round to her and his hands clasped hers for a moment in a grip
that was warm and close. He did not speak at once.

Then, lightly, "I don't know what you'll do afterwards, _ma Juliette_,"
he said. "But you are coming with me now!"

She caught her breath as if she would utter some protest, but something
checked her--perhaps it was the memory of Dick's face as she had last
seen it, stony, grimly averted, uncompromisingly stern. She gripped his
hands in answer, but she did not speak a word.

And so they sped away together into the dark.

CHAPTER VIII

OUT OF THE NIGHT

It was very late that night, and the sea-mist had turned to a drifting
rain when the squire sitting reading in his library at the Court was
startled by a sudden tapping upon the window behind him.

So unexpected was the sound in the absolute stillness that he started
with some violence and nearly knocked over the reading-lamp at his elbow.
Then sharply and frowning he arose. He reached the window and fumbled at
the blind; but failing to find the cord dragged it impatiently aside and
peered through the glass.

"Who is it? What do you want?"

A face he knew, but so drawn and deathly that for the moment it seemed
almost unfamiliar, peered back at him. In a second he had the window
unfastened and flung wide.

"Dick! In heaven's name, boy,--what's the matter?"

Dick was over the sill in a single bound. He stood up and faced the
squire, bare-headed, drenched with rain, his eyes burning with a
terrible fire.

"I have come for my wife," he said.

"Your wife! Juliet!" The squire stared at him as if he thought him
demented. "Why, she left ages ago, man,--soon after tea!"

"Yes, yes, I know," Dick said. He spoke rapidly, but with decision. "But
she came back here an hour or two ago. You are giving her shelter.
Saltash brought her--or no--she probably came alone."

"You are mad!" said Fielding, and turned to shut the window. "She hasn't
been near since she left this evening."

"Wait!" Dick's hand shot out and caught his arm, restraining him. "Do you
swear to me that you don't know where she is?"

The squire stood still, looking full and hard into the face so near his
own; and so looking, he realized, what he had not grasped before, that it
was the face of a man in torture. The savage grip on his arm told the
same story. The fiery eyes that stared at him out of the death-white
countenance had the awful look of a man who sees his last hope sha