Presently his mind had swung round to a new resolution. He would go straight to Derby to the Prince, which was his direct soldierly duty. He knew the road; the next left-hand turning would lead him there before morning. He was already weeks, months late; he dared not tarry another hour, for he alone knew the truth about the West, and that truth might determine the Prince’s strategy. True, His Highness was at Derby now, and the Rubicon had been doubtless crossed, but in so great a matter no precaution could be omitted. At that very moment Lochiel, with his letter in his hand, might be looking in vain for the man who had named Derby as the trysting-place. … He would sweep southward with the Army to conquest, and then in their hour of triumph would root Sir John from his traitor’s kennel. The man must fight on his challenge, and he had no doubt as to the issue of that fight.
But would he? Would he not disappear overseas, taking with him his wife under some false story? If she were deceived in one matter, she might be deceived in others. … No, by Heaven, there was no way of it but the one. The fox must be found before he reached his earth, and brought to account at a sword’s point. Stone dead had no fellow.
The crossroads lay before them where was the turning to Derby.
“There lies the Prince,” said Alastair, his head over his left shoulder. “My duty is to ride forthwith thither. I could breakfast in the camp.”
Johnson, though lacking a riding-coat, had grown warm with the exercise, and both he and his mount were blowing.
“You would not falter in your most honourable resolve?” he puffed.
Alastair clapped spurs to his beast. “No,” he said, “I am resolved before all things to find Sir John Norreys. But when I find him I will kill him.”
He heard a gasp which was more than Mr. Johnson’s chronic shortness of breath. As he cantered forward the slower and heavier beast of his companion was forced alongside of him, and a hand clutched his arm.
“I beseech you, sir,” said a tragic voice, “I pray you, in God’s name, to turn aside to Derby.”
“I will first meet Sir John,” was the reply and the hand was shaken off.
“But he will be safe at your hands?”
“That is as God may direct,” said Alastair.
His resolution being now fixed, his spirits rose. He let thoughts of Claudia flush his mind with their sweet radiance. He pictured her as he had last seen her—the light from the candles making her slim white neck below the rosy nightcap take on the bloom of a peach, and the leaping flames of the hearth chequering the shadow of the bed-curtain. He saw her dim eyes, heard her melting voice, felt the warm vigour of her body as she cowered beside him in the dark of the Flambury galleries. Too young for wife, too old for child, but the ripe age for comrade—and such a comrade, for there was a boy’s gallantry in her eyes and something of a child’s confident fearlessness. He did not hear the groans of Mr. Johnson pounding dismally behind him, or the shuddering cry of owls from the woods. The world was a quiet place to him where a soft voice was speaking, the thick darkness was all aglow with happy pictures. The man’s soul was enraptured by his dreams. He found himself suddenly laughing to think how new and strange was this mood of his. Hitherto he had kept women at arms’ length, and set his heart on policy and war, till he had earned the repute of one to be trusted and courted, but one already at thirty middle-aged. Lord! but there had been a melting of icebergs! And like a stab came the thought of yet another molten iceberg—Sir John—of the sharp nose and the high coat collar! Alastair cried out like a man in pain.
They rode into Milford half an hour after midnight. There was no light in any house, and the inn was a black wall. But the door of the yard was open, and a hostler, ascending to his bed in the hayloft, accepted a shilling for his news. A man had ridden through Milford that night. He had not seen him, but he had heard the clatter as he was bedding the post horses that had come in late from Marlock. How long ago? Not more than an hour, maybe less, and the fellow checked his memory with a string of minute proofs.
Alastair swung his horse’s head back to the road. “Courage, my friend,” he cried. “We are gaining on him. We shall overtake him before morning.”
Again Johnson caught his arm. “Bethink you, sir,” he stammered. “You ride on an errand of murder.”
“Nay,” was the answer, “of love.”
But the next miles were over roads like ploughlands, and the rain blew up from the southwest and set the teeth chattering of the cloakless Mr. Johnson. The night was very dark and the road seemed to pass no villages, for not a light appeared in the wastes of wet ling and fern and plashing woods. The track could be discerned well enough, for it was the only possible route through the rugged land, and happily for the riders there were no crossways. No other traveller met them or was overtaken—which, thought Alastair, was natural, for with the Prince at Derby the flight of the timid would be to the south, and
