And so Sir Rowland remained and waited. He assured himself that he knew how to be patient, and congratulated himself upon that circumstance. Wilding dead, a little time must now suffice to blunt the sharp edge of his widow's grief; let him but await that time, and the rest should be easy, the battle his. With Richard he did not so much as trouble himself to reckon.
Thus he determined, and thus no doubt he would have acted but for an unforeseen contingency. A miserable, paltry creditor had smoked him out in his Somerset retreat, and got a letter to him full of dark hints of a debtor's gaol. The fellow's name was Swiney, and Sir Rowland knew him for fierce and pertinacious where a defaulting creditor was concerned. One only course remained him: to force matters with Wilding's widow. For days he refrained, fearing that precipitancy might lose him all; it was his wish to do the thing without too much coercion; some, he was not coxcomb enough to think--coxcomb though he was--might be dispensed with.
At last one Sunday evening he decided to be done with dallying, and to bring Ruth between the hammer and the anvil of his will. It was the last Sunday in July, exactly three weeks after Sedgemoor, and the odd coincidence of his having chosen such a day and hour you shall appreciate anon.
They were on the lawn taking the cool of the evening after an oppressively hot day. By the stone seat, now occupied by Lady Horton and Diana, Richard lay on the sward at their feet in talk with them, and their talk was of Sir Rowland. Diana--gall in her soul to see the baronet by way of gaining yet his ends--chid Richard in strong terms for his weakness in submitting to Blake's constant presence at Lupton House. And Richard meekly took her chiding and promised that, if Ruth would but sanction it, things should be changed upon the morrow.
Sir Rowland, all unconscious--reckless, indeed--of this, sauntered with Ruth some little distance from them, having contrived adroitly to draw her aside. He broke a spell of silence with a dolorous sigh.
"Ruth," said he pensively, "I mind me of the last evening on which you and I walked here alone."
She flashed him a glance of fear and aversion, and stood still. Under his brow he watched the quick heave of her bosom, the sudden flow and abiding ebb of blood in her face--grown now so thin and wistful--and he realized that before him lay no easy task. He set his teeth for battle.
"Will you never have a kindness for me, Ruth?" he sighed.