That would have been his price,
and I should have paid it."
"Oh, my dear, don't you know I would rather have died a score of
deaths?"
"And then, when you came to Dorchester?" she asked. She did not look at
him; her head was lowered and her hands clasped in her lap again.
"We tried to find you, Martin and Fellowes and I."
"Sydney Fellowes?" she said.
"It was a triple alliance," said Crosby. "What the others have done
since I parted with them I do not know. I sought out Rosmore," and then
he told her of the duel and of Harriet Payne. "I should have killed him
that night had we been undisturbed a moment longer, and then I might
never have found you."
"Harriet Payne to be Lady Rosmore, is it possible?" said Barbara. "Do
you suppose Lord Rosmore is honest with her or with us?"
"How can I think otherwise now? He has brought me to you when he could
so easily have kept us apart. Why should he not fulfil the rest of his
promise?"
"Has he told you his scheme?" she asked.
"Yes. In three days we are to leave Dorchester together. I shall wait
with a coach just outside the town, on the road which leads down to the
River Frome, and you are to join me there.
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