be more than a match for his opponent. But even as his whole body stiffened for a spring, his muscles tightened and his fists clenched, a dozen restraining hands held him back from his purpose, whilst Mistress Endicott's shrill tones seemed to bring him back to the realities of his own peril.
"Mistress Endicott," he said, turning a proud, yet imploring look to the lady whose virtues had been so loudly proclaimed in his ears, "Madam, I appeal to you . . . I implore you to listen . . . a frightful insult which you have witnessed . . . an awful accusation on which I scarce can trust myself to dwell has been hurled at me. . . . I entreat you to allow me to challenge these two gentlemen to explain."
And he pointed both to Segrave and to Endicott, The former, after his mad outburst of ungovernable rage, had regained a certain measure of calm. He stood, facing Lambert, with arms folded across his chest, whilst a smile of insulting irony curled his thin lips.
Endicott's eyes seemed to be riveted on Lambert's breast.
At mention of his own name, he suddenly darted forward, and seemed to be plunging his hand—the hand which almost disappeared within the ample folds of the voluminous lace cuff—into the breast pocket of the young man's doublet.
His movements were so quick, so sure and so unexpected that no one—least of all Lambert—could possibly guess what was his purpose.
The next moment—less than a second later—he had again withdrawn his hand, but now everyone could see that he held a few cards in it. These he dropped with an exclamation of loathing and contempt upon the table, whilst those around, instinctively drew back a step or two as if fearful of coming in contact with something impure and terrible.
Endicott's movements, his quick gestures, well aided by the wide lace cuffs which fell over his hand, his exclamation of contempt, had all contributed to make it seem before the spectators as if he had found a few winning cards secreted inside the lining of Richard Lambert's doublet.
"Nay! young sir," he said with an evil sneer, "meseems that explanations had best come from you. Here," he added, pointing significantly at the cards which he had just dropped out of his own hand, "here is a vastly pleasing collection . . . aces and kings . . . passing serviceable in a quiet game of primero among friends."
Lambert had been momentarily dumfounded, for undoubtedly he had not perceived Endicott's treacherous movements, and had absolutely no idea whence had come those awful cards which somehow or other seemed to be convicting him of lying and cheating: so conscious was he of his own innocence, that never for a moment did the slightest fear cross his mind that he could not immediately make clear his own position, and proclaim his own integrity.
"This is an infamous plot," he said calmly, but very firmly. "Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse," he added, turning to face his employer, who still stood motionless and silent in the background, "in the name of Heaven I beg of you to explain to these gentlemen that you have known me from boyhood. Will you speak?" he added insistently, conscious of a strange tightening of his heartstrings as the man on whom he relied, remained impassive and made no movement to come to his help. "Will you tell them, I pray you, sir, that you know me to be a man of honor, incapable of such villainy as they suggest? . . . You know that I did not even wish to play . . ."
"That reluctance of yours, my good Lambert, seems to have been a pretty comedy forsooth," replied Sir Marmaduke lightly, "and you played to some purpose, meseems, when you once began. . . . Nay! I pray you," he added with unmitigated harshness, "do not drag me into your quarrels. . . . I cannot of a truth champion your virtue."
Lambert's cheeks became deathly pale. The first inkling of the deadly peril of his own situation had suddenly come to him with Sir Marmaduke's callous words. It seemed to him as if the very universe must stand still in the face of such treachery. The man whom he loved with all the fervor of a grateful nature, the man who knew him and whom he had wholly trusted, was proving his most bitter, most damning enemy.
After Sir Marmaduke's speech, his own employer's repudiation, he felt that all his chances of clearing his character before these sneering gentlemen had suddenly vanished.
"This is cruel, and infamous," he protested, conscious innocence within him still striving to fight a hard battle against overwhelming odds. "Gentlemen! . . . as I am a man of honor, I swear that I do not know what all this means!"
"It means, young man, that you are an accursed cheat . . . a thief . . . a liar!" shouted Segrave, whose last vestige of self-control suddenly vanished, whilst mad frenzy once more held him in its grip. "I swear by God that you shall pay me for this!"
He threw himself with all the strength of a raving maniac upon Lambert, who for the moment was taken unawares, and yielded to the suddenness of the onslaught. But it was indeed a conflict 'twixt town and country, the simple life against nightly dissipations, the forests and cliffs of Thanet against the enervating atmosphere of the city.
