"I like you angry, Aileen. Faith, 'tis worth being the object of your rage to see you stamp that pretty foot and clench those little hands I love to kiss. But Ecod! Montagu, the hour grows late. The lady will lose her beauty sleep. Shall you and I go down-stairs and arrange for a conveyance?"

He bowed low and kissed his fingers to the girl. Then he led the way out of the room, fine and gallant and debonair, a villain every inch of him.

"Will you be leaving me?" the girl cried with parted lips.

"Not for long," I told her. "Do not fear. I shall have you out of here in a jiff," and with that I followed at his heels.

Sir Robert Volney led the way down the corridor to a small room in the west wing, where flaring, half-burnt candles guttering in their sconces drove back the darkness. He leaned against the mantel and looked long at me out of half-closed eyes.

"May I ask to what is due the honour of your presence to-night?" he drawled at last.

"Certainly."

"Well?"

"I have said you may ask," I fleered rudely. "But for me-- Gad's life! I am not in the witness box."

He took his snuff mull from his waistcoat pocket and offered it me, then took a pinch and brushed from his satin coat imaginary grains with prodigious care.

"You are perhaps not aware that I have the right to ask. It chances that this is my house."

"Indeed! And the lady we have just left----?"

"----Is, pardon me, none of your concern."

"Ah! I'm not so sure of that."

"Faith then, you'll do well to make sure."

"And--er--Mistress Antoinette Westerleigh?"

"Quite another matter! You're out of court again, Mr. Montagu."

"Egad, I enter an exception. The lady we have just left is of another mind in the affair. She is the court of last resort, and, I believe, not complaisant to your suit."

"She will change her mind," he said coolly.

"I trust so renowned a gallant as Sir Robert would not use force."

"Lard, no! She is a woman and therefore to be won. But I would advise you to dismiss the lady from your mind. 'Ware women, Mr. Montagu! You will sleep easier."

"In faith, a curious coincidence! I was about to tender you the same advice, Sir Robert," I told him lightly.

"You will forget the existence of such a lady if you are wise?"

"Wisdom comes with age. I am for none of it."

"Yet you will do well to remember your business and forget mine."

"I have no business of my own, Sir Robert. Last night you generously lifted all sordid business cares from my mind, and now I am quite free to attend those of my neighbours."

He shrugged his shoulders in the French way. "Very well. A wilful man!

You've had your warning, and-- I am not a man to be thwarted."

"I might answer that I am not a man to be frightened."

"You'll not be the first that has answered that. The others have 'Hic Jacet' engraved on their door plates. Well, it's an unsatisfactory world at best, and Lard! they're well quit of it. Still, you're young."

"And have yet to learn discretion."

"That's a pity too," he retorted lightly. "The door is waiting for you.

Better take it, Mr. Montagu."

"With the lady?"

"I fear the lady is tired. Besides, man, think of her reputation. Zounds!

Can she gad about the city at night alone with so gay a spark as you? 'Tis a censorious world, and tongues will clack. No, no! I will save you from any chance of such a scandal, Mr. Montagu."

"Faith, one good turn deserves another. I'll stay here to save your reputation, Sir Robert."

"I fear that mine is fly-blown already and something the worse for wear.

It can take care of itself."

"Yet I'll stay."

"Gad's life! Stay then."

Volney had been standing just within the door, and at the word he stepped out and flung it to. I sprang forward, but before I reached it the click sounded. I was a prisoner, caught like a fly in a spider's web, and much it helped me to beat on the iron-studded door till my hand bled, to call on him to come in and fight it out like a man, to storm up and down the room in a stress of pa.s.sion.

Presently my rage abated, and I took stock of my surroundings. The windows were barred with irons set in stone sockets by masonry. I set my knee against the window frame and tugged at them till I was moist with perspiration. As well I might have pulled at the pillars of St. Paul's. I tried my small sword as a lever, but it snapped in my hand. Again I examined the bars. There was no way but to pick them from their sockets by making a groove in the masonry. With the point of my sword I chipped industriously at the cement. At the end of ten minutes I had made perceptible progress. Yet it took me another hour of labour to accomplish my task. I undid the blind fastenings, clambered out, and lowered myself foot by foot to the ground by clinging to the ivy that grew thick along the wall. The vine gave to my hand, and the last three yards I took in a rush, but I picked myself up none the worse save for a torn face and bruised hands.

The first fall was Volney's, and I grudged it him; but as I took my way to Balmerino's lodgings my heart was far from heavy. The girl was safe for the present. I knew Volney well enough for that. That his plan was to take her to The Oaks and in seclusion lay a long siege to the heart of the girl, I could have sworn. But from London to Epsom is a far cry, and between them much might happen through chance and fate and--Kenneth Montagu.

[2] Speldering in the glaur--sprawling in the mud.

CHAPTER III

DEOCH SLAINT AN RIGH!

"You're late, Kenn," was Balmerino's greeting to me.

"Faith, my Lord, I'm earlier than I might have been. I found it hard to part from a dear friend who was loathe to let me out of his sight," I laughed.