第76章

"You damned, infernal traitor!" he cried. "Draw, draw! Or die like the muckworm that you are."Intrepid, her terror all vanished now that there was the need for courage, Ruth confronted him, barring his passage, a buckler to her palsied brother.

"Out of my way, mistress, or I'll be doing you a mischief.""You are mad, Sir Rowland," she told him in a voice that did something towards restoring him to his senses.

His fierce eyes considered her a moment, and he controlled himself to offer an explanation. "The twenty that were with me lie stark under the stars in Newlington's garden," he told her, as Richard had told her already. "I escaped by a miracle, no less, but for what?

Feversham will demand of me a stern account of those lives, whilst if I am found in Bridgwater there will be a short shrift for me at the rebel hands - for my share in this affair is known, my name on every lip in the town. And why?" he asked with a sudden increase of fierceness. "Why? Because that craven villain there betrayed me.""He did not," she answered in so assured a voice that not only did it give him pause, but caused Richard, cowering behind her, to raise his head in wonder.

Sir Rowland smiled his disbelief, and that smile, twisting his blood-smeared countenance, was grotesque and horrible. "I left him to guard our backs and give me warning if any approached," he informed her.

"I knew him for too great a coward to be trusted in the fight; so I gave him a safe task, and yet in that he failed me-failed me because he had betrayed and sold me.""He had not. I tell you he had not," she insisted. "I swear it."He stared at her. "There was no one else for it," he made answer, and bade her harshly stand aside.

Diana, huddled together, watched and waited in horror for the end of these consequences of her work.

Blake made a sudden movement to win past Ruth. Richard staggered to his feet intent on defending himself; but he was swordless; retreat to the door suggested itself, and he had half turned to attempt to gain it, when Ruth's next words arrested him, petrified him.

"There was some one else for it, Sir Rowland," shecried. "It was not Richard who betrayed you. It ... it was I.""You?" The fierceness seemed all to drop away from him, whelmed in the immensity of his astonishment. "You?" Then he laughed loud in scornful disbelief. "You think to save him," he said.

"Should I lie?" she asked him, calm and brave.

He stared at her stupidly; he passed a hand across his brow, and looked at Diana. "Oh, it is impossible!" he said at last.

"You shall hear," she answered, and told him how at the last moment she had learnt not only that her husband was in Bridgwater, but that he was to sup at Newlington's with the Duke's party.

"I had no thought of betraying you or of saving the Duke," she said.

"I knew how justifiable was what you intended. But I could not let Mr.

Wilding go to his death. I sought to detain him, warning him only when I thought it would be too late for him to warn others. But you delayed overlong, and..."A hoarse inarticulate cry from him came to interrupt her at that point.

One glimpse of his face she had and of the hand half raised with sword pointing towards her, and she closed her eyes, thinking that her sands were run. And, indeed, Blake's intention was just then to kill her.

That he should owe his betrayal to her was in itself cause enough to enrage him, but that her motive should have been her desire to save Wilding - Wilding of all men! - that was the last straw.

Had he been forewarned that Wilding was to be one of Monmouth's party at Mr. Newlington's, his pulses would have throbbed with joy, and he would have flung himself into his murderous task with twice the zest he had carried to it. And now he learnt that not only had she thwarted his schemes against Monmouth, but had deprived him of the ardently sought felicity of widowing her. He drew back his arm for the thrust;Diana huddled into her chair too horror-stricken to speak or move:

Richard - immediately behind his sister - saw nothing of what was passing, and thought of nothing but his own safety.

Then Blake paused, stepped back, returned his sword to its scabbard, and bending himself - but whether to bow or not was not quite plain - he took some paces backwards, then turned and went out by the window as he had come. But there was a sudden purposefulness in the way he did it that might have warned them this withdrawal was not quite the retreat it seemed.