"Storm your utmost, Matilda. I care not a rap; I will not budge from this spot."
"But you must go! Stephen, Stephen, for my sake," and she burst into passionate tears and sobs.
"Be quiet, Matilda. Women's counsel is always unlucky, but I will run, if you say so. I feel like an ever-lasting scoundrel to do it."
"They will all run--if they can. There is a little time yet in your favour. The mail-rider does not pass here till eight o'clock, or after. You have four or five hours' grace."
He rose as she spoke, and she kissed him with passionate tenderness. When he left the room, she ran to the roof of the house to watch which road he took. If he went northward, he was for Hull, and bent on saving his life; but if he went south, he was for London, and would doubtless have the fate on Tower Hill he had been warned against. In about a quarter of an hour she saw him riding at great speed northward, and after watching him until he became a speck on the horizon, she went back to her room, and she was weeping bitterly though quite unconscious of it.
Her first act was to tear Jane's letter into minute pieces. She did it with an inconceivable passion. Every shred of the paper fluttered into the fire as if in conscious suffering, and when the last particle was consumed, she stood with her folded hand on her mouth, looking at the white ashy films, and considering what next to do. Her face was set and frowning; she was summoning to her aid, by the very intensity of her feeling, whatever power she possessed to counsel her perplexity.
Suddenly her face lightened; she smiled, nodded her handsome head with satisfaction, and then in a leisurely manner put on her garden hat and walked to the stables. She was a daily visitor there, and her appearance caused no surprise. She went at once to a young man known to be Stephen de Wick's constant attendant whenever he was in the neighbourhood. She knew he could be relied on, and as they stood together by Matilda's Barbary mare, she said with the critical air of one talking about a favourite animal, "Yupon, can you help in a matter for Earl Stephen? It is life or death, Yupon, and I know of no one but you to come to--also, there will be a few gold pieces."