Still smarting under the cavalier treatment he had received, Mr. Wilding came forth from the Castle to find Trenchard awaiting him among the crowd of officers and men that thronged the yard.
Nick linked his arm through his friend's and led him away. They quitted the place in silence, and in silence took their way south towards the High Street, Nick waiting for Mr. Wilding to speak, Mr. Wilding's mind still in turmoil at the things he had endured. At last Nick halted suddenly and looked keenly at his friend in the failing light.
"What a plague ails you, Tony?" said he sharply. "You are as silent as I am impatient for your news."
Wilding told him in brief, disdainful terms of the reception they had given him at the Castle, and of how they had blamed him for the circumstance that London had failed to proclaim itself for Monmouth.
Trenchard snarled viciously. "'Tis that mongrel Grey," said he. "Oh, Anthony, to what an affair have we set our hands? Naught can prosper with that fellow in it." He laid his hand on Wilding's arm and lowered his voice. "As I have hinted before, 'twould not surprise me if time proved him a traitor. Failure attends him everywhere, and so unfailingly that one wonders is not failure invited by him. And that fool Monmouth! Pshaw! See what it is to serve a weakling. With another in his place and the country disaffected as it is, we had been masters of England by now."
Two ladies passed them at that moment, cloaked and hooded, walking briskly. One of them turned to look at Trenchard, who, waving his arms in wild gesticulation, was a conspicuous object. She checked in her walk, arresting her companion.
"Mr. Wilding!" she exclaimed. It was Lady Horton.
"Mr. Wilding!" cried Diana, her companion.
Wilding doffed his hat and bowed, Trenchard following his example.
"We had scarce looked to see you in Bridgwater again," said the mother, her mild, pleasant countenance reflecting the satisfaction it gave her to behold him safe and sound.
"There have been moments," answered Wilding, "when myself I scarce expected to return. Your ladyship's greeting shows me what I had lost had I not done so."
"You are but newly arrived?" quoth Diana, scanning him in the gloaming.
"From London, an hour since."
"An hour?" she echoed, and observed that he was still booted and dust-stained. "You will have been to Lupton House?"
A shadow crossed his face, his glance seemed to grow clouded, all of which watchful Diana did not fail to observe. "Not yet," said he.
"You are a laggard," she laughed at him, and he felt the blood driven back upon his heart. What did she mean? Was it possible she suggested that he should be welcome, that his wife's feelings towards him had undergone a change? His last parting from her on the road near Walford had been ever in his mind.