"There are not likely to be many--half a dozen, say. We shall have to make short work of them, lest they should raise an alarm." He saw her glance clouding. "That is the ugly part of the affair," he was quick to add, himself a.s.suming a look of sadness. He sighed. "What help is there?" he asked. "Better that those few should suffer than that, as you yourself have said, there should be some thousands of lives lost before this rebellion is put down. Besides," he continued, "Monmouth's officers are far-seeing, ambitious men, who have entered into this affair to promote their own personal fortunes. They are gamesters who have set their lives upon the board against a great prize, and they know it. But these other poor misguided people who have gone out to fight for liberty and religion--it is these whom I am striving to rescue."

His words sounded fervent, his sentiments almost heroic. Ruth looked at him, and wondered had she misjudged him in the past. She sighed. Then she thought of Wilding. He was on the other side, but where was he?

Rumour ran that he was dead; that he and Grey had quarrelled at Lyme, and that Wilding had been killed as a result. Had it not been for Diana, who strenuously bade her attach no credit to these reports, she would readily have believed them. As it was she waited, wondering, thinking of him always as she had seen him on that day at Walford when he had taken his leave of her, and more than once, when she pondered the words he had said, the look that had invested his drooping eyes, she found herself with tears in her own. They welled up now, and she rose hastily to her feet.

She looked a moment at Blake who was watching her keenly, speculating upon this emotion of which she betrayed some sign, and wondering might not his heroism have touched her, for, as we have seen, he had arrayed a deed of excessive meanness, a deed worthy, almost, of the Iscariot, in the panoply of heroic achievement.

"I think," she said, "that you are setting your hand to a very worthy and glorious enterprise, and I hope, nay, I am sure, that success must attend your efforts." He was still bowing his thanks when she pa.s.sed out through the open window-doors into the sunshine of the garden.

Sir Rowland swung round upon Richard. "A great enterprise, d.i.c.k," he cried; "I may count upon you for one?"

"Aye," said d.i.c.k, who had found at last the pretext that he needed, "you may count on me. Pull the bell, we'll drink to the success of the venture."

CHAPTER XVII. MR. WILDING'S RETURN

The preparations to be made for the momentous coup Sir Rowland meditated were considerable. Mr. Newlington was yet to be concerted with and advised, and, that done, Sir Rowland had to face the difficulty of eluding the Bridgwater guards and make his way to Feversham's camp at Somerton to enlist the general's cooperation to the extent that we have seen he looked for. That done, he was to return and ripen his preparations for the business he had undertaken. Nevertheless, in spite of all that lay before him, he did not find it possible to leave Lupton House without stepping out into the garden in quest of Ruth. Through the window, whilst he and Richard were at their ale, he had watched her between whiles, and had lingered, waiting; for Diana was with her, and it was not his wish to seek her whilst Diana was at hand. Speak with her, ere he went, he must. He was an opportunist, and now, he fondly imagined, was his opportunity. He had made that day, at last, a favourable impression upon Richard's sister; he had revealed himself in an heroic light, and egregiously misreading the emotion she had shown before withdrawing, he was satisfied that did he strike now victory must attend him. He sighed his satisfaction and pleasurable antic.i.p.ation. He had been wary and he had known how to wait; and now, it seemed to him, he was to be rewarded for his patience. Then he frowned, as another glance showed him that Diana still lingered with her cousin; he wished Diana at the devil. He had come to hate this fair-haired doll to whom he had once paid court. She was too continually in his way, a constant obstacle in his path, ever ready to remind Ruth of Anthony Wilding when Sir Rowland most desired Anthony Wilding to be forgotten; and in Diana's feelings towards himself such a change had been gradually wrought that she had come to reciprocate his sentiments--to hate him with all the bitter hatred into which love can be by scorn trans.m.u.ted. At first her object in keeping Ruth's thoughts on Mr. Wilding, in pleading his cause, and seeking to present him in a favourable light to the lady whom he had constrained to become his wife, had been that he might stand a barrier between Ruth and Sir Rowland to the end that Diana might hope to see revived--faute de mieux, since possible in no other way--the feelings that once Sir Rowland had professed for herself. The situation was rich in humiliations for poor, vain, foolishly crafty Diana, and these humiliations were daily rendered more bitter by Sir Rowland's unwavering courtship of her cousin in despite of all that she could do.

In the end the poison of them entered her soul, corroded her sentiments towards him, dissolved the love she had borne him, and transformed it into venom. She would not have him now if he did penitence for his disaffection by going in sackcloth and crawling after her on his knees for a full twelvemonth. But neither should he have Ruth if she could thwart his purpose. On that she was resolved.