After that first onrush, Lambert, with marvelous agility and quick knowledge of a hand-to-hand fight, had shaken himself free of his opponent's trembling grasp. It was his turn now to have the upper hand, and in a trice he had, with a vigorous clutch, gripped his opponent by the throat.
In a sense, his calmness had not forsaken him, his mind was as quiet, as clear as heretofore; it was only his muscle—his bodily energy in the face of a violent and undeserved attack—which had ceased to be under his control.
"Man! man!" he murmured, gazing steadily into the eyes of his antagonist, "ye shall swallow those words—or by Heaven I will kill you!"
The tumult which ensued drowned everything save itself . . . everything, even the sound of that slow and measured tramp, tramp, tramp, which was wafted up from the street.
The women shouted, the men swore. Some ran like frightened sheep to the distant corners of the room, fearful lest they be embroiled in this unpleasant fracas . . . others crowded round Segrave and Lambert, trying to pacify them, to drag the strong youth away from his weaker opponent—almost his victim now.
Some were for forcibly separating them, others for allowing them to fight their own battles and loud-voiced arguments, subsidiary quarrels, mingled with the shrill cries of terror and caused a din which grew in deafening intensity, degenerating into a wild orgy as glasses were knocked off the tables, cards strewn about, candles sent flying and spluttering upon the ground.
And still that measured tramp down the street, growing louder, more distinct, a muffled "Halt!" the sound of arms, of men moving about beneath that yawning archway and along the dark and dismal passage with its hermetically closed front door.
Alone, Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse had taken no part in the confused turmoil which raged around the personalities of Segrave and Richard Lambert. From the moment that he had—with studied callousness—turned his back on his erstwhile protégé he had held aloof from the crowd which had congregated around the two young men.
He saw before him the complete success of his nefarious plan, which had originated in the active brain of Editha, but had been perfected in his own—of heaping dire and lasting disgrace on the man who had become troublesome and interfering of late, who was a serious danger to his more important schemes.
After the fracas of this night Richard Lambert forsooth could never show his face within two hundred miles of London, the ugly story of his having cheated at cards and been publicly branded as a liar and a thief by a party of gentlemen would of a surety penetrate even within the fastnesses of Thanet.
So far everything was for the best, nay, it might be better still, for Segrave enraged and maddened at his losses, might succeed in getting Lambert imprisoned for stealing, and cheating, even at the cost of his own condemnation to a fine for gambling.
The Endicotts had done their part well. The man especially, with his wide cuffs and his quick movements. No one there present could have the slightest doubt but that Lambert was guilty. Satisfied, therefore, that all had gone according to his own wishes, Sir Marmaduke withdrew from further conflict or argument with the unfortunate young man, whom he had so deliberately and so hopelessly ruined.
And because he thus kept aloof, his ears were not so completely filled with the din, nor his mind so wholly engrossed by the hand-to-hand struggle between the two young men, that he did not perceive that other sound, which, in spite of barred windows and drawn curtains, came up from the street below.
At first he had only listened carelessly to the measured tramp. But the cry of "Halt!" issuing from immediately beneath the windows caused his cheeks to blanch and his muscles to stiffen with a sudden sense of fear.
He cast a rapid glance all around. Segrave and Lambert—both flushed and panting—were forcibly held apart. Sir Marmaduke noted with a grim smile that the latter was obviously the center of a hostile group, whilst Segrave was surrounded by a knot of sympathizers who were striving outwardly to pacify him, whilst in reality urging him on through their unbridled vituperations directed against the other man.
The noise of arguments, of shrill voices, of admonitions and violent abuse had in no sense abated.
Over the sea of excited faces Sir Marmaduke caught the wide-open, terrified eyes of Editha de Chavasse.
She too, had heard.
He beckoned to her across the room with a slight gesture of the hand, and she obeyed the silent call as quickly as she dared, working her way round to him, without arousing the attention of the crowd.
"Do not lose your head," he whispered as soon as she was near him and seeing the wild terror expressed in every line of her face. "Slip into the next room . . . and leave the door ajar. . . . Do this as quietly as may be . . . now . . . at once . . . then wait there until I come."
Again she obeyed him silently and swiftly, for she knew what that cry of "Halt!" meant, uttered at the door of her house. She had heard it, even as Sir Marmaduke had done, and after it the peremptory knocks, the loud call, the word of command, followed by the sound of an awed and supplicating voice, entering a feeble protest.
