He thought rapidly, and gave voice to some of his thoughts. “If I could I would take him to my lodgings at Alcantara. But Carruthers knows him and would see him there. So that is out of the question. Then again it is dangerous to move him about. At any moment he might be seen and recognised.”
“Hardly recognised,” she said. “His beard disguises him, and his dress—” She shuddered at the very thought of the figure he had cut, he, the jaunty, dandy Richard Butler.
“That is something, of course,” he agreed. And then asked: “How long do you think that you could keep him hidden?”
“I don’t know. You see, there’s Bridget. She is the only danger, as she has charge of my dressing-room.”
“It may be desperate, but—Can you trust her?”
“Oh, I am sure I can. She is devoted to me; she would do anything—”
“She must be bought as well. Devotion and gain when linked together will form an unbreakable bond. Don’t let us be stingy, Una. Take her into your confidence boldly, and promise her a hundred guineas for her silence—payable on the day that Dick leaves the country.”
“But how are we to get him out of the country?”
“I think I know a way. I can depend on Marcus Glennie. I may tell him the whole truth and the identity of our man, or I may not. I must think about that. But, whatever I decide, I am sure I can induce Glennie to take our fugitive home in the Telemachus and land him safely somewhere in Ireland, where he will have to lose himself for awhile. Perhaps for Glennie’s sake it will be safer not to disclose Dick’s identity. Then if there should be trouble later, Glennie, having known nothing of the real facts, will not be held responsible. I will talk to him to-night.”
“Do you think he will consent?” she asked in strained anxiety—anxiety to have her anxieties dispelled.