“It is useless, my lord, longer to play the innocent,” said Aymer.  “Either confess what has been done with the Countess or to the King you go straightway.”

Darby shrugged his shoulders.  “Since you have the rogues to obey you and I have not the information you desire, it must be to the King,” he said.  “And the more haste you use to reach him the quicker will come my time to even scores with you,” and he sat down and began to brush the dirt from his garments.

De Lacy eyed him in stern silence, his resentment growing fiercer as he held it in restraint; while the squire, in equal anger, kept shooting his dagger back and forth in its sheath as if impatient to use it.  And but for the sake of the information Darby could furnish as to Beatrix, the dagger might have been suffered to do its work and De Lacy raise no hand to stay it.  Nay, rather, would he have stood by and watched it strike home with grim satisfaction.

Presently Darby had finished with his clothes and glancing up met De Lacy’s eyes.  A taunting smile came to his lips and he began to whistle softly to himself.  It was De Lacy who spoke first.

“I should like to know,” said he, “how one of your craftiness could be so stupid as to carry off the Countess of Clare?  What possible profit could you think to gain?”

Darby did not answer at once.  When he did, it was with a sneer.

“Methinks, good sir,” he said, “you are too stupid to appreciate that you have, yourself, unwittingly advanced the best proof of my innocence.  Fools, you know, sometimes speak truth.”

“Aye, but even a fool would know that Flat-Nose and you were together in yonder upper room.  Can you explain that, my dear lord?”

Darby laughed.  “Naught easier, Sir Frenchman, if His Majesty deem it necessary.  You will pardon me, however, if I keep you waiting until then.”

“So be it.  We start for Lincoln at daybreak.  Have I your word to ride quietly and attempt no escape, rescue or no rescue?”

“And if I refuse the word?”

“Then shall you go bound hand and foot and strapped to saddle.”

“Pasque Dieu!  It would be most uncomfortable riding, so I pass my word,” Darby replied carelessly.  “But, understand me, it is no acknowledgment of your authority either to demand it or to receive it.”

“As to that I am answerable to the King, not to you,” said De Lacy.  “And further, Sir Abductor, if you violate your word—­which, indeed, I trust but lightly—­you will have an arrow through your carcass ere you have gone two paces.  I wish you good-night,” and leaving Dauvrey in command he returned to the Red Lion.

XIX

BACK TO THE KING

The door of the Inn was barred, and with the hilt of his dagger De Lacy pounded sharply.  It was the host, himself, who admitted him, and as he passed in the man touched his arm.