“Yes.”
“I hope to goodness they won’t put me in a butt next old Sir Timothy Quayle. He’s dangerous. Talk of being under fire! He blazed right into me—cannot see a yard. No business on a moor. Never was so frightened in my life! I threw clods at him and yelled, and he thought it was something to do with the coveys. There’ll be an accident some day. I say, why aren’t we moving? Where’s the marquis?”
“Down there by the waterfall, talking to Lord Mulgrave.”
“Well, I’m here to shoot my twenty to forty brace, not to talk”—rising to his feet and stretching himself. “I wish—— Oh, I see, it’s all right. There go the beaters.”
“I say, Owen,” said the marquis, as he joined him, “I hope you have not had bad news, old boy?”
“No,” replied the other, raising a colourless face, “but news that, if it is true, is the best that has come to me for more than twenty years. Here”—and he thrust the letter into his friend’s hand. “You had better read it yourself. To tell you the truth, I’m a bit knocked out of time. Of course, I’m going to Ireland to-night.”
“Ireland!” echoed his companion. “What in the world would take you there?”
“Read that, and you will understand.”
The marquis, who was near-sighted, deliberately fumbled for his pince-nez, stuck it on his nose, and read with provoking leisure.