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"As much as he need have to start with. Didn't he help her to escape from Dorrimore's arms when the fool thought he had her safe?" "What!" screamed Sally, "Was he the man?" "Aye. I've not yet plucked the crow between him and me for that, but by gad, I mean to pluck it." "It won't be by fair means then. You're too much of a coward. See here, you devil.
Bullies and thieves abounded in the southern approaches to the bridge. She crept down to one of the abutments of the bridge and tremulously listened to the turmoil going on above. Meanwhile the man who had come to her rescue was being hardly pressed. He was surrounded by a mob led by Dorrimore's coachman.
The young man whose purse she was holding tightly how was he faring? She could not help him by staying. Dorrimore and Dorrimore's coachman with the guinea he had offered for her capture had to be thought of. Her danger was by no means over. The roadway was comparatively clear. Now was her chance if she was ever to have one.
She was on the point of plunging into her history and there was no necessity for doing this. She had not said a word to Lancelot Vane about herself and she did not intend to do so. He must think what he pleased about the adventure which had brought them together. He must have seen her leap from Dorrimore's carriage nay, he may have caught sight of Dorrimore himself.
All that remained to be discussed was what would follow supposing fortune favoured them, and they subsided into a whispered conference which was after a time interrupted by some of Dorrimore's boon companions, who carried him off to a wild revelry in the Covent Garden taverns with the last hour at the "Finish," the tavern of ill-repute on the south side of the market.
"Humph," muttered Rofflash, "so much the better. The end on't is I pocket Dorrimore's gold and no sharing out. If Sally likes to be a fool 'tis her affair and not mine. I've only got to keep my eye on her. What a woman like her wants she'll get, even if it costs her her life. Sooner or later, madam, you'll find your way to the fellow's lodgings, and it'll go hard if I'm not on the spot too."
Meanwhile Dorrimore's head was still out of the window. He was calling to the waggoner and offering him a crown to pull his horses and load to one side, but it was no easy task to move the gigantic lumbering wain with its tilt as big as a haystack and its wheels a foot thick.
Who did that?" and he laid his hand on the hilt of his sword. "At your service, sir. Give me the credit of it. Captain Jeremy Rofflash isn't the man to let the chance of a little pretty sword play go by." The speaker was the man who acted as Dorrimore's coachman. He was every inch a braggadocio.
Then Dorrimore's arm stole round her waist. Well, this was not unnatural. Would they not be soon man and wife? The puzzle was that she had no feeling of response. She would rather that he did not embrace her. She did not want to be noticed. Yet she could not find it in her heart to be unkind, so she allowed him to draw her nearer, to let her head droop on his shoulder.
Then she caught sight of a piece of paper peeping from the bosom of the girl's dress. The next instant she had gently drawn it out and was reading it. The paper was Dorrimore's letter. "Of course, I knew there was a man at the bottom of the business. And a marriage too. Hoity toity, that's another pair of shoes." She threw back a fold of the cloak, and scrutinised Lavinia's left hand.
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