“Thought of it?” repeated Diana witheringly. “Not I. I have thought that Mr. Wilding is here and like to have his throat cut before an hour is past.”
“Tell me, are you sure of this?” asked Ruth.
“I have it from your husband’s own lips,” Diana answered, and told her in a few words of her meeting with Mr. Wilding.
Ruth sat with hands folded in her lap, her eyes on the dim violet after-glow in the west, and her mind wrestling with this problem that Diana had brought her.
“Diana,” she cried at last, “what am I to do?”
“Do?” echoed Diana. “Is it not plain? Warn Mr. Wilding.”
“But Richard?”
“Mr. Wilding saved Richard’s life…”
“I know. I know. My duty is to warn him.”
“Then why hesitate?”
“My duty is also to keep faith with Richard, to think of those poor misguided folk who are to be saved by this,” cried Ruth in an agony. “If Mr. Wildin is warned, they will all be ruined.”
Diana stamped her foot impatiently. “Had I thought to find you in this mind, I had warned him myself;” said she.
“Ah! Why did you not?”
“That the chance of doing so might be yours. That you might thus repay him the debt in which you stand.”
“Diana, I can’t!” The words broke from her in a sob.
But whatever her interest in Mr. Wilding for her own sake, Diana’s prime intent was the thwarting Sir Rowland Blake. If Wilding were warned of what manner of feast was spread at Newlington’s, Sir Rowland would be indeed undone.
“You think of Richard,” she exclaimed, “and you know that Richard is to have no active part in the affair – that he will run no risk. They have assigned him but a sentry duty that he may warn Blake and his followers if any danger threatens them.”
“It is not of Richard’s life I am thinking, but of his honour, of his trust in me. To warn Mr. Wilding were… to commit an act of betrayal.”
“And is Mr. Wilding to be slaughtered with his friends?” Diana asked her. “Resolve me that. Time presses. In half an hour it will be too late.”
That allusion to the shortness of the time brought Ruth an inspiration. Suddenly she saw a way. Wilding should be saved, and yet she would not break faith with Richard nor ruin those others. She would detain him, and whilst warning him at the last moment, in time for him to save himself; not do so until it must be too late for him to warn the others. Thus she would do her duty by him, and yet keep faith with Richard and Sir Rowland. She had resolved, she thought, the awful difficulty that had confronted her. She rose suddenly, heartened by the thought.
“Give me your cloak and wimple,” she bade Diana, and Diana flew to do her bidding. “Where is Mr. Wilding lodged?” she asked.
“At the sign of The Ship – overlooking the Cross, with Mr. Trenchard. Shall I come with you?”
“No,” answered Ruth without hesitation. “I will go alone.” She drew the wimple well over her head, so that in its shadows her face might lie concealed, and hid her shimmering white dress under Diana’s cloak.
She hastened through the ill-lighted streets, never heeding the rough cobbles that hurt her feet, shod in light indoor wear, never heeding the crowds that thronged her way. All Bridgwater was astir with Monmouth’s presence; moreover, there had been great incursions from Taunton and the surrounding country, the women-folk of the Duke-King’s followers having come that day to Bridgwater to say farewell to father and son, husband and brother, before the army marched – as was still believed – to Gloucester.
The half-hour was striking from Saint Mary’s – the church in which she had been married – as Ruth reached the door of the sign of The Ship. She was about to knock, when suddenly it opened, and Mr. Wilding himself, with Trenchard immediately behind him, stood confronting her. At sight of him a momentary weakness took her. He had changed from his hard-used riding-garments into a suit of roughly corded black silk, which threw into relief the steely litheness of his spare figure. His dark brown hair was carefully dressed, diamonds gleamed in the cravat of snowy lace at his throat. He was uncovered, his hat under his arm, and he stood aside to make way for her, imagining that she was some woman of the house.
“Mr. Wilding,” said she, her heart fluttering in her throat. “May I… may I speak with you?”
He leaned forward, seeking to pierce the shadows of her wimple; he had thought he recognized the voice, as his sudden start had shown; and yet he disbelieved his ears. She moved her head at that moment, and the light streaming out from a lamp in the passage beat upon her white face.
“Ruth!” he cried, and came quickly forward. Trenchard, behind him, looked on and scowled with sudden impatience. Mr. Wilding’s philanderings with this lady had never had the old rake’s approval. Too much trouble already had resulted from them.
“I must speak with you at once. At once!” she urged him, her tone fearful.
“Are you in need of me?” he asked concernedly.
“In very urgent need,” said she.
“I thank God,” he answered without flippancy. “You shall find me at your service. Tell me.”
“Not here; not here,” she answered him.
“Where else?” said he. “Shall we walk?”
“No, no.” Her repetitions marked the deep excitement that possessed her. “I will go in with you.” And she signed with her head towards the door from which he was barely emerged.
“`Twere scarce fitting,” said he, for being confused and full of speculation on the score of her need, he had for the moment almost overlooked the relations in which they stood. In spite of the ceremony through which they had gone together, Mr. Wilding still mostly thought of her as of a mistress very difficult to woo.
“Fitting?” she echoed, and then after a pause, “Am I not your wife?” she asked him in a low voice, her cheeks crimsoning.
“Ha! `Pon honour, I had almost forgot,” said he, and though the burden of his words seemed mocking, their tone was sad.
Of the passers-by that jostled them a couple had now paused to watch a scene that had an element of the unusual in it. She pulled her wimple closer to her face, took him by the arm, and drew him with her into the house.
“Close the door,” she bade him, and Trenchard, who had stood aside that they might pass in, forestalled him in obeying her. “Now lead me to your room, said she, and Wilding in amaze turned to Trenchard as if asking his consent, for the lodging, after all, was Trenchard’s.
“I’ll wait here,” said Nick, and waved his hand towards an oak bench that stood in the passage. “You had best make haste,” he urged his friend; “you are late already. That is, unless you are of a mind to set the lady’s affairs before King Monmouth’s. And were I in your place, Anthony, faith I’d not scruple to do it. For after all,” he added under his breath, “there’s little choice in rotten apples.”
Ruth waited for some answer from Wilding that might suggest he was indifferent whether he went to Newlington’s or not; but he spoke no word as he turned to lead the way above-stairs to the indifferent parlour which with the adjoining bedroom constituted Mr. Trenchard’s lodging – and his own, for the time being.
Having assured herself that the curtains were closely drawn, she put by her cloak and hood, and stood revealed to him in the light of the three candles, burning in a branch upon the bare oak table, dazzlingly beautiful in her gown of ivory-white.
He stood apart, cogitating her with glowing eyes, the faintest smile between question and pleasure hovering about his thin mouth. He had closed the door, and stood in silence waiting for her to make known to him her pleasure.
“Mr. Wilding…” she began, and straightway he interrupted her.
“But a moment since you did remind me that I have the honour to be your husband,” he said with grave humour. “Why seek now to overcloud that fact? I mind me that the last time we met you called me by another name. But it may be,” he added as an afterthought, “you are of opinion that I have broken faith with you.”
“Broken faith? As how?”
“So!” he said, and sighed. “My words were of so little account that they have been, I see, forgotten. Yet, so that I remember them, that is what chiefly matters. I promised then – or seemed to promise – that I would make a widow of you, who had made a wife of you against your will. It has not happened yet. Do not despair. This Monmouth quarrel is not yet fought out. Hope on, my Ruth.”