MR. TUKE sat in his dining-hall, swollen and glowering as a ruffled tom-cat. He had not struck in haste to repent at leisure; but it is true that he was woefully exercised in his mind as to what to do next. The logical sequence of his action, he felt, should be incarceration for his prisoner in Winton Gaol on the strength of an information—his own—laid against him. Certainly. And how should the information be worded? It was at this point he always fell to gnawing his lips, and drumming on the table with his fingers, and glaring at a robin on the window-sill, as if he knew it could furnish the solution if it would only leave off hopping and twittering.
Now, he had done rightly and as he had engaged himself to act. He had bided his time, and struck on the first evidence of guilt. Still, now he came to think it over—with what impartiality he could command—he could not but acknowledge that the proofs might show extremely negative to an unbiased intelligence. For what did they amount to? Crime? No. But the invitation to it.
What would be the value of his solitary pièce de conviction in the eye of the law? A moral inference was too short a rope to hang a man with. He could say only his servant was tempted; but what was to show that it was to his undoing? Moreover, he had not even taken the precaution to retain possession of the condemning stone.
On this last thought, he sprang up and went hastily out into the hall. To and fro he searched; but without result. The flint, with its scrawled hieroglyphics, was gone. He unbolted and threw open the front door, half-expecting to find Darda huddled, accusatory, under the porch, whither he had pushed her near an hour ago. She was not there, nor anywhere about was the stone; and he returned to his lonely hall and his complex self-communings.
He was deep in them, when he heard the sound of hoofs on the gravel outside, and, a moment later, the voice of his friend of “Chatters” pronouncing his name.
“Here!” he cried; and grasped Sir David warmly by the hand as the latter pushed open the room door and entered.
He was unfeignedly glad to see him; the more so, perhaps, from a certain uneasy memory of his somewhat churlish attitude towards the little man when last they had met.
“What brings you over?” he cried gladly. “But you are welcome for any reason.”
“Darda fetched me,” said Sir David, with a little tremor in his voice.
“The devil she did!”
He was scanning the other’s face attentively and inquiringly.
“Well,” he said, “that saves me an explanation. She has told you? I am cursed in the fellow, Blythewood. I find him in league with those ruffians, and what to do with him the Lord knows.”
“Where is he?”
“I have him under bolt and board for the present.”
“In the ‘Priest’s Hole’?”
“Ah! she hath informed you? It serves as a lockhouse pro tempore, and until I can hale the rogue before the leet of Winton and procure his committal.”
“How did you force him in there—into that hole, I mean? and he smitten with terror no doubt.”
“Smitten, as you say. He was half-dead with it. He went in like a log.”
“Harkee, Tuke. You must have him out again.”
The other stared.
“I mean it,” said the baronet firmly. “Saints forbid ’tis any concern of mine to interfere, do you elect to hold him fast. But dup the poor wretch in decent quarters, Tuke, and not in a hole ’twere a shame to fling a dog into.”
“I have my own methods and places,” said the lord of “Delsrop,” mighty haughtily. “Is that what you came to say?”
A flush of resentment crimsoned Sir David’s face.
“Yes,” said he; “and some more to a harder purpose.”
On the word he reigned in his anger shortly, and a smile broke from his lips.
“There!” he cried frankly. “I come set on discretion, and this is the result. ’Tis no business of mine, I allow. But I have an old tenderness for the man, Tuke, and it wrings me to think of him maddening down there.”
“I regret the necessity.”
“Is it one? Waiving the question of the ‘Priest’s Hole’—are you so convinced of his guilt?”
“Else would my treatment of him lack a warrant, Sir David Blythewood.”
“Ah! You are offended with me. I can’t help it. I—rabbit it, Tuke! ’twill out, ’twill out. I resent your treatment of the man. You come amongst us, a stranger, and God knows I would be friendly with ye. But ye start on a cross scent here, where an older member of the pack would hunt true, and you would have us all follow your lead. D’ye think I don’t know more about Dennis in twenty year than you have found out in a month, or two or three? I stake my faith you’re misled somewhere, and that the man’s innocent of evil intent, whatever the appearances.”
Mr. Tuke smiled very politely and acidly.
“’Tis always a pleasure to hear a gentleman’s opinions,” said he; “but a fact will knock the most stubborn of them on the head.”
“You mean—the girl quoted some folly o’ writin’ on a stone.”
“Just so. It happens to be a piece of incriminating evidence.”
“May I see it?”
“Really, Sir David, you must take my word. I know of only one course if you must insist upon questioning it.”
