"No," she answered. "But I'll be no party to his murder."
"Murder, quotha! Who talks of murder?" Her shrewd eyes searched his face. "How came you by your knowledge that this courier rode to Mr. Wilding?" she asked him suddenly, and the swift change that overspread his countenance showed her that she had touched him in a tender spot, assured her of the thing she had suddenly come to suspect--a suspicion which at the same time started from and explained much that had been mysterious in Richard's ways of late. "You had knowledge of this conspiracy," she pursued, answering her own question before he had time to speak, "because you were one of the conspirators."
"At least I am so no longer," he blurted out. "I thank Heaven for that, Richard; for your life is very dear to me. But it would ill become you to make such use as this of the knowledge you came by in that manner. It were a Judas's act." He would have interrupted her, but her manner dominated him. "You will leave this letter with me, Richard," she continued.
"Damn me! no..." he began.
"Ah, yes, Richard," she insisted. "You will give it to me, and I shall thank you for the gift. It shall prove a weapon for my salvation, never fear."
"It shall, indeed," he cried, with an ugly laugh; "when I have ridden to Exeter to lay it before Albemarle."
"Not so," she answered him. "It shall be a weapon of defence--not of offence. It shall stand as a buckler between me and Mr. Wilding. Trust me, I shall know how to use it."
"But there is Blake to consider," he expostulated, growing angry. "I am pledged to him."
"Your first duty is to me..."
"Tut!" he interrupted. "Blake feels that he owes it to his loyalty to lay this letter before the Lord-Lieutenant, and, for that matter, so do I."
"Sir Rowland would not cross my wishes in this, she answered him.
"Folly!" he cried, now thoroughly aroused. "Give me that letter."
"Nay, Richard," she answered, and waved him back.
But he advanced nevertheless.
"Give it me," he bade her, waxing fierce. "Gad! It was folly to have told you of it. I had not done so but that I never thought you such a fool as to oppose yourself to the thing we intend."
"Listen, Richard..." she besought him.
But he was grown insensible to pleadings.
"Give me that letter," he insisted, and caught her wrist. Her other hand, however--the one that held the sheet--was already behind her back.
The door was suddenly thrust open, and Diana appeared. "Ruth," she announced, "Mr. Wilding is here."