calm announcement. Then Diana rose. At the misery, the anguish that could impress so strange and white a look on Ruth's winsome face, she was smitten with remorse, her incipient satisfaction dashed. This was her work; the fruit of her scheming. But it had gone further than she had foreseen; and for all that no result could better harmonize with her own ambitions and desires, for the moment—under the first shock of that announcement—she felt guilty and grew afraid.
“Ruth!” she cried, her voice a whisper of stupefaction. “Oh, I wish I had come with you!”
“But you couldn't; you were faint.” And then—recalling what had passed—her mind was filled with sudden concern for Diana, even amid her own sore troubles. “Are you quite yourself again, Diana?” she inquired.
Diana answered almost fiercely, “I am quite well.” And then, with a change to wistfulness, she added, “Oh, I would I had come with you!”
“Matters had been no different,” Ruth assured her. “It was a bargain Mr. Wilding drove. It was the price I had to pay for Richard's life and honour.” She swallowed hard, and let her hands fall limply to her sides. “Where is Richard?” she inquired.
It was her aunt who answered her. “He went forth half an hour agone with Mr. Vallancey and Sir Rowland.”
“Sir Rowland had returned, then?” She looked up quickly.
“Yes,” answered Diana. “But he had achieved nothing by his visit to Lord Gervase. His lordship would not intervene; he swore he hoped the cub would be flayed alive by Wilding. Those were his lordship's words, as Sir Rowland repeated them. Sir Rowland is in sore distress for Richard. He has gone with them to the meeting.”
“At least, he has no longer cause for his distress,” said Miss Westmacott with her bitter smile, and sank as one exhausted to a chair. Lady Horton moved to comfort her, her motherliness all aroused for this motherless girl, usually so wise and strong, and seemingly wiser and stronger than ever in this thing that Lady Horton had deemed a weakness and a folly.
Meanwhile, Richard and his two friends were on their way to the moors across the river to the encounter with Mr. Wilding.
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