us agree to end it."

"It is all I ask."

"Yes, but--alas!--in a different way. Listen now."

"I will not listen. Let me go.

"I were your enemy did I do so, for you would know hereafter a sorrow
and repentance for which nothing short of death could offer you escape.
Richard is under suspicion."

"Do you hark back to that?" The scorn of her voice was deadly. Had it
been herself he desired, surely that tone had quenched all passion in
him, or else transformed it into hatred. But Blake was playing for a
fortune, for shelter from a debtor's prison.

"It has become known," he continued, "that Richard was one of the early
plotters who paved the way for Monmouth's coming. I think that that, in
conjunction with his betrayal of his trust that night at Newlington's,
thereby causing the death of some twenty gallant fellows of King
James's, will be enough to hang him."

Her hand clutched at her heart. "What is't you seek?" she cried. It was
almost a moan. "What is't you want of me?"

"Yourself," said he. "I love you, Ruth," he added, and stepped close up
to her.

"O God!" she cried aloud. "Had I a man at hand to kill you for that
insult!"

And then--miracle of miracles!--a voice from the shrubs by which they
stood bore to her ears the startling words that told her her prayer was
answered there and then.

"Madam, that man is here."

She stood frozen. Not more of a statue was Lot's wife in the moment of
looking behind her than she who dared not look behind. That voice! A
voice from the dead, a voice she had heard for the last time in the
cottage that was Feversham's lodging at Weston Zoyland. Her wild eyes
fell upon Sir Rowland's face. It showed livid; the nether-lip sucked
in and caught in the strong teeth, as if to prevent an outcry; the eyes
wild with fright. What did it mean? By an effort she wrenched herself
round at last, and a scream broke from her to rouse her aunt, her
cousin, and her brother, and bring them hastening towards her across the
sweep of lawn.

Before her, on the edge of the shrubbery, a grey figure stood erect and
graceful, and the face, with its thin lips faintly smiling, its dark
eyes gleaming, was the face of Anthony Wilding. And as she stared he
moved forward, and she heard the fall of his foot upon the turf, the
clink of his spurs, the swish of his scabbard against the shrubs, and
reason told her that this was no ghost.

She held out her arms to him. "Anthony! Anthony!" She staggered for