Then a bitter laugh broke from him.
“It is true—what she said was true. I am a loathsome creature—a thing, a creeping thing, that lives because it must, because, like a toad or a lizard, it is too mean to kill.” There was a long silence. At last he brushed his hand across his forehead and rose to his feet abruptly.
“Bah! a bit of womanish folly!” he laughed. “’Tis some humor or sickness. The plague is still in the air. Mordieu!” he shouted. “There is money to win and bright eyes to gleam for Monsieur Mornay. I can laugh and jest still, mes amis—”
The closing of doors and the clatter of a coach upon the cobbles surprised him into a sense of the present. A footstep here and there and the sound of shouts close at hand recalled him to himself. He saw from the garden gate of Dorset House the flashing of a lantern and heard the shooting of the bolts and the rasp of a rough voice. The spirit of self-preservation rose strong within him and put to rout every thought but flight. He peered cautiously from his doorway, and, finding that the gate was not yet opened, he went forth and hurried down the street and around the corner until all the sounds of pursuit were lost to hearing.
By the time Monsieur Mornay had reached the Swan in Fenchurch Street, he was so far in possession of his senses that, with a manner all his own, he roused the master of the house from his bed and bade him set out a cold pâté and two bottles of wine in the back room upstairs against the coming of the Irishman. Nor had he long to wait, for Captain Cornbury, flushed and breathless, soon burst into the room. When he saw Mornay his face relaxed in a look of relief.
“Egad! ye’re here,” he said. “’Twixt this and that I’ve had a thousand doubts about ye. For the present, then, ye’re safe.”
Mornay pushed a bench towards him.
“Then Ferrers has—”
“Ferrers and Dorset—I’ faith, between them they’ve raised the divil. And Captain Ferrers—by the ten holy fingers of the Pope! there was a fine notary spoiled when Ferrers took service with the King. For all the lyin’ scoundrels—”
“He accused me?”