Chapter VII: Part 7

"What! And the lad never told me! He went out alone against that Irish blackguard! Good God----!"

A quivering upper lip and a pair of brown eyes brought him back to Nance's outlook upon life.

"Miss Durrell, you'll forgive me--"

Her hands were gripping the folds of her dress.

"You know, it was for us. Perhaps he told you? He came to Stonehanger last night before he went to Darvel's Wood. He was so confident. He would go. He promised to ride back and tell me how it all happened."

Jeremy--that man of many experiences--slipped out of the saddle and held out a comrade's hand.

"I don't blame Jasper for this, but I do blame him for going alone. The fellow De Rothan would have stabbed him in the back for the price of a pewter pot."

Nance shivered.

"Oh, don't talk like this!"

"My dear, I ask your pardon. Winter, Jeremy Winter is my name. Where the devil is Darvel's Wood? I'll ride there at once."

"I'll come--I'll show you."

"But----"

"I must come--I must. I was going when you rode up."

Jeremy knew when a wish was not to be gainsaid. Here was a girl who leapt into the experiences of life with her whole heart. She was strong, rich, and convincing.

"My dear, can you borrow such a thing as a horse?"

"No, and I can't ride."

"Well, we must take what Nature gives us. How far is it?"

"Two miles."

"I'll walk--for the sake of sympathy."

They seemed to have known each other years by the time the oaks of Darvel's Wood rose against the white clouds of the summer sky. Their instinctive liking for each other met and kindled in these moments of suspense. Both of them were thinking of Jasper, but Jeremy coupled his thoughts with the tense, white face of this young girl.

"She's true metal; she has edge and temper," he kept saying to himself. "Confound the lad, why was he in such a damnable hurry!"

When they came to the gate that led into Darvel's Wood, Jeremy paused and looked questioningly at Nance.

"Will you stay here?"

"No, I will come with you."

He was afraid for her sake and of what he might find. But her courage persuaded him.

"Come, then. I'll fasten my horse to the gate-post."

And they entered Darvel's Wood.

It was close and oppressive in among the trees, and the summer foliage shut in the ride with massive walls of green. Flies, too, were in evidence, swarming down out of the foliage as though these two humans had entered Darvel's Wood with the particular intention of offering themselves as food. Jeremy, less imperturbable than usual, cursed the black pests and smote the air with his hat.

"The insolence of the brutes! As though we mortals walked abroad for the benefit of flies! Some day we shall wipe all these things out--and then have the earth as clean as a Dutch kitchen."

They were anxious and under strain, and showed it by their silence. Jeremy's face looked fierce. He was thinking how he would hunt De Rothan into a corner, drive his sword through the man's body, and see him double up like a doll.

Nance knew of the clearing, and Jeremy could tell that they were nearing the place--by the sound of her breathing. He had his eyes on the tracks left by Jasper's horse.

"Not far now?"

"We are there."

The clearing opened out before them with the horse tracks turning aside into it. Half the place was in sunlight, the rest smothered in umbrage, and very silent.

"Stay here, child."

He left Nance under an oak, and began to explore the place, his sharp eyes soon discovering many suggestive facts. Another horse had been ridden into the clearing, and there was a trampled place where men had fought. What was more, Jeremy found the track through the underwood that De Rothan and his men had made. Twigs were bent and broken, dead leaves kicked up. More than one man had been responsible for this.

He returned to Nance. Her eyes questioned him--like the eyes of one in pain.

"Yes, there are traces. Foul play, probably."

"Do you think that Jasper----?"

"My dear, I don't know. I have found nothing but trampled grass and broken underwood. De Rothan was not alone. He had men with him."

"The coward! He laid a trap?"

"That's what I gather."

Jeremy stood smoothing his chin and staring at the ground.

"This fellow lives over beyond the ridge--Winchelsea way?"

"No, nearer than that, off a lane between Sedlescombe and Westfield. It is called the Brick House."

"Brick House. I know the place. I shall ride there at once."

"Will you?"

"Something may be found out. I know how to deal with a man like De Rothan."

They returned through the wood to the gate, Jeremy thinking hard and saying nothing to his companion.

As he unfastened his horse, Nance spoke out, standing and looking over the lulls toward the sea. Her face was set, and her eyes hard.

"If the worst has happened, we must be revenged."

Jeremy was struck by the passion in her voice.

"We will not believe the worst yet. It is possible that they may have kidnapped Jasper for those dispatches he seized."

"Whatever has happened, my father is nearly as guilty as De Rothan."

"He may not have known."

"I have no pity. I shall make him confess everything."

Jeremy reflected a moment.

"It might be as well to let him understand that the whole business has been discovered."

They parted at the gate, Nance pointing out to Jeremy the way he should take. He lifted his hat to her devoutly.

"Keep your heart up, child. I will ride back and tell you what I have discovered."

Nance walked back slowly to Stonehanger, her mouth set in a determined line, her eyes steady with thought. She felt very bitter against her father, and in no mood to spare him in his conspiracy with De Rothan.

Anthony Durrell was reading on the bench under the yew-tree when she returned. He glanced up sharply as Nance crossed the grass, and she was struck by the narrowness of his face, and ill-balanced bigotry of the man's whole nature. But Nance had risen above fear of her father. She had youth on her side, and the strength that youth gives.

"I want to speak to you."

He put his book aside, an irritable crease appearing between his eyebrows.

"Well, what is it?"

