What be her cards you ask? Even these:— The heart, that doth but crave
More, having fed; the diamond,
Skilled to make base seem brave;
The club, for smiting in the dark
The spade, to dig a grave.
—Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
The one supreme moment of complete and abject weakness was soon past; it had gone by in solitude. No one saw the fall of the defiant reprobate brought to the dust by the intensity of his grief. No one but God and triumphant Love.
 
Within a few minutes Michael had gathered together his scattered senses. What avail were tears and the bitter joys of lingering memories when there was still so much to do? Of a truth, Rose Marie's firm attitude of loyalty towards her rightful husband had not so much astonished Michael, for to a man who loves, the adored one necessarily possesses every virtue that ever adorned the halo of a saint; but he did not know that she loved her husband, and the warmth of her defence of the absent one had, in Michael's ears, sounded like the expression of her love. He did not stop to reason, to visualize the fact that Rose Marie did not know Stowmaries, that the passion in her voice had the ring of tragic despair in it, coupled with the sublime ardour of heroic self-sacrifice.
 
A man in love never stops to reason. Passion and the dormant seeds of ever-present jealousy still the powers of common sense.
 
[343]
 
The thought that Rose Marie loved him, the remembrance of that day when he had held her in his arms, feeling her young body quivering at his touch, seeing her eyes glowing in response to his ardour, her exquisite lips moist with the promise of a kiss, these had been his life during the past few months; they had been the very breath of his body, the blood in his veins, the strength which bore him through all that he had set himself to do.
 
The winning of name and estate, and then a reconquering of his snowdrop, with a foregone certainty of victory ahead, that had been his existence.
 
A foregone certainty of victory! How oft had he exulted at the thought, drugging his despair with the intoxicating potion of hope, and now one brief word from her and defeat had been more hopeless, more complete than before.
 
"I am his wife," she said; "his wife in the sight of God; his wife despite the infamy in which you bore the leading hand!"
 
Michael had thought of everything, had envisaged everything save this: that Rose Marie would turn from him, because she loved the other. Loyalty and love, love and passion, were all synonymous to the impatient ardour, the proud defiance of this splendid blackguard—splendid in this, that he never swerved from the path into which he had once engaged his footsteps, never looked back with purposeless longing, and neither cursed Fate nor ever gave way to despair.
 
Even now, he pulled himself together, and within half an hour of the Legros' departure from his house he was on his way to see his friend Sir William Jones, the Attorney-General, first, and thence to his cousin's house on the outskirts of Piccadilly.
 
[344]
 
Rupert Kestyon—by the king's mandate no longer Lord of Stowmaries now—still occupied the same house into which he had made triumphant entry some two years ago on the death of the old earl. It was an ancient family mansion built a century and a half back, with gigantic and elaborate coat of arms carved in stone above the majestic porch. The serving-man who in response to Michael's peremptory knocking opened the massive door to him, gave no outward sign that so great a change had come, and with appalling suddenness, in the fortunes of his master.
 
He even addressed Michael as "sir" and spoke of "his lordship" being still in his room upstairs.
 
Impatiently waving the man aside, Michael threw hat and cloak down in the hall, and not waiting to be formally announced he ran quickly up the broad staircase. He knew the house well, for in childhood he had oft been in it, when his mother, holding him by the hand, came to ask for pecuniary assistance from the wealthy kinsman.
 
Without hesitation, therefore, Michael went up to the door of the principal bedroom and gave an impatient rap with his knuckles on the solid panel.
 
A fretful "Come in!" from within invited him to enter.
 
Rupert Kestyon was lying on the monumental four-post bedstead stretched out flat on his back and staring moodily into the glowing embers of the wood-fire which was burning in the wide-open grate.
 
At sight of his cousin he jumped up to a sitting posture; a deep frown of anger puckered his brow, and lent to the face a look of savagery. He stared at Michael for awhile, more than astonished at this unlooked-for appearance of his triumphant enemy; then he blurted out in his overwhelming wrath:
 
"Out of my house! Out of my house, you thief—you[345]—out of here, I say—the men are still my servants—and I am still master here."
 
He put his feet to the ground, and made straightway for the door, but Michael intercepted him, and gripping the young man's wrists with his own strong fingers, he pushed him gently but firmly back.
 
"Easy, easy, Coz!" he said with kindly firmness; "by our Lady, but 'tis poor policy to harass the harbinger of good news."
 
"Good news," quoth Rupert, who was boiling over with rage, "good news from you, who have just robbed me of my inheritance!"
 
"'Twas an even game, good Coz," retorted Michael good-naturedly. "My father, my mother and I had all been robbed in the past, and left in a more pitiable plight, believe me, than it was ever my intention to leave you."
 
"Prate not of your intentions, man. You used my money, the money I myself did give you, in order to wage war against me, and press a claim which you never would have made good but for that money which I gave you."
 
"Let us be fair, good Coz. I offered you the whole of that money back on that memorable night in April at the inn of St. Denis."
 
"Ay, on a ridiculous condition to which I cared not to agree."
 
"The ridiculous condition," said Michael gravely, "consisted in your acknowledging as your lawful wife, an exquisitely beautiful and virtuous lady who already had claim on your loyalty."
 
"The exquisitely beautiful lady," retorted Rupert with an ugly sneer, "had, an I mistake not, already dragged her virtue in the wake of your chariot, my friend."
 