She knew what all that meant, and she was afraid.
As soon as Sir Marmaduke saw that she had done just as he had ordered, he deliberately joined the noisy groups which were congregated around Segrave and Lambert.
He pushed his way forward and anon stood face to face with the young man on whom he had just wreaked such an irreparable wrong. Not a thought of compunction or remorse rose in his mind as he looked down at the handsome flushed face—quite calm and set outwardly in spite of the terrible agony raging within heart and mind.
"Lambert!" he said gruffly, "listen to me. . . . Your conduct hath been most unseemly. . . . Mistress Endicott has for my sake, already shown you much kindness and forbearance . . . Had she acted as she had the right to do, she would have had you kicked out of the house by her servants. . . . In your own interests now I should advise you to follow me quietly out of the house. . . ."
But this suggestion raised a hot protest on the part of all the spectators.
"He shall not go!" declared Segrave violently.
"Not without leaving behind him what he has deliberately stolen," commented Endicott, raising his oily voice above the din.
Lambert had waited patiently, whilst his employer spoke. The last remnant of that original sense of deference and of gratitude caused him to hold himself in check lest he should strike that treacherous coward in the face. Sir Marmaduke's callousness in the face of his peril and unmerited disgrace, had struck Lambert with an overwhelming feeling of disappointment and loneliness. But his cruel insults now quashed despair and roused dormant indignation to fever pitch. One look at Sir Marmaduke's sneering face had told him not only that he could expect no help from the man who—by all the laws of honor—should have stood by him in his helplessness, but that he was the fount and source, the instigator of the terrible wrong and injustice which was about to land an innocent man in the veriest abyss of humiliation and irretrievable disgrace.
"And so this was your doing, Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse," he said, looking his triumphant enemy boldly in the face, even whilst compelling silent attention from those who were heaping opprobrious epithets upon him. "You enticed me here. . . . You persuaded me to play, . . . Then you tried to rob me of mine honor, of my good name, the only valuable assets which I possess. . . . Hell and all its devils alone know why you did this thing, but I swear before God that your hideous crime shall not remain unpunished. . . ."
"Silence!" commanded Sir Marmaduke, who was the first to perceive the strange, almost supernatural, effect produced on all those present, by the young man's earnestness, his impressive calm. Segrave himself stood silent and abashed, whilst everyone listened, unconsciously awed by that unmistakable note of righteousness which somehow rang through Lambert's voice.
"Nay! but I'll not be silent," quoth Richard unperturbed. "I have been condemned . . . and I have the right to speak. . . . You have disgraced me . . . and I have the right to defend mine honor . . . by protesting mine innocence. . . . And now I will leave this house," he added loudly and firmly, "for it is accursed and infamous . . . but God is my witness that I leave it without a stain upon my soul. . . ."
He pointed to the fateful table whereon a pile of gold lay scattered in an untidy heap, with the tiny leather wallet containing his five guineas conspicuously in its midst.
"There lies the money," he said, speaking directly to Segrave, "take it, sir, for I had never the intention to touch a penny of it. . . . This I swear by all that I hold most sacred. . . . Take it without fear or remorse—even though you thought such evil things of me . . . and let him who still thinks me a thief, repeat it now to my face—an he dare!"
Even as the last of his loudly uttered words resounded through the room, there was a loud knock at the door, and a peremptory voice commanded:
"Open! in the name of His Highness, the Lord Protector of England!"
In the dead silence that followed, the buzz of a fly, the spluttering of wax candles, could be distinctly heard.
In a moment with the sound of that peremptory call outside, tumultuous passions seemed to sink to rest, every cheek paled, and masculine hands instinctively sought the handles of swords whilst lace handkerchiefs were hastily pressed to trembling lips, in order to smother the cry of terror which had risen to feminine throats.
"Open! in the name of His Highness, the Lord Protector of England."
Mistress Endicott was the color of wax, her husband was gripping her wrist with a clutch of steel, trying, through the administration of physical pain, to keep alive her presence of mind.
And for the third time came the loud summons:
"Open! in the name of His Highness the Lord, Protector of England!"
Still that deathly silence in the room, broken only now by the firm step of Endicott, who went to open the door.
