The figure called to him in a quavering voice. "Mr. Wilding! Mr. Wilding!" for the light beating upon his face and figure from the open door had revealed him. The form came swiftly forward, its steps pattering down the walk, another slenderer figure surged in its place upon the threshold, hovered there an instant, then plunged down into the darkness to come after it. But the first was by now upon Mr. Wilding.
"What is it, Jasper?" he asked, recognizing the old servant.
"Mistress Ruth!" wailed the fellow, wringing his hands. "She.., she has been... carried off." He got it out in gasps, winded by his short run and by the excitement that possessed him.
No word said Wilding. He just stood and stared, scarcely understanding, and in that moment they were joined by Richard. He seized Wilding by the arm. "Blake has carried her off," he cried.
"Blake?" said Mr. Wilding, and wondered with a sensation of nausea was it an ordinary running away. But Richard's next words made it plain to him that it was no amorous elopement, nor even amorous abduction.
"He has carried her to Feversham... for her betrayal of his to-night's plan to seize the Duke."
That stirred Mr. Wilding. He wasted no time in idle questions or idler complainings. "How long since?" he asked, and it was he who clutched Richard now, by the shoulder and with a hand that hurt.
"Not ten minutes ago," was the quavering answer.
"And you were at hand when it befell?" cried Wilding, the scorn in his voice rising superior to his agitation and fears for Ruth. "You were at hand, and could neither prevent nor follow him?"
"I'll go with you now, if you'll give chase," whimpered Richard, feeling himself for once the craven that he was.
"If?" echoed Wilding scornfully, and dragged him past the gate and up towards the house even as he spoke. "Is there room for a doubt of it? Have you horses, at least?"
"To spare," said Richard as they hurried on. They skirted the house and found the stable door open as Blake had left it. Old Jasper followed with a lamp which burned steadily, so calm was the air of that July night. In three minutes they had saddled a couple of nags; in five they were riding for the bridge and the road to Weston Zoyland.
"It is a miracle you remained in Bridgwater," said Richard as they rode. "How came you to be left behind?"
"I had a task assigned me in the town against the Duke's return to-morrow," Wilding explained, and he spoke almost mechanically, his mind full of--anguished by--thoughts of Ruth.