Had she but guessed that he watched them from the windows, waiting for her to take her departure, she had lingered all the morning, and all the afternoon if need be, at Ruth's side. But being ignorant of the circ.u.mstance--believing that he had already left the house--she presently quitted Ruth to go indoors, and no sooner was she gone than there was Blake replacing her at Ruth's elbow. Mistress Wilding met him with unsmiling, but not ungentle face.

"Not yet gone, Sir Rowland?" she asked him, and a less sanguine man had been discouraged by the words.

"It may be forgiven me that I tarry at such a time," said he, "when we consider that I go, perhaps--to return no more." It was an inspiration on his part to a.s.sume the role of the hero going forth to a possible death. It invested him with n.o.ble, valiant pathos which could not, he thought, fail of its effect upon a woman's mind. But he looked in vain for a change of colour, be it never so slight, or a quickening of the breath. He found neither; though, indeed, her deep blue eyes seemed to soften as they observed him.

"There is danger in this thing that you are undertaking?" said she, between question and a.s.sertion.

"It is not my wish to overstate it; yet I leave you to imagine what the risk may be."

"It is a good cause," said she, thinking of the poor, deluded, humble folk that followed Monmouth's banner, whom Blake's fine action was to rescue from impending ruin and annihilation, "and surely Heaven will be on your side."

"We must prevail," cried Blake with kindling eye, and you had thought him a fanatic, not a miserable earner of blood-money. "We must prevail, though some of us may pay dearly for the victory. I have a foreboding..." He paused, sighed, then laughed and flung back his head, as if throwing off some weight that had oppressed him.

It was admirably played; Nick Trenchard, had he observed it, might have envied the performance; and it took effect with her, this adding of a prospective martyr's crown to the hero's raiment he had earlier donned.

It was a master-touch worthy of one who was deeply learned--from the school of foul experience--in the secret ways that lead to a woman's favour. In a pursuit of this kind there was no subterfuge too mean, no treachery too base for Sir Rowland Blake.

"Will you walk, mistress?" he said, and she, feeling that it were an unkindness not to do his will, a.s.sented gravely. They moved down the sloping lawn, side by side, Sir Rowland leaning on his cane, bareheaded, his feathered hat tucked under his arm. Before them the river's smooth expanse, swollen and yellow with the recent rains, glowed like a sheet of copper, so that it blurred the sight to look upon it long.

A few steps they took with no word uttered, then Sir Rowland spoke.

"With this foreboding that is on me," said he, "I could not go without seeing you, without saying something that I may never have another chance of saying; something that--who knows?--but for the emprise to which I am now wedded you had never heard from me."

He shot her a furtive, sidelong glance from under his heavy, beetling brows, and now, indeed, he observed a change ripple over the composure of her face like a sudden breeze across a sheet of water. The deep lace collar at her throat rose and fell, and her fingers toyed nervously with a ribbon of her grey bodice. She recovered in an instant, and threw up entrenchments against the attack she saw he was about to make.

"You exaggerate, I trust," said she. "Your forebodings will be proved groundless. You will return safe and sound from this venture, as indeed I hope you may."

That was his cue. "You hope it?" he cried, arresting his step, turning, and imprisoning her left hand in his right. "You hope it? Ah, if you hope for my return, return I will; but unless I know that you will have some welcome for me such as I desire from you, I think..." his voice quivered cleverly, "I think, perhaps, it were well if... if my forebodings were not as groundless as you say they are. Tell me, Ruth..."

But she interrupted him. It was high time, she thought. Her face he saw was flushed, her eyes had hardened somewhat. Calmly she disengaged her hand.

"What is't you mean?" she asked. "Speak, Sir Rowland, speak plainly, that I may give you a plain answer."

It was a challenge in which another man had seen how hopeless was his case, and, accepting defeat, had made as orderly a retreat as still was possible. But Sir Rowland, stricken in his vanity, went headlong on to utter rout.

"Since you ask me in such terms I will be plain, indeed," he answered her. "I mean..." He almost quailed before the look that met him from her intrepid eyes. "Do you not see my meaning, Ruth?"

"That which I see," said she, "I do not believe, and as I would not wrong you by any foolish imaginings, I would have you plain with me."

Yet the egregious fool went on. "And why should you not believe your senses?" he asked her, between anger and entreaty. "Is it wonderful that I should love you? Is it...?"

"Stop!" She drew back a pace from him. There was a moment's silence, during which it seemed she gathered her forces to destroy him, and, in the spirit, he bowed his head before the coming storm. Then, with a sudden relaxing of the stiffness her lissom figure had a.s.sumed, "I think you had better leave me, Sir Rowland," she advised him. She half turned and moved a step away; he followed with lowering glance, his upper lip lifting and laying bare his powerful teeth. In a stride he was beside her.