Resistance had been worse than useless. The door would have yielded at the first blow. There was a wailing, smothered cry from a dozen terrified throats, and a general rush for the inner room. But this door now was bolted and barred, Sir Marmaduke—unperceived—had slipped quickly within, even whilst everyone held his breath in the first moment of paralyzed terror.
Had there been time, there would doubtless have ensued a violent attack against that locked door, but already a man in leather doublet and wearing a steel cap and collar had peremptorily pushed Endicott aside, who was making a futile effort to bar the way, after he had opened the door.
This man now advanced into the center of the room, whilst a couple of soldierly-looking, stalwart fellows remained at attention on the threshold.
"Let no one attempt to leave this room," he commanded. "Here, Bradden," he added, turning back to his men, "take Pyott with you and search that second room there . . . then seize all those cards and dice and also that money."
It was not likely that these hot-headed cavaliers would submit thus quietly to an arbitrary act of confiscation and of arrest. Hardly were the last words out of the man's mouth than a dozen blades flashed out of their scabbards.
The women screamed, and like so many frightened hens, ran into the corner of the room furthest out of reach of my Lord Protector's police-patrol, the men immediately forming a bulwark in front of them.
The whole thing was not very heroic perhaps. A few idlers caught in an illicit act and under threat of arrest. The consequences—of a truth—would not be vastly severe for the frequenters of this secret club; fines mayhap, which most of those present could ill afford to pay, and at worst a night's detention in one of those horrible wooden constructions which had lately been erected on the river bank for the express purpose of causing sundry lordly offenders to pass an uncomfortable night.
These were days of forcible levelings: and my lord who had contravened old Noll's laws against swearing and gambling, fared not one whit better than the tramp who had purloined a leg of mutton from an eating-house.
Nay! in a measure my lord fared a good deal worse, for he looked upon his own detention through the regicide usurper's orders, as an indignity to himself; hence the reason why in this same house wherein a few idle scions of noble houses indulged in their favorite pastime, when orders rang out in the name of His Highness, swords jumped out of their sheaths, and resistance was offered out of all proportion to the threat.
The man who seemed to be the captain of the patrol smiled somewhat grimly when he saw himself confronted by this phalanx of gentlemanly weapons. He was a tall, burly fellow, broad of shoulder and well-looking in his uniform of red with yellow facings; his round bullet-shaped head, covered by the round steel cap, was suggestive of obstinacy, even of determination.
He eyed the flushed and excited throng with some amusement not wholly unmixed with contempt. Oh! he knew some of the faces well enough by sight—for he had originally served in the train-bands of London, and had oft seen my Lord Walterton, for instance, conspicuous at every entertainment—now pronounced illicit by His Highness, and Sir Anthony Bridport, a constant frequenter at Exeter House, and young Lord Naythmire the son of the Judge. He also had certainly seen young Segrave before this, whose father had been a member of the Long Parliament; the only face that was totally strange to him was that of the youngster in the dark suit of grogram, who stood somewhat aloof from the irate crowd, and seemed to be viewing the scene with astonishment rather than with alarm.
Lord Walterton, flushed with wine, more than with anger, constituted himself the spokesman of the party:
"Who are you?" he asked somewhat unsteadily, "and what do you want?"
"My name is Gunning," replied the man curtly, "captain commanding His Highness' police. What I want is that you gentlemen offer no resistance, but come with me quietly to answer on the morrow before Judge Parry, a charge of contravening the laws against betting and gambling."
A ribald and prolonged laugh greeted this brief announcement, and some twenty pairs of gentlemanly shoulders were shrugged in token of derision.
"Hark at the man!" quoth Sir James Overbury lightly, "methinks, gentlemen, that our wisest course would be to put up our swords and to throw the fellows downstairs, what say you?"
"Aye! aye!" came in cheerful accents from the defiant little group.
"Out with you fellow, we've no time to waste in bandying words with ye . . ." said Walterton, with the tone of one accustomed to see the churl ever cringe before the lord, "and let one of thy myrmidons touch a thing in this room if he dare!"
The young cavalier was standing somewhat in advance of his friends, having stepped forward in order to emphasize the peremptoriness of his words. The women were still in the background well protected by a phalanx of resolute defenders who, encouraged by the captain's silence and Walterton's haughty attitude, were prepared to force the patrol of police to beat a hasty retreat.
Endicott and his wife had seemed to think it prudent to keep well out of sight: the former having yielded to Gunning's advance had discreetly retired amongst the petticoats.
