‘It will be to mine,’ says she, smiling, but very faintly. Tears are in her eyes. ‘You—you will come with her, won’t you? Don’t let me have to see her alone at first. You know her, and I don’t. And you—’
‘Very well, I’ll bring her,’ says Wyndham, with an inward groan. What the deuce is going to be the end of it all?
He does not leave by the little green gate this time, but going down at a swinging pace (that has a good deal of temper in it) to the principal entrance, meets there with Mrs. Moriarty, who has been on the look-out for him for the past half-hour.
‘An’ did ye hear what happened to Denis, yer honour?’
‘To Denis?’—abstractedly. Then, recovering himself, and with a good deal of his late temper still upon him: ‘Of course I’ve been wondering all day where he was. Not a soul to attend to me. He was drunk, as usual, I suppose.’
‘Fegs, you’ve guessed it,’ says Mrs. Moriarty, clapping her hands with unbounded admiration. ‘Dhrunk he was—the ould reprobate!’
‘Well, I hope he’ll turn up this evening, at all events,’ says Wyndham. ‘It is extremely uncomfortable, going on like this. If he can’t attend to me, I’ll have to get another man. I have borne a good deal already, and I hope you will let him fully understand that if he isn’t at my rooms at seven I shall dismiss him.’
‘An’ who’d blame ye?’ says Mrs. Moriarty. ‘Faith, I’ve often thought of dismissing him meself. But’—slowly—‘he can’t be at yer rooms at seven, yer honour.’
‘And why not?’—angrily.
‘He’s bruk his arm, sir.’