"It is known that you are a French spy."

"Child----!"

"I know it, as others know it. You may be grateful that those who know it are my friends."

Durrell sat staring, his face vacant, mouth slightly open. Nance had expected a violent outburst, recriminations, arguments, denials.

Presently he spoke to her, making a great effort to regain his self-control.

"What do you mean, child?"

"What I have said, father. Nor is that all. This man De Rothan may be accused of murder."

Durrell's hands moved restlessly to and fro along the edge of the seat.

"Murder! I know nothing of that."

She stood looking down at him with her uncompromising eyes.

"God grant that you do know nothing. We must wait--and be patient. Remember, now, that you are at the mercy of these friends of mine--who know. It would have been better if you had trusted me a little."

XXVIII

Jeremy stopped at the "Queen's Head" Inn at Sedlescombe for some bread and cheese and a mug of ale. He was an old campaigner and remembered the needs of the inner man.

The landlord of the "Queen's Head" appeared to be a person of sense. He had a shrewd, well-shaved face, and a mouth that spoke pleasantly, but was always able to keep something back. Jeremy chatted with him for twenty minutes. He had a queer way of getting hold of men, of making them feel the grip of his character. Jeremy asked for the Brick House.

"You mean Mounseer de Rotten's place, sir?"

"That name's good enough."

"Go straight down the village, over yon hill, and take a lane to the right. You'll see the house in a hollow."

The landlord and Jeremy looked at each other as though neither took the other for a fool.

"Does mounseer keep a big staff of servants?"

"Three, sir, so far as I know."

"Men?"

"Men, sir, yes."

"I met the Chevalier in London. I might look in on him now that I am down in these parts."

Jeremy strolled down the brick path to the white fence where a boy was holding his horse. The landlord followed at his heels, staring reflectively at the sturdy breadth of Mr. Winter's back. This was a gentleman who walked very much on his own legs.

"Roads nice and dry, sir. You might be wanting a bed for the night?"

Jeremy paused with a toe in the stirrup.

"I'll keep you in mind, landlord. How far do you call it to Mr. de Rothan's?"

"A matter of two miles, sir."

"If he hasn't a bed to spare, you may see me again. I like a quiet place, and quiet people."

"We're quiet, sir, very quiet."

"I'll remember it. Good day to you."

The landlord watched him ride off down the village.

"Hum--what's he after? A gentleman of parts. He had an eye on me for something, friendliwise. No small beer, I reckon."

Jeremy found the lane leading off the main road. It was a mere grass track with high hedges on either side of it. The red chimneys of the house showed above the thorns and hazels, and a plume of blue smoke went up against the green background of a wooded hill. A gate closed the end of the lane which opened into a meadow.

Jeremy dismounted and leaned his arms on the top bar of the gate and looked across the meadow at the Brick House with its red walls, clipped yews, and diamond-paned casements. The place looked peaceful enough in the green dip of its valley, but Jeremy was not in quest of beauty. He scrutinised every window of the house like a man staring at an ancient tablet whose writing refuses to be deciphered.

Jeremy fastened his horse to the gate-post, and looked to the priming of his pistols. He was playing a bold game, and in such case a man needs something more dangerous to rely on than his tongue. He climbed the gate and walked slowly across the meadow, slapping his right leg with a little riding switch that he carried.

When he came within twenty yards of the brick wall of the garden, he halted and stood staring at the house as though he were an antiquary studying types of English domestic architecture. Jeremy was not going to put himself within safe pistol-shot of the windows. To provoke a parley a man must not give away all his advantages.

Jeremy began to walk up and down in the line of the garden wall, keeping a sharp eye on all the windows. It was not long before he saw a face appear at one of the upper lattices. It remained there a moment, and then melted back into the shadow of the room.

Presently a servant in black livery came out from the porch, and down the path into the meadow. He approached Jeremy, and spoke in broken English.

"What will monsieur desire here?"

Jeremy stood with feet apart, hands behind his back, staring at the house.

"Good mullions, and excellent brickwork. There is a solidity about these Jacobean houses. My good fellow, is your master at home?"

"What will monsieur desire here?"

"Nothing, Pierre, nothing, but a word with your master. Tell him there is a gentleman here who is interested in old houses."

The man looked contemptuously at Winter and returned to the house. De Rothan was waiting in the hall.

"Well, François?"

"A gentleman who loves old houses."

"Thunder, what, a dry-as-dust! Go and tell him the house is not to be viewed."

François went back to Jeremy.

"Monsieur, my master the Chevalier de Rothan cannot be agreeable to your curiosity."

Jeremy's eyes twinkled.

"Go and tell him I have ridden sixty miles to see this house. If he will give me a few minutes I can explain."

This time the man was exchanged for the master. De Rothan appeared at the porch, came slowly down the path and out into the meadow. Stateliness was the pose of the moment. An aristocrat of France came to speak with some antiquarian huckster who would force himself upon an exile's privacy.

"Sir, I wish you good day."

Jeremy took off his hat and bowed. He could be damnably urbane when he was most dangerous. De Rothan had not recognised him. Who would expect to see a fencing-master from St. James's in an out-of-the-world Sussex meadow?

"Sir, I take liberties in being here. I am one of those inquisitive persons who are interested in everything."

De Rothan looked him over with supercilious politeness.

"A very admirable state of mind, but a little embarrassing at times--to others."

"You cannot be so kind as to let me see your house, Chevalier?"

