CHAPTER XI
THE STRANGER'S NAME
Mistress Betty was the first to recover from terror and surprise. She too had fixed a pair of large and wondering eyes upon the stranger.
"'Tis the gentleman who brought the letter from his lordship last night," she whispered to her mistress.
Patience closed her eyes for a moment: her spirit, which had gone a-roaming into the land of dreams, where dwell heroes and proud knights of old, came back to earth once more.
"Then he must have guessed my brother was here," she murmured, "and did it to save him."
But the tension being relaxed, already the bright and sunny nature, which appeared to be the chief characteristic of the stranger, quickly re-asserted itself, and soon he was laughing merrily.
"Oh! ho! gone, by my faith!" he said to John. "Odd's life! but he swallowed that, clean as a mullet after bait, eh, friend Stich?"
It seemed as if he purposely avoided looking at Patience: perhaps, with the innate delicacy of a kindly nature, he wished to give her time to recover her composure. But now she came forward, turning to him with a gentle smile that had an infinity of pathos in it.
"Sir," she said, "I would wish to thank you..."