I flung a curse at him, but there was no other help for it but to do as he said, for the landlord had gone indoors. I was compelled to dismount, therefore, and it needed but the light contemptuous laugh that came from my lady’s lips to inflame afresh my anger against her, which grew steadily with every hour that we rode beneath the burning summer sun.
We crossed the Teign above Newton Abbott, and continued our way by means of the old Roman Road up the beautiful valley of the Exe. The sun was low down in the west and the shadows were lengthening on the grass when the massive towers of the cathedral at Exeter came into sight, and beneath them the smoke cloud that hung above the city in the still evening air. We crossed the bridge over the river and entered the gates, and at the commencement of the High Street I left the others to ride forward, and turning my horse into a side thoroughfare, made my way along the less crowded streets to a large house standing in a quiet square not far distant from the cathedral, for I knew that it was here, if anywhere, that I should find my Lord Danvers. The house itself was inhabited by one Mistress Maddon, who had at one time been upon the stage, but who, having married from thence a wealthy merchant of the city of London, had in the course of a few years reduced him to the verge of ruin by her extravagance. Upon this she had fled incontinently with Sir Richard Danvers, and had come to Exeter two years previously, where she flaunted it before the town, to the no small scandal of the city dignitaries and their ladies. Nay, the scandal was notorious throughout the West.
I dismounted before the house, and flinging my reins to a beggar loitering near, ascended the steps.
The door was opened by a gorgeously dressed lackey in a livery of scarlet.
“Sir Richard Danvers is here?” I said sharply.
He stared superciliously at my travel-stained appearance.
“My lord is indeed present,” he replied loftily, “but his hours for transacting business are over for the day.” And he made as though to shut the door in my face.
But I was too quick for him. With a thrust of my foot I sent it open again and stepped quickly past him into the hall.
“Not so fast,” I said coolly. “My business is too urgent to admit of further delay, and you can so tell your master.”
He looked at me for a moment with an air of outraged dignity.