“Is soon forgotten,” Blake cut in adroitly. “Indeed, `twill be most convenient to his lordship to forget it. Think you he would care to have it known that `twas to such a chance he owes the preservation of his army?” He laughed, and added in a voice of much sly meaning, “The times are full of peril. There’s Kirke and his lambs. And there’s no saying how Kirke might act did he chance to learn what Richard failed to do that night when he was left to guard the rear at Newlington’s!”
“Would you inform him of it?” cried Richard, between anger and alarm.
Blake thrust out his hands in a gesture of horrified repudiation. “Richard!” he cried in deep reproof and again, “Richard!”
“What other tongue has he to fear?” asked Ruth. “Am I the only one who knows of it?” cried Blake. “Oh, madam, why will you ever do me such injustice? Richard has been my friend – my dearest friend. I wish him so to continue, and I swear that he shall find me his, as you shall find me yours.
“It is a boon I could dispense with,” she assured him, and rose. “This talk can profit little, Sir Rowland,” said she. “You seek to bargain.”
“You shall see how unjust you are,” he cried with deep sorrow. “It is but fitting, perhaps, after what has passed. It is my punishment. But you shall come to acknowledge that you have done me wrong. You shall see how I shall befriend and protect him.”
That said, he took his leave and went, but he left behind him a shrewd seed of fear in Richard’s mind, and of the growth that sprang from it Richard almost unconsciously transplanted something in the days that followed into the heart of Ruth. As a result, to make sure that no harm should come to her brother, the last of his name and race, she resolved to receive Sir Rowland, resolved in spite of Diana’s outspoken scorn, in spite of Richard’s protests – for though afraid, yet he would not have it so – in spite even of her own deep repugnance of the man.
Days passed and grew to weeks. Bridgwater was settling down to peace again – to peace and mourning; the Royalist scourge had spread to Taunton, and Blake lingered on at Lupton House, an unwelcome but an undeniable guest.
His presence was as detestable to Richard now as it was to Ruth, for Richard had to submit to the mockery with which the town rake lashed his godly bearing and altered ways. More than once in gusts of sudden valour the boy urged his sister to permit him to drive the baronet from the house and let him do his worst. But Ruth, afraid for Richard, bade him wait until the times were more settled. When the royal vengeance had slaked its lust for blood it might matter little, perhaps, what tales Sir Rowland might elect to carry.
And so Sir Rowland remained and waited. He assured himself that he knew how to be patient, and congratulated himself upon that circumstance. Wilding dead, a little time must now suffice to blunt the sharp edge of his widow’s grief; let him but await that time, and the rest should be easy, the battle his. With Richard he did not so much as trouble himself to reckon.
Thus he determined, and thus no doubt he would have acted but for an unforeseen contingency. A miserable, paltry creditor had smoked him out in his Somerset retreat, and got a letter to him full of dark hints of a debtor’s gaol. The fellow’s name was Swiney, and Sir Rowland knew him for fierce and pertinacious where a defaulting creditor was concerned. One only course remained him: to force matters with Wilding’s widow. For days he refrained, fearing that precipitancy might lose him all; it was his wish to do the thing without too much coercion; some, he was not coxcomb enough to think – coxcomb though he was – might be dispensed with.
At last one Sunday evening he decided to be done with dallying, and to bring Ruth between the hammer and the anvil of his will. It was the last Sunday in July, exactly three weeks after Sedgemoor, and the odd coincidence of his having chosen such a day and hour you shall appreciate anon.
They were on the lawn taking the cool of the evening after an oppressively hot day. By the stone seat, now occupied by Lady Horton and Diana, Richard lay on the sward at their feet in talk with them, and their talk was of Sir Rowland. Diana – gall in her soul to see the baronet by way of gaining yet his ends – chid Richard in strong terms for his weakness in submitting to Blake’s constant presence at Lupton House. And Richard meekly took her chiding and promised that, if Ruth would but sanction it, things should be changed upon the morrow.
Sir Rowland, all unconscious – reckless, indeed – of this, sauntered with Ruth some little distance from them, having contrived adroitly to draw her aside. He broke a spell of silence with a dolorous sigh.
“Ruth,” said he pensively, “I mind me of the last evening on which you and I walked here alone.”
She flashed him a glance of fear and aversion, and stood still. Under his brow he watched the quick heave of her bosom, the sudden flow and abiding ebb of blood in her face – grown now so thin and wistful – and he realized that before him lay no easy task. He set his teeth for battle.
“Will you never have a kindness for me, Ruth?” he sighed.
She turned about, her intent to join the others, a dull anger in her soul. He sat a hand upon her arm. “Wait!” said he, and the tone in which he uttered that one word kept her beside him. His manner changed a little. “I am tired of this,” said he.
“Why, so am I,” she answered bitterly.
“Since we are agreed so far, let us agree to end it.”
“It is all I ask.”
“Yes, but – alas! – in a different way. Listen now.”
“I will not listen. Let me go.
“I were your enemy did I do so, for you would know hereafter a sorrow and repentance for which nothing short of death could offer you escape. Richard is under suspicion.”
“Do you hark back to that?” The scorn of her voice was deadly. Had it been herself he desired, surely that tone had quenched all passion in him, or else transformed it into hatred. But Blake was playing for a fortune, for shelter from a debtor’s prison.
“It has become known,” he continued, “that Richard was one of the early plotters who paved the way for Monmouth’s coming. I think that that, in conjunction with his betrayal of his trust that night at Newlington’s, thereby causing the death of some twenty gallant fellows of King James’s, will be enough to hang him.”
Her hand clutched at her heart. “What is’t you seek?” she cried. It was almost a moan. “What is’t you want of me?”
“Yourself,” said he. “I love you, Ruth,” he added, and stepped close up to her.
“0 God!” she cried aloud. “Had I a man at hand to kill you for that insult!”
And then – miracle of miracles! – a voice from the shrubs by which they stood bore to her ears the startling words that told her her prayer was answered there and then.
“Madam, that man is here.”
She stood frozen. Not more of a statue was Lot’s wife in the moment of looking behind her than she who dared not look behind. That voice! A voice from the dead, a voice she had heard for the last time in the cottage that was Feversham’s lodging at Weston Zoyland. Her wild eyes fell upon Sir Rowland’s face. It showed livid; the nether-lip sucked in and caught in the strong teeth, as if to prevent an outcry; the eyes wild with fright. What did it mean? By an effort she wrenched herself round at last, and a scream broke from her to rouse her aunt, her cousin, and her brother, and bring them hastening towards her across the sweep of lawn.
Before her, on the edge of the shrubbery, a grey figure stood erect and graceful, and the face, with its thin lips faintly smiling, its dark eyes g1eaming, was the face of Anthony Wilding. And as she stared he moved forward, and she heard the fall of his foot upon the turf, the clink of his spurs, the swish of his scabbard against the shrubs, and reason told her that this was no ghost.
She held out her arms to him. “Anthony! Anthony!” She staggered forward, and he was no more than in time to catch her as she swayed.