d.i.c.k pinched her chin between his thumb and forefinger. He was still in love with this slim sweet candid creature, whose great eyes were l.u.s.trous with the flame of her eager spirit. "n.o.body is worthless in your eyes," he said. "You could even find excuses for Rachel Amberley."

A shadow fell across her bright face. "Poor woman!" she said. "Oh, poor, poor woman! Here we are, all of us together, happy at Christmas-time; and she----! Oh, d.i.c.k--'for all prisoners and captives'! I thought of her in church this morning. The loneliness--the cold! I think we ought to pray to be forgiven, as well as she."

d.i.c.k kissed her gently. "You don't want to think too much about her,"

he said. "She's paying the price."

CHAPTER IV

COMING HOME FROM THE BALL

"This is where we are going to shoot to-morrow. We've kept this side entirely until now. We ought to do pretty well."

Bobby Trench, m.u.f.fled up to the cigar he was smoking, sat by the side of d.i.c.k, who was driving the big omnibus back from the West Meadshire Hunt Ball. The two fine horses, making nothing of the load behind them, trotted rhythmically homewards. Heavy rain had ceased, and the moon peeping through scudding clouds shone on pools of water lying on the muddy road. The yellow lamp-rays tinged the wide strips of turf bordering the roadway, and lit up successive tree trunks, posted sentinel-like, behind the oak fences.

Bobby Trench had chosen to sit outside, with d.i.c.k and Frank. His evening had been disappointing. He had arrived at Kencote in time for dinner, prepared to make himself pleasant all round, which he seemed to have succeeded in doing to everybody except Joan, who had held somewhat coldly aloof, although he had kept strictly to his predetermined plan of treating her with cool friendliness until the ball should give him opportunities of carefully graded tenderness. But the ball had given him no opportunities, or none that Joan would allow him to take advantage of. She had snubbed him, had shown herself, indeed, determined to find occasions for snubbing him; for he was agile in skipping out of the way of such occasions, but she had pursued his skippings and dealt her strokes in spite of them. She had primly refused him more than two dances, and had refused to go in to supper with him. His antic.i.p.ated pleasure having thus resolved itself into puzzled pain, Bobby Trench had declared himself for tobacco and the night air, and left Joan to her reflections inside, barbing them, as he handed her in, with a careless example of his own peculiar humour, which was founded on the basis of a cheery and always ready loquacity.

Snubs, or attempted snubs, received with no diminution of self-a.s.surance or good-temper, at both of which they may be supposed to be aimed, are apt to recoil on those who administer them; and Joan, taking refuge between the comforting skirts of Virginia and Miss Dexter, was already reproaching herself for her treatment of one who had given her no cause for it except his presence, and whose persistent cheerfulness under persecution was a shining lesson to ill-temper. She was feeling miserable enough, in all conscience, and need not have beaten down the last sparks of enjoyment that she might have gained from the bright movement, hitherto eagerly antic.i.p.ated, by setting herself to a task so little productive of satisfaction.

But she did not occupy her thoughts for long with Bobby Trench. She made up her mind that, having shown him that particular attention from him would not be welcome, she might safely return to the chaffing intimacy which had hitherto been the note of their intercourse, and had been quite as efficacious in keeping him at the requisite distance as her recent manner. And having so decided she dismissed him from her mind and wrapped herself round with her unhappiness.

It was dreadful to be going home from a ball, not only with no retrospective pleasure, but with nothing to look forward to in the way of disrobing talk. She and Nancy, since her wrecked attempt at reconciliation, had carried their respective heads in the air, and had hardly spoken to one another, except in the presence of their handmaid, for the purpose of averting comment. And yet she knew that Nancy's happy fate was marching upon her, and reproached herself a thousand times for her inability to cross the gulf between them, and share her sister's doubts and sweet tremors. John Spence had danced with her three times--many times with Nancy--and his manner had been brotherly-kind and protecting, as if to soothe her soreness, which yet he did not seem to have divined. His thoughts had not been much with her, that had been plain--but his quietness and simplicity had comforted her a little, and she had not wanted to talk. She had taken refuge in a plea of headache, and held to it on the homeward drive.

