Mr. Trenchard's Counterstroke

Now, however much it might satisfy Mr. Wilding to have Ruth's word for it that so long as he left her in peace neither he nor the Cause had any betrayal to fear from her, Mr. Trenchard was of a very different mind.

He fumed and swore and worked himself into a very passion. "Zoons, man!" he cried, "it would mean utter ruin to you if that letter reached Whitehall."

"I realize it; but my mind is easy. I have her promise."

"A woman's promise!" snorted Trenchard, and proceeded with great circumstance of expletives to damn "everything that daggled a petticoat."

"Your fears are idle," Wilding assured him. "What she says, she will do."

"And her brother?" quoth Trenchard. "Have you bethought you of that canary-bird? He'll know the letter's whereabouts. He has cause to fear you more than ever now. Are you sure he'll not be making use of it to lay you by the heels?"

Mr. Wilding smiled upon the fury provoked by Trenchard's concern and love for him. "She has promised," he said with an insistent faith that was fuel to Trenchard's anger, "and I can depend her word."

"So cannot I," snapped his friend.

"The thing that plagues me most," said Wilding, ignoring the remark, "is that we are kept in ignorance of the letter's contents at a time when we most long for news. Not a doubt but it would have enabled us to set our minds at ease on the score of these foolish rumours."