ime in explanation, to catch one of
them, mount bare-backed and ride through the New Plantation--the New
Plantation was a hundred years old, but still kept that name--over the
brow of the hill beyond, swim the canal in the valley, and so straight
across-country to Ramsdon.

Riding thus direct he would save time and distance, and arrive more
quickly than by going the necessary distance to secure a motor-car which
would have also to take a much more circuitous route.

He jumped the hedge, therefore, that lay at the wood's edge and slid
down the steep bank into the sunken road beyond where he found himself
standing in front of Walter, who held in his hands a gun levelled
straight at Rupert's heart.

"I could have shot you time after time in there you know," he said
quietly. "From behind that bush and from out of the bracken, too. I
don't know why I didn't. I suppose it wasn't worth while, now I shall
never be Lord Chobham."

He flung down his gun as he spoke and sprang on a bicycle that he had
held leaning against his legs.

Quickly he sped away, leaving Rupert standing staring after him,
realizing that his life had hung upon the bending of Walter's finger,
and that Walter, with at least two cold-blooded murders to his
account, or little more to hope for in this world or the next, had now
inexplicably spared him for whose destruction, of life and honour alike,
he had a little before been laying such elaborate, hellish plans.

With a gesture of his hands that proved he failed to understand, Rupert
ran on and crossed a field to where he saw some horses grazing.

One he knew immediately for one of his father's mares, and he knew her
also for an animal of speed and endurance.

The mare knew him, too, and suffered him to mount her without
difficulty, and without a soul on the farm being aware of what was
happening and without having to waste any precious time on explanations
or declaring his identity, Rupert rode away, sitting the mare
bare-backed, through the New Plantation towards Bittermeads, where he
hoped, arriving unexpectedly, to be able to save Ella before the danger
he was sure threatened her came to a head.

Of one thing he was certain. Deede Dawson would never do what his
companion in villainy had just done, he would spare no one; fierce,
malignant and evil to the last, his one thought if he knew they had and
vengeance approached would be to do what harm he could before the end.

CHAPTER XXVIII. BACK