it was a singular piece of good luck that the two children with the milk-can should have met dr. hallahan riding homewards down a lane after an ineffectual search for the hounds. it was also fortunate that it being, so to speak, but the third hour of the day, he was perfectly, almost dismally sober. it was barely a quarter of an hour before he was unfastening hugh’s waistcoat and feeling him all over, while lady susan stood silently by. she had found water in a ditch, and brought it in her hat; she stood motionless, with her fashionable head bare to the mist, and when dr. hallahan looked up at her he was aware that a handsomer and more haggardly-set face had never waited for his verdict.{184}

“he’s badly hurt, lady french,” he said, his brogue rough with compassion for her; “he seems to have a couple of ribs broken, and there’s probably concussion too, and it might be a bit of a crush under the horse.”

“oh!” said lady susan stonily. then, her brain travelling slowly on, “can we carry him between us? he only weighs nine six.”

as she spoke she saw that bunbury, slaney, and others were hurrying towards them; it did not surprise her, everything seems to be drawn naturally into the suction of disaster.

afterwards she realized that it was a long time before a messenger returned with a blue counterpane, and other messengers with a couple of rails from a wooden paling. a species of hammock was made, and hugh was, with utmost care, laid in it; she noticed that dr. hallahan told the bearers not to walk in step. then bunbury led up slaney’s horse, and told her she must get{185} on to it, that she was not able to walk. bunbury was white and silent; slaney’s eyes were moist, and her voice unsteady. she seemed to lady susan extraordinarily kind.

they made her drink some whisky out of his flask, and she rode on after the hammock down a sheep-track, along a bohireen that was like the bed of a rocky stream, into yet another endless bohireen. slaney walked beside her; they did not speak, but she knew that slaney was sorry for her. it made her quite sure that hugh was dying.

“where are the hounds?” she said suddenly. “are they killed too?”

“dan’s got them,” bunbury answered; “the fox went down one of the clefts in that field, and fisherman and mexico went after him. the others are all right.”

lady susan rode on in silence, and bunbury, leading his horse, walked by slaney. it was quite unnecessary that he should walk, yet slaney understood.

they neared at length a white house with fir-trees round it; there was a back{186} entrance into the lane, and the hammock was carried into a yard where strange lumber lay about; a broken pumping-engine, signal-posts, long white gates.

“mr. glasgow’s house was nearest,” said slaney, with her eyes on the ground. “dr. hallahan is afraid to take him farther.”

the back door of the house was open, and they went in, finding themselves in the kitchen.

“nobody in,” said dr. hallahan, exploring the back premises rapidly, “and no one here either,” opening and shutting the door of glasgow’s office. “carry him up. i know the house.”

the hammock, with its light burden, was engineered up a narrow staircase; as lady susan followed, she noticed glasgow’s gloves on the hall-table, his hunting-crop in a rack. they reminded her of all that was now so very far away, they added inconceivably to his reality and yet to his remoteness. meeting him again would be more difficult than she had thought.

dr. hallahan opened the door of a room on the landing.

“this is a spare room, i think——” he said, and stopped short.

a woman started up from a table at which she was writing, and stared at them. her hair was straw-coloured, and drooped in nauseous picturesqueness over her coal-black eyebrows; her face was fat and white, her dress was a highly-coloured effort at the extreme of the latest fashion but one; the general effect was elderly.

“i beg your pardon,” said dr. hallahan, recovering himself; “we’ve brought captain french here, he’s very badly hurt, and i can’t take him any farther. perhaps you could show us where to put him—or ask mr. glasgow?”

“mr. glasgow has left;” the voice was nasal and cockney. “you can take the gentleman into his room for the present, but i’m going to have an auction of this furniture in less than a week. i’m just taking an inventory now.”

sheets of foolscap paper were scattered on the table, the list of the furniture sprawled over them in large, black, irregular writing. slaney had seen that writing before; she felt as if she were in a bad dream—a dream that she had dreamt before, one that was both tragic and ridiculous.

“had i arrived lawst evening things might have been different,” went on the yellow-haired lady; “but i missed my train.”

then, with an air that irresistibly suggested the footlights, she moved from behind the table into a clear space in the room. the bad dream culminated; slaney knew what was coming.

“perhaps i had better introduce myself,” said the yellow-haired lady,—“i am mrs. glasgow.”