"What! back so soon, Lord Spunyarn? Is anything the matter?" said Mrs. Dodd.
"Something dreadful has happened."
"Has there been an accident? Has anything happened to George?" cried the mother, and the colour left her lips as she rose excitedly.
At that moment the old lord entered the room.
"George is safe, dear madam," said her husband's old friend, "but I have hurried here as the bearer of bad news, and I must bid you prepare for the worst."
"Gad, sir, don't keep us in suspense," cried old Lord Pit Town, with the irritability of age. "Is Lucius the victim?"
"No, the boys are safe, dear Mrs. Haggard," he continued. "My old friend is badly hurt. In passing through a hedge——"
But Mrs. Haggard had fainted in the arms of the vicar's wife.
And then Lord Spunyarn told his tale to the old man, while Mrs. Dodd and the women-servants who, unsummoned, had appeared upon the scene, busied themselves around the fainting woman.
It appeared that in getting through a hedge to pick up a bird that, wounded, had managed to struggle through it, Reginald Haggard's gun had suddenly exploded and lodged a charge of shot in his chest. It was not from carelessness; but Haggard's foot had caught in a rabbit burrow, and as he fell the accident happened. Before their eyes the thing had taken place. There was nothing mysterious about it. It was terribly sudden, that was all.