De Rothan's eyelids seemed to close a little.

"My house, monsieur, is not a museum."

"But I am told there is a unique curio to be seen in it, a thing of particular, local interest----"

"Indeed! You surprise me."

"Not at all, sir, not at all. It is a gentleman who was stolen yesterday out of Darvel's Wood. I am sure you will oblige me in the matter."

De Rothan's figure seemed to lengthen. His nostrils dilated, and his eyes became very bright and staring.

"Sir, I fail to understand you. Nor do I love impertinence."

"Nor I, Monsieur de Rothan. I expect Mr. Jasper Benham to dine with me to-night. It will be courteous of you to produce the gentleman, and to deliver him over to me."

"You are talking nonsense."

"I'll wager that I am not."

They stood eyeing each other, challenging each other, gauging each other's strength and grimness.

"Who are you, and what do you want?"

Jeremy's eyes twinkled. He had been standing with hands clasped behind him. One hand had slipped itself into the tail pocket of his coat and was gripping the butt of a pistol.

He began to speak slowly, and very distinctly, looking at De Rothan from under frowning eyebrows.

"Mr. Frenchman, let us understand each other. I have two men over yonder behind the hedge; neither you nor yours can play any tricks with me. Now, I ask you, what is there to prevent me putting a bullet in your body?"

Jeremy had a pistol out, and, holding it at his hip, covered De Rothan with the muzzle.

"My good sir, this is like a stage play!"

De Rothan had nerve, and showed it in the casual way he glanced at the pistol, and then looked Jeremy in the eyes. Quick wit and audacity were divided pretty equally between them.

"Well, Chevalier, what do you say?"

"Of course, sir, if you wish to blow Mr. Benham's brains out----"

"Thanks. So I was on the mark--there."

"Do not congratulate yourself. I can tell you at once that Mr. Jasper Benham is in my house, alive and well, save for a sword thrust through the arm."

Jeremy nodded.

"You laid a trap for him and cheated him on a point of honour."

"My good sir, I outwitted him, if you call that cheating."

They were silent for a few seconds like men who break away and take breath between two bouts of boxing. Jeremy's mouth looked ugly, but he was as debonair as ever.

"Listen to me, Chevalier. This spy business of yours is over and done with. What I have to do is to call one of my men, send him galloping for half a score red-coats, and hold you here at the pistol point till they come."

"Very good, sir, very good. But I take it that you have some respect for Mr. Benham's life."

Jeremy felt the cunning of the thrust.

"No doubt."

"Very well, do what you suggest. But I warn you that I have a man in the house whom I can trust. He has had his orders. It is a nasty business blowing out a young man's brains. Faugh--you will not drive us to that!"

"You are not without daring, Chevalier."

"I am one of the eagles of adventure, sir. I play my game and I play it boldly. Mr. Benham is my hostage. I demand to be left alone, to be allowed to give my plans a fighting chance. In three weeks or so French cavalry may be sabring your red-coats in these lanes."

Jeremy reflected.

"I see your point, sir."

"Regard it in this way. I play my game--I put down my stake. This Mr. Benham blunders in and tries to upset my table. I seize him and tie him up in a corner, and, to defend myself from his friends, I have to keep a pistol levelled at this good young man's head. You see, I hold him in front of me, so to speak. Shoot, or stab at me--and Mr. Benham's body takes the first blow. What you have to decide is whether you are willing to sacrifice your friend."

"By George! Do you mean to tell me you would shoot the lad?"

"Mr. Englishman, I am the devil when I am in earnest. My man is watching you, even now. If you were to fire that pistol at me--he would do the same to Mr. Jasper Benham. You see how things stand. The decision is with you."

Very rarely had Jeremy found himself fenced with so cleverly. De Rothan held him at a disadvantage.

"Let me put things plainly. You, Chevalier, are a French spy. The truth has been discovered. You expect the French fleet in the Channel, and Napoleon to invade us. Good! To gain breathing space you tie up this lad, hold a pistol at his head, and dare us to interfere."

De Rothan bowed and smiled.

"You have summed up the situation. It is very simple."

Jeremy lowered his pistol. He was baffled, and very furious behind that imperturbable face of his.

"Very well, Chevalier. It seems that we are not in a position to quarrel."

"Mr.----?"

"Winter, sir, Jeremy Winter."

"Mr. Winter, you show good sense."

Jeremy could have twisted De Rothan's neck. The man's complacent audacity rubbed him raw.

"One thing, Chevalier. Have you any personal spite against the lad?"

He watched De Rothan narrowly.

"No more than the natural contempt of a grown man for a big fool of a boy who tries to kick him."

Jeremy's mouth betrayed sarcasm.

"I believed he kicked--with success."

But he regretted the gibe when he saw the glint in De Rothan's eyes.

"Mr. Winter, I am too big a man to bear malice."

"Thank heaven for that!"

"I hold Mr. Benham as a hostage."

"And if the French come, sir?"

De Rothan shrugged his shoulders.

"A country squireling will not matter. He will be one of a mob of sheep."

"And if the French do not come?"

"I shall still hold Mr. Benham at my mercy. He will be my shield, Mr. Winter; you will shoot or stab at me through him."

"A very convenient arrangement for you, sir. I suppose it is useless to suggest that we might come to terms and give you a safe passage out of the country?"

De Rothan smiled.

"One does not count one's winnings, Mr. Winter, till the cards are played. Especially when one holds a winning hand."

