The unhappy Hildebrand stammered: “Of course I will help to lift him! I don’t wish to faint: I can’t help but do so!”

“You can do anything if only you will have a little resolution!” she told him.

This bracing treatment had its effect upon him. He could not but shudder when his eyes fell on her bloodstained gown, but he quickly averted them, choked down his nausea, and silently prayed that he might not again disgrace himself. The prayer was answered. Sir Gareth was lifted as tenderly as was possible into the chaise, where Amanda received him, and Hildebrand was still on his feet. This unlooked-for triumph put a little heart into him, and he suddenly looked very much less hang-dog, and said that he would ride on ahead to warn them at the inn to prepare to house a badly wounded man.

Amanda warmly approved this suggestion, but the post-boy, who still felt that Hildebrand was a dangerous rogue, opposed it, even going to the length of pulling out the pistol from his jacket. Hildebrand, he said, would ride immediately in front of him, so that he could put a bullet through him if he tried to gallop away.

“What a detestably stupid creature you are!” exclaimed Amanda. “It was all a jest—a wager! Oh, I can’t explain it to you now, but Sir Gareth knew it was an accident! You heard him say so! Yes, and you don’t suppose he would call a real highwayman a young fool, do you? Doesn’t that show you that he knew him? And he won’t try to escape, because I assure you he is excessively fond of Sir Gareth. Go at once,Hildebrand! And get on your horse, and follow him, and oh, pray, pray drive carefully!”

“Shoot me if you wish!” Hildebrand said, seizing his horse’s bridle. “I don’t care! I’d rather that than be hanged, or transported!”

With these reckless words, he mounted Prince, clapped his heels to the horse’s flanks, and shot off down the lane.

The chaise followed at a very much more sober pace, but the lane was so narrow that the post-boy found it impossible to avoid the many pot-holes. The best he could do, whenever he saw a particularly large one ahead, was to rein the horses in to a walk, lessening the jolt as much as he could. But nothing could avail to make the short journey anything but a very rough one. Amanda kept an anxious eye on her bandages, terrified that the pad might shift, and the bleeding start again. So tall a man could not be laid flat in a chaise, but Amanda had clasped her arms round Sir Gareth, supporting his head on her shoulder, and trying as best she might to ease the frequent bumps for him. Under her hand she fancied that she could feel his heart faintly beating, which brought such relief to her overcharged nerves that thankful tears sprang to her eyes, and rolled unheeded down her cheeks.

Finding that the bandages were holding, her most pressing anxiety abated, and she was able to consider all the other anxieties attached to her predicament. Chief amongst these was the stringent need to rescue Hildebrand from the consequences of his folly. She was not much given to self-blame, but there could be no doubt that she had been to some extent responsible for the accident. To be sure, she had extracted from Hildebrand a promise that he would not fire his pistols, but she now saw that she should have known better than to have placed the slightest reliance on his keeping his head in emergency. And although no one (or, at any rate, no one with the smallest sense of justice) could blame her for having accepted his proffered services, she did feel that she was very much to blame in having consented to any plan that could possibly put poor Sir Gareth in danger. If she had not blackened Sir Gareth’s character, Hildebrand would never have dreamt of holding up the chaise; and that she had blackened his character now filled her with unaccustomed remorse. It really seemed more dreadful than all the rest, for as soon as he had sunk lifeless to the ground, her resentment had vanished, and she had see him, not as a cruel marplot, but as her kind and endlessly patient protector. But this, she owned, Hildebrand could not have guessed, from anything she had told him; and however stupid it was of him not to have known, only by looking at Sir Gareth, that he was in every respect an admirable person, it was not just that he should suffer a hideous penalty for his folly. Sir Gareth had not wished him to suffer. With what might prove to have been his last word on earth he had exonerated Hildebrand. The thought of this noble magnanimity affected her so much, that she exclaimed aloud: “Oh, I wish I had not told those lies about you! It was all my fault!”

But Sir Gareth could not hear her, so it was useless to tell him how sorry she was. And even if he had not been unconscious, she thought, her practical side reasserting itself, repentance would not mend matters. She dared not relax her arms from about him, so she could not wipe away her tears, but she stopped crying, and forced herself to think what she ought next to do. Her arms were aching almost unbearably, but that was unimportant. The important thing was to save Hildebrand from the clutches of the law. He was stupid, he lacked resolution, but she was going to need his services.

