"Of course, of course," she cried, starting up. "Sure the poor beast will be tired, too, and hungry. Wait, wait, Mr. Durham, I'll send old Patsy——"
"Oh, no, don't trouble. I'll just take the saddle off and turn him into the yard. It's Brennan's horse and had a feed before we started."
He was out on the verandah before she could leave the room.
When he returned, Mrs. Burke was watching a bent and decrepit-looking old man laying the cloth. He gave a furtive glance at Durham as he entered the room.
"Go on with your work, Patsy, go on, and don't dawdle. Don't I tell you Mr. Durham is both tired and hungry? Never mind looking at folk. Go on now."
Patsy mumbled an inaudible reply as he stooped over the table.
"You must bear with him, Mr. Durham," she said as soon as the old man had left the room. "He's been so long with the Burke family he feels he's entitled to know everyone who comes into the place. You see what a fragile old creature he is—and he's all I've got in the place if some of those scoundrels come and attack us."
She jumped out of her seat and paced from one end of the room to the other.
"Sure I was a fool," she exclaimed. "I ought to have asked Brennan to come out. He's half Irish, leastways he's Irish born in Australia, and he'd have understood."
"I don't think you need be afraid, Mrs. Burke," Durham said quietly. "You're not likely to be troubled."