seted
alone with him for an hour or more."

"Impossible!" he cried.

"Where else was the bargain made?" she asked, and shattered his last
doubt. "You know that Mr. Wilding has not been here."

Yet Blake struggled heroically against conviction.

"She went to intercede for Richard," he protested. Miss Horton looked
up at him, and under her glance Sir Rowland felt that he was a man of
unfathomable ignorance. Then she turned aside her eyes and shrugged her
shoulders 'very eloquently. "You are a man of the world, Sir Rowland.
You cannot seriously suppose that any maid would so imperil her good
name in any cause?"

Darker grew his florid countenance; his bulging eyes looked troubled and
perplexed.

"You mean that she loves him?" he said, between question and assertion.

Diana pursed her lips. "You shall draw your own inference," quoth she.

He breathed heavily, and squared his broad shoulders, as one who braces
himself for battle against an element stronger than himself.

"But her talk of sacrifice?" he cried.

Diana laughed, and again he was stung by her contempt of his
perceptions. "Her brother is set against her marrying him," said she.
"Here was her chance. Is it not very plain?"

Doubt stared from his eyes. "Why do you tell me this?"

"Because I esteem you, Sir Rowland," she answered very gently. "I would
not have you meddle in a matter you cannot mend."

"Which I am not desired to mend, say rather," he replied with heavy
sarcasm. "She would not have my interference!" He laughed angrily. "I
think you are right, Mistress Diana," he said, "and I think that more
than ever is there the need to kill this Mr. Wilding."

He took his departure abruptly, leaving her scared at the mischief she
had made for him in seeking to save him from it, and that very night he
sought out Wilding.

But Wilding was from home again. Under its placid surface the West
Country was in a ferment. And if hitherto Mr. Wilding had disdained the
insistent rumours of Monmouth's coming, his assurance was shaken now by
proof that the Government, itself, was stirring; for four companies of
foot and a troop of horse had been that day ordered to Taunton by the
Deputy-Lieutenant. Wilding was gone with Trenchard to White Lackington
in a vain hope that there he might find news to confirm his persisting
unbelief in any such rashness as was alleged on Monmouth's part.

So Blake was forced to wait, but his purpose suffered nothing by delay.

Retu