No one, least of all Walterton, who remained the acknowledged leader of the little party of gamesters, had any idea of the numerical strength of the patrol whose interference with gentlemanly pastimes was unwarrantable and passing insolent. In the gloom on the landing beyond, a knot of men could only be vaguely discerned. Captain Gunning and his lieutenant, Bradden, had alone advanced into the room.
But now apparently Gunning gave some sign, which Bradden then interpreted to the men outside. The sign itself must have been very slight for none of the cavaliers perceived it—certainly no actual word of command had been spoken, but the next moment—within thirty seconds of Walterton's defiant speech, the room itself, the doorway and apparently the landing and staircase too, were filled with men, each one attired in scarlet and yellow, all wearing leather doublets and steel caps, and all armed with musketoons which they were even now pointing straight at the serried ranks of the surprised and wholly unprepared gamesters.
"I would fain not give an order to fire," said Captain Gunning curtly, "and if you, gentlemen, will follow me quietly, there need be no bloodshed."
It may be somewhat unromantic but it is certainly prudent, to listen at times to the dictates of common sense, and one of wisdom's most cogent axioms is undoubtedly that it is useless to stand up before a volley of musketry at a range of less than twelve feet, unless a heroic death is in contemplation.
It was certainly very humiliating to be ordered about by a close-cropped Puritan, who spoke in nasal tones, and whose father probably had mended boots or killed pigs in his day, but the persuasion of twenty-four musketoons, whose muzzles pointed collectively in one direction, was bound—in the name of common sense—to prevail ultimately.
Of a truth, none of these gentlemen—who were now content to oppose a comprehensive vocabulary of English and French oaths to the brand-new weapons of my Lord Protector's police—were cowards in any sense of the word. Less than a decade ago they had proved their mettle not only sword in hand, but in the face of the many privations, sorrows and humiliations consequent on the failure of their cause and the defeat, and martyrdom of their king. There was, therefore, nothing mean or pusillanimous in their attitude when having exhausted their vocabulary of oaths and still seeing before them the muzzles of four-and-twenty musketoons pointed straight at them, they one after another dropped their sword points and turned to read in each other's faces uniform desire to surrender toforce majeure.
The Captain watched them—impassive and silent—until the moment when he too, could discern in the sullen looks cast at him by some twenty pairs of eyes, that these elegant gentlemen had conquered their impulse to hot-headed resistance.
But the four-and-twenty musketoons were still leveled, nor did the round-headed Captain give the order to lower the firearms.
"I can release most of you, gentlemen, on parole," he said, "an you'll surrender your swords to me, you may go home this night, under promise to attend the Court to-morrow morning."
Bradden in the meanwhile had gone to the inner door and finding it locked had ordered his companion to break it open. It yielded to the first blow dealt with a vigorous shoulder. The lieutenant went into the room, but finding it empty, he returned and soon was busy in collecting the various "pièces de convictions," which would go to substantiate the charges of gambling and betting against these noble gentlemen. No resistance now was offered, and after a slight moment of hesitation and a brief consultation 'twixt the more prominent cavaliers there present, Lord Walterton stepped forward and having unbuckled his sword, threw it with no small measure of arrogance and disdain at the feet of Captain Gunning.
His example was followed by all his friends, Gunning with arms folded across his chest, watching the proceeding in silence. When Endicott stood before him, however, he said curtly:
"Not you, I think. Meseems I know you too well, fine sir, to release you on parole. Bradden," he added, turning to his lieutenant, "have this man duly guarded and conveyed to Queen's Head Alley to-night."
Then as Endicott tried to protest, and Gunning gave a sharp order for his immediate removal, Segrave pushed his way forward; he wore no sword, and like Lambert, had stood aloof throughout this brief scene of turbulent yet futile resistance, sullen, silent, and burning with a desire for revenge against the man who had turned the current of his luck, and brought him back to that abyss of despair, whence he now knew there could be no release.
"Captain," he said firmly, "though I wear no sword I am at one with all these gentlemen, and I accept my release on parole. To-morrow I will answer for my offense of playing cards, which apparently, is an illicit pastime. I am one of the pigeons who have been plucked in this house."
"By that gentleman?" queried Gunning with a grim smile and nodding over his shoulder in the direction where Endicott was being led away by a couple of armed men.
