“Danger!” echoes Léonie. “I should just think so. Look here, my man, I have come post-haste from London to see him. He must be warned, or both he and Gloria de Lara will be in custody before the day is down. Can I trust you to take his Grace a message? I was told you were a faithful and trustworthy servant of his.”
Miles Gripper is completely taken in. His honest heart bounds with loyalty at Léonie’s words.
“Ah, sir! and that’s just true. His Grace has no one more devoted than old Miles Gripper. I’d give my life for his Grace, I would. But, God forgive me, how can I take your message, sir, in time? He’s far from here by now.”
“What! far from here?” again gasps Léonie; “but not out of riding distance, surely? Tell me where he is, and, tired as my horse is, I’ll do all that is in human power to reach him. God grant I may not be too late!”
What does Léonie know of God? Still less does she care about Him. God, to Léonie, is an expression, a forcible expression, and no more. The expression serves her well on this occasion, however. Miles Gripper’s honest heart is no match for detective acting. Believing that he is serving the duke, he passes the secret, which he was bidden to keep, into the care of this apparently devoted and self-sacrificing adherent of his master.
“And drat ye for a big-headed fool, when his Grace express forbade ye say aught of his whereabouts save to the Lady Flora,” Léonie hears a sharp, angry woman’s voice exclaiming. But she waits to hear no more. She is on her horse, and trotting quickly down the hill with the secret she had been puzzling her brains how to win, safe in her keeping. Small wonder at Dame Gripper’s ire.
“Come on, Nero, laddie,” laughs the girl detective. “I thought I should want you, doggie, but I can do without you now. However, come along.”
She rides back to the cross-roads and the signboard. On one of this latter’s arms is printed “Marlow.”
“That’s it,” she mutters to herself, as she turns her horse’s head into the long straight road, which, girt on either side by tall dark trees, stretches far as the eye can reach. “I’m safe on the track now, I am.”
Léonie is happy. One of the most difficult obstacles in her path has been lightly cleared, and quite unexpectedly too. Yes, she is happy, if it be possible for one so hard and callous to be so. Perhaps the dawn of a better day is coming for this child of an unholy love. As she rides along in the bright spring morning however, with her rough dog galloping by her side, she has no higher aim in life than to carry out successfully the “little job” which Mr. Trackem has confided to her care.