-coloured coat,
the other supporting the stem of a long clay pipe, at which he was
pulling thoughtfully. The pipe and he were all but inseparable; indeed,
the year before in London he had given appalling scandal by appearing
with it in the Mall, and had there remained him any character to lose,
he must assuredly have lost it then.

He observed his friend through narrowing eyes--he had small eyes, very
blue and very bright, in which there usually abode a roguish gleam.

"My sight, Anthony," said he, "reminds me that I am growing old. I
wonder did it mislead me on the score of your visitor?"

"The lady who left," said Wilding with a touch of severity, "will be
Mistress Wilding by this day se'night."

Trenchard took the pipe from his lips, audibly blew out a cloud of smoke
and stared at his friend. "Body o' me!" quoth he. "Is this a time for
marrying?--with these rumours of Monmouth's coming over."

Wilding made an impatient gesture. "I thought to have convinced you they
are idle," said he, and flung himself into a chair at his writing-table.

Nick came over and perched himself upon the table's edge, one leg
swinging in the air. "And what of this matter of the intercepted letter
from London to our Taunton friends?"

"I can't tell you. But of this I am sure, His Grace is incapable of
anything so rash. Certain is it that he'll not stir until Battiscomb
returns to Holland, and Battiscomb is still in Cheshire sounding the
Duke's friends."

"Yet were I you, I should not marry just at present."

Wilding smiled. "If you were me, you'd never marry at all."

"Faith, no!" said Trenchard. "I'd as soon play at 'hot-cockles,' or
'Parson-has-lost-his-cloak.' 'Tis a mort more amusing and the sooner
done with."

CHAPTER V. THE ENCOUNTER

Ruth Wesmacott rode back like one in a dream, with vague and hazy
notions of what she saw or did. So overwrought was she by the interview
from which she came, her mind so obsessed by it, that never a thought
had she for Diana and her indisposition until she arrived home to
find her cousin there before her. Diana was in tears, called up by the
reproaches of her mother, Lady Horton--the relict of that fine soldier
Sir Cholmondeley Horton, of Taunton.

The girl had arrived at Lupton House a half-hour ahead of Miss
Westmacott, and upon her arrival she had expressed surprise, either
feigned or real, at finding Ruth still absent. Detecting the alarm
that Diana was careful to throw into her