“Stuff!” said Peregrine, disengaging himself from her clasp. “As for you, John, be off to your work! You’ve meddled enough for one day! If I had dreamed the fellow was not to be trusted—but I might have known! I had no business to be taken in by him. My father warned us against him, and you may depend upon it the son is no better.”

“Do you speak of my cousin? Is it possible that it was he who saved you from this terrible affair?”

“Lord, Ju, don’t talk in that silly way! You don’t understand these things. Ay, it was our cousin; I am persuaded it was he. I am off to settle with him on the instant.”

She detained him. “You need not; I expect him here at any minute. He is to take Mrs. Scattergood and me to Madame Tussaud’s Exhibition. Indeed, I do not know what should be keeping him, for he said he would be here quite by eleven, and you see it is past eleven now.”

“That’s cool, upon my word!” exclaimed Peregrine. “He has the impudence to get me had up before a beak, and takes my sister out on the top of it! A very pretty fellow is this Bernard Taverner!”

“Do I hear my name?” The voice, a quiet one, came from the doorway behind Peregrine. “Ah, Peregrine! Thank God!”

Peregrine swung round to confront his cousin. “Ay, you are surprised to see me, are you not?”

“I am glad,” Mr. Taverner replied steadily. “You imposed silence upon me; it has been hard for me to stand by. But I guessed I must hear certain tidings of you by this time. You have taken no hurt?”

“Silence!” ejaculated Peregrine. “Will you tell me you have kept silence over this?”

His cousin looked at him intently, and from him to Judith. She had sunk down on the sofa, and could only smile at him rather tremulously. “Will you tell me what you mean me to understand by that?” he asked in an even tone.

“Who was the man who laid the information against us, and had us arrested on the ground?” Peregrine flung at him.

Mr. Taverner continued to look at him, his brows a little knit. Peregrine said angrily: “Who was the man who induced the surgeon to disclose the place of rendezvous? Who else knew of the meeting but you?”

“I cannot answer that question. Perry. I have no means of telling who else knew of it,” responded Mr. Taverner.

“Give me a plain yes or no!” snapped Peregrine. “Did you lay that information?”

Mr. Taverner said slowly: “I can understand and pardon your indignation, but consider a moment, if you please! You engaged my silence: do you accuse me of breaking faith with you?”

The niceties of the male code of honour being beyond Miss Taverner’s sympathy she cried impatiently: “What could that signify in face of such danger to Perry? What other course could be opened to any friend of his than at all costs to stop the meeting?”

Mr. Taverner smiled, but shook his head. Peregrine, a little confounded, stammered: “I don’t wish to be doing you an injustice, but you do not answer me! Only one other person knew of the meeting—my valet, and he does not fit the description Dr. Lane gave.”

“And what, may I ask, was that description?”

“It was of a tall, gentleman-like man, and with an air of fashion!”

Mr. Taverner looked rather amused. “My dear Perry, am I the only man in town answering to that description? Is that all that you base your suspicions on? Have you not considered that your opponent may very likely have spoken of the meeting as well as you?”

“Farnaby?” Peregrine was disconcerted. “No. it had not occurred—that is to say, I do not think it probable—”

“Why, what is this? Is it more probable, then, that I laid the information?”

“Of course if you assure me you did not I am bound to accept your word,” said Peregrine stiffly.

“I am glad of that,” said his cousin. “I will confess, at the risk of offending you afresh, that however little I may have had to do with it I am more than pleased to find that information was laid.”

“You are very good,” said Peregrine, eyeing him a trifle askance.

Mr. Taverner laughed. “Well, were you so anxious to be shot at? Come, you are not to be picking a quarrel with me, you know! Judith, do you go to the Exhibition? Is Mrs. Scattergood ready?”

Judith got up. “She went into the breakfast-parlour to write a note before you came. Shall we fetch her?”

“By all means. We are behind time, I believe. I was detained, and should beg pardon.” He nodded pleasantly to Peregrine and held open the door for Judith to pass out.

In the hall she waited for him to close the door, and then said in a low voice: “You did not deny it.”

He raised his brows, looking down at her quizzically. “Are you also to pick a quarrel with me, Judith?”

“No, indeed,” she said earnestly. “Perry is only a boy; he has these nonsensical notions. You are wiser. Oh, do not tell me! Indeed, you need not! You saved him, and I am—you do not know how grateful!”