"No! not by him!" replied Segrave boldly.
With a somewhat theatrical gesture he pointed to Lambert, who, more of a spectator than a participant in the scene, had been standing mutely by outside the defiant group, absorbed in his own misery, wondering what effect the present unforeseen juncture would have on his future chances of rehabilitating himself.
He was also vaguely wondering what had become of Sir Marmaduke and Mistress de Chavasse.
But now Segrave's voice was raised, and once more Lambert found himself the cynosure of a number of hostile glances.
"There stands the man who has robbed us all," said Segrave wildly, "and now he has heaped disgrace upon us, upon me and mine. . . . Curse him! . . . curse him, I say!" he continued, whilst all the pent-up fury, forcibly kept in check all this while by the advent of the police, now once more found vent in loud vituperation and almost maniacal expressions of rage. "Liar . . . cheat! . . . Look at him, Captain! there stands the man who must bear the full brunt of the punishment, for he is the decoy, he is the thief! . . . The pillory for him . . . the pillory . . . the lash . . . the brand! . . . Curse him! . . . Curse him! . . . the thief! . . ."
He was surrounded and forcibly silenced. The foam had risen to his lips, impotent fury and agonized despair had momentarily clouded his brain. Lambert tried to speak, but the Captain, unwilling to prolong a conflict over which he was powerless to arbitrate, gave a sign to Bradden and anon the two young men were led away in the wake of Endicott.
The others on giving their word that they would appear before the Court on the morrow, and answer to the charge preferred against them, were presently allowed to walk out of the room in single file between a double row of soldiers whose musketoons were still unpleasantly conspicuous.
Thus they passed out one by one, across the passage and down the dark staircase. The door below they found was also guarded; as well as the passage and the archway giving on the street.
Here they were permitted to collect or disperse at will. The ladies, however, had not been allowed to participate in the order for release. Gunning knew most of them by sight,—they were worthy neither of consideration nor respect,—paid satellites of Mistress Endicott's, employed to keep up the good spirits of that lady's clientèle.
The soldiers drove them all together before them, in a compact, shrinking and screaming group. Then the word of command was given. The soldiers stood at attention, turned and finally marched out of the room with their prisoners, Gunning being the last to leave.
He locked the door behind him and in the wake of his men presently wended his way down the tortuous staircase.
Once more the measured tramp was heard reverberating through the house, the cry of "Attention!" of "Quick march!" echoed beneath the passage and the tumble-down archway, and anon the last of these ominous sounds died away down the dismal street in the direction of the river.
And in one of the attics at the top of the now silent and lonely house in Bath Street—lately the scene of so much gayety and joy, of such turmoil of passions and intensity of despair—two figures, a man and a woman, crouched together in a dark corner, listening for the last dying echo of that measured tramp.
The news of the police raid on a secret gambling club in London, together with the fracas which it entailed, had of necessity reached even as far as sea-girt Thanet. Squire Boatfield had been the first to hear of it; he spread the news as fast as he could, for he was overfond of gossip, and Dame Harrison over at St. Lawrence had lent him able assistance.
Sir Marmaduke had, of course, the fullest details concerning the affair, for he himself owned to having been present in the very house where the disturbance had occurred. He was not averse to his neighbors knowing that he was a frequenter of those exclusive and smart gambling clubs, which were avowedly the resort of the most elegant cavaliers of the day, and his account of some of the events of that memorable night had been as entertaining as it was highly-colored.
He avowed, however, that, disgusted at Richard Lambert's shameful conduct, he had quitted the place early, some little while before my Lord Protector's police had made a descent upon the gamblers. As for Mistress de Chavasse, her name was never mentioned in connection with the affair. She had been in London at the time certainly, staying with a friend, who was helping her in the choice of a new gown for the coming autumn.
She returned to Acol Court with her brother-in-law, apparently as horrified as he was at the disgrace which she vowed Richard Lambert had heaped upon them all.
The story of the young man being caught in the very act of cheating at cards lost nothing in the telling. He had been convicted before Judge Parry of obtaining money by lying and other illicit means, had been condemned to fine and imprisonment and as he refused to pay the former—most obstinately declaring that he was penniless—he was made to stand for two hours in the pillory, and was finally dragged through the streets in a rickety cart in full sight of a jeering crowd, sitting with his back to the nag in company of the public hangman, and attired in shameful and humiliating clothes.
