na's impetuous
entrance, and in the deepening twilight she looked almost ghostly in her
gown of shimmering white satin, sewn with pearls about the neck of the
low-cut bodice.

"Diana!" she cried. "You startled me."

"Not so much as I am yet to do," answered Diana, breathing excitement.
She threw back the wimple from her head, and pulling away her cloak,
tossed it on to the bed. "Mr. Wilding is in Bridgwater," she announced.

There was a faint rustle from the stiff satin of Ruth's gown. "Then..."
her voice shook slightly. "Then... he is not dead," she said, more
because she felt that she must say something than because her words
fitted the occasion.

"Not yet," said Diana grimly.

"Not yet?"

"He sups to-night at Mr. Newlington's," Miss Horton exclaimed in a voice
pregnant with meaning.

"Ah!" It was a cry from Ruth, sharp as if she had been stabbed. She sank
back to her seat by the window, smitten down by this sudden news.

There was a pause, which fretted Diana, who now craved knowledge of what
might be passing in her cousin's mind. She advanced towards Ruth and
laid a trembling hand on her shoulder, where the white gown met the
ivory neck. "He must be warned," she said.

"But.., but how?" stammered Ruth. "To warn him were to betray Sir
Rowland."

"Sir Rowland?" cried Diana in high scorn.

"And... and Richard," Ruth continued.

"Yes, and Mr. Newlington, and all the other knaves that are engaged in
this murderous business. Well?" she demanded. "Will you do it, or must
I?"

"Do it?" Ruth's eyes sought her cousin's white, excited face in the
quasi-darkness. "But have you thought of what it will mean? Have you
thought of the poor people that will perish unless the Duke is taken and
this rebellion brought to an end?"

"Thought of it?" repeated Diana witheringly. "Not I. I have thought that
Mr. Wilding is here and like to have his throat cut before an hour is
past."

"Tell me, are you sure of this?" asked Ruth.

"I have it from your husband's own lips," Diana answered, and told her
in a few words of her meeting with Mr. Wilding.

Ruth sat with hands folded in her lap, her eyes on the dim violet
after-glow in the west, and her mind wrestling with this problem that
Diana had brought her.

"Diana," she cried at last, "what am I to do?"

"Do?" echoed Diana. "Is it not plain? Warn Mr. Wilding."

"But Richard?"

"Mr. Wilding saved Richard's life..."

"I know. I know. My duty is to warn him."

"Then