“I understand. I shall not be lacking if need comes, believe me. I tell you to your face you are arrogatin’ the rights of the executive, and more, in casting one into that foul pit on a whisper of suspicion. There are constables, sir; and a Justice of the Peace within a couple of miles of your door, and your proper course was to lay an information with him.”
“And see my bird fly meanwhile?”
“You could detain him; but not there.”
“I see my mistake, then. ’Twas the best bedroom should have been put at his service, and the window closed from draughts.”
Sir David turned to go with considerable dignity.
“Mr. Tuke,” he said over his shoulder, “I stake my reputation on the man’s honesty, and I say you are treating him vilely and inhumanly. I shall have the honour of sendin’ a friend to you.”
The other bowed grimly, and was advancing to show his visitor out, when both gentlemen were aware of an apparition in the doorway, standing white and rebukeful, with clasped hands.
“Fie, Angel!” cried the baronet. “You’ve been listening.”
Whether to cover her confusion at the charge, or to top the situation appropriately, Miss Angela at this flung herself down into the room and on to her brother’s breast.
“Davy, Davy!” she cried in an anguished voice, “you’re not going to fight?” And he answered fretfully: “Get up! You’re squashin’ my shirt-frill.”
Mr. Tuke came forward gallantly. The girl had stepped back with an air of frightened indecision. With one hand she adjusted a tumbled curl; the other she held out as if for an examination by Love the doctor.
Her knight assumed the rôle, and, bending, kissed the little active pulse.
“You have been day-dreaming,” he said. “Your brother and I are great friends.”
She looked up at him chidingly.
“Mr. Tuke!” she implored. Then said she: “If you are great friends, take one another’s hands.”
The two glanced each at each comically; but neither moved.
“There!” she cried. “Is it for you to deceive a woman? You were going to fight; and what about?”
“Not you, my dear,” said Sir David.
“Fie!” she said, blushing. “’Tis never gentlewomen that set gallants by the ears. I would take it no honour, brother, to call yours in question.”
The two had nothing to say.
“I demand to know!” she cried imperiously, stamping her foot.
“Madam,” stuttered Mr. Tuke—“it—it merely turns on a difference of opinion.”
She courtesied to him very prettily.
“The lion and the bear,” she said, “were e’en glad to lie down and take breath; when by comes a fox and seizes the prey they were too exhausted to dispute him the possession of. Doth the difference of opinion turn on one imprisoned hard by? Here enters the fox, good gentlemen, and offers herself an arbitrator.”
She stepped up to the master of the house and held out her palm.
“It is like a little cradle for a cupid,” he said.
“Nonsense, sir. I want the key of your dungeon. Have I not earned it?”
He laughed.
“There is none,” he said; “but a bolt in the floor.”
“May I shoot it back?”
“’Twould bruise your little fingers wofully.”
“But I have a heel, sir—that can kick against the pricks, I must add; or my gentle brother will say it for me.”
Mr. Tuke spoke more seriously.
“Well,” said he, “I leave the issue in your hands. I am loth to release the fellow. He hath conspired against me, I think and believe, and hath no more than his deserts. But, after all, it is a little thing if it please you; and I will not even hold you responsible for his safe custody.”
“Hold me!” cried Sir David eagerly; and he bent and whispered in his sister’s ear: “Thanks, Angel; you were right—you have the better wit.”
The girl was turning radiantly to her cavalier, when there came the sound of quick breathing at the door; and there stood Darda, her hand to her panting side, her face set in an expression of bitter resentment.
“Her!” she gasped, pointing at Miss Royston—“her, to plead for him and take the credit, to feed her beastly vanity withal? She shan’t—I’ll tear her wi’ my nails first.”
Tuke stood at watch.
“Release the man, if you will, Miss Royston,” he said. “Your brother will conduct and assist you. I must stay and look after this pretty member of my household.”
As he spoke, the mad creature sprung forwards; but he was quick and caught her in his arms, where she writhed, screaming.
“Make haste,” he said—“and is it not an enviable rôle to be a keeper of wild beasts?”
Sir David hurried his sister from the room. She threw her knight a very grateful rose of gratitude over her shoulder as she went.
As they passed out, Tuke tightened his grip, almost cruelly, on the struggling girl. Suddenly she fell passive in his hands. He looked down, and she up at him, her face running with tears.
“Don’t hurt me,” she said, with a catching sob. “I will be quiet.”
“Will you give me your word not to stir from here till I bid you?”
“Yes,” she answered, faint and pathetic.
“And not to touch the lady when she returns?”
“Yes.”
All in a moment she sank down at his feet, crying as if her heart were broken.
“He will see an angel in her,” she moaned; “and will love her for releasing him.”