Jeremy bowed to him, and they drew apart, keeping their faces toward each other.

"Good day to you, Chevalier."

"Good day, Mr. Winter. You will be careful how you meddle in any affair of mine."

XXIX

When Jeremy was in a rage his imperturbable face had a smooth, tight look, the lips pressed a little more closely together, the jaw well set. His wrath was always a quiet wrath, deep, purposeful, not wasting itself in words.

De Rothan had made him more furious than he had been for years, and even the knowledge that Jasper was very little the worse for his adventure in Darvel's Wood did not modify Jeremy's anger. De Rothan was the kind of man who filled him with a scornful disgust, and to be baffled and dictated to by such a man left Jeremy quarrelling with his own self-respect. He damned De Rothan as a coward, and was equally indignant over the contradictory conviction that the adventurer had audacity and courage. De Rothan had seized a desperate chance. It had been a clever move, too confoundedly clever to please Mr. Winter.

"Curse it, what shall I tell the girl?"

He laughed at his own impatience.

"Why, Jerry, my boy, you want to appear infallible, do you, dallying with a snuff-box, and proudly overwhelming all ruffians with one look. The lad's alive. Tell her that. She'll be ready to kiss you, though you have brought nothing but news."

It did not astonish Jeremy when he found Nance watching for him where the lane topped the high ground to the east of Stonehanger. She was sitting on a turf bank under a thorn-tree, out of sight of Stonehanger House.

Jeremy gave her the best news he could, while he was still some yards away.

"The lad's alive, and they tell me not much the worse."

The way her face changed stirred Jeremy, man of fifty that he was. It was good to be young, to desire, and to be desired.

"Where is he?"

"Ah, that's a long story. You and I have got to hold a council of war."

He dismounted, fastened his horse to the thorn-tree, and seated himself beside Nance on the bank. Her face still retained much of the radiance that had poured into it with the first rush of relief.

"What has happened, then?"

"They kidnapped Jasper in Darvel's Wood. I guessed it. De Rothan has him shut up safely in that house of his beyond Sedlescombe."

"As a prisoner?"

"Yes."

"But how absurd, in these days! Then we shall soon have him out."

Jeremy wagged his head.

"My dear, you don't know Monsieur de Rothan."

"What do you mean?"

"He has the audacity of the devil. He has snapped up Jasper as a hostage, and dares us to interfere."

"He told you that?"

"Why, to be sure, we had a parley in the meadow. I covered him with a pistol and asked him to tell me why I shouldn't shoot him. His argument was that one of his own men would promptly shoot Jasper. You see, they are holding him against us as a kind of shield."

Nance's face lost some of its radiance.

"But De Rothan dare not do this."

"Unfortunately he does dare, in fact, he is obliged to dare. It is the one chance left him of forcing his game through. We are on the edge of a crisis. The next month may decide whether we are to be invaded or not. De Rothan is standing out for a fighting chance."

She looked very gravely into Jeremy's eyes.

"Do you think he would be brute enough to murder Jasper?"

"My dear, I do."

"Then if we threaten or inform against him, Jasper will be sacrificed?"

"Exactly. That's what makes me feel like a caged tiger."

It seemed to take Nance some minutes to realise the vindictive grimness of the thing.

"But what a villain!"

"Call him that if you like, child. He is a clever gambler and has to use a gambler's tricks. The end justifies the means. That is what he tells himself."

She smoothed her dress with her hands, and looked into the distance.

"It makes me ashamed and furious that we are so helpless. And yet we have to be polite and swallow our anger. Can anything be done?"

"And take the risk of having the lad shot?"

"No, no, you know I don't mean that! But to think that we should have to truckle to this man!"

"I see no other course at present. I am not a lamb myself. I would run a sword through the man to-morrow if I thought that it would help us. But it won't. We have got to be careful."

"I see--yes, I see."

"We must hold our tongues, not let the truth out, and yet try to find some way out of this blind alley. If we were to let our neighbours know the truth, they might come blundering in and lose Jasper his life."

She held her breath at the thought of such a chance.

"Then there is father. I spoke to him this morning."

"You did?"

"He is a strange man. I thought he would storm, but he looked stunned. I don't see that he could help us. He might even be dangerous."

"Yes, set everything in a blaze. I had thought of that. I think that I had better see Mr. Anthony Durrell."

She looked at him questioningly.

"But----"

"I have dealt with all sorts of men in my time."

"Do you mean to frighten him into silence?"

"I shall try to treat him as a reasonable creature. It is no time for soft phrases."

She thought awhile, knitting up her forehead, and clasping her hands.

"Perhaps it will be best."

"Shall we go on? I may find Mr. Durrell at Stonehanger."

The essential weakness of a man of Anthony Durrell's character showed itself in the parley that followed between him and Jeremy Winter. The man of action and the man of the bookshelf were pitted against each other, though Jeremy, unlike most Englishmen, had subtlety and a very quick sense of humour. Nance had left them alone together in the stone-room, feeling vaguely sorry for the thin, white-headed figure that looked so ineffectual.

Jeremy went straight to the point with a merciless directness, much as he would have attacked with a sword. Durrell's hysterical verbosity was like the clumsy and excitable fencing of a greenhorn who has never learned to use his hands. He chose the high, ethical, magniloquent attitude, being sincere enough in his wild, foolish, visionary way. Jeremy thrust the egregious fanatic through and through with the brutal logic of his common sense.

