They were retracing their steps when along a green alley they saw Mr. Hanmer coming down to meet them. He was alone, and his face, always grave, seemed to Ruth graver than ever.
"Dicky!" said he. "Service, if you please."
"Ay, sir!" Dicky's small person stiffened at once, and Dicky's hand went up to the salute.
"Wait here, please. I wish a word in private with Lady Vyell—if you will forgive me, ma'am?"
"Why to be sure, sir," she answered, wondering. As he turned, she walked on with him. After some fifty paces she confronted him under the pale-green dappled shadows of the alley.
"Something has happened? Is it serious?"
"Yes."
Looking straight before him, as they resumed their walk, he told her; in brief words that seemed, as he jerked them out, to be pumped from him; that made no single coherent sentence, and yet were concise as a despatch.
This in substance was Mr. Hanmer's report:—
They had remained on the terrace, seated, as she had left them— Captain and Mrs. Harry, Miss Quiney and he. The Captain was talking. . . . A servant brought word that two ladies—Mr. Hanmer could not recall their names—had called from Boston and desired to see Mrs. Vyell. "Surely," protested Mrs. Harry, "they must mean Lady Vyell?" The servant was positive: Mrs. Captain Vyell had been the name. "They are anxious to pay their respects," suggested Miss Quiney. "Anxious indeed! Why we landed but a few hours since. They must have galloped." Miss Quiney was sent to offer them refreshment and discover their business.