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.