"You need not stand and orate, Mr. Durrell. Take the facts and leave your theories. Here are you, a traitor to your country, with a noose dangling invitingly over your head."

Durrell flapped his arms.

"I stand for liberty--for a great idea----"

"Bosh, man, bosh! We don't win things in this world in that way. Answer a straight question. Do you want your daughter to see you hanged?"

Durrell was disjointed, wild, hysterical. Jeremy kept up his body blows, driving home truth after truth till he had this poor, exclamatory piece of scholarly discontent battered into impotence. Durrell was a weak man. He was not built for pounding, for fighting toe to toe. He might have quarrelled and stormed with women. In the presence of a man like Jeremy he collapsed.

Winter softened a little when the enthusiast crumpled up into a chair.

"Mr. Durrell, sir, try to realise that we are your best friends. Have nothing more to do with this scoundrel De Rothan. You've got something valuable to live for in the shape of a daughter."

Durrell mumbled, and twisted this way and that. Jeremy had cowed him, and seized the dominating influence that De Rothan had held.

"I will think over what you have said, Mr. Winter. Heaven knows I would not countenance any violence to this young man."

Jeremy left him a beaten man, and went out into the garden to speak with Nance. She looked steady and sure of herself, and Jeremy respected the strength in her. It struck him that she would be able to dominate her father now that Durrell had been shocked into a kind of panic.

"Well?"

"You must forgive me if I have been a little rough with your father. Soft words are of no use at such a time."

"What does he say?"

"I think he has surrendered to us. I had to 'tarrify' him, as they say in these parts."

"If only he would keep to his books."

"That's it. Some men are made to live with books."

They walked through the shrubbery to the gate where David Barfoot was holding Mr. Winter's horse. Jeremy spoke what was in his mind.

"Go and play the daughter to him, my dear. I think he is in a mood to be managed. Some oldish men have to be treated like children."

"I will try."

"There must be plenty of good stuff in your father."

"Yes."

"I take you as my proof."

Cynicism, tinged with benevolence, such was Jeremy's attitude toward life. It was not very reasonable to expect a girl of spirit to hold a man of Anthony Durrell's nature in great love and reverence. Durrell needed hurdling in like an old sheep, and left to browse contentedly among his books.

Jeremy had already quarrelled twice that day, but he was yet to have a third quarrel laid upon his shoulders. This time it was with a woman, and the woman--Miss Rose Benham.

He found her at Rush Heath, energetic, inquisitive, and voluble, driving the inarticulate Jack Bumpstead into comers, and insisting upon examining Devil Dick in his stall. She had scolded the groom till he had involved himself in a maze of muddled contradictions, hunting him round and round with her cross-questions and her curiosity.

Jeremy's mouth went grim. His patience had borne up bravely, and he was in no mood to be teased by a managing and meddlesome young woman.

"Mr. Winter, what does all this mean?"

He handed his horse over to Jack Bumpstead, gave the groom one terrifying look, and bowed Miss Benham out of the stable.

"My dear young lady, I think you are a little excited."

He was deluged, but managed to divert the stream into a quiet corner of the garden.

"Miss Rose, you are inclined to call this affair your own. I warn you that it is nothing of the kind. I even forbid you to meddle with it."

"Forbid, indeed! I shall----"

"Excuse me, you will not."

"What right have you----?"

"Expediency justifies me--and a man's honour."

"Jasper's? You mean to say----"

Then Jeremy told what was very like an audacious lie.

"Miss Benham--Cousin Jasper will very shortly be married. And I am glad--because of the woman he will marry. Honour is concerned in it, even his very life. He is in great danger. One careless word may wreck everything."

Rose was white, furious, and astonished.

"To be married! And all this wild talk----?"

"My dear Miss Benham, sometimes two men desire to marry the same woman. It is not unusual. And one of the men may be desperate and unprincipled. The unprincipled man may take advantage of the other's sense of honour."

"But Jasper--is he in danger?"

"Very grave danger."

"Then why on earth don't you do something?"

Jeremy gave her one of his shrewd smiles.

"That is just what must not be done, for the moment. It will spoil my masterly inactivity if fools go cackling about the country. We are in a very delicate dilemma. I shall not explain it, as the less that is known about it--the better. You have it in your power to lose Jasper his life."

She flinched, as people had so often flinched in Jeremy's presence.

"If he is in danger, I----"

"Yes, you will be kind and cautious. You will say nothing. And for God's sake leave Jack Bumpstead alone, and not a word to Squire Christopher."

Rose tossed her head.

"I do not need to be lectured like a schoolgirl, Mr. Winter. I am a woman of sense. I will not interfere in a man's love affairs--even if he is my cousin."

And Jeremy saw that he had piqued her into a proper pride.

XXX

The men who had built the Brick House had framed the attic story of huge baulks of oak, posts and beams that looked like the halves of great trees, with struts and cross-pieces worked in quaintly at all angles. There was a long gallery connecting the attics, and the whole place looked like the interior of a ship, the little windows high up no larger than portholes. The plaster had not been whitewashed for years, and beams, rafters, and posts were a deep rich brown. Even the floor-boards were of oak, and riddled with worm-holes.

Jasper Benham's prison room was the attic at the far end of the gallery. Its dormer-window was squeezed in between the slopes of two gables. There was no furniture in the attic save a rough box-bed in one corner.

Nor did the bed belong to Jasper. The man Gaston slept there with a pistol under his pillow.

