Cashel seemed alarmed at this. There was a mirror in the lid of a paper-case on the table. He took it up and looked at himself anxiously, but was at once relieved by what he saw. “I’m all right,” he said. “I’m not marked. That mouse”—he pointed gayly to the lump under his eye-“will run away to-morrow. I am pretty tidy, considering. But it’s bellows to mend with me at present. Whoosh! My heart is as big as a bullock’s after that run.”
“You ask me to shelter you,” said Lydia, sternly. “What have you done? Have you committed murder?”
“No!” exclaimed Cashel, trying to open his eyes widely in his astonishment, but only succeeding with one, as the other was gradually closing. “I tell you I have been fighting; and it’s illegal. You don’t want to see me in prison, do you? Confound him,” he added, reverting to her question with sudden wrath; “a steam-hammer wouldn’t kill him. You might as well hit a sack of nails. And all my money, my time, my training, and my day’s trouble gone for nothing! It’s enough to make a man cry.”
“Go,” said Lydia, with uncontrollable disgust. “And do not let me see which way you go. How dare you come to me?”
The sponge-marks on Cashel’s face grew whiter, and he began, to pant heavily again. “Very well,” he said. “I’ll go. There isn’t a boy in your stables that would give me up like that.”
As he spoke, he opened the door; but he involuntarily shut it again immediately. Lydia looked through the window, and saw a crowd of men, police and others, hurrying along the elm vista. Cashel cast a glance round, half piteous, half desperate, like a hunted animal. Lydia could not resist it. “Quick!” she cried, opening one of the inner doors. “Go in there, and keep quiet—if you can.” And, as he sulkily hesitated a moment, she stamped vehemently. He slunk in submissively. She shut the door and resumed her place at the writing-table, her heart beating with a kind of excitement she had not felt since, in her early childhood, she had kept guilty secrets from her nurse.
There was a tramping without, and a sound of voices. Then two peremptory raps at the door.
“Come in,” said Lydia, more composedly than she was aware of. The permission was not waited for. Before she ceased speaking a policeman opened the door and looked quickly round the room. He seemed rather taken aback by what he saw, and finally touched his helmet to signify respect for Lydia. He was about to speak, when Phoebe, flushed with running, pushed past him, put her hand on the door, and pertly asked what he wanted.
“Come away from the door, Phoebe,” said Lydia. “Wait here with me until I give you leave to go,” she added, as the girl moved towards the inner door. “Now,” she said, turning courteously to the policeman, “what is the matter?”
“I ask your pardon, mum,” said the constable, agreeably. “Did you happen to see any one pass hereabouts lately?”