"If I cared!" he murmured, with a pathetic emphasis on that little word "if."
"As a friend I mean," she rejoined still cold, still cruel, still womanlike in that strange, inexplicable desire to wound the man who loved her. "If you care for me as a friend, you will not throw yourself any more in the way of my happiness. Now you may escort me home, an you wish. This is the last time that I shall speak to you as a friend, in response to your petty attacks on the man whom I love. Henceforth you must chose 'twixt his friendship and my enmity!"
And without vouchsafing him another word or look, she gathered her cloak more closely about her, and walked rapidly away along the narrow path.
He followed with head bent, meditating, wondering! Wondering!
CHAPTER XIII
AN IDEA
The triumph was complete. But of a truth the game was waxing dangerous.
Lady Sue Aldmarshe had promised to marry her prince. She would keep her word, of that Sir Marmaduke was firmly convinced. But there would of necessity be two or three days delay and every hour added to the terrors, the certainty of discovery.
There was a watch-dog at Sue's heels, stern, alert, unyielding. Richard Lambert was probing the secret of the mysterious prince, with the unerring eye of the disappointed lover.
The meeting to-night had been terribly dangerous. Sir Marmaduke knew that Lambert was lurking somewhere in the park.
At present even the remotest inkling of the truth must still be far from the young man's mind. The whole scheme was so strange, so daring, so foreign to the simple ideas of the Quaker-bred lad, that its very boldness had defied suspicion. But the slightest mischance now, a meeting at the door of the pavilion, an altercation — face to face, eye to eye — and Richard Lambert would be on the alert. His hatred would not be so blind, nor yet so clumsy, as that of his brother, the blacksmith. There is no spy so keen in all the world as a jealous lover.
This had been the prince's first meeting with Sue, since that memorable day when the secret of their clandestine love became known to Lambert. Sir Marmaduke knew well that it had been fraught with danger; that every future meeting would wax more and more perilous still, and that the secret marriage itself, however carefully and secretively planned, would hardly escape the prying eyes of the young man.
The unmasking of Prince Amédé d'Orléans before Sue had become legally his wife was a possibility which Sir Marmaduke dared not even think of, lest the very thought should drive him mad. Once she was his wife! . . . well, let her look to herself. . . . The marriage tie would be a binding one, he would see to that, and her fortune should be his, even though he had won her by a lie.
He had staked his very existence on the success of his scheme. Lady Sue's fortune was the one aim of his life, for it he had worked and striven, and lied: he would not even contemplate a future without it, now that his plans had brought him so near the goal.
He had one faithful ally, though not a powerful one, in Editha, who, lured by some vague promises of his, desperate too, as regarded her own future, had chosen to throw in her lot whole-heartedly with his.
He was closeted with her on the following day, in the tiny withdrawing-room which leads out of the hall at Acol Court. When he had stolen into the house in the small hours of the morning he had seen Richard Lambert leaning out of one of the windows which gave upon the park.
It seemed as if the young man must have seen him when he skirted the house, for though there was no moonlight, the summer's night was singularly clear. That Lambert had been on the watch — spying, as Sir Marmaduke said with a bitter oath of rage — was beyond a doubt.
Editha too was uneasy; she thought that Lambert had purposely avoided her the whole morning.
"I lingered in the garden for as long as I could," she said to her brother-in-law, watching with keen anxiety his restless movements to and fro in the narrow room, "I thought Lambert would keep within doors if he saw me about. He did not actually see you, Marmaduke, did he?" she queried with ever-growing disquietude.
"No. Not face to face," he replied curtly. "I contrived to avoid him in the park, and kept well within the shadows, when I saw him spying through the window.
"Curse him!" he added with savage fury, "curse him, for a meddlesome, spying cur!"
"The whole thing is becoming vastly dangerous," she sighed.
"Yet it must last for another few weeks at least. . . ."
"I know . . . and Lambert is a desperate enemy: he dogs Sue's footsteps, he will come upon you one day when you are alone, or with her . . . he will provoke a quarrel. . . ."
"I know — I know . . ." he retorted impatiently, "'tis no use recapitulating the many evil contingencies that might occur. . . . I know that Lambert is dangerous . . . damn him! . . . Would to God I could be rid of him . . . somehow."
"You can dismiss him," she suggested, "pay him his wages and send him about his business."
"What were the use? He would remain in the village — in his brother's cottage mayhap . . . with more time on his hands for his spying work. . . . He would dog the wench's steps more jealously than eve. . . . No! no!" he added, whilst he cast a quick, furtive look at her — a look which somehow caused her to shiver with apprehension more deadly than heretofore.
"That's not what I want," he said significantly.
"What's to be done?" she murmured, "what's to be done?"
"I must think," he rejoined harshly. "But we must get that love-sick youth out of the way . . . him and his airs of Providence in disguise. . . . Something must be done to part him from the wench effectually and completely . . . something that would force him to quit this neighborhood . . . forever, if possible."
She did not reply immediately, but fixed her large, dark eyes upon him, silently for a while, then she murmured:
"If I only knew!"
"Knew what?"
"If I could trust you, Marmaduke!"
He laughed, a harsh, cruel laugh which grated upon her ear.
"We know too much of one another, my dear Editha, not to trust each other."
"My whole future depends on you. I am penniless. If you marry Sue. . . ."
"I can provide for you," he interrupted roughly. "What can I do now? My penury is worse than yours. So, my dear, if you have a plan to propound for the furtherance of my schemes, I pray you do not let your fear of the future prevent you from lending me a helping hand."
"A thought crossed my mind," she said eagerly, "the thought of something which would effectually force Richard Lambert to quit this neighborhood for ever."
"What were that?"
"Disgrace."
"Disgrace?" he exclaimed. "Aye! you are right. Something mean . . . paltry . . . despicable . . . something that would make her gracious ladyship turn away from him in disgust . . . and would force him to go away from here . . . for ever."
He looked at her closely, scrutinizing her face, trying to read her thoughts.
"A thought crossed your mind," he demanded peremptorily. "What is it?"
"The house in London," she murmured.
"You are not afraid?"
"Oh!" she said with a careless shrug of the