There was such hard finality in his tone that she recoiled, beaten and
without power, to return to the assault. She had played and lost. She
had yielded her lips to his kisses, and--husband though he might be in
name--shame was her only guerdon.

One look she gave him from out of that face so white and pitiful, then
with a shudder turned from him and fled his presence. He sprang after
her as the door closed, then checked and stood in thought, very grim for
one who professed to bestow no seriousness on the affairs of life. Then
he returned slowly to his writing-table, and rummaged there among the
papers with which it was encumbered, seeking something of which he now
had need. Through the open window he heard the retreating beat of her
horse's hoofs. He sighed and sat down heavily, to take his long square
chin in his hand and stare before him at the sunlight on the lawn
outside.

And whilst he sat thus, Ruth made all haste back to Lupton House to tell
of the failure that had attended her. There was nothing left her now
but to embark upon the forlorn hope of following Richard to Taunton, to
offer her evidence of how the incriminating letter had come to be locked
in the drawer in which the constable had discovered it. Diana met her
with a face as white as her own and infinitely more startled. She had
just learnt that Sir Rowland Blake had been arrested also and that
he had been carried to Taunton together with Richard, and, as a
consequence, she was as eager now that Ruth should repair to Albemarle
as she had erstwhile been earnest in urging her to seek out Mr. Wilding;
indeed, Diana went so far as to offer to accompany her, an offer that
Ruth gladly, gratefully accepted.

Within an hour Ruth and Diana--in spite of all that poor, docile Lady
Horton had said to stay them--were riding to Taunton, attended by the
same groom who had so lately accompanied his mistress to Zoyland Chase.

CHAPTER X. THEIR OWN PETARD

In a lofty, spacious room of the town hall at Taunton sat Sir Edward
Phelips and Colonel Luttrell to dispense justice, and with them, flanked
by one of them on either side of him, sat Christopher Monk, Duke of
Albemarle, Lord-Lieutenant of Devonshire, who had been summoned in
all haste from Exeter that he might be present at an examination which
promised to be of so vast importance. The three sat at a long table at
the room's end, attended by two secretaries.

Before them, guarded by constable and tything