midnight
Indeed , their fortunes -- so far as Ruth was concerned -- were bound up together . The baronet saw that Richard , half-fuddled , was ripe for any confidences that might aim at the destruction of his enemy . He questioned him adroitly , and drew from him the story of the rising that was being planned , and of the share that Mr. Wilding -- one of the Duke of Monmouth 's chief movement-men -- bore in the business that was toward . When , towards midnight , Richard Westmacott went home , he left in Sir Rowland 's hands an instrument which the latter accounted potential not only for the destruction of Anthony Wilding , but perhaps also for laying the foundations to the building of his own fortunes anew . Here was Sir Rowland Blake in high fettle at knowing himself armed with a portentous weapon for the destruction of Anthony Wilding . Upon closer inspection of it , however , he came to realize -- as Richard had realized earlier -- that it was double-edged , and that the wielding of it must be fraught with as much danger for Richard as for their common enemy . For to betray Mr. Wilding and the plot would scarce be possible without betraying young Westmacott , and that was unthinkable , since to ruin Richard -- a thing he would have done with a light heart so far as Richard was himself concerned -- would be to ruin his own hopes of winning Ruth .