But if not..." "Oh, it's true enough," broke in Wilding, and his voice was like a groan, his face overcharged with gloom.
Feversham looked at him; his sneering smile returned.
"Me, I not remember," said he, "that Mr.Westercott 'ave include you in t'e bargain." Nothing had been further from Wilding's thoughts than such a suggestion.
And he snorted his disdain.

The sergeant had fallen back at Feversham's words, and his men lined the wall of the chamber.

The General bade Richard be seated whilst he waited.

Sir Rowland stood apart, leaning wearily against the wainscot, waiting also, his dull wits not quite clear how Richard might have come by so valuable a piece of information, his evil spirit almost wishing it untrue, in his vindictiveness, to the end that Richard might pay the price of having played him false and Ruth the price of having scorned him.
Feversham meanwhile was seeking--with no great success--to engage Mr.Wilding in talk of Monmouth, against whom Feversham harboured in addition to his political enmity a very deadly personal hatred; for Feversham had been a suitor to the hand of the Lady Henrietta Wentworth, the woman for whom Monmouth--worthy son of his father--had practically abandoned his own wife; the woman with whom he had run off, to the great scandal of court and nation.
Despairing of drawing any useful information from Wilding, his lordship was on the point of turning to Blake, when quick steps and the rattle of a scabbard sounded without; the door was thrust open without ceremony, and Captain Wentworth reappeared.
"My lord," he cried, his manner excited beyond aught one could have believed possible in so phlegmatic-seeming a person, "it is true.

We are beset." "Beset!" echoed Feversham.