"Do you hate me, Ruth?" he asked her hoa.r.s.ely.

"Why should I hate you?" she counter-questioned, sadly. "I do not even dislike you," she continued in a more friendly tone, adding, as if by way of explaining this phenomenon, "You are my brother's friend. But I am disappointed in you, Sir Rowland. You had, I know, no intention of offering me disrespect; and yet it is what you have done."

"As how?" he asked.

"Knowing me another's wife..."

He broke in tempestuously. "A mock marriage! If it is but that scruple stands between us..."

"I think there is more," she answered him. "You compel me to hurt you; I do so as the surgeon does--that I may heal you."

"Why, thanks for nothing," he made answer, unable to repress a sneer.

Then, checking himself, and resuming the hero-martyr posture, "I go, mistress," he told her sadly, "and if I lose my life to-night, or to-morrow, in this affair..."

"I shall pray for you," said she; for she had found him out at last, perceived the nature of the bow he sought to draw across her heart-strings, and, having perceived it, contempt awoke in her. He had attempted to move her by unfair, insidious means.

He fell back, crimson from chin to brow. He stifled the wrath that welled up, threatening to choke him. He was a short-necked man, of the sort--as Trenchard had once reminded him--that falls a prey to apoplexy, and surely he was never nearer it than at that moment. He made her a profound bow, bending himself almost in two before her in a very irony of deference; then, drawing himself up again, he turned and left her.

The plot which with some pride he had hatched and the reward he looked to cull from it, were now to his soul as ashes to his lips. What could it profit him to destroy Monmouth so that Anthony Wilding lived? For whether she loved Wilding or not, she was Wilding's wife. Wilding, nominally, at least, was master of that which Sir Rowland coveted; not her heart, indeed, but her ample fortune. Wilding had been a stumbling-block to him since he had come to Bridgwater; but for Wilding he might have run a smooth course; he was still fool enough to hug that dear illusion to his soul. Somewhere in England--if not dead already--this Wilding lurked, an outlaw, whom any might shoot down at sight. Sir Rowland swore he would not rest until he knew that Anthony Wilding c.u.mbered the earth no more--leastways, not the surface of it.

He went forth to seek Newlington. The merchant had sent his message to the rebel King, and had word in answer that His Majesty would be graciously pleased to sup at Mr. Newlington's at nine o'clock on the following evening, attended by a few gentlemen of his immediate following. Sir Rowland received the news with satisfaction, and sighed to think that Mr. Wilding--still absent, Heaven knew where--would not be of the party. It was reported that on the Monday Monmouth was to march to Gloucester, hoping there to be joined by his Cheshire friends, so that it seemed Sir Rowland had not matured his plan a day too soon.

He got to horse, and contriving to win out of Bridgwater, rode off to Somerton to concert with Lord Feversham concerning the men he would need for his undertaking.

That night Richard made free talk of the undertaking to Diana and to Ruth, loving, as does the pusillanimous, to show himself engaged in daring enterprises. Emulating his friend Sir Rowland, he held forth with prolixity upon the great service he was to do the State, and Ruth, listening to him, was proud of his zeal, the sincerity of which it never entered her mind to doubt.

Diana listened, too, but without illusions concerning Master Richard, and she kept her conclusions to herself.

During the afternoon of the morrow, which was Sunday, Sir Rowland returned to Bridgwater, his mission to Feversham entirely successful, and all preparations made. He completed his arrangements, and towards eight o'clock that night the twenty men sent by Feversham--they had slipped singly into the town--began to muster in the orchard at the back of Mr. Newlington's house.

It was just about that same hour that Mr. Wilding, saddle-worn and dust-clogged in every pore, rode into Bridgwater, and made his way to the sign of The Ship in the High Street, overlooking the Cross where Trenchard was lodged. His friend was absent--possibly gone with his men to the sermon Ferguson was preaching to the army in the Castle Fields.

Having put up his horse, Mr. Wilding, all dusty as he was, repaired straight to the Castle to report himself to Monmouth.

He was informed that His Majesty was in council. Nevertheless, urging that his news was of importance, he begged to be instantly announced.

After a pause, he was ushered into a lofty, roomy chamber where, in the fading daylight, King Monmouth sat in council with Grey and Wade, Matthews, Speke, Ferguson, and others. At the foot of the table stood a st.u.r.dy country-fellow, unknown to Wilding. It was G.o.dfrey, the spy, who was to act as their guide across Sedgemoor that night; for the matter that was engaging them just then was the completion of their plans for the attack that was to be made that very night upon Feversham's unprepared camp--a matter which had been resolved during the last few hours as an alternative preferable to the retreat towards Gloucester that had at first been intended.