"Let that wait," said I, and I think my tone must have warned him, for he looked at me more sharply. "I am concerned to-night with the news of Hampshire."
"Ah? And what may that be?" quoth his startled lordship.
"That my Lord Hedingham is a satyr and a villain," I informed him.
"'Sdeath!" he cried, as if I had stung him, and stood before me, an evil glitter in his eye.
"Do you go down on your old knees, my lord, and thank Heaven that I am come in time to take this lady away from you, else it had been very ill for you, I think."
At that a spasm of fury crossed his face. "You fool!" he snarled at me, and then, "You shall be taught!" he croaked. "You shall be taught!" And stepping forward he made shift to reach the bell-rope.
"Stay where you are, my lord," I cried, drawing a pistol from my pocket, "or I'll rid this lady of you in another way."
He paused; his jaw fell; he looked like a corpse with red-raddled cheeks. "Would you do murder?" he quavered, fearfully.
"If need be," I answered pleasantly. "Stand away from that bell-rope, my lord. I have no mind to shoot the bullies you keep about you. So! That is better," said I, and pocketed the pistol. "And now, my lord, will you please to call the lady?"
He considered me a moment, regaining by an effort some of his composure. "You fool, Talbot," he said. "You pitiful fool! Tchah! Since you demand with threats and violence, I must needs accede. But what ends do you hope to serve?"
From the street I caught at that moment the faint rumble of wheels.
"I will tell you," said I. "Captain Percy, whom this lady loves, awaits her without to complete the elopement for which your lordship has so thoroughly provided. The minister is yonder, and shall go with them. They shall be tight-bound by morning."
He shook his head, and his lips took on a mocking smile. "You reckon rashly, and without your host. I have but to summon Alicia and tell her the price I would exact from Sir William if she were to dare do this, and I dare swear she would not go with you. I hold Sir William in a springe which shall tighten and crush him unless his niece is my Lady Hedingham this month." He leered at me in factuous triumph. "So now, my cockerel, the cards are on the table. You shall suffer for this night's work, and that is all that shall come of it―your suffering."
He looked to see me taken aback, confused. But I smiled calmly, and, I hope, contemptuously. "You tell me nothing that I did not know," I informed him. "For I can make as good a guess as any man. Cards on the table, do you say, my lord? Cards on the table be it then. And here's my pack." And from my pocket I drew the letter from King James, of which I was the bearer.
"What's that?" quoth he, with a sudden sucking in of breath.
"The trumps, I think," said I, "and Dutch William for the King of them. My lord, I neither ask nor care what manner of hold is yours upon Sir William, but I tell you that you shall relinquish it even as you shall relinquish his niece. This is the letter you been awaiting from King James that was. There is enough treason in it to bring your hoary, sinful head to the block. The lady you shall set free at once. Her lover will be growing impatient out of doors. Sir William also you shall set free. When this is done you shall have your letter; not before."
I caught his faint sigh of relief. That, he thought, was to be the full extent of my threat. "And if I refuse?" says he. "If I refuse?"
"If within four-and-twenty hours Sir William fails to bring me word himself that you have complied, I lay this letter before the nearest justice of the peace."
Great Jove himself never launched a deadlier thunderbolt than that. For an instant he beat about for air. Then, "You dastard!" he screamed. "You hound! You foul, infernal traitor! When the King comes to his own again―"
"We deal with the present, not the future," I cut in. "Your answer, my lord?"
He stared at me awhile, sucking at his nether lip, his face blank now as a mask. Thus a moment; then he exploded once more. "Fool, there is one thing you have forgotten. If you pull me down, you will be crushed in my ruins. You are as deeply in it as I am. How can you incriminate me without bringing yourself to the gallows? Resolve me that," he crowed in wicked triumph.
"It is a cost I have counted," I answered very quietly. "I am concerned to-night neither for myself nor you, my lord. But for my lady there. And she goes hence with me."
Surprise was not the only emotion on his face. He sank feebly to a chair. "Oh!" he cried. "You are mad."
"Of a most sweet madness, my lord," answered I. "Have I played trumps enough, or must I play King William?"
He rose as with an effort. Again he fell to reviling me for the double traitor and villain that undoubtedly I was. Then checking at last, he crossed the room, and threw wide the door of the inner chamber.
"Mistress Alicia!" he called. She came forward.
"Jocelyn!" she cried, and stood at gaze upon the threshold, her hands clasped and held to her bosom, and in her eyes such a light of gladness as I'll swear not even the sight of Captain Percy―pretty fellow though he was―could have haled thither. And that I had for balm.
"I have come to fetch you, Alicia," I informed her. "Bid the parson to come too. He is no longer needed here."
A moment she stood there, her eyes wandering from me to the crumpled figure, all white and gold that was my Lord Hedingham, then back to me again. "What miracle have you wrought upon my lord?" she asked in sweet bewilderment.
"Shall I tell her, my lord?" I mocked him.
"Get you gone!" he snarled in a passion. "Get you gone!"
I opened the door to the hall, where Geddes waited. "Geddes―the door!" I ordered. "Mistress Alicia is leaving." Then, to the minister who had now come forward, too―a poor hedge-parson whom his lordship had suborned to do his vile work. "You shall not be disappointed of your fee," I comforted him, "nor need you soil your conscience in the work that's to be done. This lady is to wed; the mistake was in the groom. You'll find the right one waiting without with a carriage.
"Jocelyn?" quoth she, with parted lips and questioning eyes, a frown between them.
"Faith! 'tis Captain Percy," I informed her. "You were best elope with him, since your fate is to elope this night. Go, Alicia, and be happy! Tarry no longer here. The air of these rooms is foul and smirching."
"Dear Jocelyn!" she murmured, her hands outheld to me. "Dear, dear friend."
"You shall thank me another time," said I, "when we have greater leisure." I kissed her hand, and wrenched mine away from her when she would have kissed it, and so set a term to that pretty comedy.
When she was gone, and the minister with her, I still remained with my lord, and waited until the sound of wheels had faded in the distance. He never stirred, but sat there in his great chair, clutching its arms with his jewelled claws, a carrion fowl despoiled.
"Give you good night, my lord," I said at length, and turned to go.
"A moment, sir!" said he, his eye upon me with the dead glitter of a snake's. Bitterly he set me his last question. "Why have you crossed me in this?"
I looked him over quietly, reflecting. Then I turned from him with a shrug. "You would not understand," said I, and left the room.
As I reached the street a peal of bells went clanging through the house. He was rousing his bullies to the chase. So leaving my jaded horse, I relied upon my heels, and ran, forgetful of fatigue, and for greater safety I lay at the King's Head Inn that night. I lay there, but I did not sleep. The exaltation of my poor victory spent, I fell a prey to a bitterness of sorrow and self-pity, which I now hold to have been unworthy in me. For I had helped the lady of my heart to the man of hers, and what more than that can a true lover ask?