"I couldn't!" The words came jerkily, as if wrung from him by main force. "For one thing--the men were out of hand, and it was as much as I could do to hold them. She told them, I tell you--stood up and told them straight out--who she was. And they loathe the whole crowd. It was madness."

"Pretty sublime madness!" commented the squire. "And then Saltash took her away. Was that it?"

"Yes." d.i.c.k spoke with intense bitterness. "It was the chance he was waiting for. Of course he seized it. Any blackguard would."

"But you thought she might have come here?" pursued the squire.

"I thought it possible, yes. I told Yardley it was so. He of course sneered at the bare idea. I nearly choked him for it. But I might have known he was right. She wouldn't risk--my following her. She wanted to be--free."

"Why? Is she afraid of you then?" Fielding's voice was stern.

d.i.c.k threw up his head with the action of a goaded animal. "Yes."

"Then you've given her some reason?"

"Yes. I have given her reason!" Fiercely he flung the words. "You want to know--you shall know! This evening she found out something about me which even you don't know yet--something that made her hate me. I was going to tell her some day, but the time hadn't come. She said if she had known of it she would never have married me. I didn't realize then--how could I?--how hard it hit her. And I made her understand that having married me--it was irrevocable. That was why she ran away with Saltash. She didn't--trust me--any longer."

"But, my good fellow, what in heaven's name is this awful thing that even I don't know?" demanded the squire. "Don't tell me there has ever been any d.a.m.n trouble with another woman!"

"No--no!" d.i.c.k broke into a laugh that was inexpressibly painful to hear.

"There has never been any other woman for me. What do I care for women?

Do you think because I've made a blasted fool of myself over one woman that I--"

"Shut up, d.i.c.k!" Curtly the squire checked him. "You're not to say it--even to me. Tell me this other thing about yourself--the thing I don't know!"

"Oh, that! That's nothing, sir, nothing--at least you won't think it so.

It's only that during the past few years some books have been published by one named Dene Strange that have attracted attention in certain quarters."

"I've read 'em all," said the squire. "Well?"

"I wrote them," said d.i.c.k; "that's all."

"You!" Fielding stared. "You, d.i.c.k!"

"Yes, I. I meant to have told you, but so long as my boy lived, my job seemed to be here, so I kept it to myself. And then--when she came--she told me she hated the man who wrote those books for being cynical--and merciless. So I wrote another to make her change her mind about me before she knew. It is only just published. And she found out before she read it. That's all," d.i.c.k said again with the shadow of a smile. "She found out this evening. It was a shock to her--naturally. It's been a succession of obstacles all through--a perpetual struggle against odds.

Well, it's over. At least we know what we're up against now. There will be no more illusions of any sort from to-day on." He paused, stood a moment as if bracing himself, then turned. "Well, I'm going, sir. Come if you really must, but--I don't advise it."

"I am coming," said the squire briefly. His hand went from d.i.c.k's shoulder to his arm and gave it a hard squeeze. "Confound you! What do you take me for?" he said.

d.i.c.k's hand came swiftly to his. "I take you for the best friend a man ever had, sir," he said.

"Pooh!" said the squire.

CHAPTER IX

THE FREE PARDON

Ten minutes later they went down the dripping avenue in the squire's little car. The drifting fog made an inky blackness of the night, and progress was very slow under the trees.

"We should be quicker walking," said d.i.c.k impatiently.

"It'll be better when we reach the open road," said Fielding, frowning at the darkness.

The light at the lodge-gates flung a wide glare through the mist, and he steered for it with more a.s.surance. They pa.s.sed through and turned into the road.

And here the squire pulled up with a jerk, for immediately in front of them another light shone.

"What the devil is that, d.i.c.k?"

"It's another car," said d.i.c.k and jumped out. "Hullo, there! Anything the matter?" he called.

"d.a.m.nation, yes!" answered a voice. "I've run into this infernal wall and damaged my radiator. Lost my mascot, too, d.a.m.n it! Sort of thing that always happens when you're in a hurry."

"Who is it?" said d.i.c.k sharply.

He was standing almost touching the car, but he could not see the speaker who seemed to be bent and hunting for something on the ground.

A sound that was curiously like a chuckle answered him out of the darkness, but no reply came in words.

d.i.c.k stood motionless. "Saltash!" he said incredulously. "Is it Saltash?"

"Why shouldn't it be Saltash?" said a voice that laughed. "Thank you, Romeo? Come and help me out of this d.a.m.n fix! Oh, I'm fed up with playing benevolent fool. It gives me indigestion. Curse this fog!

Afraid I've knocked a few chips off your beastly wall. Ah! Here's the mascot! Now perhaps my infernal luck will turn! What are you keeping so quiet about? Aren't you pleased to see me? Not that you can--but that's a detail."

"Are you--alone?" d.i.c.k said, an odd tremor in his voice.

"Of course I'm alone! What did you expect? No, no, my Romeo, I may be a fool, but I'm not quite such a three-times-distilled imbecile as that amounts to. Have you got a gun there?"

"No!" d.i.c.k's voice sounded half-strangled, as though he fought against some oppression that threatened to overwhelm him. "What have you come back for? Tell me that!"

"I'll tell you anything you like," said Saltash generously; "including what I think of you, if you will help me to shove this thing into a more convenient locality and then take me in and give me a drink."

"You'd better get the car up the drive here," came Fielding's voice out of the darkness. "You can see more or less what you're doing under the lamp. Wait while I get my own out of the way!"

"Excellent!" said Saltash. "I'm immensely grateful to you, sir, for not smashing me up. What, Romeo? Did I hear you say you wished he had? I didn't? Then I must have sensed battle, murder and sudden death in your silence."

But whatever d.i.c.k's silence expressed he refused stubbornly to break it.

When the squire had manoeuvred his car out of the way, he lent his help to pushing Saltash's across the road and up the drive into safety, but he did not utter a single word throughout the performance.

"A thousand thanks!" gibed Saltash. "Now for the great reckoning! I say, you will give me a drink, won't you, before you send me to my account?

The villain always has a drink first. He's ent.i.tled to that, at least."

Again Fielding's voice came through d.i.c.k's silence. "Yes, come up to the schoolhouse!" he said. "We can't talk here. Have you got the key, d.i.c.k?

Ah, that's right."