Hamer stared a minute, but said nothing. What game had Dandy been playing? Had Lanty really mistaken her for the “girl”?
“Miss Lancaster’s all right now, anyhow. She and Dandy Anne are having a cosy chat in the drawing-room, snug as snug. She’s very easy thrown out of gear. Dandy’s cosseting her a bit.”
“It’s very kind of Miss Shaw.” Hamer glanced at him shrewdly, but found the answer purely mechanical. No; this wasn’t Dandy’s hour, he decided with a sigh.
“I heard the—bad news—before I left. Lancaster, I can’t forgive myself for having that show of mine, last night!”
“It made very little difference.”
“A deal, surely! There’d have been many more, sheep saved, if the men had been on the spot.”
“I doubt it. You forget that they didn’t think the storm anything out of the common.”
“Except Brack. It was queer how he knew, wasn’t it? I’m blessed if I can make it out! He certainly did his best to warn us.”
“Perhaps. But Brack’s was hardly a business proposition.”
His tone was cold, and Hamer felt suddenly silenced. He raised his eyes to the portrait above them, vivid with energy and pride, remembering Helwise’s hysterical conviction, and the likeness between father and son, always marked, struck him strangely to-night. Reversion to type is always the first strong instinct to emerge under great stress. There had been something much deeper than she knew behind Miss Lancaster’s chattered fears.