Jasper had been given a truss of straw to lie on. They could not have managed otherwise, for the simple reason that they had put him in irons. His ankles were chained and bolted to the floor-boards, and his wrists handcuffed. He might have been a negro in the hold of a slave ship, or a refractory seaman undergoing discipline.

Both De Rothan and Jeremy Winter were cynics, with the difference that one possessed far more natural kindliness than the other. Their materialism kept its eyes fixed upon the sensuous aspects of life. They knew good wine, and a woman who was worth following, and were ready to be amused by the ingenuous wraths and enthusiasms of youth.

As for De Rothan, he found Jasper a most companionable young person, a man who took his own honourable indignation with vast seriousness, and could be pricked into all manner of odd exasperations. Jasper had not learned to wink at life, or to sneer upon occasions. De Rothan baited his youthful sincerity. He would take his glass of wine and smoke his cheroot in Jasper's attic, sitting on the edge of Gaston's bed, and prodding the Englishman with his cynicism as he would have prodded a pig with a stick. He made a daily habit of this parley, spending an hour or two with his prisoner while Gaston had a change of air in the garden or meadow.

It was the fifth day of his imprisonment, and Jasper heard Gaston's descending footsteps meet those of De Rothan, who ascended to take his place. The Frenchman came in with his glass of wine and his cheroot, bowed ironically to Jasper, and took up his usual position on the bed.

"Well, Mr. Benham, how is the forlorn lover to-day?"

De Rothan's sleekness, his white linen and smoothly shaved face filled Jasper with a kind of fury. He felt himself unclean on his bundle of straw, with a five days' beard on his chin, and his face and hands unwashed. The wound in his right arm was giving him no trouble, but they had not offered to dress it for him, and Nature was responsible for any process of healing.

"Your consideration, Chevalier, does not run to a crock of water and a piece of soap."

"Why, my good sir, what should you want with such things? I might find an old clay pipe and let you blow soap bubbles!"

"It is something to feel clean, especially in the presence of people whose honour happens to be foul."

"We have been taught that it is the heart that matters. Inward cleanliness, eh? You have heard, Mr. Benham, of the old saints and hermits. Dirt and vermin were held to be honourable."

"You would talk in a different way if I were out of these irons."

"Pardon me, my dear young man, I think I should not. Besides, why should you trouble about your beard? The sweet charmer is not likely to see you--though there is pathos about an unshaven chin. Do you think that she troubles----"

He sipped his wine, and watched Jasper over the rim of his glass.

"I drink Miss Nance's health. She is a clever girl, Mr. Benham. How we laughed, she and I! It was funny, although so damnably serious."

"Curse you, what do you mean?"

De Rothan regarded him with infinite relish.

"What an honest soul! You really believe that Miss Durrell wanted me at the end of a rope, and you kneeling romantically at her feet?"

Jasper had nothing adequate to say.

"Nance led you on so cleverly. She sent you off with her blessing to Darvel's Wood. Dear, honest fool!"

"You need not tell me lies about Miss Durrell."

"I don't, sir, I don't. She was kind to you, was she not? When did the kindness begin? Ask yourself that. Was it not when you had blundered like a bumble-bee into our web and seemed likely to give us trouble? Of course Miss Nance was circumspect. She handled you very cunningly, Mr. Benham."

"You need not try to make me believe that."

"It would be impossible? Your vanity is too serene and confident? No woman would have the audacity to treat you like a fool, would she? No, of course not. It would be impossible. Mr. Jasper Benham is too dignified and important a person to be played with."

"Make the most of your tongue, sir."

"Really, you refresh me. When our Emperor is in London, I must present you to him as a unique young man without any sense of humour. You would amuse the Court. You will continue to amuse my dear Nance when she is a great lady of the Empire."

"Don't boast too soon."

"I may as well tell you some news. You will not gossip and spread it abroad. The noble Nelson has been chasing a wild goose instead of your Lady Hamilton. Villeneuve has tricked him. And in a week or two Villeneuve will be blowing your Brest ships out of the water. Then we shall come up Channel, and the Emperor will land in England. It will be a fine spectacle. I shall enjoy it."

"It may prove a very fine spectacle."

"Ah, you dear English--you think yourselves invincible. Are you better men than the Germans, the Austrians, or the Russians? Are your country bumpkins so valiant? Why, our Grand Army will devour you. Think of the American colonists, think of Burgoyne at Saratoga, and Cornwallis at Yorktown. We French have had two years of war. We have fought all Europe. We are veterans, and a nation of soldiers. We shall gallop over you, hunt you hither and thither with the bayonet."

Jasper lay down on his straw.

"It must be a pleasure to you to talk, Chevalier," he said.

Jasper Benham was reliable, and he believed in the reliability of those in whom he trusted. De Rothan's clever mockery might exasperate him, but it did not shake his faith in Nance.

Meanwhile at Stonehanger Nance was strengthening her hold upon her father. The economics of life would seem to be very delicately balanced so far as old men were concerned. They may retain their faculties in a state of fair efficiency so long as no abnormal event interferes with that sanity that is begotten of old habits. But this equilibrium may easily be disturbed, and an illness or a great sorrow may age an old man more in one month than in the ten previous years.

So it seemed to be with Anthony Durrell. The shock of the discovery of his schemes, and the violent ethical attack made upon him by Nance and Jeremy appeared to overthrow his normal self. There was a sudden slackening of all his fibres, both physical and mental. The emotional part of him, so long smothered and overlaid, broke to the surface as the intellect lost some of its ascendency. Then--he appeared to become conscious of the existence of his daughter.

