"How did you get this?" she cried.
"No, miss, no," the runner answered. "One at a time. The question is, Do you know the fist? The handwriting, I mean. But I see you do."
"It is Mr. Stewart's," she answered.
He glanced at Mrs. Gilson as if to bespeak her attention.
"Just so," he said. "It is Mr. Stewart's. And I warrant you have others like it, and could prove the fact if it were needed. No--don't read it, miss, if you please," he continued. "You can tell me without that whether the gentleman has any friends in these parts."
"None."
"That you know of?"
"I never heard of any," she answered. Her astonishment was so great that she did not now think of refusing to answer. And besides, here was his handwriting. And why did he not come? The clock was on the point of striking; at this hour, at this minute, they should have been leaving the door of the inn.
"No, miss," Bishop answered, exchanging a look with the landlady. "Just so, you've never heard of any. Then one more question, if you please. You are going north, to Scotland, to be married to-day? Now which way, I wonder?"
She frowned at him in silence. She began to see his drift.
"By Keswick and Carlisle?" he continued, watching her face. "Or by Kendal and Penrith? Or by Cockermouth and Whitehaven? But no. There's only the Isle of Man packet out of Whitehaven."
"It goes on to Dumfries," she said. The words escaped her in spite of herself.
He smiled as he shook his head.
"No," he said; "it'd be a very long way round if it did. But Mr. Stewart told you that, did he? I see he did. Well, you've had an escape, miss. That's all I can say."
The colour rose to her very brow, but her eyes met his boldly.
"How?" she said. "What do you mean?"
"How?" he repeated. "If you knew, miss, who the man was--your Mr. Stewart--you'd know how--and what you have escaped!"
"Who he was?" she muttered.
"Ay, who he was!" he retorted. "I can tell you this at least, young lady," he added bluntly, "he's the man that's very badly wanted--uncommonly badly wanted!"--with a grin--"in more places than one, but nowhere more than where he came from."
"Wanted?" she said, the colour fading in her cheek. "For what? What do you mean?"
"For what?"
"That is what I asked."
His face was a picture of importance and solemnity. He looked at the landlady as much as to say, "See how I will prostrate her!" But nothing indicated his sense of the avowal he was going to make so much as the fact that instead of raising his voice he lowered it.
"You shall have the answer, miss, though I thought to spare you," he said. "He's wanted for being an uncommon desperate villain, I am sorry to say. For treason, and misprision of treason, and conspiracy. Ay, but that's the man you've come away with," shaking his head solemnly. "He's wanted for bloody conspiracy--ay, it is so indeed--equal to any Guy Fawkes, against my lord the King, his crown and dignity! Seven indictments--and not mere counts, miss--have been found against him, and those who were with him, and him the worst! And when he's taken, as he's sure to be taken by-and-by, he'll suffer!" And Mr. Bishop nodded portentously.
Her face was quite white now.
"Mr. Stewart?" she gasped.
"You call him Stewart," the runner replied coolly. "I call him Walterson--Walterson the younger. But he has passed by a capful of names. Anyway, he's wanted for the business in Spa Fields in '16, and half a dozen things besides!"
The colour returned to Henrietta's cheeks with a rush. Her fine eyes glowed, her lips parted.
"A conspirator!" she murmured. "A conspirator!" She fondled the word as if it had been "love" or "kisses." "I suppose, then," she continued, with a sidelong look at Bishop, "if he were taken he would lose his life?"
"Sure as eggs!"
Henrietta drew a deep breath; and with the same sidelong look:
"He would be beheaded--in the Tower?"
The runner laughed with much enjoyment.
"Lord save your innocent heart, miss," he said--"no! He would just hang outside Newgate."
She shuddered violently at that. The glow of eye and cheek faded, and tears rose instead. She walked to a window, and with her back to them dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. Then she turned.
"Is that all?" she said.
"Good God!" Bishop cried. He stared, nonplussed. "Is that all?" he said. "Would you have more?"
"Neither more nor less," she answered--between tears and smiles, if his astonished eyes did not deceive him. "For now I know--I know why he left me, why he is not here."
"Good lord!"
"If you thought, sir," she continued, drawing herself up and speaking with indignation, "that because he was in danger, because he was proscribed, because a price was set on his head, I should desert him, and betray him, and sell his secrets to you--I, his wife--you were indeed mistaken!"
"But damme!" Mr. Bishop cried in amazement almost too great for words, "you are not his wife!"
"In the sight of Heaven," she answered firmly, "I am!" She was shaking with excitement. "In the sight of Heaven I am!" she repeated solemnly. And so real was the feeling that she forgot for the moment the situation in which her lover's flight had left her. She forgot herself, forgot all but the danger that menaced him, and the resolution that never, never, never should it part her from him.
Mr. Bishop would fain have answered fittingly, and to that end sought words. But he found none strong enough.
"Well, I am dashed!" was all he could find to say. "I am dashed!" Then--the thing was too much for one--he sought support in Mrs. Gilson's eye. "There, ma'am," he said vehemently, extending one hand, "I ask you! You are a woman of sense! I ask you! Did you ever? Did you ever, out of London or in London?"
The landlady's answer was as downright as it was unwelcome.
"I never see such a fool!" she said, "if that's what you mean. And you"--with scorn--"to call yourself a Bow Street man! Bow Street? Bah!"
Mr. Bishop opened his mouth.
"A parish constable's a Solomon to you!" she continued, before he could speak.
His face was purple, his surprise ludicrous.
"To me?" he ejaculated incredulously. "S'help me, ma'am, you are mad, or I am! What have I done?"
"It's not what you've done!" Mrs. Gilson answered grimly. "It's what you've left undone! Oh, you gaby!" she continued, with unction. "You poor creature! You bag of goose-feathers! D'you know no more of women than that? Why, I've kept my mouth shut the last ten blessed minutes for nothing else but to see what a fool you'd make of yourself! And for certain it was not for nothing!"
Henrietta tapped the table.
"Perhaps when you've done," she said, with tragic dignity, "you will both be good enough to leave the room. I desire to be alone."
Her eyes were like stars. In her voice was an odd mixture of elation and alarm.
Mrs. Gilson turned on the instant and engaged her.
"Don't talk nonsense!" she said. "Desire to be alone indeed! You deserve to be alone, miss, with bread and water, and the lock on the door! Oh, you may stare! But do you do now what he should have made you do a half-hour ago! And then you'll feel a little less like a play actress! Alone indeed! Read that letter and tell me then what you think of yourself!"
Henrietta's