"There's never a saner man in this county," was the fierce reply. "It's what I've worked for. It's the worst blow I can deal his pride. Oh, I know she is a haughty lady! You'll step into her chamber, and she'll see you, and she'll shriek for her servants, but--but, David," he added, leaning forward, "they'll find you there--they'll find you there! The Marquis--he'll be told. The nephew of Richard Vont will be found in his daughter's chamber! There'll be explanations enough, but those things stick."
David suddenly found himself laughing like a madman.
"Uncle," he cried, "for God's sake--for Heaven's sake, listen to me. This is the maddest scheme that ever entered into any one's head. I should be treated simply like a common burglar. I should have no excuse to offer, nothing to say. I should be thrown out of the house, and there isn't a human being breathing who'd think the worse of the Lady Letitia. You don't know what she's like! She's wonderful! She's--"
"I'll not argue with you, boy," Vont interrupted doggedly. "You think I know nothing of the world and its ways, of the tale-bearing and the story-telling that goes on, women backbiting each other, men grasping even at shadows for a sensation. You'll do your job, David, you'll keep your oath, and from to-night you'll stand free of me. There'll be no more. You can lift your head again after you've crossed that threshold. Make what excuse you like--come back, if you will, like a frightened hare after they've found you there--but you'll have stood in her bedchamber!"
David shivered like a man in a fever. He was beginning to realise that this was no nightmare--that the wild-eyed man by his side was in sober and ghastly earnest.
"Uncle," he pleaded, "not this. Lady Letitia has been kind and gracious to me always. We can't strike through women. I'd rather you bade me take his life."
"But I don't bid you do anything of the sort," was the sullen reply. "Death's no punishment to any man, and the like of him's too brave to feel the fear of it. It's through her the blow must come, and you'll do my bidding, David, or you'll see me sitting waiting for you to-morrow, with a last message to you upon my dead lips."
David gripped the torch from his hand. After all, Hell might come to any man!