Now Nance had one of those large natures that bears no malice, and is ready to give of its best when an estranged friend stretches out an appealing hand. Her father had become to her a weak and pathetic old man whom the rough virility of younger men shouldered into a corner. She could not be very sorry for Anthony Durrell without being very tender toward him.

For some days her father appeared puzzled by a new atmosphere that enveloped him. Like a man who had been very ill, he was content to sit and muse and stare at nothing in particular. He had led a very lonely life, and a selfish one, since the life of a fanatic and a dreamer is often very selfish. It was now that he felt defeated and feeble that Nance's nature flooded in upon his consciousness.

She would take his chair into the garden under the shade of one of the yews, fetch him the books he loved, read to him, talk to him, try to enter into his thoughts and prejudices. Durrell felt old emotions stirring in his heart. Some of the old gentleness came back. The harsh, thin lines melted out of his face.

The change in him was betrayed by the very way he looked at Nance, and by what he said to her one evening as they sat on the terrace and watched the sun go down. The sea seemed no longer a strip of ominous silver across which the immortal dragon of war should swim to scorch up this green island rich with its yellowing wheat and rolling woods. Durrell had drifted suddenly into the softer evening lights of fife.

He realised that the girl had had a hard and a lonely life.

"Nance, you must often have been very lonely here."

She looked at him in surprise, but with a kind of compassionate radiance.

"I have been less lonely these few days, father."

He seemed to reflect upon these words. And perhaps the warm beauty of the July evening helped the quiet drifting of his thoughts.

"In this life--we make many mistakes."

She nodded as though she understood.

"I used to believe in the efficacy of violence and fear. Curious, in a man of my habits. I have come to doubt whether the quieter forces are not more powerful."

She smiled at him.

"People do hate to be driven."

"To be sure."

"It is easier to persuade them, to play the Pied Piper to the world."

He glanced at her with eyes that asked, "Where did you learn this wisdom?"

And presently he began to speak of De Rothan. It was the first time that he had mentioned the Chevalier's name since his meeting with Jeremy Winter. The adventurer had come to rouse in Durrell a feeling of repulsion. He had allowed himself to realise what manner of man this was whom he had pretended to call friend.

Nance let him talk, even encouraging him to speak of Jasper Benham. Jeremy Winter's anxiety had been unable to convince her that this monstrous piece of kidnapping could be very serious. It was an insolent attempt to extort terms. That was what Nance believed, not knowing the abominable and wanton things of which a revengeful man is capable. De Rothan had not yet taken his change for that rolling in the ditch.

She tried to suggest to Durrell what he should do.

"If the Chevalier de Rothan comes here, father, try and show him how absurd this is. Jasper and Mr. Winter will let him leave the country. They will keep silent--for our sakes."

Durrell looked troubled. Since the change in him he distrusted De Rothan even more than Nance distrusted him.

"This is a difficult man to argue with."

"But what sense is there? Who really believes that the French will land?"

"My dear, I believed it a week ago."

"But not now----"

"It is possible. De Rothan believes it, or he would have been across the water many days ago."

She glanced at her father, and realised once more how weak he was. The one great motive that had inspired him had crumbled away. Even her own sympathy had helped to sap and to undermine his strength.

Every day Jeremy rode over. He was blunt, laconic, but very courteous to Anthony Durrell. There were things that troubled him at Rush Heath, namely, the soothing of Squire Christopher's violent and choleric curiosity. The old man was bedridden, but he fumed for Jasper. Jeremy had told lies, that Jasper was away on duty. The whole household had to be deceived, and Jack Bumpstead kept from gossiping.

But Jeremy had not been able to stand wholly alone. He had been compelled to take Parson Goffin into his confidence, and by that peppery gentleman's advice he had enlarged the circle of trust still further. Certain of Jasper's friends were told the truth. They met at Goffin's, and held a council of war. The situation seemed absurd, even in its gravity. A Sussex gentleman kidnapped and held as a hostage in his own county by a French spy.

Jeremy told Nance all that he had to tell.

"We are having De Rothan's place watched, night and day. They are burning charcoal in a wood half a mile from the house, and one or two fellows have joined the charcoal-burners. If we could only collar De Rothan and his rogues, but they are cunning. They go out singly, and the fellow Gaston is always in the house."

He smiled grimly over the affair.

"Of course--a night attack would be the thing, after we had laid De Rothan by the heels. But there's the risk; I don't like taking it. The scoundrel still rides about as though he were in France. That makes me feel that he means business, and means to let us know it. He dares us to interfere."

"But can nothing be done?"

"I have an idea. I will tell it to you in a day or two."

XXXI

Jeremy had not exaggerated when he had said that De Rothan rode about the country as though he had nothing whatever to fear. His audacity carried him even into some of the country houses round about, and Jeremy himself met him in Hastings, riding along the High Street with a groom at his heels. He bowed to Jeremy and took off his hat.

"Good day to you, sir. I can assure you, in passing, that our mutual friend is very well."

"Damn your cheek," said Jeremy.

And De Rothan laughed in his face.

Some days elapsed before the Chevalier appeared again at Stonehanger. He had more desire to see Nance than to warn her father, for Durrell was becoming a negligible quantity now that the crisis was at hand. De Rothan was not the man to waste time upon a thing that was no longer of any use. He had made many shrewd guesses, but he had yet to learn that Nance herself was arrayed against him.