What happened to him after undergoing this wonderfully lenient sentence—for many there were who thought he should have been publicly whipped and branded as a cheat—nobody knew or cared.
They kept him in prison for over ten weeks, it seems, but Sir Marmaduke did not know what had become of him since then.
The other gentlemen got off fairly lightly with fines and brief periods of imprisonment. Young Segrave, so 'twas said, had been shipped to New England by his father, but Master and Mistress Endicott had gone beyond the seas at the expense of the State, and not for their own pleasure or advancement. It appears that my Lord Protector's vigilance patrol had kept a very sharp eye on these two people, who had more than once had to answer for illicit acts before the Courts. They tried in a most shameful manner it appears, to implicate Sir Marmaduke and Mistress de Chavasse in their disgrace, but as the former very pertinently remarked, "How could he, a simple Kentish squire have aught to do with a smart London club? and people of such evil repute as the Endicotts could of a truth never be believed."
All these rumors and accounts had, of course, also reached Sue's ears. At first she took up an attitude of aggressive incredulity when her former friend was accused: nothing but the plain facts as set forth in thePublic Advertiserof August the 5th would convince her that Richard Lambert could be so base and mean as Sir Marmaduke had averred.
Even then, in her innermost heart, a vague and indefinable instinct called out to her in Lambert's name, not to believe all that was said of him. She could not think of him as lying, and cheating at a game of cards, when common sense itself told her that he was not sufficiently conversant with its rules to turn them to his own advantage. Her hot-headed partisanship of him gave way of necessity as the weeks sped by, to a more passive disapproval of his condemnation, and this in its turn to a kindly charity for what she thought must have been his ignorance rather than his sin.
What worried her most was that he was not nigh her, now that her sentimental romance was reaching its super-acute crisis. During her guardian's temporary absence from Acol she had made earnest and resolute efforts to see her mysterious lover. She thought that he must know that Sir Marmaduke and Mistress de Chavasse were away and that she herself was free momentarily from watchful eyes.
Yet though with pathetic persistence she haunted the park and the woodlands around the Court, she never even once caught sight of the broad-brimmed hat and drooping plume of her romantic prince. It seemed as if the earth had swallowed him up.
Upset and vaguely terrified, she had on one occasion thrown prudence to the winds and sought out the old Quakeress and Adam Lambert with whom he lodged. But the old Quakeress was very deaf, and explanations with her were laborious and unsatisfactory, whilst Adam seemed to entertain a sullen and irresponsible dislike for the foreigner.
All she gathered from these two was that there was nothing unusual in this sudden disappearance of their lodger. He came and went most erratically, went no one knew whither, returned at most unexpected moments, never slept more than an hour or two in his bed which he quitted at amazingly early hours, strolling out of the cottage when all decent folk were just beginning their night's rest, and wandering off unseen, unheard, only to return as he had gone.
He paid his money for his room regularly, however, and this was vastly acceptable these hard times.
But to Sue it was passing strange that her prince should be out of her reach, just when Sir Marmaduke's and Mistress de Chavasse's absence had made their meetings more easy and pleasant.
Yet with it all, she was equally conscious of an unaccountable feeling of relief, and every evening, when at about eight o'clock she returned homewards after having vainly awaited the prince, there was nothing of the sadness and disappointment in her heart which a maiden should feel when she has failed to see her lover.
She was just as much in love with him as ever!—oh! of that she felt quite sure! she still thrilled at thought of his heroic martyrdom for the cause which he had at heart, she still was conscious of a wonderful feeling of elation when she was with him, and of pride when she saw this remarkable hero, this selfless patriot at her feet, and heard his impassioned declarations of love, even when these were alloyed with frantic outbursts of jealousy. She still yearned for him when she did not see him, even though she dreaded his ill-humor when he was nigh.
She had promised to be his wife, soon and in secret, for he had vowed that she did not love him if she condemned him to three long months of infinite torture from jealousy and suspense.
This promise she had given him freely and whole-heartedly more than a fortnight ago. Since that memorable evening when she had thus plighted her troth to him, when she had without a shadow of fear or a tremor of compunction entrusted her entire future, her heart and soul to his keeping, since then she had not seen him.
