Denounced: A Romance

by John Bloundelle-Burton

"It is not at present," replied the baronet. Then, with an air of determination which until now he had not assumed, he stamped his foot angrily and exclaimed: "Come, sir, I will be trifled with no longer. Either with me, or the watch, or the soldiers. But at once. At once, I say!"

And Fordingbridge, knowing he was beaten, went with him.

A coach was found at the park wicket, into which they entered and proceeded to Kensington, no word being uttered by either during the drive. Then, when they had arrived outside Fordingbridge's house, Sir Charles, with a relaxation of the courteous manner that he had previously treated the other to, said, coldly and briefly:

"Remember, for two days you will have no opportunity of injuring anyone. That I shall take steps to prevent. Afterwards, you will have sufficient occupation in consulting your own welfare," and, raising his three-cornered hat an inch, he entered the coach again. Only, he thought it well to say to the driver in a clear, audible voice which the other could not fail to hear:

"Drive to Kensington Palace now; I have business with the officer of the guard."

With those terrifying words ringing in his ears--for Fordingbridge knew how, at that time, soldiers quartered in the neighbourhood of suspected persons acted as police act in these days, and were employed often to make arrests of persons implicated with the State--he entered his house, locking himself in with a key he carried. Then he proceeded at once to ring the bells and shout for the deaf old servitor, Luke, but without effect. There was no response to the noise he made, no sound of the old man's heavy, shuffling feet, and he began to wonder if he, too, had taken flight like the rest of the servants. Yet, even if he had, his master meditated, it would matter very little now. He was himself about to take flight. London was too hot to hold him.

A coward ever from his infancy, there could have been no better plan devised to frighten this man from doing more harm to those whom he wished to injure than the one adopted by Sir Charles Ames; while the latter's statement that he had business with the officer of the guard at Kensington Palace was the culminating point to the other's fears. Moreover--although his mind appeared to him to be strangely hazy and distraught now, and unable to retain the sequence of that day's events--he recognised the fearful weapon he had drawn against himself in suggesting that he was a Jesuit priest. Upon that statement, testified to by Sir Charles, a man of responsible position, he would certainly be arrested at once; while, if proof could be obtained that he was in truth a priest, or had ever been trained to be one, the most terrible future would lie before him.

As he thought of all this in a wandering, semi-vacant manner, he set about doing that which, since the interview in the park, he had made up his mind to do. He would fly from England, he would return to France. Yet, he reflected, if in France, Paris would still be closed to him. There the Jesuits were in possession of terrible authority, although an authority not recognised by the Government; if they knew what he had done, even in only betraying Archibald Sholto to the English authorities, their vengeance on him would be sharp, swift, terrible. And in Paris also--he could not doubt it--would soon be Bertie Elphinston and Douglas, even Archibald himself. No, it must not be Paris. Not yet at least!

But he must be somewhere out of London, out of England, and he set to work--still in a dazed, stupefied manner--to make his plans.

He went first to his own bedroom, to which was attached a small toilet or dressing-room, and, unlocking an iron-bound strong box, took from it some money--a small casket of Louis d'ors and English guineas, a leather case stuffed full of bills of exchange and several notes, among them a large one drawn by a Parisian money-lender on a London goldsmith. Then, next, he opened a false tray, or bottom, in the strong box, and from it took out several shagreen cases which he slipped into his pocket. These contained all his family jewels.