“I think,” said Sir Tristram in a very level voice, “that it will be better if I see my cousin and hear her story from her own lips.”

“Not if you are going to approach it in this deplorable spirit,” replied Miss Thane. “I dare say you would tell her there are no such things as dragons or headless horsemen!”

“Well?”

Miss Thane cast down her eyes to hide the laughter in them, and replied in a saddened tone: “When she told me the whole I thought it impossible that anyone could be so devoid of all sensibility, but now that I have seen you I realize that she spoke no less than the melancholy truth. A man who could remain unaffected by the thought of a young girl, dressed in white, all alone, and in a tumbril—”

His brow cleared; he gave a short laugh. “Does that rankle? But really I am past the age of being impressed by such absurdities.”

Miss Thane sighed. “Perhaps that might be forgiven, but your heartlessness in refusing to ride ventre a terre to her deathbed—”

“Good God, surely she cannot have fled the house for such a ridiculous reason?” exclaimed Shield, considerably exasperated. “Why she should continually be harping on the notion of her own death passes my comprehension! She seems to me a perfectly healthy young woman.”

Miss Thane looked at him in horror. “You did not tell her that, I trust?”

“I don’t know what I told her. I might very easily.”

“If I were you,” said Miss Thane, “I would give up this idea you have of marrying your cousin. You would not suit.”

“I’m fast coming to that conclusion myself,” he said. “Moreover, Miss—What is your name?”

“Thane,” replied Sarah.

“Thane?” he repeated. “I fancy I have met someone of that name, but I do not immediately recall—”

“At Mendoza’s Saloon,” interpolated Sarah helpfully.

He looked a little amused. “Yes, possibly. But do you—”

“Or even at Brooks’s.”

“I am certainly a member.”

“My brother,” said Sarah. “He is at present in bed, nursing a severe cold, but I dare say he will like to receive you.”

“It is extremely obliging of him, but my sole desire is to see my cousin, Miss Thane.”

Sarah, whose attention had been caught by the sound of an arrival, paid no heed to this hint, but peeped over the short window-blind. What she saw made her feel uneasy; she turned her head and requested Sir Tristram to come at once. “Tell me,” she commanded, “who are these two men in uniform?”

He came to the window. “Only a couple of Excisemen,” he answered, after a casual glance.

“Oh, is that all?” said Miss Thane in rather a hollow voice. “I expect they have come to see what Nye keeps in his cellars. My brother fancies it is all smuggled liquor.”

He looked at her in some perplexity. “They won’t find anything. May I remind you, ma’am, that I wish to see my cousin?”

Miss Thane, having watched one of the Excisemen dismount and go into the inn, was straining her ears to catch what was being said in the coffee-room. She heard the landlord’s deep voice, and wondered whether he had succeeded in persuading Ludovic to descend into the cellar. She looked at Sir Tristram, reflecting that he could not have chosen a more inopportune moment for his arrival. She ought to get rid of him, she supposed, but he did not seem to be the sort of man to be easily fobbed off. She said confidentially: “Do you know, I think it would be wisest if you were to leave your cousin with me for the present?”

“You are extremely good, ma’am, but I mean to carry her to my mother in Bath.”

“Backgammon?” said Miss Thane knowledgeably. “She won’t go. In fact, I hardly think it is worth your while to remain here, for she is set against seeing you.”

“Miss Thane,” said Sir Tristram dangerously, “it is quite evident to me that you are trying to prevent my seeing my cousin. I have not the smallest notion why she does not wish to see me. But I am going to see her. I trust I have made myself quite plain?”

“Yes, quite,” said Miss Thane, catching an echo of Eustacie’s voice joined with Nye’s in the coffee-room.

It seemed as though Shield had heard it too, for he turned his head towards the door, listening. Then he looked back at Sarah and said: “You had better tell me at once, ma’am: what scrape is she in?”

“Oh, none at all!” Miss Thane assured him, and added sharply: “Where are you going?”

“To find out for myself!” said Shield, opening the door, and striding off to the coffee-room.

Miss Thane, feeling that as an accomplice she had not been a success, followed him helplessly.

In the coffee-room were gathered the landlord, Mademoiselle de Vauban, an Excise officer, and the tapster. The Excise officer was looking suspiciously from Eustacie to Nye, and Eustacie was talking volubly and with a great deal of gesticulation. When she saw her cousin on the threshold she broke off, and stared at him in consternation. The landlord shot a look at Sir Tristram under his jutting brows, but said nothing.

“I’m sorry,” said Miss Thane, in answer to a reproachful glance from Eustacie. “I could not stop him.”

“You should have stopped him!” said Eustacie. “Now what are we to do?”

Miss Thane turned to Sir Tristram. “The truth is, my dear sir, that your cousin fell in with a band of smugglers last night upon the road here, and had a sad fright.”

“Smugglers?” repeated Shield.

“Yes,” averred Eustacie. “And I am just telling this stupid person that it was I who came here last night, and not a smuggler.”

“Begging your pardon, sir,” said the riding-officer, “but the young lady’s telling me that she rid here last night to catch the mail coach.” His tone inferred that he found the story incredible, as well he might.

“I’ll have you know,” growled Nye, “that the Red Lion’s a respectable house! You’ll find no smugglers here.”

“And it’s my belief I’d find a deal you’d like to hide if I knew just where those cellars of yours are, Mr Nye!” retorted the Exciseman. “It’s a fine tale you’ve hatched, and Miss knowing no better than to back you up in it, but you don’t gammon me so easily! Ay, you’ve been careful to sweep the snow from your doorstep, but I’ve followed the trail down the road, and seen the blood on it!”

“Certainly you have seen the blood,” said Eustacie. “There was a great deal of blood.”