n.o.body seemed to want to talk. Something had gone wrong with the lamp inside the carriage, and they were in darkness, except for the faint irradiation of the moon. Mrs. Clinton had driven home earlier, with Sir George and Lady Senhouse and Muriel Clinton, Walter's wife. In the absence of Bobby Trench, the eight of them inside the omnibus were of such family intimacy that there was no necessity for conversation, if private thoughts sufficed, or s.n.a.t.c.hes of slumber. John Spence, the one exception, had no great initiative in conversation at any time, and in the far corner beside Nancy much preferred the silent, ruminative progression through the dark country roads and lanes. Greatly daring, he advanced his large muscular hand under the warm fur billowing down the carriage, and sought for Nancy's. He found it and gave it a squeeze. She returned the squeeze and withdrew her hand. A year before, such a sign of appreciative affection might very well have come from her--or from Joan--instead of from him. Perhaps her ready acceptance of it might mean no more than that her affectionate appreciation was still of the same quality. But the chance of its meaning something more thrilled his big frame, and on it his thoughts fed sweetly in the dark silence.

Virginia was right. He was head over ears in love with Nancy, but he shrank from telling her so. He was years older than she, almost as old as d.i.c.k, almost an old bachelor, except that at heart he had kept his simple youthfulness; and his great body, hardened and kept fine by field-sports, was still as responsive to his mind as that of a youth in his glorious twenties. But modesty was a great part of him, and he could not envisage himself as a man likely to gain prizes usually reserved for gallant youth. The fresh, laughing friendliness of the twins, when he had first known them as girls of fifteen, had attracted him delightfully, and he had been surprised to find that the attraction had changed its quality; also, at first, a little incredulous. It was only when he discovered that he thrilled to Nancy's touch and voice, and not to Joan's, that he accepted his fate; and, ever since, he had been tormented with doubts as to whether an avowal of his new feeling would bring him a response, or only destroy the frank confidence with which he still loved to be treated. The poor man sometimes imagined Nancy regarding him in the light of a fun-producing uncle, and felt that it would be sacrilege to her innocence to reveal himself as a lover. If he risked all, he might lose all, and be for ever disgraced in her eyes. He trembled, in his more darksome moods, at the thought.

But love was urging him on. The time would soon come when the avuncular character would be more difficult to support than that of a rejected absentee.

d.i.c.k pulled up his horses at a gate opening on to a broad gra.s.s ride between the trees. A groom got down from behind and opened it.

"We cut off nearly a mile and a half here," d.i.c.k said. "But I'm afraid it will be rather soft going after this rain. We'll chance it.

There's only one place where we might get stuck."

The horses broke gently into a slow trot, their hoofs and the iron-shod wheels of the heavy carriage making no sound on the thick gra.s.s. They went down a long and very easy slope, and then d.i.c.k pulled them to a walk through soft ground in the cup of the almost indistinguishable hollow. With a tightening of traces and no more than the stroke of a whip-lash they pulled the omnibus through, leaving sharp ruts behind it, and were once more on springy turf. Just as they were about to quicken into a trot again, Bobby Trench seized d.i.c.k's arm. "What's that!" he cried. "Did you hear it?"

"Somebody shouted," said Frank, standing up behind them; and had no sooner spoken when the silence of the woods was sharply broken by a gun-shot.

"Poachers, by Jove!" said d.i.c.k. "We shall catch them." He drove quickly on towards the point from which the report had come.

Suddenly there were shouts of men, and another report from a gun; then more shouting, and the cracking of trampled twigs quite near to them.

"The keepers are out. Good boys!" cried d.i.c.k, in excitement, reining in his horses.

Frank and Bobby Trench were down and off into the covert. Humphrey, who had been sitting next to the door, had followed them. d.i.c.k was for doing the same, but paused irresolute when he had called a groom to take the reins, and swung himself down from his seat. There was a commotion inside the omnibus. The women must be thought of.

