"You?" The fierceness seemed all to drop away from him, whelmed in the immensity of his astonishment. "You?" Then he laughed loud in scornful disbelief. "You think to save him," he said.
"Should I lie?" she asked him, calm and brave.
He stared at her stupidly; he passed a hand across his brow, and looked at Diana. "Oh, it is impossible!" he said at last.
"You shall hear," she answered, and told him how at the last moment she had learnt not only that her husband was in Bridgwater, but that he was to sup at Newlington's with the Duke's party.
"I had no thought of betraying you or of saving the Duke," she said. "I knew how justifiable was what you intended. But I could not let Mr. Wilding go to his death. I sought to detain him, warning him only when I thought it would be too late for him to warn others. But you delayed overlong, and..."
A hoarse inarticulate cry from him came to interrupt her at that point. One glimpse of his face she had and of the hand half raised with sword pointing towards her, and she closed her eyes, thinking that her sands were run. And, indeed, Blake's intention was just then to kill her. That he should owe his betrayal to her was in itself cause enough to enrage him, but that her motive should have been her desire to save Wilding--Wilding of all men!--that was the last straw.
Had he been forewarned that Wilding was to be one of Monmouth's party at Mr. Newlington's, his pulses would have throbbed with joy, and he would have flung himself into his murderous task with twice the zest he had carried to it. And now he learnt that not only had she thwarted his schemes against Monmouth, but had deprived him of the ardently sought felicity of widowing her. He drew back his arm for the thrust; Diana huddled into her chair too horror-stricken to speak or move: Richard--immediately behind his sister--saw nothing of what was passing, and thought of nothing but his own safety.
Then Blake paused, stepped back, returned his sword to its scabbard, and bending himself--but whether to bow or not was not quite plain--he took some paces backwards, then turned and went out by the window as he had come. But there was a sudden purposefulness in the way he did it that might have warned them this withdrawal was not quite the retreat it seemed.
They watched him with many emotions, predominant among which was relief, and when he was gone Diana rose and came to Ruth.