"Dora! Why, what is it? What is it, my darling? Tell me, tell me—ah, don't, don't cry, don't tremble like that."
She had not controlled herself to answer him when sound of wheels came down the road, lamps through the gloom. She checked herself, and was at her horse's head when there drew up a carriage sent from the Abbey to meet her and bring her back in shelter from the rain. A groom took her horse and, standing by the door as she entered, prevented explanation she might have made—had she been able to explain.
IV
Had she been able—for the thing that caused her sudden tears and sudden plea was no more than a glimpse, one of those transient glimpses of the walls, of the purpose, of the end of her training; differing from other glimpses that sometimes came in that it caught her unstrung. If it flickered again in the weeks that followed, it little more disturbed her than sudden shadow across the garden disturbs the butterfly passing among the flowers; a flicker of misgiving, a vague disturbance—gone. The year's end took her away with her mother to town. Succeeding Autumn that brought them back started Percival to the Argentine.
"I just miss everybody by going by this boat," he told Aunt Maggie, sitting with her far into the night before his departure. "There's Ima coming to you to look after you till I get back and not coming till next week, so I just miss her; and old Japhra bringing her, so I miss seeing him too; and then"—he paused for the briefest moment—"there's Dora and her mother staying another fortnight abroad so I miss them; and old Rollo and Lady Burdon due next month—I miss them all. It's the rottenest luck."
"They'll all be here for you when you get back," Aunt Maggie said.
He paused again before he spoke. "Yes. That's where my luck's going to be dead in. I could tell you something, Aunt Maggie," and he laughed. "But I won't—yet. My luck—look here, tell old Japhra this from me; tell him I'm coming back for—he'll understand—the Big Fight, and going to win it!"
CHAPTER XI
NEWS OF HUNT. NEWS OF ROLLO. NEWS OF DORA