Walter stood at the door, calming them. John Spence was on his feet ready to push out, but Nancy had hold of his hand, and Susan Clinton was clinging to him terrified. "All right, I'll stay, but I must get out," he said, torn between his desire to be in the fray, and the appeal, not of Susan's frightened cries, but of Nancy's silent call for protection.

"If you two will stay here, I'll go and see what's happening," said d.i.c.k. "It's all right, Virginia; there can't be many of them, and the men are there."

Another shot rang out above the sounds, hard by, of an angry struggle, and was followed by a cry of pain. d.i.c.k began to run towards the sound.

The moon now shining brightly made his progress easy. He saw three or four men, locked in a fierce struggle, and thought he recognised Frank as one of them. Then a cry to his right brought him round to see another group in combat. Someone was lying p.r.o.ne on the gra.s.s. A few yards from the still figure two others were reeling to and fro, and as he approached went down. The one underneath was wrapped in a long coat, the uppermost was unhampered, a giant figure of a man as he seemed, with a gun in his hands, on the barrels of which a shaft of moonlight glinted. He looked to be striking at the head of the other figure, and a cry for help rose up, urgently.

d.i.c.k sprang forward, but caught his foot on a root and fell. As he picked himself up, another figure ran past him with a raised cudgel.

"All right, sir, coming!"

The thick stick went down resoundingly on the ruffian's head, who let go of the gun-barrels, and turned with his arm raised to guard himself.

d.i.c.k had him by the neck, and was s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g his knuckles into the throat. He gulped, put hands like vices on to his sleeves, and kicked with a great iron-shod boot. d.i.c.k felt his shin peel through his thin trousers, but no pain. In a moment the keeper had thrown himself on to him, he ceased to struggle, and, d.i.c.k's fists relaxing their hold, choked out submission. "All right, you got me. You can give over now."

Humphrey rose from the ground, white and shaking, the blood trickling from a wound over his eyebrow. "The brute!" he said. "He'd have killed me. Lucky you came along. Where's Bobby?"

Bobby Trench lay on the dark ground, motionless, his arm stretched at a peculiar angle. As they bent over him, he fluttered an eyelid, then opened both. "Winged me," he said in a faint voice. "Ugh!" Then fainted again.

"He shot at him," said Humphrey. "I was just behind. He got it in the shoulder. Look here; all torn; he'll bleed to death."

d.i.c.k set up a shout. The wood was still now of the louder clamour.

The mimic battle was over.

Gotch, the keeper, had secured their captive with a rope. He took it calmly; even good-humouredly. "'Aven't done for 'im, 'ave I, Governor?" he called out.

"Hold your tongue, you swine!" said Gotch, hitting him on the mouth, at which he expostulated mildly, as at an unreasonable act. "All right, mate; you got me. It's a lifer if I done for him. I on'y wanted to know."

CHAPTER V

ROBERT REc.u.mBENT

Bobby Trench, lying in bed, the seams of his pyjama jacket cut and ribboned at the left arm and shoulder to accommodate the bandages, was an interesting figure. He had gone through his time of fever and fiery pain, his probings and dressings; now, but for occasional discomfort, and a languorous but convalescent weakness, he was himself again, and prepared to take up his affairs at the point at which they had been interrupted by what had befallen him.

The nurse, moving capably about the large, airy, chintz-bedecked room, in her trim livery, was besieged for news of the household. Tall, handsome, and still young, she was on very good terms with her patient.

Regarded as a "case," he did her credit; and she couldn't help liking him, as she wrote to her relations.

"Look here, Sarah Gamp, you're a deceitful woman. You're keeping them all away from me; you know you are. I'm as fit as a fiddle, or shall be in about five minutes; and I want to see company."

The nurse permitted herself a smile. "You're to be kept quiet for a day or two. Doctor's orders."

"Doctor's orders! Walter Clinton! What sort of a Bob Sawyer is he, to give orders? You know much more about things than he does, don't you now? You want to keep me to yourself, that's what it is."

"Indeed, you're very ungrateful. Dr. Clinton is a rising man in the profession. There isn't a doctor in London could have done better for you."

"You think so, Mrs. Gamp?"