There was decidedly humour in the plot, and it was a lusty quarterstaff blow into the bargain.  Beauchamp’s head rang with it.  He could not conceal the stunning effect it had on him.  Gratitude and tenderness toward Cecilia for saving him, at the cost of a partial breach of faith that he quite understood, from the scandal of the public entry into Bevisham on the Tory coach-box, alternated with his interjections regarding his uncle Everard.

At eleven, Cecilia sat in her pony-carriage giving final directions to Mrs. Devereux where to look out for the Esperanza and the schooner’s boat.  ‘Then I drive down alone,’ Mrs. Devereux said.

The gentlemen were all off, and every available maid with them on the coach-boxes, a brilliant sight that had been missed by Nevil and Cecilia.

‘Why, here’s Lydiard!’ said Nevil, supposing that Lydiard must be approaching him with tidings of the second Tory candidate.  But Lydiard knew nothing of it.  He was the bearer of a letter on foreign paper—­marked urgent, in Rosamund’s hand—­and similarly worded in the well-known hand which had inscribed the original address of the letter to Steynham.

Beauchamp opened it and read: 

               Chateau Tourdestelle
                    ’(Eure).

        ’Come.  I give you three days—­no more.

‘Renee.’

The brevity was horrible.  Did it spring from childish imperiousness or tragic peril?

Beauchamp could imagine it to be this or that.  In moments of excited speculation we do not dwell on the possibility that there may be a mixture of motives.

‘I fear I must cross over to France this evening,’ he said to Cecilia.

She replied, ’It is likely to be stormy to-night.  The steamboat may not run.’

’If there’s a doubt of it, I shall find a French lugger.  You are tired, from not sleeping last night.’

‘No,’ she answered, and nodded to Mrs. Devereux, beside whom Mr. Lydiard stood:  ‘You will not drive down alone, you see.’

For a young lady threatened with a tempest in her heart, as disturbing to her as the one gathering in the West for ships at sea, Miss Halkett bore herself well.

CHAPTER XXII

THE DRIVE INTO BEVISHAM

Beauchamp was requested by Cecilia to hold the reins.  His fair companion in the pony-carriage preferred to lean back musing, and he had leisure to think over the blow dealt him by his uncle Everard with so sure an aim so ringingly on the head.  And in the first place he made no attempt to disdain it because it was nothing but artful and heavy-handed, after the mediaeval pattern.  Of old he himself had delighted in artfulness as well as boldness and the unmistakeable hit.  Highly to prize generalship was in his blood, though latterly the very forces propelling him to his political warfare had forbidden the use of it to him.  He saw the patient veteran laying his gun for a long shot—­to give as good as he had received; and in realizing Everard Romfrey’s perfectly placid bearing under provocation, such as he certainly would have maintained while preparing his reply to it, the raw fighting humour of the plot touched the sense of justice in Beauchamp enough to make him own that he had been the first to offend.