THE ENCOUNTER
Ruth Wesmacott rode back like one in a dream, with vague and hazy notions of what she saw or did. So overwrought was she by the interview from which she came, her mind so obsessed by it, that never a thought had she for Diana and her indisposition until she arrived home to find her cousin there before her. Diana was in tears, called up by the reproaches of her mother, Lady Horton - the relict of that fine soldier Sir Cholmondeley Horton, of Taunton.
The girl had arrived at Lupton House a half-hour ahead of Miss Westmacott, and upon her arrival she had expressed surprise, either feigned or real, at finding Ruth still absent. Detecting the alarm that Diana was careful to throw into her voice and manner, her mother questioned her, and elicited the story of her faintness and of Ruth's having ridden on alone to Mr. Wilding's. So outraged was Lady Horton that for once in a way this woman, usually so meek and ease-loving, was roused to an energy and anger with her daughter and her niece that threatened to remove Diana at once from the pernicious atmosphere of Lupton House and carry her home to Taunton. Ruth found her still at her remonstrances, arrived, indeed, in time for her share of them.
"I have been sore mistaken in you, Ruth!" the dame reproached her. "Ican scarce believe it of you. I have held you up as an example to Diana, for the discretion and wisdom of your conduct, and you do this!
You go alone to Mr. Wilding's house - to Mr. Wilding's, of all men!""It was no time for ordinary measures," said Ruth, but she spoke without any of the heat of one who defends her conduct. She was, the slyly watchful Diana observed, very white and tired. "It was no time to think of nice conduct. There was Richard to be saved.""And was it worth ruining yourself to do that?" quoth Lady Horton, her colour high.
"Ruining myself?" echoed Ruth, and she smiled never so weary a smile.
"I have, indeed, done that, though not in the way you. mean."Mother and daughter eyed her, mystified. "Your good name is blasted,"said her aunt, "unless so be that Mr. Wilding is proposing to make you his wife." It was a sneer the good woman could not, in her indignation, repress.
"That is what Mr. Wilding has done me the honour to propose," Ruth answered bitterly, and left them gaping. "We are to be married this day se'night."A dead silence followed the 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 Ihad 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. But before they had got him to ride forth, Vallancey had had occasion to regret that he stood committed to a share in this quarrel, for he came to know Richard as he really was. He had found him in an abject state, white and trembling, his coward's fancy anticipating a hundred times a minute the death he was anon to die.
Vallancey had hailed him cheerily.
"The day is yours, ****," he had cried, when Richard entered the library where he awaited him. "Wild Wilding has ridden to Taunton this morning and is to be back by noon. Odsbud, ****! - twenty miles and more in the saddle before coming on the ground. Heard you ever of the like madness?
He'll be stiff as a broom-handle - an easy victim.
Richard listened, stared, and, finding Vallancey's eyes fixed steadily upon him, attempted a smile and achieved a horrible grimace.
"What ails you, man?" cried his second, and caught him by the wrist.
He felt the quiver of the other's limb. "Stab me!" quoth he, "you are in no case to fight. What the plague ails you?""I am none so well this morning," answered Richard feebly. "Lord Gervase's claret," he added, passing a hand across his brow.
"Lord Gervase's claret?" echoed Vallancey in horror, as at some outrageous blasphemy. "Frontignac at ten shillings the bottle!" he exclaimed.
"Still, claret never does lie easy on my stomach," Richard explained, intent upon blaming Lord Gervase s wine - since he could think of nothing else - for his condition.
