"Oh, are you awake then? Sure I thought you were asleep for good and all the way you never moved all the journey. And did you think I had vanished and left you to the tender mercies of that old fool? Well, now, that's a poor compliment to yourself surely, to think I'd run away from you as soon as I saw your eyes were closed. No, no, I've got charge of you till you are well and strong again, though maybe I'll have hard work to shunt you at all then, you'll be so used to being nursed. But I had to come and drive while I sent the old man on ahead to get the door open and a fire alight so as to give you something hot to cheer you as soon as you reached the house."
"But he cannot walk quicker than we are going?"
"Going? Why, we're standing still. So we were at the top of the hill where the horses, poor beasts, wanted a long rest to get their wind again, seeing how they had come all the way without as much as a five minutes' break since we started. You were sleeping through it all so peacefully I had not the heart to disturb you, but sent the old man on ahead while I climbed up here. Sure we're nearly there; I can see the light of the lamp shining out of the window. Just keep quiet and rest now till we're there."
She started the horses again, and Durham lay back on his blankets till he felt the waggonette turn off the main road and drive slowly up to the house.
As it stopped, he managed to raise himself into a sitting position. There was a momentary humming in his head, and he gripped the seats to steady himself. The cessation of the noise made by the moving wheels and trotting horses accentuated to his ears the still silence of the night. So quiet was it that as the humming passed from him the creaking of the springs when Mrs. Burke swung herself down from the box-seat seemed an actual noise.
Patsy's heavy tread echoed on the bare boards of the verandah. For a second they stopped, and through Durham's brain there rang a curious stifled sound, something like a cry coming from afar, a cry indistinct and choked as if it were muffled.
The loud tones of Mrs. Burke's voice, speaking quickly and decisively, drowned it before the dulled brain could either locate whence it came or decide whether it was anything more than a variation of the humming in his ears.
"Come along now, Patsy. Hasten, you slow old fool. Don't you know Mr. Durham will be tired?"
The old man stumbled and blundered down the steps, and Mrs. Burke came to the end of the waggonette.
"Oh, now, now! Sure is it wise to do that?" she exclaimed, as she saw Durham sitting up. "Why didn't you wait till we could help you?"