to you that they would send for you to question you,
and that if they did so, as you are a gentleman you could not lie away
my brother's life."

"Why, yes," said he quite calmly, "it does occur to me. But does it not
occur to you that by the time they came here they would find me gone?"
He laughed at her dismay. "I thank you, madam, for this warning," he
added. "I think I'll bid them saddle for me without delay. Too long
already have I tarried."

"And must Richard hang?" she asked him fiercely.

Mr. Wilding produced a snuffbox of tortoise shell and gold. He opened it
deliberately. "If he does, you'll admit that he will hang on the gallows
that he has built himself--although intended for another. I'faith! He's
not the first booby to be caught in his own springe. There is in this a
measure of poetic justice. Poetry and justice! Do you know, Ruth,
they are two things I have ever loved?" And he took a pinch of choice
Bergamot.

"Will you be serious?" she demanded.

"Trenchard would tell you that it were to make an exception from the
rule of my life," he assured her, smiling. "Yet even that might I do at
your bidding."

"But this is a serious matter," she told him angrily. "For Richard," he
acknowledged, closing his snuffbox with a snap. "Tell me, what would you
have me do?"

Since he asked her thus, she answered him in two words. "Save him."

"At the cost of my own neck?" quoth he. "The price is high," he reminded
her. "Do you think that Richard is quite worth it?"

"And are you to save yourself at the cost of his?" she
counter-questioned. "Are you capable of such a baseness?"

He looked at her thoughtfully a moment. "You have not reflected," said
he slowly, "that in this affair is involved more than mine or Richard's
life. There is a great cause weighing in the balance against all
personal considerations. If I accounted Richard of more value to
Monmouth than I am myself, I should not hesitate in riding to set
him free by taking his place. As it is, however, I think I am of the
greatest conceivable importance to His Grace, whilst if twenty Richards
perished--frankly--their loss would be something of a gain, for Richard
has played a traitor's part already. That is with me the first of all
considerations."

"Am I of no consideration to you?" she asked him. And in an agony of
terror for her brother she now approached him, and, obeying a sudden
impulse, cast herself upon her knees before him. "Listen!" she cried.