"It is a judgment upon you," said he, nevertheless.
"Do you exult?" she asked indignantly.
"No; but I cannot repress my admiration for the ways of Divine Justice. If you are come to me for advice, I can but suggest that you should follow your brother's captors to Taunton, and inform the lieutenants of how the letter came into your power."
She looked at him in anger almost at what seemed a callousness. "Would he believe me, think you?"
"Belike he would not," said Mr. Wilding. "You can but try."
"If I told them it was addressed to you," she said, eyeing him sternly, "does it not occur to you that they would send for you to question you, and that if they did so, as you are a gentleman you could not lie away my brother's life."
"Why, yes," said he quite calmly, "it does occur to me. But does it not occur to you that by the time they came here they would find me gone?" He laughed at her dismay. "I thank you, madam, for this warning," he added. "I think I'll bid them saddle for me without delay. Too long already have I tarried."
"And must Richard hang?" she asked him fiercely.
Mr. Wilding produced a snuffbox of tortoise shell and gold. He opened it deliberately. "If he does, you'll admit that he will hang on the gallows that he has built himself--although intended for another. I'faith! He's not the first booby to be caught in his own springe. There is in this a measure of poetic justice. Poetry and justice! Do you know, Ruth, they are two things I have ever loved?" And he took a pinch of choice Bergamot.
"Will you be serious?" she demanded.
"Trenchard would tell you that it were to make an exception from the rule of my life," he assured her, smiling. "Yet even that might I do at your bidding."
"But this is a serious matter," she told him angrily. "For Richard," he acknowledged, closing his snuffbox with a snap. "Tell me, what would you have me do?"
Since he asked her thus, she answered him in two words. "Save him."
"At the cost of my own neck?" quoth he. "The price is high," he reminded her. "Do you think that Richard is quite worth it?"
"And are you to save yourself at the cost of his?" she counter-questioned. "Are you capable of such a baseness?"
He looked at her thoughtfully a moment. "You have not reflected," said he slowly, "that in this affair is involved more than mine or Richard's life. There is a great cause weighing in the balance against all personal considerations. If I accounted Richard of more value to Monmouth than I am myself, I should not hesitate in riding to set him free by taking his place. As it is, however, I think I am of the greatest conceivable importance to His Grace, whilst if twenty Richards perished--frankly--their loss would be something of a gain, for Richard has played a traitor's part already. That is with me the first of all considerations."