assment, 'Oh,' he said, 'you are--you are in
search of her?'

'Yes,' said Sir George mockingly. 'We are in search of her. And we want
to know where she is.'

'Where she is?'

'Yes, where she is. That is it; where she is. You were to meet her here,
you know. You are late and she has gone. But you will know whither.'

Mr. Dunborough stared; then in a tempest of wrath and chagrin, 'D----n
you!' he cried furiously. 'As you know so much, you can find out
the rest!'

'I could,' said Sir George slowly. 'But I prefer that you should help
me. And you will.'

'Will what?'

'Will help me, sir,' Sir George answered quickly, 'to find the lady we
are seeking.'

'I'll be hanged if I will,' Dunborough cried, raging and furious.

'You'll be hanged if you won't,' Sir George said in a changed tone; and
he laughed contemptuously. 'Hanged by the neck until you are dead, Mr.
Dunborough--if money can bring it about. You fool,' he continued, with a
sudden flash of the ferocity that had from the first underlain his
sarcasm, 'we have got enough from your own lips to hang you, and if more
be wanted, your people will peach on you. You have put your neck into
the halter, and there is only one way, if one, in which you can take it
out. Think, man; think before you speak again,' he continued savagely,
'for my patience is nearly at an end, and I would sooner see you hang
than not. And look you, leave your reins alone, for if you try to turn,
by G--d, I'll shoot you like the dog you are!'

Whether he thought the advice good or bad, Mr. Dunborough took it; and
there was a long silence. In the distance the hoof-beats of the
servant's horse, approaching from the direction of Chippenham, broke the
stillness of the moonlit country; but round the three men who sat
motionless in their saddles, glaring at one another and awaiting the
word for action, was a kind of barrier, a breathlessness born of
expectation. At length Dunborough spoke.

'What do you want?' he said in a low tone, his voice confessing his
defeat. 'If she is not here, I do not know where she is.'

'That is for you,' Sir George answered with a grim coolness that
astonished Mr. Fishwick. 'It is not I who will hang if aught happen
to her.'

Again there was silence. Then in a voice choked with rage Mr. Dunborough
cried, 'But if I do not know?'

'The worse for you,' said Sir George. He was sorely tempted to put the
muzzle of a pistol to the other's head and risk all. But he fancie