At last, at something after midnight, there came a fevered rapping at the outer door. Both women started up, and with arms about each other, in their sudden panic, stood there waiting for the news that must be here at last.
The door of the dining-room was flung open; the women recoiled in their dread of what might come; then Richard entered, Jasper's startled countenance showing behind him.
He closed the door, shutting out the wondering servant, and they saw that, though his face was ashen and his limbs all a-tremble, he showed no sign of any hurt or effort. His dress was as meticulous as when last they had seen him. Ruth flew to him, flung her arms about his neck, and pressed him to her.
"Oh, Richard, Richard!" she sobbed in the immensity of her relief. "Thank God! Thank God!"
He wriggled peevishly in her embrace, disengaged her arms, and put her from him almost roughly. "Have done!" he growled, and, lurching past her, he reached the table, took up a bottle, and brimmed himself a measure. He gulped the wine avidly, set down the cup, and shivered. "Where is Blake?" he asked.
"Blake?" echoed Ruth, her lips white. Diana sank into a chair, watchful, fearful and silent, taking now no glory in the thing she had encompassed.
Richard beat his hands together in a passion of dismay. "Is he not here?" he asked, and groaned, "O God!" He flung himself all limp into a chair. "You have heard the news, I see," he said.
"Not all of it," said Diana hoarsely, leaning forward. "Tell us what passed."
He moistened his lips with his tongue. "We were betrayed," he said in a quivering voice. "Betrayed! Did I but know by whom..." He broke off with a bitter laugh and shrugged, rubbing his hands together and shivering till his shoulders shook. "Blake's party was set upon by half a company of musketeers. Their corpses are strewn about old Newlington's orchard. Not one of them escaped. They say that Newlington himself is dead." He poured himself more wine.
Ruth listened, her eyes burning, the rest of her as cold as ice. "But...but.., oh, thank God that you at least are safe, Dick!"
"How did you escape?" quoth Diana.
"How?" He started as if he had been stung. He laughed in a high, cracked voice, his eyes wild and bloodshot. "How? Perhaps it is just as well that Blake has gone to his account. Perhaps..." He checked on the word, and started to his feet; Diana screamed in sheer aifright. Behind her the windows had been thrust open so violently that one of the panes was shivered. Blake stood under the lintel, scarce recognizable, so smeared was his face with the blood escaping from the wound his cheek had taken. His clothes were muddied, soiled, torn, and disordered.