"Well, and now that you find yourself at liberty twenty-four hours before you expected----?"
"I shall do--or attempt to do--to-night what I should otherwise have been obliged to defer till to-morrow night."
"Can I assist you in any way to carry out your scheme?--although, as I have already remarked, the time at my command is limited."
"If you can let me have a couple of your fellows to help me while I get my uncle out of the house, I shall be grateful. There is a truculent fellow there, Lady Clinton's brother, who will be pretty sure to give some trouble, and he has a couple of ferocious brutes of dogs. Then there is Vallance, my uncle's valet, who----"
"My dear Brabazon, not another word. I will go with you myself and take four of my men, all well armed. Allons. We have no time to lose." He stepped to the door, and was in the act of putting a whistle to his lips when an exclamation on Burgo's part arrested him.
"Good heavens!" cried the latter as he smote his forehead with his open palm; "what can I have been thinking of? My uncle is an all but helpless invalid. Even when I shall have succeeded in getting him out of the house, what then? He is unable to walk more than a dozen yards, and at this hour of the morning, and in this lonely corner of the world there will be no possibility of obtaining a conveyance of any kind. Had it been to-morrow night I should have had my arrangements made beforehand."
His intention had been to let himself down from the window of the tower as soon as his supper had been brought him, to make his way to Crag End, enlist the services of Tyson, and through him obtain the loan of a vehicle of some kind; hurry back to the Keep, and, a little later, drive away in triumph with his uncle, with, perchance (oh, blissful possibility!), Dacia Roylance to make up a happy trio. But to-night, without any vehicle to which to transfer the sick man, with Dacia unadvised of what had happened within the last couple of hours, and with the Keep shut up back and front, and all its inmates abed, it was a wholly different matter. Burgo was utterly nonplussed.
"Then I seem to have done you an ill turn rather than a good one," said Mr. Marchment, but still quite pleasantly. "Is there no way in which I can remedy it? You can't very well stay here till to-morrow night, because my rascals have broken open the door, and been guilty of some further trifling damage downstairs, which cannot fail to be discovered in the course of the next few hours."
"No, most certainly I will stay here no longer than I can help," answered Burgo. "Instead of waiting till to-morrow night before attempting to see my uncle--when some one would have been prepared to admit me to the house unknown to the rest of the inmates--I will make a bold dash about breakfast-time to-morrow or rather, to-day, for we are now in the small hours--and try whether I can't effect my purpose by a coup de main."
Somehow, he was unable to divest himself of an uncomfortable notion that Lady Clinton might return unexpectedly at any moment, and he was determined, now the opportunity had come to him, to lose no time before making his grand attempt.