Rosmore watched him as he wrote.
"Will that suffice?" Marriott asked.
"It is worded exactly as I would have it."
"So Mistress Lanison--"
"Did we not say no further questions?" asked Rosmore, smiling. "What should you say if I made a match between her and this notorious highwayman, Gilbert Crosby?"
"You must catch him first."
"Should you see him in Dorchester, you will do me a service by having him arrested. With this paper I can have him released at a convenient time. You are going? There is still wine in the bottle."
"Just enough for you to drink to the success of your night"s work," said Marriott savagely.
"And to your health," Rosmore answered as he crossed the room with his guest.
As the door was closed, Harriet Payne took hold of the curtain to draw it aside, but paused in the act of doing so. Her eyes, wide open and fixed, stared at the curtains which hung on the opposite wall across the window. A hand, a man"s hand, grasped them. Then they parted silently, and fell together again, slowly and silently.
Rosmore did not wish to be disturbed again, but the lock was stiff and the key difficult to withdraw. With a sigh of satisfaction he turned presently, but the Sigh became a sudden gasp of astonishment.
Against the background of the window curtains stood Gilbert Crosby!
CHAPTER XXII
THE LUCK OF LORD ROSMORE
Harriet Payne did not move. The curtain over the door concealed her, but it hung a little apart at one side, and she could see into the room, could see both men as they stood facing each other. For a while there was absolute silence, then Rosmore made a quick movement towards a side table on which lay a pistol.
"Stop, or you are a dead man!" said Crosby.
Rosmore stopped. He knew too much about his unwelcome guest to imagine that he would not be as good as his word. He paused a moment, then went to the table on which were the remains of the supper.
"I have no fear that you will shoot an unarmed man, Mr. Crosby," he said quietly. "I have heard many things against you, but never that you were a coward. I marvel that you have the courage to walk abroad in Dorchester, and wonder, even more, that you come into this room."
Crosby also walked to the table, and so they stood erect on either side of it, face to face, man to man, deadly enemies feeling each other"s strength.
"We may come to the point at once, Lord Rosmore. Where is Mistress Barbara Lanison?"
"I hear that she is a prisoner in Dorchester."
"By your contriving."
"It is natural you should think so, seeing the position I hold in the West Country at the present time."
"I do not think, I know," Crosby answered. "By a trick, and through a lying messenger, you induced her to travel to Dorchester and had her arrested on the journey."
"Let us suppose this to be the case, is it not just possible that there may be a legitimate reason for such a trick?"
"I am ready to listen," said Crosby.
"Always supposing that your knowledge is correct, is it not possible that Mistress Lanison may foolishly believe herself enamoured of a certain somewhat notorious person, and that those who have her well-being at heart think it necessary to protect her from this notorious person until she becomes more sensible?"
Harriet Payne watched him as he spoke. There was a smile upon his handsome face such as any honest man"s might wear when dealing with an excitable and imaginative opponent. Then, as Crosby spoke, she looked at him.
"I will tell you the truth," he said, speaking in a low, clear, and incisive tone. "You would yourself marry Barbara Lanison, and, having established a hold over her guardian, you have attempted to force her to such an alliance by threats. At every turn in the game you have been foiled. You have failed to impress Mistress Lanison; you failed in a villainous endeavour to defend her against a drunken man who was acting on your suggestion; you failed to capture me at Lenfield when you had no warrant but your own will for attempting such a capture."
"You have sat at the feet of an excellent taleteller, sir, or else you have a prodigious imagination of your own."
Harriet Payne"s eyes were fixed upon Rosmore. She watched him, and looked no more at Crosby.
"Failing in these endeavours, you made other schemes," Crosby went on.
"Having taken a servant girl from Lenfield, you make use of her. She was an honest girl, I believe, not ill-intentioned towards me, but in your hands she was as clay. How you have deceived her, or what promises you have made to her, I do not know, I can only guess, but, to serve your own purposes, you have made a liar and a cheat of her. She has brought Mistress Lanison to Dorchester for you, that you may once more attempt to force a marriage which is distasteful to the lady. That is the story up to this moment."
"You appear to know the lady"s secrets as well as mine."
"No, not as well as I know yours," Crosby answered. "Had I done so, I might have outwitted you and have prevented her coming to Dorchester."
"For a man who so easily believes every tale he hears, you are an exceedingly self-reliant person."
"And fortunate, too," said Crosby, "since I have an opportunity of showing you the end of the story."
"A prophet, by gad!" exclaimed Rosmore.
"I entered this room in time to hear your transaction with Judge Marriott," said Crosby. "Now the story ends in one of two ways. You have two orders of release, one for Mistress Lanison, one for me. I know their value, or you would not have been so anxious to get them, and I have at least one friend in Dorchester who can execute those orders without any question being raised. Those orders you will deliver to me, here and now."
"May I know how else the story might end?" Rosmore asked contemptuously.
"With your death," was the quiet answer. "Oh, no, not murder; death in fair fight. You are hardly likely to scream for help, I take it; you have yourself carefully locked the door, and no one is likely to pa.s.s along the alley outside that window. You may choose which way the story shall end."
"You so nearly make me laugh at you, Mr. Crosby, that I find the utmost difficulty in quarrelling with you. The orders I shall not part with, and I am half minded to call for help."
"You would not need it when it arrived," Crosby answered.
"And you would hang to-morrow."
"You have worked so secretly that I hardly think suspicion would fall upon me. I could go as quietly as I came, and no one be any the wiser."
"You shall be humoured, Mr. Crosby. I never thought to cross blades with a man ripe for Tyburn Tree, but the blade can be snapped afterwards."
"It is the way I should prefer the story to end," Crosby returned.
Rosmore pushed back the table, then the swords rang from their scabbards.
The girl behind the curtain did not move. She had watched Rosmore"s face to try and learn whether Crosby"s story were true. She travelled from doubt to belief, then back to doubt again, and now as the swords crossed she was fascinated, held there, it seemed, by some power outside herself, unable to move, powerless to cry out. She knew not what to believe. Lord Rosmore had not admitted the truth of the story, still he had not denied it. He had fenced with it. Harriet Payne had been at Lenfield long enough to understand the estimation in which her master, Gilbert Crosby, was held; he was not a man to lie deliberately, and she dared not face him, knowing the part she had played. She had played it because she loved this other man, but, dispa.s.sionately described as Crosby had told it, the offence she had committed seemed far greater than she had imagined. If Rosmore had deceived her! The thought burnt into her soul and sent the hot blood to her cheeks. Was she merely a silly wench, as were hundreds of others, won by a smooth tongue, stepping easily down into shame at the bidding of the first man whose words had enough flattery in them? Was there truth in what the trooper Watson had suggested? So, with her hand strained against her side, and leaning forward a little, she watched the play of the swords.