d that
he knew his man, and that in this way only could he be effectually
cowed; and he restrained himself.

'She should be here--that is all I know. She should have been here,' Mr.
Dunborough continued sulkily, 'at eight.'

'Why here?'

'The fools would not take her through Chippenham without me. Now you
know.'

'It is ten, now.'

'Well, curse you,' the younger man answered, flaring up again, 'could I
help it if my horse fell? Do you think I should be sitting here to be
rough-ridden by you if it were not for this?' He raised his right arm,
or rather his shoulder, with a stiff movement; they saw that the arm was
bound to his side. 'But for that she would be in Bristol by now,' he
continued disdainfully, 'and you might whistle for her. But, Lord, here
is a pother about a college-wench!'

'College-wench, sir?' the lawyer cried scarcely controlling his
indignation. 'She is Sir George Soane's cousin. I'd have you know that!'

'And my promised wife,' Sir George said, with grim-ness.

Dunborough cried out in his astonishment. 'It is a lie!' he said.

'As you please,' Sir George answered.

At that, a chill such as he had never known gripped Mr. Dunborough's
heart. He had thought himself in an unpleasant fix before; and that to
escape scot free he must eat humble pie with a bad grace. But on this a
secret terror, such as sometimes takes possession of a bold man who
finds himself helpless and in peril seized on him. Given arms and the
chance to use them, he would have led the forlornest of hopes, charged a
battery, or fired a magazine. But the species of danger in which he now
found himself--with a gallows and a silk rope in prospect, his fate to
be determined by the very scoundrels he had hired--shook even his
obstinacy. He looked about him; Sir George's servant had come up and was
waiting a little apart.

Mr. Dunborough found his lips dry, his throat husky. 'What do you want?'
he muttered, his voice changed. 'I have told you all I know. Likely
enough they have taken her back to get themselves out of the scrape.'

'They have not,' said the lawyer. 'We have come that way, and must have
met them.'

'They may be in Chippenham?'

'They are not. We have inquired.'

'Then they must have taken this road. Curse you, don't you see that I
cannot get out of my saddle to look?' he continued ferociously.

'They have gone this way. Have you any devil's shop--any house of call
down the road?' Sir George asked, signing to