‘Yes,’ said Sir George mockingly.  ’We are in search of her.  And we want to know where she is.’

‘Where she is?’

’Yes, where she is.  That is it; where she is.  You were to meet her here, you know.  You are late and she has gone.  But you will know whither.’

Mr. Dunborough stared; then in a tempest of wrath and chagrin, ’D——­n you!’ he cried furiously.  ’As you know so much, you can find out the rest!’

‘I could,’ said Sir George slowly.  ’But I prefer that you should help me.  And you will.’

‘Will what?’

‘Will help me, sir,’ Sir George answered quickly, ’to find the lady we are seeking.’

‘I’ll be hanged if I will,’ Dunborough cried, raging and furious.

‘You’ll be hanged if you won’t,’ Sir George said in a changed tone; and he laughed contemptuously.  ’Hanged by the neck until you are dead, Mr. Dunborough—­if money can bring it about.  You fool,’ he continued, with a sudden flash of the ferocity that had from the first underlain his sarcasm, ’we have got enough from your own lips to hang you, and if more be wanted, your people will peach on you.  You have put your neck into the halter, and there is only one way, if one, in which you can take it out.  Think, man; think before you speak again,’ he continued savagely, ’for my patience is nearly at an end, and I would sooner see you hang than not.  And look you, leave your reins alone, for if you try to turn, by G—­d, I’ll shoot you like the dog you are!’

Whether he thought the advice good or bad, Mr. Dunborough took it; and there was a long silence.  In the distance the hoof-beats of the servant’s horse, approaching from the direction of Chippenham, broke the stillness of the moonlit country; but round the three men who sat motionless in their saddles, glaring at one another and awaiting the word for action, was a kind of barrier, a breathlessness born of expectation.  At length Dunborough spoke.

‘What do you want?’ he said in a low tone, his voice confessing his defeat.  ‘If she is not here, I do not know where she is.’

‘That is for you,’ Sir George answered with a grim coolness that astonished Mr. Fishwick.  ’It is not I who will hang if aught happen to her.’

Again there was silence.  Then in a voice choked with rage Mr. Dunborough cried, ‘But if I do not know?’

‘The worse for you,’ said Sir George.  He was sorely tempted to put the muzzle of a pistol to the other’s head and risk all.  But he fancied that he knew his man, and that in this way only could he be effectually cowed; and he restrained himself.

‘She should be here—­that is all I know.  She should have been here,’ Mr. Dunborough continued sulkily, ‘at eight.’

‘Why here?’

’The fools would not take her through Chippenham without me.  Now you know.’

‘It is ten, now.’

‘Well, curse you,’ the younger man answered, flaring up again, ’could I help it if my horse fell?  Do you think I should be sitting here to be rough-ridden by you if it were not for this?’ He raised his right arm, or rather his shoulder, with a stiff movement; they saw that the arm was bound to his side.  ‘But for that she would be in Bristol by now,’ he continued disdainfully, ’and you might whistle for her.  But, Lord, here is a pother about a college-wench!’