Doubt stared from his eyes. "Why do you tell me this?"
"Because I esteem you, Sir Rowland," she answered very gently. "I would not have you meddle in a matter you cannot mend."
"Which I am not desired to mend, say rather," he replied with heavy sarcasm. "She would not have my interference!" He laughed angrily. "I think you are right, Mistress Diana," he said, "and I think that more than ever is there the need to kill this Mr. Wilding."
He took his departure abruptly, leaving her scared at the mischief she had made for him in seeking to save him from it, and that very night he sought out Wilding.
But Wilding was from home again. Under its placid surface the West Country was in a ferment. And if hitherto Mr. Wilding had disdained the insistent rumours of Monmouth's coming, his assurance was shaken now by proof that the Government, itself, was stirring; for four companies of foot and a troop of horse had been that day ordered to Taunton by the Deputy-Lieutenant. Wilding was gone with Trenchard to White Lackington in a vain hope that there he might find news to confirm his persisting unbelief in any such rashness as was alleged on Monmouth's part.
So Blake was forced to wait, but his purpose suffered nothing by delay.
Returning on the morrow, he found Mr. Wilding at table with Nick Trenchard, and he cut short the greetings of both men. He flung his hat--a black castor trimmed with a black feather--rudely among the dishes on the board.
"I have come to ask you, Mr. Wilding," said he, "to be so good as to tell me the colour of that hat."
Mr. Wilding raised one eyebrow and looked aslant at Trenchard, whose weather-beaten face was suddenly agrin with stupefaction.
"I could not," said Mr. Wilding, "deny an answer to a question set so courteously." He looked up into Blake's flushed and scowling face with the sweetest and most innocent of smiles. "You'll no doubt disagree with me," said he, "but I love to meet a man halfway. Your hat, sir, is as white as virgin snow."
Blake's slow wits were disconcerted for a moment. Then he smiled viciously. "You mistake, Mr. Wilding," said he. "My hat is black."
Mr. Wilding looked more attentively at the object in dispute. He was in a trifling mood, and the stupidity of this runagate debtor afforded him opportunities to indulge it. "Why, true," said he, "now that I come to look, I perceive that it is indeed black."
And again was Sir Rowland disconcerted. Still he pursued the lesson he had taught himself.