Richard beat his hands together in a passion of dismay. “Is he not here?” he asked, and groaned, “O God!” He flung himself all limp into a chair. “You have heard the news, I see,” he said.
“Not all of it,” said Diana hoarsely, leaning forward. “Tell us what passed.”
He moistened his lips with his tongue. “We were betrayed,” he said in a quivering voice. “Betrayed! Did I but know by whom...” He broke off with a bitter laugh and shrugged, rubbing his hands together and shivering till his shoulders shook. “Blake's party was set upon by half a company of musketeers. Their corpses are strewn about old Newlington's orchard. Not one of them escaped. They say that Newlington himself is dead.” He poured himself more wine.
Ruth listened, her eyes burning, the rest of her as cold as ice. “But...but... oh, thank God that you at least are safe, Dick!”
“How did you escape?” quoth Diana.
“How?” He started as if he had been stung. He laughed in a high, cracked voice, his eyes wild and bloodshot. “How? Perhaps it is just as well that Blake has gone to his account. Perhaps...” He checked on the word, and started to his feet; Diana screamed in sheer affright. Behind her the windows had been thrust open so violently that one of the panes was shivered. Blake stood under the lintel, scarce recognizable, so smeared was his face with the blood escaping from the wound his cheek had taken. His clothes were muddied, soiled, torn, and disordered.
Framed there against the black background of the night, he stood and surveyed them for a moment, his aspect terrific. Then he leapt forward, baring his sword as he came. An incoherent roar burst from his lips as he bore straight down upon Richard.
“You damned, infernal traitor!” he cried. “Draw, draw! Or die like the muckworm that you are.”
Intrepid, her terror all vanished now that there was the need for courage, Ruth confronted him, barring his passage, a buckler to her palsied brother.
“Out of my way, mistress, or I'll be doing you a mischief.”