"It doesn't matter," I said cheerfully.

"Ah, but," Rooksby said, "you'll have to leave the country for a time.
Until I can arrange. I will. You can trust me."

"Oh, he'll have to leave the country, for sure," Rangsley said jovially,
"if he wants to live it down. There's five-and-forty warrants out
against me--but they dursent serve 'em. But he's not me."

"It's a miserable business," Ralph said. He had an air of the
profoundest dejection. In the misty light he looked like a man mortally
wounded, riding from a battle-field.

"Let him come with us," the musical voice of Carlos came through the
mist in front of us. "He shall see the world a little."

"For God's sake hold your tongue!" Ralph answered him. "There's mischief
enough. He shall go to France."

"Oh, let the young blade rip about the world for a year or two, squire,"
Rangsley's voice said from behind us.

In the end Ralph let me go with Carlos--actually across the sea, and to
the West Indies. I begged and implored him; it seemed that now there was
a chance for me to find my world of romance. And Ralph, who, though one
of the most law-respecting of men, was not for the moment one of the
most valorous, was wild to wash his hands of the whole business. He did
his best for me; he borrowed a goodly number of guineas from Rangsley,
who travelled with a bag of them at his saddle-bow, ready to pay his men