"By your leave, sirs," Wilding interrupted, "I should prefer that you ask me nothing until I have consulted with Mr. Trenchard." He saw Luttrell's frown, observed Sir Edward shift his wig to scratch his head in sheer perplexity, and caught the fore-shadowing of denial on the Duke's face. So, without giving any of them time to say him nay, he added quickly and very seriously, "I am begging this in the interests of justice. Your Grace has told me that some lingering doubt still haunts your mind upon the subject of this letter--the other charges can matter little, apart from that treasonable doc.u.ment. It lies within my power to resolve such doubts most clearly and finally. But I warn you, sirs, that not one word will I utter in this connection until I have had speech with Mr. Trenchard."

There was about his mien and voice a firmness that forewarned Albemarle that to insist would be worse than idle. A slight pause followed his words, and Luttrell leaned across to whisper in His Grace's ear; from the Duke's other side Sir Edward bent his head forward till it almost touched those of his companions. Blake watched, and was most foolishly impatient.

"Your Grace will never allow this!" he cried.

"Eh?" said Albemarle, scowling at him.

"If you allow those two villains to consort together we are all undone,"

the baronet protested, and ruined what chance there was of Albemarle's not consenting.

It was the one thing needed to determine Albemarle. Like the stubborn man he was, there was naught he detested so much as to have his course dictated to him. More than that, in Sir Rowland's anxiety that Wilding and Trenchard should not be allowed to confer apart, he smoked a fear on Sir Rowland's part, based upon the baronet's consciousness of his own guilt. He turned from him with a sneering smile, and without so much as consulting his a.s.sociates he glanced at Wilding and waved his hand towards the door.

"Pray do as you suggest, Mr. Wilding," said he. "But I depend upon you not to tax our patience."

"I shall not keep Mr. Trenchard a moment longer than is necessary," said Wilding, giving no hint of the second meaning in his words.

He stepped to the door, opened it himself, and signed to Trenchard to pa.s.s out. The old player obeyed him readily, if in silence. An usher closed the door after them, and in silence they walked together to the end of the pa.s.sage.

"Where is your horse, Nick?" quoth Wilding abruptly.

"What a plague do you mean, where is my horse?" flashed Trenchard. "What midsummer frenzy is this? d.a.m.n you for a marplot, Anthony! What a pox are you thinking of to thrust yourself in here at such a time?"

"I had no knowledge you were in the affair," said Wilding. "You should have told me." His manner was brisk to the point of dryness. "However, there is still time to get you out of it. Where is your horse?"

"d.a.m.n my horse!" answered Tren chard in a pa.s.sion. "You have spoiled everything!"

"On the contrary," said Mr. Wilding tartly, "it seems you had done that very thoroughly before I arrived. Whilst I am touched by the regard for me which has misled you into turning the tables on Blake and Westmacott, yet I do blame you for this betrayal of the Cause."

"There was no help for it."

"Why, no; and that is why you should have left matters where they stood."

Trenchard stamped his foot; indeed, he almost danced in the excess of his vexation. "Left them where they stood!" he echoed. "Body o' me!

Where are your wits? Left them where they stood! And at any moment you might have been taken unawares as a consequence of this accusation being lodged against you by Richard or by Blake. Then the Cause would have been betrayed, indeed."

"Not more so than it is now."

"Not less, at least," snapped the player. "You give me credit for no more wit than yourself. Do you think that I am the man to do things by halves? I have betrayed the plot to Albemarle; but do you imagine I have made no provision for what must follow?"

"Provision?" echoed Wilding, staring.

"Aye, provision. G.o.d lack! What do you suppose Albemarle will do?"

"Dispatch a messenger to Whitehall with the letter within an hour."

"You perceive it, do you? And where the plague do you think Nick Trenchard'll be what time that messenger rides?"

Mr. Wilding understood. "Aye, you may stare," sneered Trenchard. "A letter that has once been stolen may be stolen again. The courier must go by way of Walford. I had in my mind arranged the spot, close by the ford, where I should fall upon him, rob him of his dispatches, and take him--bound hand and foot if necessary--to Vallancey's, who lives close by; and there I'd leave him until word came that the Duke had landed."

"That the Duke had landed?" cried Wilding. "You talk as though the thing were imminent."

"And imminent it is. For aught we know he may be in England already."

Mr. Wilding laughed impatiently. "You must forever be building on these crack-brained rumours, Nick," said he.

"Rumours!" roared the other. "Rumours? Ha!" He checked his wild scorn, and proceeded in a different key. "I was forgetting. You do not know the Contents of that stolen letter."

Wilding started. Underlying his disbelief in the talk of the countryside, and even in the military measures which by the King's orders were being taken in the West, was an uneasy dread lest they should prove to be well founded, lest Argyle's operations in Scotland should be but the forerunner of a rash and premature invasion by Monmouth. He knew the Duke was surrounded by such reckless, foolhardy counsellors as Grey and Ferguson--and yet he could not think the Duke would ruin all by coming before he had definite word that his friends were ready. He looked at Trenchard now with anxious eyes.

"Have you seen the letter, Nick?" he asked, and almost dreaded the reply.

"Albemarle showed it me an hour ago," said Trenchard.

"And it contains?"

"The news we fear. It is in the Duke's own hand, and intimates that he will follow it in a few days--in a few days, man in person."

Mr. Wilding clenched teeth and hands. "G.o.d help us all, then!" he muttered grimly.

"Meanwhile," quoth Trenchard, bringing him back to the point, "there is this precious business here. I had as choice a plan as could have been devised, and it must have succeeded, had you not come blundering into it to mar it all at the last moment. That fat fool Albemarle had swallowed my impeachment like a draught of muscadine. Do you hear me?" he ended sharply, for Mr. Wilding stood bemused, his thoughts plainly wandering.

He let his hand fall upon Trenchard's shoulder. "No," said he, "I wasn't listening. No matter; for even had I known the full extent of your scheme I still must have interfered."

"For the sake of Mistress Westmacott's blue eyes, no doubt," sneered Trenchard. "Pah! Wherever there's a woman there's the loss of a man."

"For the sake of Mistress Wilding's blue eyes," his friend corrected him. "I'll allow no brother of hers to hang in my place."

"It will be interesting to see how you will rescue him."

"By telling the truth to Albemarle."

"He'll not believe it."

"I shall prove it," said Wilding quietly. Trenchard swung round upon him in mingled anger and alarm for him. "You shall not do it!" he snarled.

"It is nothing short of treason to the Duke to get yourself laid by the heels at such a time as this."

"I hope to avoid it," answered Wilding confidently.

"Avoid it? How?"

"Not by staying longer here in talk. That will ruin all. Away with you, Trenchard!"

"By my soul, no!" answered Trenchard. "I'll not leave you. If I have got you into this, I'll help to get you out again, or stay in it with you."

"Bethink you of Monmouth?" Wilding admonished him.

"d.a.m.n Monmouth!" was the vicious answer. "I am here, and here I stay."