"I’ll stay the night at Aldwark," he said, nodding to the smith. "Faith! no more travelling after dark for me on this unhallowed Moor; and for sure my horses could not reach Wirksworth now before nightfall. So have the pistols ready for me by seven o’clock to-morrow morning, eh, mine honest friend?" Then he entered his carriage, and slowly, with many a creak and a groan, the cumbersome vehicle turned down the road to Aldwark, whilst John Stich, with a dubious, anxious sigh, went back into his forge. CHAPTER VII THE HALT AT THE MOORHEN Patience herself would have been quite unable to explain why she mistrusted, almost feared, Sir Humphrey Challoner. The fact that the Squire of Hartington had openly declared his admiration for her, surely gave her no cause for suspecting him of enmity towards her brother. She knew that Sir Humphrey hoped to win her hand in marriage—this he had intimated to her on more than one occasion, and had spoken of his love for her in no measured terms. Lady Patience Gascoyne was one of the richest gentlewomen in the Midlands, having inherited vast wealth from her mother, who was sister and co-heiress of the rich Grantham of Grantham Priory. No doubt her rent-roll added considerably to her attractions in the eyes of Sir Humphrey; that she was more than beautiful only helped to enhance the ardour of his suit. Women as a rule—women of all times and of every nation—keep a kindly feeling in their heart for the suitor whom they reject. A certain regard for his sense of discrimination, an admiration for his constancy—if he be constant—make up a sum of friendship for him tempered with a gentle pity. But in most women too there is a subtle sense which for want of a more scientific term has been called an instinct: the sense of protection over those whom they love. In Patience Gascoyne that sense was abnormally developed: Philip was so boyish, so young, she so much older in wisdom and prudence. It made her fear Sir Humphrey, not for herself but for her brother: her baby, as in her tender motherly heart she loved to call him. She feared and suspected him, she scarce could tell of what. Not open enmity towards Philip, since her reason told her that the Squire of Hartington had nothing to gain by actively endangering her brother’s life, let alone by doing him a grievous wrong. Yet she could not understand Sir Humphrey Challoner’s motive in counselling Philip to play so cowardly and foolish a part, as the boy had done in the late rebellion. Vaguely she trembled at the idea that he should know of her journey to London, or worse still, guess its purpose. Philip, she feared, might have confided in him unbeknown to her: Sir Humphrey, for aught she knew, might know of the existence of the letters which would go to prove the boy’s innocence.