Jerome had gone, and De Rothan walked up and down the brick-paved path between the porch and the gate, with the two yew-trees cut in the shape of peacocks spreading their tails on either side. There were climbing roses flowering over the rust-red front of the house. The stone pillar of the sun-dial had an edging of rank, green grass.
De Rothan stood by the sun-dial and stared at it reflectively. What a thing was Time, how trivial and yet how urgent with its little droppings of sand or the slow stealing of a shadow! And time, delay, was everything to De Rothan for the moment. It was as though a marvellous clock had been constructed; that he had set it going and was waiting to hear it chime all manner of tunes at the hour of noon, when chance, in the shape of a Sussex squire, threatened to send a pistol bullet into the works, and to ruin the whole mechanism.
How was the thing to be prevented?
De Rothan's consciousness of the imminent peril of a betrayal was like the barking of dogs about a man who was trying to puzzle out some problem. The need for immediate action importuned him. He must have silence, for a week, two weeks, a month, silence till Napoleon's schemes matured, till Villeneuve made his dash for the Channel, and the French bayonets glittered in English meadows.
Supposing he killed this man?
So far as he could see, this grim attempt at a solution would only plunge him into further difficulties. There would be a huge outcry, for it would be next to impossible for him to hope to keep it secret. Even if he pleaded that it had been an affair of honour, the gentry here would not be in a mood to show much pity.
Moreover, Jasper Benham might have handed on his information, though it had been in his possession only a few hours.
It took De Rothan some time to strike the one possible line of attack. The idea came to him as an inspiration. He seized it, and turned it over and over in his mind with the exultant audacity of a man recovering his self-confidence.
De Rothan returned to the parlour, and sat down before the oak bureau by the window. The scratching of a quill pen ran on through the silence. He frowned, and moved restlessly in his chair as he wrote, his whole mind-force concentrating itself upon the wording of that letter. When he had finished it and sealed it, he sat awhile, reflecting. Some one was moving now in the house. Gaston and the other two servants were stirring.
De Rothan went out into the hall and waited. A door opened. Heavy footsteps came down the stairs.