“I have come for my wife,” he said.

“Your wife!  Juliet!” The squire stared at him as if he thought him demented.  “Why, she left ages ago, man,—­soon after tea!”

“Yes, yes, I know,” Dick said.  He spoke rapidly, but with decision.  “But she came back here an hour or two ago.  You are giving her shelter.  Saltash brought her—­or no—­she probably came alone.”

“You are mad!” said Fielding, and turned to shut the window.  “She hasn’t been near since she left this evening.”

“Wait!” Dick’s hand shot out and caught his arm, restraining him.  “Do you swear to me that you don’t know, where she is?”

The squire stood still, looking full and hard into the face so near his own; and so looking, he realized, what he had not grasped before, that it was the face of a man in torture.  The savage grip on his arm told the same story.  The fiery eyes that stared at him out of the death-white countenance had the awful look of a man who sees his last hope shattered.

Impulsively he laid his free hand upon him.  “Dick—­Dick, old chap,—­what’s all this?  Of course I don’t know where she is!  Do you think I’d lie to you?”

“Then I’ve lost her!” Dick said, and with the words some inner vital spring seemed to snap within him.  He flung up; his arms, freeing himself with a wild gesture.  “My God, she has gone—­gone with that scoundrel!”

“Saltash?” said the squire sharply.

“Yes.  Saltash!” He ground the name between his teeth.  “Does that surprise you so very much?  Don’t you know the sort of infernal blackguard he is?”

The squire turned again to shut the window.  “Damn it, Dick!  I don’t believe a word of it,” he said with vigour.  “Get your wind and have a drink, and let’s hear the whole story!  Have you and Juliet been quarrelling?”

Dick ignored his words as if he had not spoken.  “You needn’t shut the window,” he said.  “I’m going again.  I’m going now.”

It was the squire’s turn to assert himself, and he seized it.  He shut the window with a bang.  “You are not, Dick!  Don’t be a fool!  Sit down!  Do you hear?  Sit down!  You’re not going yet—­not till you’ve told me the whole trouble.  So you can make up your mind to that!”

Dick looked at him for a moment as if he were on the verge of fierce resistance, but Fielding’s answering look held such unmistakable resolution that after the briefest pause he turned aside.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he said, and tramped heavily across to the hearth.  “Put up with me if you can!  God knows I’m up against it hard enough to-night.”

He rested his arms on the mantelpiece and laid his head down upon them, and so stood motionless, in utter silence.

The squire came to him in a few seconds with a glass in his hand.  “Here you are, Dick!  This is what you’re wanting.  Swallow it before you talk any more!”

Dick reached out in silence and took the glass.  Then he stood up and drank, keeping his face averted.