"Are you sure of that?"

"Sure," said I. "Miss Isabel told me that he had his Colonel's promise."

Mr. Rogers slapped his thigh. "Egad, boy, it seems to me you're the good angel in this business! We'll send down to the Cottage at once."

He pulled a dog-whistle from his pocket and blew two shrill calls upon it. But above the second sounded the Rector's voice in a sharp exclamation, and we spun round in time to see him fling back the door in the corner. It opened on a lighted room.

I was running towards this door to see what his exclamation might mean when at the other appeared the constable whom Mr. Rogers called "Jim"--a youngish man, and tall, with a round head set like a b.u.t.ton on top of a ma.s.sive pair of shoulders.

"You whistled for me, sir?"

"I did. You will not be wanted to keep watch any longer. Step down to Minden Cottage and give this note to Miss Brooks." He pulled out a pencil, searched his pockets, found a sc.r.a.p of paper, and, leaning over the table, scribbled a few lines. "If Miss Brooks has gone to bed, you must knock her up."

"Very good, sir." Constable Jim touched his hat and retired.

"And now what's the matter in there? Come along, you Whitmore.

Has he found the licence?"

But this was not what the Rector's cry had announced. The room into which we pa.s.sed had apparently served Mr. Whitmore for a bed-chamber and private study combined, for a bed stood in the corner, and a bookcase and bureau on either side of the chimneypiece. In the middle of the floor lay an open valise, and all around it a litter of books and clothes, tossed here and there as their owner had dragged them out to make a selection in his packing.

Mr. Rogers uttered a long whistle. "So you were bolting?" He stared around, rubbing his chin, and fastened his eyes again on Whitmore.

"Now why to-night?"

"My conscience, Mr. Rogers--"

"Oh, the devil take your conscience! Your conscience seems to have timed matters pretty accurately. Say that your nose smelt a rat.

But why to-night?"

I cannot say wherefore; but, as he stared around, a nausea seemed to take the unfortunate man. Perhaps, the excitement of confession over, the cold shadow of the end rose and thrust itself before him.

He was, I feel sure, a coward in grain. He swayed and caught at the ledge of the chimneypiece, almost knocking over one of the two candles which burned there.

With that there smote on our ears the sounds of two voices in altercation outside--one a woman's high contralto. Footsteps came bustling through the outer room and there stood on the threshold-- Miss Belcher.

She was attired in a low-crowned beaver hat and a riding habit the skirt of which, hitched high in her left hand, disclosed a pair of tall boots cut like hessians. On this hand blazed an enormous diamond. The other, resting on her hip, held a hunting-crop and a pair of gauntleted gloves.

"I bid ye be quiet, Sam Hodgson," she was saying to the expostulating constable. "Man, if you dare to get in my way, I'll take the whip to ye. To heel, I say! 'Mr. Rogers's orders?' d.a.m.n your impidence, what do I care for Mr. Rogers? Why hallo, Jack!--"

As her gaze travelled round the room, Mr. Rogers stepped up and addressed the constable across her.

"It's all right, Hodgson: you may go back to your post. Begad, Lydia," he added as the constable withdrew, "this is a queer hour for a call."

But Miss Belcher's gaze moved slowly from the Rector--whose bow she answered with a curt nod--to me, and from me to the figure of Whitmore by the fireplace.

"What's wrong?" she demanded. "Lord, if he's not fainting!"--and as she ran, the curate swayed and almost fell into her arms.

"Brandy, Jack! I saw a bottle in the next room, didn't I? No, thank ye, Rector. I can manage him."

As Mr. Rogers hurried back for the brandy, she lifted the man and carried him, rejecting our help, to an armchair beside the window.

There for a moment, standing with her back to us, she peered into his face and (as I think now) whispered a word to him.

"Open the window, boy--he wants air," she called to me, over her shoulder.

While I fumbled to draw the curtains she reached an arm past me and flung them back: and so with a turn of the wrist unlatched the cas.e.m.e.nt and thrust the pane wide. In doing so she leaned the weight of her body on mine, pressing me back among the curtain-folds.

I heard a cry from the Rector. An oath from Mr. Rogers answered it.

But between the cry and the answer Mr. Whitmore had rushed past me and vaulted into the night.

"Confound you, Lydia!" Mr. Rogers set down the tray with a crash, and leapt over it towards the window, finding his whistle and blowing a shrill call as he ran. "We'll have him yet! Tell Hodgson to take the lane. Oh, confound your interference!"

Across the yard a clatter of hoofs sounded, cutting short his speech.

"The gate!" he shouted, clambering across the sill.

But he was too late. As he dropped upon the cobbles and pelted off to close it, I saw and heard horse and rider go hurtling through the open gate--an indistinguishable ma.s.s. A shout--a jet or two of sparks--a bang on the thin timbers as on a drum--and the hoofs were thudding away farther and farther into darkness.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE OWL'S CRY.

Silence--and then Mr. Rogers's voice uplifted and shouting for Hodgson!

But Hodgson, it seemed, had found out a way of his own. For a fresh sound of hoofs smote on our ears--this time in the lane--a tune pounded out to the accompaniment of loose stones volleyed and dropping between the beats.

"Drat the man's impidence," said Miss Belcher coolly; "he's taken my mare!"

"What's that you say?" demanded Mr. Rogers's angry voice from the yard.

"You won't find another horse, Jack, unless you brought him.

Whitmore keeps but one."

"Confound it all, Lydia!" He came sullenly back towards the window.

"You've said that before. The man's gone, unless Hodgson can overtake him--which I doubt. He rides sixteen stone if an ounce, and the mare's used to something under eleven. So give over, my boy, and come in and tell me what it's all about."

"Look here," he growled, clambering back into the room, "there's devilry somewhere at the bottom of this. The fellow's nag was ready saddled--I got near enough to see that: and the yard-gate posted open: and--the devil take it, Lydia, I believe you opened that window on purpose! Did you?"

"That's telling, my dear. But, if you like, we'll suppose that I did."

"Then," said Mr. Rogers bitterly, "it may interest you to know that you've given him bail from the gallows. He's no priest at all: by his own confession he's a forger: and I'll lay odds he's a murderer too, if that's enough. But perhaps you knew this without my telling you?"

Miss Belcher took a step or two towards the fireplace and back.

Her face, hidden for a moment, was composed when she turned it again upon us.

"Don't be an a.s.s, Jack. I knew nothing of the sort."

"You knew enough, it seems," Mr. Rogers persisted sulkily, "to guess he was in a hurry. And you'll excuse me, Lydia, but this is a serious business. Whether you knew it or not, you've abetted a criminal in escaping from the law, and I've my duty to do.