Walter at once called Larry.
"Larry, get my horse saddled, and tell Browning to saddle his. Place two pillions behind the saddles. Mrs. Conyers and her daughter are going to ride into Limerick at once."
"The Lord be praised!" Larry said piously. "That's the best news I have heard this many a day."
"And, Larry," Mrs. Conyers said, "tell the three boys in the stable to saddle the three best horses, and ride with us. If we lose everything else, we may as well retain them, for it would not be easy to buy others now."
In ten minutes, all was ready for a start. Walter and the trooper took their places in the saddles, chairs were brought out, and Mrs. Conyers and Claire mounted behind them. Walter had asked Mrs. Conyers to take her seat on the pillion on his horse, but she did not answer, and when Walter turned to see that she was comfortably placed behind him, he found that it was Claire who was seated there.
"Mamma told me to," the girl said. "I suppose she thought this was, perhaps, the last ride we should take together."
"For the present, Claire--you should say, for the present. I hope it will not be long before we are together again.
"And for good," he added, in a low voice.
Mrs. Conyers made no comment, when they dismounted and entered the house of a friend at Limerick, upon Claire's swollen eyes and flushed cheeks, but said "goodbye" lightly to Walter, thanked him for his escort, and said that she hoped to see him, with her household goods, on the following afternoon.
On leaving them, Walter went straight to the house where an officer of his acquaintance was quartered.