“I am ready,” answered Wilding firmly, and he turned to glance at his wife.
She was bending towards him, her hands held out, such a look on her face as almost drove him mad with despair, reading it as he did. He made a sound deep in his throat before he found words.
“Give me one minute, sir—one minute,” he begged Wentworth. “I ask no more than that.”
Wentworth was a gentleman and not ill-natured. But he was a soldier and had received his orders. He hesitated between the instincts of the two conditions. And what time he did so there came a clatter of hoofs without to resolve him. It was Feversham departing.
“You shall have your minute, sir,” said he. “More I dare not give you, as you can see.
“From my heart I thank you,” answered Mr. Wilding, and from the gratitude of his tone you might have inferred that it was his life Wentworth had accorded him.
The captain had already turned aside to address his men. “Two of you outside, guard that window,” he ordered. “The rest of you, in the passage. Bestir there!”
“Take your precautions, by all means, sir,” said Wilding; “but I give you my word of honour I shall attempt no escape.”
Wentworth nodded without replying. His eye lighted on Blake—who had been seemingly forgotten in the confusion—and on Richard. A kindliness for the man who met his end so unflinchingly, a respect for so worthy an enemy, actuated the red-faced captain.
“You had better take yourself off, Sir Rowland,” said he. “And you, Mr. Westmacott—you can wait in the passage with my men.”