t Feversham might be
a gentleman and would recognize and respect a lady. Half fainting, she
allowed him to swing her to the withers of his horse. Thus they threaded
their way in the dim starlit night through the trees towards the gate.

It stood open, and they passed out into the lane. There Sir Rowland put
his horse to the trot, which he increased to a gallop when he was over
the bridge and clear of the town.

CHAPTER XXI. THE SENTENCE

Mr. Wilding, as we know, was to remain at Bridgwater for the purpose of
collecting from Mr. Newlington the fine which had been imposed upon him.
It is by no means clear whether Monmouth realized the fullness of
the tragedy at the merchant's house, and whether he understood that,
stricken with apoplexy at the thought of parting with so considerable a
portion of his fortune, Mr. Newlington had not merely fainted, but had
expired under His Grace's eyes. If he did realize it he was cynically
indifferent, and lest we should be doing him an injustice by assuming
this we had better give him the benefit of the doubt, and take it that
in the subsequent bustle of departure, his mind filled with the prospect
of the night attack to be delivered upon his uncle's army at-Sedgemoor,
he thought no more either of Mr. Newlington or of Mr. Wilding. The
latter, as we know, had no place in the rebel army; although a man of
his hands, he was not a trained soldier, and notwithstanding that he may
fully have intended to draw his sword for Monmouth when the time came,
yet circumstances had led to his continuing after Monmouth's landing the
more diplomatic work of movement-man, in which he had been engaged for
the months that had preceded it.

So it befell that when Monmouth's army marched out of Bridgwater at
eleven o'clock on that Sunday night, not to make for Gloucester and
Cheshire, as was generally believed, but to fall upon the encamped
Feversham at Sedgemoor and slaughter the royal army in their beds, Mr.
Wilding was left behind. Trenchard was gone, in command of his troop of
horse, and Mr. Wilding had for only company his thoughts touching the
singular happenings of that busy night.

He went back to the sign of The Ship overlooking the Cross, and, kicking
off his sodden shoes, he supped quietly in the room of which shattered
door and broken window reminded him of his odd interview with Ruth, and
of the comedy of love she had enacted to detain him there. The
thought of it embittered him; the pa