ne Dacre?"

I had seen her after breakfast and it was now mid-day.

"By Heaven, there's villainy here!" cried my poor friend, rushing about
like a madman. "The bailiff has been up to say that a chaise and pair
were seen driving full split down the Tavistock Road. The blacksmith
heard a woman scream as it passed his forge. Jane has disappeared. By
the Lord, I believe that she has been kidnapped by this villain Dacre."
He rang the bell furiously. "Two horses, this instant!" he cried.
"Colonel Gerard, your pistols! Jane comes back with me this night from
Gravel Hanger or there will be a new master in High Combe Hall."

Behold us then within half an hour, like two knight-errants of old,
riding forth to the rescue of this lady in distress. It was near
Tavistock that Lord Dacre lived, and at every house and toll-gate along
the road we heard the news of the flying post-chaise in front of us, so
there could be no doubt whither they were bound. As we rode Lord Rufton
told me of the man whom we were pursuing.

His name, it seems, was a household word throughout all England for
every sort of mischief. Wine, women, dice, cards, racing--in all forms
of debauchery he had earned for himself a terrible name. He was of an
old and noble family, and it had been hoped that he had sowed his wild
oats when he married the beautiful Lady Jane Rufton.

For some months he had indeed behaved well, and then he had wounded her
feelings in their most tender part by some unworthy liaison. She had
fled from his house and taken refuge with her brother, from whose care
she had now been dragged once more, against her will. I ask you if two
men could have had a fairer errand than that upon which Lord Rufton and
myself were riding.

"That's Gravel Hanger," he cried at last, pointing with his crop, and
there on the green side of a hill was an old brick and timber building
as beautiful as only an English country-house can be. "There's an inn by
the park-gate, and there we shall leave our horses," he added.

For my own part it seemed to me that with so just a cause we should have
done best to ride boldly up to his door and summon him to surrender the
lady. But there I was wrong. For the one thing which every Englishman
fears is the law. He makes it himself, and when he has once made it it
becomes a terrible tyrant before whom the bravest quails. He will smile
at breaking his neck, but he will turn pale at breaking the law. It
seems, then, from what Lor