He swung himself into the saddle and gathered up the reins.
“Thank you,” he said bitterly, “I understand. Only let me tell you this,” he went on, his whip poised in his hand. “You may have powerful friends who saved your—”
He hesitated so long that she glanced up at him and read all that he had wished to say in his face.
“My what?” she asked.
His courage failed him.
“Mr. Lessingham,” he proceeded, “from arrest. But if he shows his face here again in Dreymarsh, I sha'n't stop to arrest him. I shall shoot him on sight and chance the consequences.”
“They'll hang you!” she declared savagely.
He laughed at her.
“Hang me for shooting a man whom I can prove to be a German spy? They won't dare! They won't even dare to place me under arrest for an hour. Why, when the truth becomes known,” he went on, his voice gaining courage as the justice of his case impressed itself upon him, “what do you suppose is going to happen to two women who took this fellow in and befriended him, introduced him under a false name to their friends, gave him the run of their house—this man whom they knew all the time was a German? You, Lady Cranston, chafing and scolding your husband by night and by day because he isn't where you think he ought to be; you, so patriotic that you cannot bear the sight of him out of uniform; you—the hostess, the befriender, the God knows what of Bertram Maderstrom! It will be a pretty tale when it's all told!”
“I really think,” Philippa asserted calmly, “that you are the most utterly impossible and obnoxious creature I have ever met.”