He took her hand in both of his. “To earn your good opinion there is nothing I would not do!” he said.

Her eyes fell before the look in his. “You have earned it. From the bottom of my heart I thank you.”

“I want more than gratitude,” he said, holding her fast. “Tell me, may I hope? I dare not press you; you have seemed to show me that you do not wish me to speak, and yet I must! Only assure me that I may hope—I ask no more!”

She was most strangely moved, and knew not how to answer him. Her hand trembled; he bent and kissed it. She murmured: “I do not know. I—I have not thought of marriage. I wish you would not ask me yet. What can I answer?”

“At least tell me that there is no one else?”

“There is no one, cousin,” she said.

He continued to hold her hand a minute, and when she made a movement to disengage herself pressed it slightly, and released it. “I am content. We will go and look for Mrs. Scattergood.”

In another part of the town Mr. Farnaby was still talking the affair over with his second, who was by this time heartily sick of the subject. His principal seemed to him so much put out over it that he presently said: “What’s your game, Ned? There’s more to it than you’ve told me, eh? Who wants that young sprig put away? You’re being paid, and paid handsomely for the task, ain’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Farnaby. “Taverner hit me in the face.”

“I can see he did,” said his friend, interestedly surveying the contusion that marred Mr. Farnaby’s countenance.

Farnaby flushed. “You should know I am not the man to stomach an insult!” he declared.

“Not unless you were paid to,” agreed Captain Crake.

Mr. Farnaby said with dignity that the Captain forgot himself.

“I don’t forget myself, but it seems to me that you have,” said the Captain frankly. “If there was money in this, where was my share? Tell me that!”

“There is no money,” said Mr. Farnaby, and closed the interview.

He spent the rest of the day in a mood of bitter discontent, and betook himself in the evening to the King’s Arms, at the corner of Duke Street and King Street, to solace himself with gin and the company of such of his cronies as he might find there.

The King’s Arms was owned by Thomas Cribb, champion heavyweight of England. All sorts of conditions of men, from titled gentlemen to coal-heavers, frequented it, but it was not every visitor’s fortune to be admitted into the famous parlour. Mr. Farnaby for one did not rank amongst the privileged. Since gin and not boxing-talk was what he came for, this did not trouble him, and he was quite content to ensconce himself in a cosy corner of the tap-room and watch the prize-fighters and the Corinthians drift past him to the inner sanctum. The tavern was always crowded; every young buck came to it, every prize-fighter of note, and it was not unusual for some ambitious person to walk in and pick a quarrel with the genial host for the privilege of being able to boast afterwards that he had exchanged blows with the Champion. This practice had of late become less popular, as Cribb had formed a disappointing habit of hailing his would-be assailants straight before a magistrate, on the score that if he obliged every man who wanted to be knocked down by him he would have no peace at all.

Mr. Farnaby found a nook in the tap-room on this particular evening, and settled down to his glass of daffy, keeping a lookout for any acquaintance who might come in.

Plenty of people did come in, but although he might nod to some of them, or exchange a brief greeting, his particular friends were not amongst them. Tom Belcher, the great Jem’s brother, strolled in arm in arm with old Bill Gibbons; Warr stood chatting awhile with Cribb before he went through into the parlour; Gentleman Jackson arrived with a party of Corinthians whom he was amusing with one of his stories. Mr. Farnaby watched them all without envy, and called for another glass of daffy.

The tap-room was full almost to overflowing when the door was pushed open and the Earl of Worth walked in. He stood on the threshold for a moment, looking round through the smoke of a score of pipes, and Tom Cribb, who had just come out of the parlour, saw him, and crossed the room to his side. “Good evening, my lord,” he said. “Glad to see your lordship. You’ll find a snug little gathering in the parlour to-night. Lord Yarmouth’s there, Colonel Aston, Sir Henry Smyth, Mr. Jackson, and I don’t know who besides. Will you go through, my lord?”

“Presently,” said the Earl. “I see someone here I want a word with first.”

“Here, my lord?” said Cribb, looking round at the company with a wrinkled brow.

“Yes, here,” said the Earl, and went past him with a swing of his caped driving-coat straight up to the table at which Mr. Farnaby was sitting.