Sir Marmaduke had gone to London, also Mistress de Chavasse, and she had not even caught sight of the weird silhouette of her French prince. Lambert, too, had gone, put out of her way temporarily—or mayhap, forever—through the irresistible force of a terrible disgrace. There was no one to spy on her movements, no one to dog her footsteps, yet she had not seen him.
When her guardian returned, he seemed so engrossed with Lambert's misdeeds that he gave little thought to his ward. He and Mistress de Chavasse were closeted together for hours in the small withdrawing-room, whilst she was left to roam about the house and grounds unchallenged.
Then at last one evening—it was late August then—when despair had begun to grip her heart, and she herself had become the prey of vague fears, of terrors for his welfare, his life mayhap, on which he had oft told her that the vengeful King of France had set a price—one evening he came to greet her walking through the woods, treading the soft carpet of moss with a light elastic step.
Oh! that had been a rapturous evening! one which she oft strove to recall, now that sadness had once more overwhelmed her. He had been all tenderness, all love, all passion! He vowed that he adored her as an idolater would worship his divinity. Jealous? oh, yes! madly, insanely jealous! for she was fair above all women and sweet and pure and tempting to all men like some ripe and juicy fruit ready to fall into a yearning hand.
But his jealousy took on a note of melancholy and of humility. He worshiped her so and wished to feel her all his own. She listened entranced, forgetting her terrors, her disappointments, the vague ennui which had assailed her of late. She yielded herself to the delights of his caresses, to the joy of this hour of solitude and rapture. The night was close and stormy; from afar, muffled peals of thunder echoed through the gigantic elms, whilst vivid flashes of lightning weirdly lit up at times the mysterious figure of this romantic lover, with his face forever in shadow, one eye forever hidden behind a black band, his voice forever muffled.
But it was a tempestuous wooing, a renewal of that happy evening in the spring—oh! so long ago it seemed now!—when first he had poured in her ear the wild torrents of his love. The girl—so young, so inexperienced, so romantic—was literally swept off her feet; she listened to his wild words, yielded her lips to his kiss, and whilst she half feared the impetuosity of his mood, she delighted in the very terrors it evoked.
A secret marriage? Why, of course! since he suffered so terribly through not feeling her all his own. Soon!—at once!—at Dover before the clergyman at All Souls, with whom he—her prince—had already spoken.
Yes! it would have to be at Dover, for the neighboring villages might prove too dangerous. Sir Marmaduke might hear of it, mayhap. It would rest with her to free herself for one day.
Then came that delicious period of scheming, of stage-managing everything for the all-important day. He would arrange about a chaise, and she should walk up to the Canterbury Road to meet it. He would await her in the church at Dover, for 'twas best that they should not be seen together until after the happy knot was tied, when he declared that he would be ready to defy the universe.
It had been a long interview, despite the tempest that raged above and around them. The great branches of the elms groaned and cracked under fury of the wind, the thunder pealed overhead and then died away with slow majesty out towards the sea. From afar could be heard the angry billows dashing themselves against the cliffs.
They had to seek shelter under the colonnaded porch of the summerhouse, and Sue had much ado to keep the heavy drops of rain from reaching her shoes and the bottom of her kirtle.
But she was attune with the storm, she loved to hear the weird sh-sh-sh of the leaves, the monotonous drip of the rain on the roof of the summer house, and in the intervals of intense blackness to catch sight of her lover's face, pale of hue, with one large eye glancing cyclops-like into hers, as a vivid flash of lightning momentarily tore the darkness asunder and revealed him still crouching at her feet.
Intense lassitude followed the wild mental turmoil of that night. She had arranged to meet him again two days hence in order to repeat to him what she had heard the while of Sir Marmaduke's movements, and when she was like to be free to go to Dover. During those intervening two days she tried hard to probe her own thoughts; her mind, her feelings: but what she found buried in the innermost recesses of her heart frightened her so, that she gave up thinking.
She lay awake most of the night, telling herself how much she loved her prince; she spent half a day in the perusal of a strange book calledThe Tragedie of Romeo and Julietby one William Shakespeare who had lived not so long ago: and found herself pondering as to whether her own sentiments with regard to her prince were akin to those so exquisitely expressed by those two young people who had died because they loved one another so dearly.
Then she heard that towards the end of the week Sir Marmaduke and Mistress de Chavasse would be journeying together to Canterbury in order to confer with Master Skyffington the lawyer, anent her own fortune, which was to be handed to her in its entirety in less than three months, when she would be of age.