By the time the chaise reached the little village, she had herself well in hand, and knew just what must be done. Her face might be tearstained, but the landlord of the Bull Inn, horrified by the disjointed tale jerked out by a pallid young gentleman on the verge of nervous collapse, and expecting to receive a damsel in hysterics, very speedily learned that Amanda was made of sterner stuff than Hildebrand. She might look a child, but there was nothing childlike in the way in which she assumed command over the direction of affairs. Under her jealous supervision, the landlord and the post-boy bore Sir Gareth up the narrow stairs to a bed-chamber under the eaves, and laid him upon the bed there; and while they were doing it she told Hildebrand, in a fierce whisper, not to say a word, but to leave all to her; and demanded from the landlord’s wife the direction of the nearest doctor, and upon learning that that shocked dame knew of no doctor other than Dr. Chantry, who attended the Squire, and lived at Eaton Socon, instantly ordered Hildebrand to jump on his horse again, and ride like the wind to summon this practitioner to Sir Gareth’s side.

“Yes, of course!” Hildebrand said eagerly. “But I don’t know how to get there, or—or where to find the doctor, or what to do if he should not be at home!”

“Oh, do try not to be so helpless!” cried Amanda. “This woman will tell you where he lives, and if he is gone out you will follow him—and do not dare to come back without him!” She then turned on Mrs. Chicklade, and said: “Tell him eaxctly where to go, for you can see how stupid he far

“I am not stupid!” retorted Hildebrand, stung to anger. “But I was never in this part of the country before, and I don’t even know in which direction I should ride!”

“No!” retorted Amanda, already halfway up the steep stairs. “I don’t know either, but I wouldn’t stand there looking like a gaby, and saying how—how—how!”

With that, she sped on her way, leaving him seething with indignation, but considerably stiffened by a determination to prove to her his worth.

Amanda found the landlord tightening the bandages round Sir Gareth’s torso, and directing the post-boy to fetch up some brandy from the tap. She was thankful to perceive that in this large, stolid man she had acquired a helper who could apparently act on his own initiative, and asked him anxiously if he thought Sir Gareth would live.

“There’s no saying, miss,” he replied unencouragingly. “He ain’t slipped his wind yet, but I’d say he’s lost a deal of claret. We’ll see if we can get a drop of brandy down his throat.”

But when the post-boy came back with this restorative, closely followed by Mrs. Chicklade, it was found to be of no avail, for it ran out of the corners of Sir Gareth’s mouth. The landlord thought this a shocking waste of good liquor, and set the glass down, saying that there was nothing for it but to send for the doctor. When Amanda disclosed that Hildebrand had already sped forth on this errand, the post-boy was loud in his disapproval. He said that the young varmint would never be seen again, and at once launched into a graphic description of the hold-up.

Until that moment, the Chicklades knew no more than they had learnt from Hildebrand, which was very little. So strange a story as was now recounted immediately convinced Mrs. Chicklade that she had been only too right when she had strongly counselled her husband not to have anything to do with a desperately wounded man. She had known from the moment of clapping eyes on Hildebrand that there was something havey-cavey about him; and as for Amanda, she would like to know, she said, how she came to be hand-in-glove with such a murdering young rascal.

“I wish you will stop thinking he is a highwayman!” said Amanda. “It was all make-believe—just funning!”

“Funning?”gasped Mrs. Chicklade.

“Yes, I tell you! He never meant to fire his pistol: indeed, he promised me he would not!”

“What did he want to take and cock it for, if he wasn’t meaning to fire it, miss?” demanded the post-boy shrewdly.

“Oh, that was in case you would not pull up!” explained Amanda. “To fire over your head, and put you in a fright. And although I didn’t wish him to do so at first I must say I am excessively sorry now that he didn’t, because if only he had there would have been no harm done.”

“I never did!” exclaimed Mrs. Chicklade. “Why, you’re as bad as he is! I believe the pair of you was in a plot to rob the poor gentleman, and what I want to know is how you came to wheedle yourself into his company, which it’s as plain as a pikestaff you must ha’ done, and very likely too, for a bolder piece I never did see, not in all my days!”