[346]
 
"Silence, man," said Michael sternly, "for you know that you lie."
 
"Will you attempt to deny that your magnanimous offer at St. Denis was made because you were in love with my wife?"
 
"I'll not deny it, but what my feelings were in the matter concerned no one but myself."
 
"Mayhap, mayhap, but e'en you admit, good Coz," quoth Rupert with obvious spite, "that a wife's conduct—"
 
"Your wife's conduct, Cousin, is beyond reproach," broke in Michael calmly, "as you know right full well."
 
"Pardi! Since she is in love with you—"
 
"That, too, is a lie—She loves no one but you."
 
"Mayhaps she told you so?" queried the young man, as with a yawn of ostentatious indifference he stretched himself out again—on a couch this time, with one booted leg resting on the ground and tapping it impatiently, whilst the other kicked savagely at an unoffensive sofa-cushion, tearing its silk cover to shreds.
 
"Yes!" replied Michael calmly, "she hath told me so." Then as the other broke into a loud, sarcastic laugh, he continued earnestly:
 
"Listen, Cousin, for what I am about to tell you concerns the whole of your future. You are a penniless beggar now—nay, do not interrupt me—I have well weighed every word which I speak, and have an answer for each of your sneers—you are a penniless beggar—through no fault of your own, mayhap, but I was a beggar, too, through none of mine. My mother was left—almost to starve—alone in a God-forsaken village. For years I kept actual starvation from her by courting wounds in order to get blood-money. That has been your fault ever since the old uncle's death, Cousin, for you knew that your kinswoman[347] starved, and did naught to help her. But that is over, let it pass! I was a wastrel, a reprobate, a dissolute blackguard an you will! Had I been a better man than I was, you had never dared to offer me money to dishonour a woman. Let that pass too. But this I swear before God that I never meant to dishonour the girl. I was ready to take her to my heart, to give her all that she asked and more, the moment you in your wantonness had cast her off. But she is too proud to take anything from me, and wants nothing but her rights. Nay, you must listen to me patiently, till I have told you all—She is loyal to you, with heart and soul and body, and hath come to England to beg of you to render her justice."
 
"Have I not told you, man," here broke in Rupert Kestyon, with a blasphemous oath which momentarily drowned the quieter tones of the other man, "have I not told you that were that accursed tailor and his miserable wench to go on their knees to me, I would not have her—no, a thousand times no—with the last penny left in my pocket I'll obtain the decree of nullity, and marry the woman whom I love—"
 
"If she'll have you, Cousin," quoth Michael drily, "now that you are a beggar."
 
In a moment Rupert was on his feet again, burning with rage, swearing mad oaths in his wrath, and clenching his fists with a wild desire to rush at Michael and grip him by the throat.
 
"Nay, Coz," said the latter with a smile, "let us not fight like two brawling villains. My fist is heavier than yours: and if you attack me, I should have in defending mine own throat to punish you severely. But why should you rage at me; I have come to you with good intent. Think you, I would have left you to shift for yourself in this inhospi[348]table world? Great God, do I not know what it means to shift for oneself—the misery, the wretchedness, the slow but certain degradation of mind and of body? By all the saints, man, I would not condemn mine enemy to such a life as I have led these past ten years."
 
"You do the tailor's wench no good anyhow by preaching to me," growled Rupert sulkily, feeling somewhat shamed.
 
He sat down once more, in an attitude of dejection, resting his elbows on his knees and burying his head in his hands.
 
"I did not come to preach," rejoined Michael quietly. "A blackguard like me hath no right to preach, and a blackguard like you, Cousin, is not like to listen. Nay, man, we are quits; we have both of us a pretty black mark against us in the book of records up there. 'Tis nigh on a year ago now that you came to me with your proposals. They have had far wider reaching consequences than any of us had dreamed of at the time. When I made a proposal to you at the inn at St. Denis, you refused my terms peremptorily—they were not sufficiently munificent, it seems, to tempt you to right a great wrong. I felt my weakness, then. I had no more to offer than just the return of your own money. You were a rich man still and could afford to pay largely for the satisfaction of a wanton caprice. But now matters stand differently; the money which you so contemptuously flung away at St. Denis hath borne royal fruit. I made that money work; I forced it to toil and slave to gain my purpose. I have beggared you, Cousin, and made myself powerful and strong, not because I hated you, not because I any longer desire dignity and riches, but because I wanted to hold in my hand a bribe that would be regal enough to tempt you."
 
[349]
 
He paused awhile, with stern dark eyes fixed on the weak, somewhat feminine face before him. Rupert Kestyon's vacillating pupils searched his cousin's face, trying to divine his thoughts. He raised his head, and rubbed his eyes, like a man wakened from sleep, and stared at Michael as on a man bereft of his senses.
 
"I do not understand," he stammered in his bewilderment.
 
"Yet, 'tis simple enough," resumed Michael calmly. "The good tailor whom you despise hath come over from France because he had heard rumours that a charge of conspiracy against the king was being brought against you by false informers."
 
"Great God!" murmured Rupert, who at these words had suddenly become pale, whilst great beads of perspiration rose upon his forehead.
 
"Ay," said the other, "we know what that means, Cousin. Your name amongst those implicated in this so-called Popish plot—think you you'll escape the block? Hath any one escaped it hitherto who hath come within the compass of the lies told by that scoundrel Oates?"
 
"It's not true," murmured Rupert Kestyon.
 
"What is............