He found Durrell alone under one of the yews on the terrace. He had been reading and had fallen asleep with the book open across his knees. He woke with a start when De Rothan touched him, dropped the book, and looked up at the Frenchman with a narrowing and mistrustful stare.

"I had no notion you were here, sir. I have not been asleep more than five minutes."

He was confused, flurried, and De Rothan had quick eyes. He caught the restless antagonism in the other's manner. Durrell was a little afraid.

De Rothan sat down on the terrace wall, studying Durrell with cynical and amused eyes.

"So they have been frightening you, have they? Poor friend--poor comrade!"

Durrell moved restlessly in his chair. He had foreseen this meeting and had prepared himself for it, yet De Rothan's flippant scorn held him at a disadvantage.

"I have decided to abandon this enterprise----"

"Did they dangle a rope under your nose? Alas, we have not the blood of the martyrs in us! That little black-chinned bully has been here with his tongue and his pistols. He tried his bombast with me, but I had the adder's head under my heel."

Durrell's face twitched irritably.

"I have not been frightened from my purpose. But I see certain things as I did not see them before."

"A convenient conscience, eh!"

"I cannot share your methods."

"Indeed! That overwhelms me."

He looked at Durrell with amused contempt.

"So you know that I have compelled Mr. Jasper Benham to be my guest? And yet you cannot appreciate what a desperate piece of cleverness it was. A little man comes and storms at you, and instead of holding loyal to me, you throw up your arms and surrender."

"I have refused to accept your methods."

"Because of a wonderful new affection for this cub of a Sussex squire? Thunder! I wish you had your girl's courage, and not the heart of a sheep."

Durrell's eyes began to glitter in his white face.

"It is because of Nance that I have seen fit to renounce you and your cleverness."

"You overwhelm me! How much does your daughter know?"

"Everything."

"Oh, come, now, come!"

"I said everything."

"And she does not despise you for playing the coward--calling out when the shoe begins to pinch?"

De Rothan's insolence roused Durrell to a thin and austere dignity.

"Sir, do you think that my daughter admires your idea of honour any more than I do? Her sympathies are with this young man, concerning whom you saw fit to tell me many lies."

"Ah--is that so!"

"I have said it. I do not ask your leave to tell the truth."

De Rothan's face seemed to sharpen and to harden its outlines. He looked at Durrell out of half-closed eyes.

"Let us be frank. Am I to understand that this calf that I have tied up in a stall is particularly precious to your daughter?"

"I refuse to deal in such terms."

"The devil take all our little nicenesses! Do you mean to tell me that Nance cares one farthing whether that round-headed young oaf----"

"My daughter is not for your discussion."

De Rothan laughed, but it was the laughter of a man whose self-love felt savage.

"What a pretty little romance I have been feeding! That I should have rubbed this young fool on the raw, while sweet Nance pitied him."

Durrell's fingers kept up an agitated rapping on the arms of the chair.

"If you have any sense of honour, De Rothan----"

"Honour! I am packed full of honour. My marrow tingles with it. But you, Sir Pantaloon, do not understand."

"You are right. I do not understand."

"No, who could expect it. You desert me to play the fond father. It is very laughable. As if you could not have played the fond father and kept all your ambitions! Well, Mr. Anthony Durrell, I think there is nothing left for you but to sit here and wait to see the Emperor land."

"I believe less, sir, in the Emperor than I did."

"A pity! Yet we shall recover from your sudden scepticism. No doubt you will be happier with your books."

De Rothan rose, and stood looking over Stonehanger Common. His long mouth curled, and his nostrils were contemptuous. Durrell watched him uneasily, resentfully, still tapping the chair-rails with his fingers.

"You will release Mr. Benham."

De Rothan turned on him sharply.

"Pardon me--am I so soft a fool! I am not a man who turns back, or who shirks the holding of an advantage. I have some respect for my own neck, though I no longer look to you to respect it."

Durrell nodded solemnly.

"No good can come of it. As for this house----"

"Shut the door on me quickly. Lock me out in a great hurry, Mr. Durrell. I will wish you good morning."

He marched off across the grass, swaggering with stiff shoulders, and smiling a queer, sidelong smile up at Nance's window. David Barfoot was holding his horse in the yard. De Rothan glanced at him as though there were some sudden significance in the thought that the man was deaf.

"Do you sleep well in summer, Mr. David?"

Barfoot stared back at him and said nothing.

In the lane, close to the yew-tree where Jasper had been shot, De Rothan came right upon Nance and Jeremy Winter. They were climbing the hill side by side, Jeremy leading his horse by the bridle. The meeting roused a quick crackle of complex enmities. De Rothan stiffened in the saddle, and raised his hat to Nance.

She did not look at him, but beyond him, and her face was white frost. Jeremy bit his lip. There were so many things that he desired to say and do.

De Rothan smiled in his face as he passed him.

"Good day to you, sir; I may tell our friend that he has a kind relative who sees that his shoes are kept warm."

"Tell him what you please. It won't matter. Liars are easily known."

"How you would like to argue with me! But I am content with my present advantages. Good day."

De Rothan rode on, savagely amused. The varied experiences of life had not made him magnanimous, or tolerant, and cynic that he was he loved himself like a spoiled and passionate boy. He could not forgive the snatching away of a thing that he himself desired, his overweening egotism ruffing itself over the insult.