The Talisman Ring

‘Very true,’ he conceded. ‘I have thought of that, but the risks outweigh the advantages. If it were not for one circumstance I should seriously consider removing Ludovic from this country.’

‘He seems very determined. I don’t think that he would consent to go,’ said Miss Thane.

‘I shouldn’t ask his consent,’ replied Shield.

‘Dear me, you seem to be in a very ruthless mood!’ she remarked. ‘What makes you hesitate to kidnap poor Ludovic?’

‘His marksmanship,’ he answered. ‘A man would have to be in desperate straits before he engaged in a shooting-match with Ludovic. The Beau won’t risk it.’

‘Well,’ said Miss Thane, getting up from her chair, ‘I am far from wishing you to ship Ludovic out of the country (besides, it’s my belief he would come back), but I’ve a notion we are going to see some stirring adventures before we leave this place.’

‘It’s very possible,’ he agreed. ‘Are you afraid?’

She raised her eyes to his face. There was a hint of amusement in them. ‘My dear sir, can you not see that I am positively trembling with fright?’ she said.

He smiled. ‘I beg your pardon. But to have a finger in a pie of Ludovic’s making is enough to cause the bravest to quail! What I chiefly dread is his taking it into his head to break into the Dower House without waiting for word from me. Do you think you can prevent him?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Sarah candidly. ‘But I can at least get word to you if he becomes unmanageable.’

For the time being, however, even Ludovic himself was forced to admit that his strength was not sufficiently recovered to permit of his riding five miles to the Dower House. He had lost a good deal of blood, and had been feverish for long enough to make him tiresomely weak upon first getting up out of his sick-bed. He was not one to submit patiently to being an invalid, not did it seem to be possible to impress him with a sense of the dangerous nature of his situation. Once he was possessed of his clothes, nothing short of turning the key on him could keep him in his room. He strolled about the inn in the most careless way imaginable, his left arm disposed in a sling and Sylvester’s great ruby on his finger. When begged to conceal this too well-known ring somewhere about his person, or to give it back to Tristram for safe-keeping, he said No, he had a fancy to wear Sylvester’s ruby. Twice he nearly walked into the arms of local visitors to the Red Lion, who had come in for a tankard of ale and a chat over the coffee-room fire, and only Miss Thane’s timely intervention prevented him sallying forth into the yard with Sir Hugh to win his bet with a little marksmanship. Miss Thane, accustomed to handling the male, did not attempt to dissuade him from shooting. She merely suggested that if he wished to fire a noisy pistol the cellar would be the best place for such a pastime. Ludovic was just about to argue the point when Sir Hugh providentially pooh-poohed his sister’s suggestion, on the score that no one could be expected to culp a wafer in the wretched light afforded by a branch of candles. This was quite enough to make Ludovic instantly engage to win his wager under these or any other conditions, and down they both went, with Clem in attendance. There being no wafers available a playing-card had to suffice. When Ludovic tossed the ace of hearts to Clem, and said carelessly: ‘Hold it for me, Clem!’ Sir Hugh was shocked almost out of his sleepy placidity, and indeed went so far as to adjure the tapster not to be fool enough to obey. Clem, who, besides possessing boundless faith in Ludovic, would never have dreamed of disobeying his orders, merely grinned at this piece of advice, and held up the card by one corner. Ludovic, lounging on a barrel, inspected the priming of his pistol, requested Thane to move the candles a little to one side, levelled the pistol, and fired. The card fluttered to the ground. Clem, grinning more than ever, picked it up and showed it to Sir Hugh with the pip blown clean out of it.

This feat seemed to call for celebration, and Miss Thane, descending into the cellar in search of them some time later, found that they had broached a keg of Nantes brandy, and had no immediate intention of returning to upper ground. Invigorated by the brandy, Sir Hugh was seized by a desire to emulate Ludovic’s skill – but without Clem’s assistance. His efforts, unattended by success, brought Nye down to put a stop to a sport which was not only riddling the walls of the cellar, but creating enough noise to lead anyone above-stairs to suppose that the inn was being besieged.

Since he was not allowed to step outside the Red Lion, and dissuaded from wandering about at large in it, it was a fortunate circumstance that Eustacie was staying under the same roof with Ludovic. Her presence beguiled the most tedious hour, and her vehement way of saying: ‘But no, Ludovic, you shall not!’ had the power of restraining him where Miss Thane’s reasoned arguments might have failed. He taught Eustacie how to throw dice and how to play piquet; he told her hair-raising and entirely apocryphal tales of adventures to be met with at sea; he teased her, and laughed at her, and ended inevitably by catching her in his sound arm and kissing her.

No sooner had he done it than he recollected the impropriety of such conduct. He released her at once, and said, rather pale, and with the laugh quite vanished from his eyes: ‘I’m sorry! Forgive me!’

Eustacie said earnestly: ‘Oh, I did not mind at all! Besides, you kissed me before, do you not remember?’

‘Oh, that!’ he said. ‘That was a mere cousinly kiss!’

‘And this one, not?’ she said simply. ‘I am glad.’

He ran his hand through his fair locks. ‘I’m a villain to have kissed you at all! Forget that I did! I had no right – I ought to be shot for doing such a thing!’

Eustacie stared at him in the blankest surprise. ‘Voyons, I find that you are excessively rude! I thought you wanted to kiss me!’

‘Of course I wanted to! Oh, devil take it, this won’t do! Eustacie, if everything were different: if I were not a smuggler and an exile I should beg you to marry me. But I am these things, and –’

‘I do not mind about that,’ she interrupted. ‘It is not at all convenable that you should kiss me and then refuse to marry me. I am quite mortified.’

‘I wish to God I could ask you to marry me!’

‘It doesn’t signify,’ said Eustacie, handsomely waiving this formality. ‘If it is against your honour you need not make me an offer. We will just be betrothed without it.’

‘No, we won’t. Not until I have cleared my name.’

‘Yes, but if you cannot clear your name, what then are we to do?’ she demanded.

‘Forget we ever met!’ said Ludovic with a groan.

This Spartan resolve did not commend itself to Eustacie at all. Two large tears sparkled on the ends of her eyelashes, and she said in a forlorn voice: ‘But me, I have a memory of the very longest!’

Ludovic, seeing the tears, could not help putting his arm round her again. ‘Sweetheart, don’t cry! I can’t possibly let you marry me if I’m to remain an exile all my life.’

Eustacie stood on tiptoe, and kissed his chin. ‘Yes, you can. It is quite my own affair. If I want to marry an exile I shall.’

‘You won’t.’