As she answered, Mr. Kekewich entered at the other end of the chamber, and he heard her reply. "If you save John Lee's life, I'll marry you." "Before Heaven you mean it?" "Before Heaven." "There's my brave heroine!" "Tea is served in the drawing-room, Miss Grace," said Kekewich. CHAPTER XIV STRATEGY When approaching a problem Peter Norcot rarely made any error in his point of attack. By nightfall upon the day of Grace's promise he had left Fox Tor Farm, and only she knew the reason. But to Plymouth Peter did not go. He returned home, visited his safe and took from it the sum of one thousand pounds in notes. Any appeal to authority on behalf of John Lee must be vain. He had been sentenced to death for high treason, and four days separated him from the gallows. Norcot knew that the man would be hanged at Exeter, and that he was to leave Plymouth for that city under a military escort two days after his trial. He had learned the route of march and the constitution of the company responsible for the prisoner's safe custody. The journey would take two days, and the half-way house stood near Ashburton. A non-commissioned officer commanded, and upon that man Peter Norcot centred his hopes. Quarters for the company were already taken at Westover Farm, outside Ashburton; and here the wool-stapler designed to appear in good time. During the hours of that night he doubted little but that he would achieve his purpose. Meanwhile a lesser man--one Thomas Putt--commands undivided attention. When Kekewich returned to the servants' hall after announcing tea to Grace and her lover, he found Mrs. Beer there. To them entered Tom with a fine salmon; but no voice of approval rewarded his achievement, for Kekewich was full of the tragic thing he had just heard. "What a light it do throw!" cried Dinah Beer. "Poor tibby lamb; an' the hunger of that dreadful wolf for her! Now he'll get Lee off--see if he don't--though he's got to ax King George." "If Lee knowed the price, I'm thinking as 'twould be more than Norcot could do to free him," said Kekewich. "I was for this marriage heart an' soul, so much as master; but he've changed since she runned away; an' so have I. I'm generally of his mind in secret, though I never tell the man so." "'Tis too dreadful to think of," declared Dinah. "Poor dear Jack!--yet the price of his getting off be dreadful too." "'Twill kill her to marry him--honest gentleman though he be," said Kekewich. "An' she'll do it. If Mr. Norcot gets Lee off, she'll take him without another murmur." Then Tom Putt spoke. He knew a great deal about the matter of Lee, for he had been permitted to see John at Prince Town and had afterwards got a message to him, through Sergeant Bradridge, that Grace Malherb was safe. To the sergeant fell Lee's custody, and Putt knew that on the morrow his uncle Septimus Bradridge would convey John from Plymouth a day's march to Westover Farm.