CHAPTER XIX

GILES'S MASTER AGAIN

Giles's master took Dick into a small panelled room, lighted by the setting sun only, and seating himself in a carved arm-chair, motioned Dick to a stool at his side.

"And who told you Giles was dead?" he asked, after speaking in French for some moments to a gentleman at the door.

This meant the telling of Dick's disappearance from Lumley, saved from disgrace by Master Purvis, as he thought. He had scarcely begun the recital before a door at the far end of the room opened, and a gentleman in a white velvet suit stood on the threshold, bowing. Dick stopped.

"Go on," said Giles's master. "The gentleman is a friend of mine. My lord, will you have the goodness to wait in the window yonder? Thanks. Well, Dick. They told you there was an order out for your arrest and so forth?"

Dick went on again. His confidence in the gentleman's kindness was restored, and as he had spoken to him at Lumley so he spoke now, and told him all about the Seven Thorns, and of his flight across the fields, and how the Lady Dorothy Byng befriended him, and then turned out to be his cousin. But there the gentleman stayed him.

"The Lady Dorothy Byng was your father's first wife's niece," he said. "She was your step-brother's cousin, not yours, Dick."

Dick sighed. "That's a pity," he said. "She asked me to have her for a cousin. I was very glad to. Anyone would, I think."

Giles's master laughed, and the gentleman in the window half-turned round.

"So they told you Giles was dead?" said his master. "Were you grieved then?"

Dick did not answer. He bit his lips, but the tears would come.

"Sorrow no longer," said the gentleman quickly. "Giles is alive!"

"Alive!" Dick cried, so loud and so joyously that the man in the window took a step into the room, quite startled.

"Alive and well," said Giles's master quietly. "Why did you never try to find out? Why, if we may enquire, did you never find your way back to your friends and learn the truth?"

"I dare not, sir," said Dick, hanging his head.

"Ha! the bogey of a proclamation? All a make-believe, my child. There was never anything but kindness waiting for you with Giles and his--master."

"But I didn't know," said Dick. "Cousin Dorothy said it could not be true, indeed, but I did not believe her. She--she said my idea of my own importance was sadly exaggerated." He imitated her manner a little.

"Nay, if you'd had the least idea of your own importance you'd have got back to us in spite of John Dent's trickery. 'Twas all John Dent, Dick. Why, Giles--he broke his heart when we failed to find you. And I--why," he said, touching his high forehead, with a smile, "I fancy a new wrinkle came here with puzzling about your so sudden disappearance. Yes, indeed!"

Dick laughed.

"So the Lady Dorothy did not believe the proclamation story?" resumed the gentleman.

"No," said Dick, blushing. "She would have had me come to Arncastor weeks ago, but I would not. She said I was a coward--" He stopped abruptly, but went on in a second: "I must have been, too. If I'd come--but I dare not be taken, and--and disgraced before you and--and the others."

"Yet you came to-day?"

"To try and save her," Dick said.

"She should not have called you a coward, I think," Giles's master observed. "But, come. Why does she want saving? We will have that part now."

"She has promised to marry John Dent," Dick began; and whilst he told of his cousin's goodness, and John Dent's cruelty, the gentleman in white drew nearer, unobserved.

"Sir, you will help me, won't you?" Dick entreated.

The gentleman in white took a step forward, but Giles's master begged him to have patience a little longer, and he returned to his window in silence.

"I will help you to the best of my ability," said Giles's master, taking Dick's hand kindly, "and for your sake. The lady herself seems of a variable temper. As I said before, she should not have called you a coward."

"Ah, sir," Dick cried, "she's all goodness--all kindness! She never meant to hurt me, and she begged my pardon--she, a great lady. I love her very much, more than anyone, except Giles. We agreed on everything in the world, I think--except Giles," he added.

"Ha!" said the gentleman. "And what ailed her Ladyship of Giles?"

Dick explained as well as he could that it appeared that great ladies could not appreciate courage and virtue when they went in rags. And he felt the gentleman upon whose knee he leant shake with laughter.

"Ay," he said, "that's it, Dick. These great ladies! They will send their slaves to the ends of the earth to fetch them a bodkin. Call them cowards, yet expect their hearts to be laid at their feet with a 'Do me the honour to tread here, madam'! And you are bent upon serving this fastidious dame, Dick? And upon making me serve her too?"

"For me," said Dick, "I would die for her. I have said what she hath done for me. And there is another reason, if I have not shown you, sir, why I must help her."