“Miss, do you ask me to believe that you went gallivanting about on horseback in the middle of the night? Come now, that won’t do!”

“Yes, but you do not understand. I was making my escape,” said Eustacie.

“Making your escape, miss?”

“Yes, and my cousin here will tell you that what I say is true. I am Mademoiselle de Vauban, and I am the granddaughter of Lord Lavenham, and he is Sir Tristram Shield.”

The Exciseman seemed to be a little impressed by this. He touched his hat to Sir Tristram, but still looked unconvinced. “Well, miss, and supposing you are, what call have you to go riding off in the night? I never heard of the Quality doing such!”

“I was running away from Sir Tristram,” said Eustacie.

“Oh!” said the Exciseman, looking more dubious than ever.

Sir Tristram stood like a rock. Miss Thane, taking one look at his outraged profile, was shaken by inward laughter, and said unsteadily: “This is a—a matter of no little delicacy, you understand?”

“I’m bound to say I don’t, ma’am,” said the Exciseman bluntly. “What for would the young lady want to run away from her cousin?”

“Because he would have forced me to marry him!” said Eustacie recklessly.

The Exciseman cast a glance of considerable respect at Sir Tristram, and said: “Well, but surely to goodness, miss—”

“My grandfather is dead, and I am quite in my cousin’s power,” announced Eustacie. “And when I was on my way here I met the smugglers. And I was naturally very much afraid, and they were too, because they fired at my groom, and wounded him, and he fell off his horse with both my bandboxes.”

Sir Tristram continued to preserve a grim silence, but at mention of the groom a slight frown knit his brows, and he looked intently at Eustacie.

“Indeed, miss?” said the Exciseman. “Then it queers me how there come to be only the tracks of one horse down the road!”

“The other horse bolted, of course,” said Eustacie. “It went back to its stable.”

“Maddened by fright,” murmured Miss Thane, and encountered a glance from Shield which spoke volumes.

“And may I inquire, miss, how you come to know that the horse went back to its stable?”

Miss Thane held Sir Tristram’s eyes with her own. “Why, Sir Tristram here has just been telling us!” she said with calm audacity. “When the riderless horse arrived at the Court he at once feared some mishap had overtaken his cousin, and set out to ride—ventre a terre—to the rescue. Is that not so, dear sir?”

Aware of one compelling pair of humorous grey eyes upon him, and one imploring pair of black ones, Sir Tristram said: “Just so, ma’am.”

The look he received from his cousin should have rewarded him. Eustacie said: “And then I must tell you that I took my poor groom up behind me on my own horse, but I did not know the way very well, and he was too faint to direct me, and so I was lost a long time in the Forest.”

The Exciseman scratched his chin. “I’ll take a look at this groom of yours, miss, if it’s all the same to you. I’m not saying I don’t believe your story, but what I do say is that ladies take queer notions into their heads when it comes to wounded men, and the late lord—begging your pardon, sir, and miss—was never one to help us officers against them pesky smugglers, any more than what most of the gentry hereabouts are!”

“Help a smuggler?” said Miss Thane in shocked accents “My good man, do you know that you are addressing the sister of a Justice of the Peace? Let me tell you that my brother, who is in the house at this moment, holds the strongest views on smugglers and smuggled goods!” This, after all, she reflected, was quite true, and ought to impress the Exciseman—provided, of course, that Sir Hugh did not take it into his head to appear suddenly and explain the nature of his views.

The Exciseman certainly seemed rather shaken. He looked uncertainly from Miss Thane to Eustacie, and said in a sulky voice that his orders were to search the house.

“Oh, they are, are they?” said Nye. “P’raps you’d like to go and tell Sir Hugh Thane yourself that you’re wishful to search his bedchamber? And him a Justice, like miss has told you! You get out of this before I lose my temper, that’s my advice to you!”

“You lay a hand on me and you’ll suffer for it, Mr Nye!” said the Exciseman, keeping a wary eye on the landlord’s massive form.

“Just a moment!” said Sir Tristram. “There is no need for all this to-do. If you suspect my cousin’s groom of being a smuggler—”

“Well, sir, we fired on one last night, and I’m ready to swear we hit him. And it can’t be denied that females is notably soft-hearted when it comes to a wounded man!”

“Possibly,” said Shield, “but I am not soft-hearted, nor am I in the habit of assisting smugglers, or any other kind of law-breaker.”

“No, sir,” said the Exciseman, abashed by Sir Tristram’s blighting tone. “I’m sure I didn’t mean—”

“If the wounded man is indeed a groom from the Court I shall recognize him,” continued Shield. “The affair can quite easily be settled by taking me to his room.”

There was one moment’s frozen silence. Sir Tristram was looking not at the Exciseman, but at Eustacie, who had turned as white as her fichu, and was staring at him in patent horror.

Nye’s voice broke the silence. “And that’s a mighty sound notion, sir!” he said deliberately. “I’ll lay your honour knows the lad as well as I do myself.”

Sir Tristram’s eyes narrowed. “Do I?” he said.

Eustacie said breathlessly: “You cannot see him! He is in a fever!”

“Never you fret, miss,” said Nye. “Sir Tristram’s not one to go blaming the lad for doing what you ordered him to, nor he won’t do anything to upset him. If you’ll come upstairs, sir, I’ll take you to him right away.”

“Begging your pardon, but I’d as lief come too,” said the Exciseman firmly.

“That’s it, Nosy, you come!” replied Nye. “No one ain’t stopping you.”

Eustacie moved swiftly to the foot of the stairs, as though she would bar the way, but before she could speak Miss Thane was at her side, and had swept her forward, up the stairs, with an arm round her waist. “Yes, my love, by all means let us go too, in case the lad should be alarmed at having to face Sir Tristram.”