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. He watched her, deeply mystified. She had gained the door when suddenly he moved.
"Wait!" he cried. She paused, and turned to look over her shoulder, her hand apparently upon the latch. "You shall not go until you have told me why you besought me to keep away from Newlington's. What is it?" he asked, and paused suddenly, a flood of light breaking in upon his mind. "Is there some treachery afoot?" he asked her, and his eye went wildly to the clock. A harsh, grating sound rang through the room. "What are you doing?" he cried. "Why have you locked the door?" She was tugging and fumbling desperately to extract the key, her hands all clumsy in her nervous haste. He leapt at her, but in that moment the key came away in her hand. She wheeled round to face him, erect, defiant almost.
"Here is some devilry!" he cried. "Give me that key."
He had no need for further questions. Here was a proof more eloquent than words to his ready wit. Sir Rowland or Richard, or both, were in some plot for the Duke's ruin--perhaps assassination. Had not her very words shown that she herself was out of all sympathy with Monmouth? He was out of sympathy himself. But not to the extent of standing by to see his throat cut. She would have the plot succeed--whatever it might be and yet that he himself be spared. There his thoughts paused; but only for a moment. He saw suddenly in this, not a proof of concern born of love but of duty towards him who had imperilled himself once--and for all time, indeed--that he might save her brother and Sir Rowland.