t on from a little wooden clock.
His eyes strayed to it; it marked the three-quarters. He bethought
him suddenly of his engagement. Trenchard, below-stairs, supremely
indifferent whether Wilding went to Newlington's or not, smoked on,
entirely unconcerned by the flight of time.

"Mistress," said Wilding suddenly, "you have not yet told me in what you
seek my service. Indeed, we seem to have talked to little purpose. My
time is very short."

"Where are you going?" she asked him, and fearfully she shot a sidelong
glance at the timepiece. It was still too soon, by at least five
minutes.

He smiled, but his smile was singular. He began to suspect at last that
her only purpose--to what end he could not guess--was to detain him.

"'Tis a singularly sudden interest in my doings, this," said he quietly.
"What is't you seek of me?" He reached for the hat he had cast upon the
table when they had entered. "Tell me briefly. I may stay no longer."

She rose, her agitation suddenly increasing, afraid that after all he
would escape her. "Where are you going?" she asked. "Answer me that, and
I will tell you why I came."

"I am to sup at Mr. Newlington's in His Majesty's company.

"His Majesty's?"

"King Monmouth's," he explained impatiently. "Come, Ruth. Already I am
late."

"If I were to ask you not to go," she said slowly, and she held out her
hands to him, her glance most piteous--and that was not acting--as she
raised it to meet his own, "would you not stay to pleasure me?"

He considered her from under frowning eyes. "Ruth," he said, and he took
her hands, "there is here something that I do not understand. What is't
you mean?"

"Promise me that you will not go to Newlington's, and I will tell you."

"But what has Newlington to do with...? Nay, I am pledged already to
go."

She drew closer to him, her hands upon his shoulders. "Yet if I ask
you--I, your wife?" she pleaded, and almost won him to her will.

But suddenly he remembered another occasion on which, for purposes of
her own, she had so pleaded. He laughed softly, mockingly.

"Do you woo me, Ruth, who, when I wooed you, would have none of me?"

She drew back from him, crimsoning. "I think I had better go," said she.
"You have nothing but mockery for me. It was ever so. Who knows?" she
sighed as she took up her mantle. "Had you but observed more gentle
ways, you... you..." She paused, needing to say no more. "Good-night!"
she ended, and made shift to leave