Once outside Rupert walked quickly down the drive, past the dark, great clump of fir-trees and along the rough granite-made road until he turned into the main Princetown road and reached Post Bridge. A little way up the hill the lights of the inn twinkled through the darkness. The waters of the East Dart purled beneath him. As they rushed over the rocks the foam glittered in the starshine. A bat swept past his face, its wings humming faintly. He leant his arms on the stone parapet of the bridge and gazed down into the crooning waters.
He was innocent, but he knew that up at Post Bridge Hall there was one man who believed him guilty of a despicable crime, and that one man his own father, who, not knowing what to believe, doubted him. His own father, himself the soul of honour, as proud of his good name as was perhaps the greatest man in the land.
His father, a man of the soil, whose greatest ambition had been to turn his son into a man of the world, a gentleman, to give him a profession, a start in life, an independence. For that he had made many and great sacrifices, even to the mortgaging of the land he owned and which his forefathers had loved and cultivated. And his only other child being a daughter he had expected her to make many, and perhaps as great, sacrifices also.
Was this to be the end? Rupert asked himself. The family name and honour dragged through the mire, their affairs the gossip of the newspapers of the Devon towns and villages, to find himself accused and perhaps forced to defend himself.
Of course, he could prove his innocence—he heard himself laugh. For a moment it all seemed so absurd. He felt he had been behaving like a coward and a fool in not frankly confessing that he had gone the way of nearly all young men in London, got into debt, gambled, fallen in love, and saved himself by one of those strange tricks of fortune which happen once and again in a lifetime. He drew himself up and looked at the sky blazing with stars now, the million eyes of the night.
He had held his peace because he loved. Because if he spoke he would have to drag the name of the woman he loved into the affair. She would be sent for, questioned, and bullied; the police would examine her. They would find out that she had gone to the races with him and put the sum of exactly five pounds on Ambuscade at a hundred to one, winning the fatal amount for which the cheque had been altered—five hundred pounds.
Fortune had smiled on him, but it had kissed the one cheek only to smite the other. Of course, Ruby knew nothing about the missing cheque, and could not help him in any way. It would be contemptible to drag her name into it.
Even if it came to a question—his honour or hers. And his honour meant his father's and sister's.
Presently he heard footsteps approaching, and he moved farther along the bridge down the side of the hill to the water's edge. Every one for miles around knew him, and it was not the moment he wanted to be recognised or asked futile questions about his life in London—how he had enjoyed himself, or whether he had passed his examination.
The people crossed the bridge, walking very slowly. Now and then their voices rose above the sound of the river. He looked over his shoulder; a man and a woman, and as they passed he recognised his sister Marjorie and young Lieutenant James Crichton, Sir Reginald's only son, who was spending his leave at home. They were walking close together, arm in arm, and in Crichton's right hand his sister's left hand was firmly clasped.