"I dare say it is by this time," replied Ralph. "Accept my best thanks, dear Lady Danvers, for all the kind interest you have taken in me, especially in these painful circumstances in which I am placed."
She waved her hand almost impatiently, saying, "Not a word--not a word, my good friend; but there is one thing more I wish to say--" Again she hesitated, but then added quickly, and in a tone of kindly feeling, "Ralph, I look upon you as a relation--I can not regard your mother's son in any other light; you came away with me hastily yesterday; you had no time to provide funds for a long journey--No false delicacy between you and me."
Ralph took her hand and raised it to his lips, and as he did so he thought that it trembled very much. "Thanks--a thousand thanks," he said; "and I would accept your kind offer as frankly as it is made, but I have quite enough here, Lady Danvers; my servant has brought a large part of my baggage with him, and I have there all the little store which was to last me for six months."
"Well, well--go, then," she said; "do not delay a moment, for I am apprehensive till you are out of the old lord's reach. We shall meet again, my friend, and talk over all these details more at leisure. At present, nothing is to be done but to part as soon as possible."
Again Ralph kissed her hand, which was beautiful enough; though, to say truth, her lip was the more tempting of the two. He was soon in the stable-yard, and found his horse saddled and the baggage all arranged. In another moment he was riding out under the archway of the inn, and remarked a face gazing from a little window at the side, which commanded a view both of the stable-yard and of the street. Gaunt Stilling shook his fist at it as they passed, and, while his master paused to say a few words to the Duke of Norfolk's servants who were gathered round the gate, laid his finger significantly on the hilt of a good strong sword, which by this time he had added to his traveling equipage. Ralph was then turning his horse to the right hand, in the direction of the western road; but Gaunt Stilling rode up to his side, saying, in a low voice, "This way, sir; we are watched, and must give them the slip. I can find the way, I think, by the back lanes, as they have directed me. After we get past Ely, I know every rood of the road for a hundred miles."
Ralph readily followed his suggestion, but inquired, after riding a few yards, "Who is watching us? One of Lord Woodhall's people?"
"No!" replied Stilling, in his quaint, bluff way; "knave Robert's knave Roger."
"I wish to heaven it was his master instead," said Ralph, with a quick glow of the cheek and flash of the eye.
"Ay, so do I," answered Gaunt Stilling, gloomily; "but he always contrives to put some one else in his place when that place is a dangerous one. Every man has his time, however, and his is waiting for him."
He then relapsed into silence, and they pursued their way without interruption. Nothing remarkable occurred upon the road throughout the whole journey, though, as the reader knows, it led them across nearly the widest part of Great Britain. Ralph himself was silent and melancholy, and many painful considerations pressed upon his mind, withdrawing it from that enjoyment of changing scene and rapid motion which a young and ardent heart like his might well have experienced in traversing the beautiful counties which lie between Norfolk and Dorsetshire. His thoughts were almost entirely of Margaret. He saw little--he observed little--and conversation he had none; for Gaunt Stilling, though evidently a man superior, by education, to his class, and who had received the education of the world as well as of books, was taciturn and gloomy. He had never spoken much, and what he had said was generally brief and blunt; but now he hardly uttered a word, and remained usually totally apart from all other servants or society of any kind in the inns where they chanced to stop on the road. Ralph remarked, too, that when his bill was brought to him at any of these places, no charge was ever made for his servant or his servant's horse; and the strange circumstances in which the man had been placed with him came back, from time to time, upon his mind with a feeling not altogether agreeable. That he had been useful, serviceable, ay, and zealous in his service, Ralph fully felt; but it was unpleasant to him to have such gratuitous attendance, especially where it involved no light expense to the person rendering it. He determined he would have some explanations upon this subject with Gaunt Stilling; but the man's taciturnity, his own busy thoughts, and the rapidity with which they passed from place to place, made him delay the execution of his intention till they reached the place of their temporary sojourn.