ted, and to leave
you."

Kenneth's passionate reproaches cut Galliard keenly. He held himself at
that moment a very knave for having dragged this boy into his work of
vengeance, and thereby cast a blight upon his life. He sought for words
wherein to give expression to something of what he felt, then realizing
how futile and effete all words must prove, he waved his hand in the
direction of the road.

"Go, Master Stewart," he muttered. "Your way is clear."

And Kenneth, waiting for no second invitation, rode on and left him. He
rode with gratitude in his heart to the Providence that had caused him
so easily to overcome an obstacle that at first he had held impassable.
Stronger grew in his mind the conviction that to fulfil the mission
Joseph required of him, he must reach London before Sir Crispin. The
knowledge that he was ahead of him, and that he must derive an ample
start from Galliard's mishap, warmed him like wine.

His mind thus relieved from its weight of anxiety, he little recked
fatigue, and such excellent use did he make of his horse that he reached
Newmarket on it an hour before the morrow's moon.

An hour he rested there, and broke his fast. Then on a fresh horse--a
powerful and willing animal he set out once more.

By half-past two he was at Newport. But so hard had he ridden that man
and beast alike were in a lather of sweat, and whilst he himself felt
sick and tired, the horse was utterly unfit to bear him farther. For
half an hour he rested there, and made a meal whose chief constituent
was brandy. Then on a third horse he started upon the last stage of his
journey.

The wind was damp and penetrating; the roads veritable morasses of mud,
and overhead gloomy banks of dark, grey clouds moved sluggishly, the
light that was filtered through them giving the landscape a bleak and
dreary aspect. In his jaded condition Kenneth soon became a prey to the
depression of it. His lightness of heart of some dozen hours ago was
now all gone, and not even the knowledge that his mission was well-nigh
accomplished sufficed to cheer him. To add to his discomfort a fine
rain set in towards four o'clock, and when a couple of hours later he
clattered along the road cut through a wooded slope in the direction of
Waltham, he was become a very limp and lifeless individual.

He noticed not the horsemen moving cautiously among the closely-set
trees on either side of the road. It was growing prematurely dark, and
objects w