"And the other reason?"

Dick looked round. The light was very dim now, but he could see the gentleman in white impatiently tapping his leg with his rapier-sheath, his face turned to the window.

"'Tis about my brother, who is dead," said Dick in a low voice. "'Tis her story, told me in--in confidence. But I think, sir, no one should hear it but you, and you because you will help."

"Quite right," said Giles's master, with a swift glance towards the window. "You may whisper." He bent his head, and Dick, slipping his arm round his neck, whispered his tale.

The gentleman in white stood so strangely still he might have been fairly accused of holding his breath to hear the whisper.

"Well," said Giles's master at the close, "I hold you're right, Dick. Your very life is hers so long as she needs it. Should she ever find anyone else to make her happy, will you come to me? I confess I should like you about me. True, I have Giles; but Giles, you may have noticed, Giles is a very remarkable person."

"Ay, indeed!" was Dick's hearty response.

"And to be trusted," continued his master, "with great matters. I have to send him from me; and then--well, Dick--I have no one near me quite so faithful as Giles. I don't know whether I am called a good master or not. It seems to me I bring my servants nothing but misfortune and privation--sometimes death." He sighed.

Dick laid his hand on his friend's affectionately. "I'd never care for that, sir," he said earnestly. "I've been near death. It doesn't matter. If I could be with you, and sometimes see dear Giles, I'd be quite happy, if Cousin Dorothy was happy too. Why, sir, I've been beaten and been hungered by those I served. Do you think mere privation with you and Giles would be hard?"

Just then the door opened softly, a curtain was drawn back, and a servant appeared with lights.

"If you would have the goodness to say we do not need them," said Giles's master to the gentleman in white. "Thanks."

The servant retreated, bowing; but Dick had seen the lights fall on the gentleman in white--a figure as superb as Prince Rupert's and a dress beautiful and rich. A jewel had flashed in his sword-hilt, and a "George" hung from a blue ribbon at his neck. What a thing to be a courtier!

As the gentleman came back he shot a piercing glance at the two figures in the dusk, and, pointing especially at Dick, he said something in a voice so low that Dick only caught the last words--"The audacity!" The boy resented it, and Giles's master seemed to disagree with the sentiment also, for he put his arm round the boy's shoulder, with a slight laugh, and, stooping, kissed him lightly on the brow.

"No audacity!" he said. "Are you jealous, my lord? Dick once told me he loved Giles with all his heart because there was no one else to love--no father and no mother. And his brother, whilst he lived, I suppose, had never even looked at him. Yet Dick knows how to love, and should not lack a return of it. No doubt, my lord, you have heard something of the tale he's been telling me. Perchance you found it somewhat interesting?"

The gentleman in white bowed.

"As to that which we took care you should not hear," proceeded Giles's master, "suffice it, for the completion of the story, that the Lady Dorothy Byng once had a fancy for my friend, Dick's brother. And, we might add--might we not, Dick?--that she cherishes his memory still--more or less."

Dick said gravely: "She loves him still."

"Therefore Dick is bound to help her now. And I have bound myself to help Dick. And I must beg you, my lord, to see Giles helps us all. We'll place the matter, Dick, in the hands of Giles--a delicate revenge for her scorn of him, eh? He shall order all he needs, and take this traitor, John Dent, if he can catch him, send him hither for trial, and have done with him. He shall scatter John Dent's friends, if he hath any, to the winds. He shall take you home to the Lady Dorothy Byng, with my greetings. And our dear, good Giles shall ask her if she cannot--it will be hard if she cannot--find some other companion and give you to me. There! Have we marked the part of each player and disposed of the villain of the piece?"

The gentleman in white bowed, whilst Dick enthusiastically thanked his friend. Giles's master made as if to rise, so Dick stood up.

"Where shall I find dear Giles?" he asked excitedly.

"Dear Giles, eh? Oh, he will be with you as soon as I am gone!" He held Dick's hand a moment, looking down at him half with amusement half with tenderness, glanced up at the other gentleman, and moved towards the door. There, stopping suddenly, he looked back.

"I have recalled one person for whom no part is assigned," he said. "The parson, Dick; be sure he is treated well, sir. I could wish Giles would find some use for him. Maybe he will."

The gentleman in white drew back the curtain and opened the door.

"Sir!" cried Dick, springing after him, "one moment! Will you tell me your name?"

"Charles," said Giles's master.

"Charles?" Dick repeated. "Charles what?"

"Stuart," the gentleman answered. And the door shut.