anything happened. Now, it looks to me as if there
was going to be a smash. Rupert Ashley arrives in three or four days'
time, and then--"

"You don't think he'd want to back out, do you?"

"I haven't the remotest idea. From Olivia's description he seems like a
decent sort; and yet--"

Davenant got to, his feet. "Shouldn't you like me to go back to the
ladies? You want to talk to the professor--"

"No, no," Guion said, easily, pushing Davenant into his seat again.
"There's no reason why you shouldn't hear anything I have to say. The
whole town will know it soon. You can't conceal a burning house; and
Tory Hill is on fire. I may be spending my last night under its roof."

"They'll not rush things like that," Temple said, tying to speak
reassuringly.

"They haven't rushed things as it is. I've come to the end of a very
long tether. I only want you to know that by this time to-morrow night
I may have taken Kipling's Strange Ride with Morrowby Jukes to the Land
of the Living Dead. If I do, I sha'n't come back--accept bail, or that
sort of thing. I can't imagine anything more ghastly than for a man to
be hanging around among his old friends, waiting for a--for a"--he
balked at the word--"for a trial," he said at last, "that can have only
one ending. No! I'm ready to ride away when they call for me--but they
won't find me pining for freedom."

"Can't anything be done?"

"Not for me, Rodney. If Rupert Ashley will only look after Olivia, I
shan't mind what happens next. Men have been broken on the wheel before
now. I think I can go through it as well as another. But if Ashley
should fail us--and of course that's possible--well, you see why I feel
as I do about her falling out with the old Marquise. Aunt Vic has always
made much of her--and she's very well off--"

"Is there nothing to be expected in that quarter for yourself?"

Guion shook his head. "I couldn't ask her--not at the worst. In the
natural course of things Olivia and I would be her heirs--that is, if
she didn't do something else with her money--but she's still in the
early seventies, and may easily go on for a long time yet. Any help
there is very far in the future, so that--"

"Ashley, I take it, is a man of some means?"

"Of comfortable means--no more. He has an entailed property in the
Midlands and his pay. As he has a mother and two sisters to pension
off, Olivia begged to have no settlements made upon herself. He wanted
to do it, after the Engli