owards the
door. He looked back with a sardonic smile at the ado he was leaving
behind him, listened a moment to the voices that already were being
raised in excitement, then closed the door and made his way briskly
to the stable-yard, where he called for his horse. He rode out of
Bridgwater ten minutes later, and took the road to Taunton as the moon
was rising big and yellow over the hills on his left. He reached Taunton
towards ten o'clock that night, having ridden hell-to-leather. His
first visit was to the Hare and Hounds, where Blake and Westmacott had
overtaken the courier. His next to the house where Sir Edward Phelips
and Colonel Luttrell--the gentlemen lately ordered to Taunton by His
Majesty--had their lodging.

The fruits of Mr. Trenchard's extraordinary behaviour that night were
to be seen at an early hour on the following day, when a constable and
three tything-men came with a Lord-Lieutenant's warrant to arrest Mr.
Richard Westmacott on a charge of high treason. They found the young man
still abed, and most guilty was his panic when they bade him rise and
dress himself--though little did he dream of the full extent to which
Mr. Trenchard had enmeshed him, or indeed that Mr. Trenchard had any
hand at all in this affair. What time he was getting into his clothes
with a tything-man outside his door and another on guard under his
window, the constable and his third myrmidon made an exhaustive search
of the house. All they found of interest was a letter signed "Monmouth,"
which they took from the secret drawer of a secretary in the library;
but that, it seemed, was all they sought, for having found it, they
proceeded no further with their reckless and destructive ransacking.

With that letter and the person of Richard Westmacott, the constable and
his men took their departure, and rode back to Taunton, leaving alarm
and sore distress at Lupton House. In her despair poor Ruth was all for
following her brother, in the hope that at least by giving evidence
of how that letter came into his possession she might do something to
assist him. But knowing, as she did, that he had had his share in the
treason that was hatching, she had cause to fear that his guilt would
not lack for other proofs. It was Diana who urged her to repair instead
to the only man upon whose resource she might depend, provided he were
willing to exert it. That man was Anthony Wilding, and whether Diana
urged it from motives of her own or out of