"You'll go to your death," she reminded him.

He sneered. "What signifies a day or so? Give me the key."

"I love you, Anthony!" she cried, livid to the lips.

"Lies!" he answered her contemptuously. "The key!"

"No," she answered, and her firmness matched his own. "I will not have
you slain."

"'Tis not my purpose--not just yet. But I must save the others. God
forgive me if I offer violence to a woman," he added, "and lay rude
hands upon her. Do not compel me to it." He advanced upon her, but she,
lithe and quick, evaded him, and sprang for the middle of the room. He
wheeled about, his selfcontrol all slipping from him now. Suddenly she
darted to the window, and with the hand that clenched the key she
smote a pane with all her might. There was a smash of shivering glass,
followed an instant later by a faint tinkle on the stones below, and the
hand that she still held out covered itself all with blood.

"O God!" he cried, the key and all else forgotten. "You are hurt."

"But you are saved," she cried, overwrought, and staggered, laughing and
sobbing, to a chair, sinking her bleeding hand to her lap, and smearing
recklessly her spotless, shimmering gown.

He caught up a chair by its legs, and at a single blow smashed down the
door--a frail barrier after all. "Nick!" he roared. "Nick!" He tossed
the chair from him and vanished into the adjoining room to reappear a
moment later carrying basin and ewer, and a shirt of Trenchard's--the
first piece of linen he could find.

She was half fainting, and she let him have his swift, masterful way.
He bathed her hand, and was relieved to find that the injury was none so
great as the flow of blood had made him fear. He tore Trenchard's
fine cambric shirt to shreds--a matter on which Trenchard afterwards
commented in quotations from at least three famous Elizabethan
dramatists. He bound up her hand, just as Nick made his appearance at
the splintered door, his mouth open, his pipe, gone out, between his
fingers. He was followed by a startled serving-wench, the only other
person in the house, for every one was out of doors that night.

Into the woman's care Wilding delivered his wife, and without a word to
her he left the room, dragging Trenchard with him. It was striking nine
as they went down the stairs, and the sound brought as much satisfaction
to Ruth above as dismay to Wilding below.

CHAPTER XIX. THE BANQUET

It was striking nine. Therefore, Ruth thought that