He nodded.
"And you will join the army at the front and leave Margery to his tender mercies?"
His laugh was bitter; so bitter that I scarce knew it for Richard Jennifer's.
"Mistress Margery Stair is well, and well content, as I told you once before. She has no wish for you or me, unless it be to see us well hanged."
"Nay, Richard; you judge her over-harshly. I fear you do not love her as her lover should."
"Say you so? Listen: to-night I got as far as the manor house, being fool enough to risk my neck for another sight of her. God help me, Jack! I had it. They have scraped together all the Tory riff-raff this side of the river—Falconnet and the others—and are holding high revel at Appleby. Since it is still our true-blue borderland, they are scant enough of women of their own kidney, and I saw Madge dancing like any light o' love with every jackanapes that offered."
"In her father's house she could not well do less," I averred, cut to the heart, as he was, and yet without his younger lover's jealousy to make me unjust.
"Or more," he added, savagely. "'Tis as I say; she lacks nothing we can give her, and we'd as well be off about our business."
I think he never had it in his heart to leave her in any threat of danger. But from his point of view there was no danger threatening her save that which she seemed willing enough to rush upon—a life of titled misery as Lady Falconnet. I saw how he would see it; saw, too, that his was the saner summing of it up. And yet—
He broke into my musings with a pointed question. "What say you, Jack? 'Tis but a little whiffet of a Tory jade who cares not the snap of her finger for either of us. The night is fine and dark. Shall we float the canoe and give them all the slip?"