him. It may also
be that in doing so at once she had ends of her own to serve; for Sir
Rowland was still of the company.

"Mr. Wilding afraid?" she cried, her voice so charged with derision that
it inclined to shrillness. "La! Richard, Mr. Wilding was never afraid of
any man."

"Faith!" said Rowland, although his acquaintance with Mr. Wilding was
slight and recent. "It is what I should think. He does not look like a
man familiar with fear."

Richard struck something of an attitude, his fair face flushed, his pale
eyes glittering. "He took a blow," said he, and sneered.

"There may have been reasons," Diana suggested darkly, and Sir Rowland's
eyes narrowed at the hint.

Again he recalled the words Richard had let fall that afternoon. Wilding
and he were fellow workers in some secret business, and Richard had said
that the encounter was treason to that same business, whatever it might
be. And of what it might be Sir Rowland had grounds upon which to found
at least a guess. Had perhaps Wilding acted upon some similar feelings
in avoiding the duel? He wondered; and when Richard dismissed Diana's
challenge with a fatuous laugh, it was Blake who took it up.

"You speak, ma'am," said he, "as if you knew that there were
reasons, and knew, too, what those reasons might be."

Diana looked at Ruth, as if for guidance before replying. But Ruth sat
calm and seemingly impassive, looking straight before her. She was,
indeed, indifferent how much Diana said, for in any case the matter
could not remain a secret long. Lady Horton, silent too and listening,
looked a question at her daughter.

And so, after a pause: "I know both," said Diana, her eyes straying
again to Ruth; and a subtler man than Blake would have read that glance
and understood that this same reason which he sought so diligently sat
there before him.

Richard, indeed, catching that sly look of his cousin's, checked his
assurance, and stood frowning, cogitating. Then, quite suddenly, his
voice harsh:

"What do you mean, Diana?" he inquired.

Diana shrugged and turned her shoulder to him. "You had best ask Ruth,"
said she, which was an answer more or less plain to both the men.

They stood at gaze, Richard looking a thought foolish. Blake, frowning,
his heavy lip caught in his strong, white teeth.

Ruth turned to her brother with an almost piteous attempt at a smile.
She sought to spare him pain by excluding from her manner all suggestion
that things