She nodded.

"You have got the ring?"

She gave it to him with a smile of triumph.

He looked at it, and with a grim face slipped it into his pocket.

"Good," he said, "and now, my friend, the sooner we are away, the better."

But my gorge rose. On the table beside him, in the full glare of the lamp, lay a cloak and holsters, a mask, sword, and riding-whip. I knew what these objects meant, and for whom they were prepared; and at the prospect of the plunge into the dark night, of the journey, and the perils of the unknown road, I cried out that I would not go! I would not go! And I tried to force my way back into the Countess's room--with what intention heaven knows.

But Smith whipped between me and the door. "You fool!" he said, pushing me back. "Are you mad? Or don't you know me yet?" "I know you too well!" I cried, beside myself with rage, and with apprehensions of the plunge on the brink of which I stood. "You have cursed me from the first day I saw you at Ware! You have been the curse of my life! You, and that Jezebel!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: SHE CAME A STEP NEARER TO ME, AND PEERED AT ME]

"Are you mad?" he said again; and threatened me with his hand.

But she came a step nearer to me, and peered at me; and after one look took the lamp from the table and held it to my face. "At Ware?" she said. "At Ware?" And then, putting the lamp back on the table, she fell to laughing. "He is right!" she said. "I know him now. But you told me that his name was Taylor."

"Taylor?" he said wrathfully. "So it is; and Price, and half a dozen other names, for all I know. What does it matter what his name is?"

"Oh, it matters very much," she said, affecting to ogle me in an exaggerated fashion. "He is an old flame of mine. His face always brought something to my mind--but I thought that it was his likeness to the Duke."

He cursed her old flames, and the Duke. And then, "What does it mean?"

he said. "Who is he?"

"He is the lad we left at Ware--in the old woman's room," she answered, her voice sinking, and growing almost soft. "Lord! it seems so long ago, it might have happened in another life! You remember him.

Matt? You saw him with me at The Rose one night? The first night I saw you?"

He looked at me, long and strangely. "And what does it mean?" he said at last, scowling between wonder and suspicion.

She shrugged her shoulders. "_Sais pas!_" she answered. "Ask him!"

"You ruined me once!" I cried. "And he saved me! And now you would have me ruin him. You are devils, you are! Devils! But I defy you!"

He did not answer, but continued to stare at me; as if he discerned or suspected that there was more in this than appeared on the surface. At length the woman laughed, and he turned to her, rage in his face. "I see nothing to laugh at," he said.

"But I do!" she answered pertly. "You three all mixed up! It would make a cat laugh my lad."

He cursed her. "Have done with that!" he said fiercely. "And say, what is to be done?"

"Done?" she answered briskly, and in a tone of genuine surprise. "Why, that which was to be done. What difference does this make?"

But he looked at her, pondering darkly, as if it did make a difference. I suppose that somewhere, deep down in his nature, there lurked a grain of superst.i.tion, which found in this singular coincidence, this sudden stringing together of persons long parted, an evil omen. Or it may be that he had still some sc.r.a.p of conscience left, that, seared and deadened as it was, stirred and started at this strange upheaval of an old crime. At any rate, "I don't know," he growled at last. "I don't like it, and that is flat. There is some practice in this."

"There is a fool in it," she answered navely. "And there are like to be two!"

I thought to back him up, and I braced myself against the wall, to which I had retired. "I won't go!" I said doggedly. "I will call for help in the streets, first!"

"You will do as you are told," she answered coolly. "And you," she continued to Smith in a voice of stinging scorn, "are you going to give it up now, when all is safe? Will you stand to my lord as this poor silly fellow stands to you? Have you waited for years for your revenge--to move aside now? Why, my G--d! the Duke is worth ten of you. He is a man, at any rate. He is----"

"Peace, girl," he cried, with I know not what of menace in his tone.

"Then, will you go?"

"Yes, I will go!" he answered between his teeth. "But by heaven, you s.l.u.t, if ill comes of it, I will wring your neck! I will, so help me heaven! You shall deceive no other man! If there is practice of yours in this, if this tool is here by your connivance----"

"He is not!" she answered. "Be satisfied."

Apparently he was satisfied, for he drew a deep breath, and stood silent. She turned to me. "Get ready," she said sharply.

"No," I muttered, summoning all my resolution. "I shall not go. I--I have not----"

Smith turned to me, and the refusal died on my lips. The struggle with the woman had roused the man's pa.s.sions; and I read in his eyes such a glare of ferocity as chilled my blood and unstrung my knees. Nor was that all; for when I went, trembling, to take the cloak, "One moment,"

he said grimly, "not so fast, my friend. Let us understand one another before we start. Mr. Price or Mr. Taylor or whatever your name is, take note, do you hear me, of three things? One, that the business we are on is life or death. Do you grasp that?"

I muttered a shuddering a.s.sent.

"Secondly," he continued, with the same gruesome civility, "my hand will never be more than six inches from the b.u.t.t of a pistol, until I see this home again. Do you grasp that?"

I nodded.

"Thirdly, at the least sign of treachery or disobedience on your part, I blow out your brains first, and my own afterwards, if that be necessary. Do you grasp that?"

I nodded.

"That is especially well," he said. "Because the last item is important to you. On the other hand, Mr. Price, play honest John with me, and in forty-eight hours you shall be back in your master's house, free and safe; and I shall trouble you no more. Do you understand that?"

I said I did; my teeth chattering, and my eyes seeking to evade his.

"Then, now, yon may get into those things," he said. "And do you ride when I bid you, and halt when I bid you, and speak when I say speak, and be silent when I say be silent--do those four things, I say, and you will die in your bed. They are all I ask."

I stooped, shaking all over, to take up the boots. "Heart up, pretty!"

cried the woman, with an odd laugh that broke off short with a sort of quaver. "It is clear that you are not born to be hanged. And for the rest----"

"Peace, peace, wench," said Smith impatiently. "And dress him."

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

It wanted two hours of midnight on a fine night when we two rode over London Bridge, and through a gap in the houses saw the river flowing below, a ripple of silver framed in blackness, and so cold to the eye that involuntarily I shivered; feeling a return of all the vague fears and apprehensions which, originally awakened by the prospect of the journey, had been set at rest for the time by the awe in which I held my companion. I began to recall a dozen stories of footpads and highwaymen, outrage and robbery, which I had read, and found but cold comfort in the reflection that the Kent Road, from the amount of traffic that used it, was accounted one of the safest in England. It was not wonderful, that with nerves so disordered, I went in front of danger; or that when--opposite the Marshalsea, where the chain crosses the road, near the entrance to White Horse Yard--a man came suddenly out of a pa.s.sage and caught hold of my companion's rein, I cried out, and all but turned my horse to fly.

Smith himself appeared to be taken off his guard; for, after bidding me beware what I did, he called with the same harshness to the man to release the rein, or take the consequences.

"Oh, I am all right," the fellow answered roughly, peering at him through the darkness. "You are Mr. Smith?"