"Roscommon," answered Bill. "They're not much in the habit of telegraphing up there."
"Depend upon it Daisy has dropped into a good thing. Somebody must have left, or lent, or given him a lot of money. I have it! I have it! This is how you must read it," she exclaimed, and following the lines with her taper finger, she put them into sense with no little exultation, for the benefit of her admiring listener. "'Very strange! Money just arrived. Bill at sight, on Bank of Ireland. Sent by an unknown Friend. Sail immediately. Tell Chief. Consult Agent, and stop Sharon at once. Do not lose a moment.' There, sir, should I, or should I not, make a good expert at the Bank."
"You're a witch—simply a witch," returned the delighted Bill. "It's regular, downright magic. Of course, that's what he means. Of course, he's come into a fortune. Hurrah! hurrah! Mrs. Lushington, have you any objection? I should like to throw my hat in the street, please, and put my head out of window to shout!"
"I beg you'll put out nothing of the kind!" she answered, laughing. "If you must be a boy, at least be a good boy, and do what I tell you."
"I should think I would just!" he protested, still in his paroxysm of admiration. "You know more than the examiners at Sandhurst! You could give pounds to the senior department! If you weren't so—I mean if you were old and ugly—I should really believe what I said at first, that you're a witch!"
She smiled on him in a very bewitching manner; but her brains were hard at work the while recapitulating all she had learned in the last twenty-four hours, with a pleasant conviction that she had put her puzzle together at last. Yes, she saw it clearly now. The registered envelope of which she found the address, in reverse, on Blanche's blotting-paper, must have contained those very bills, mentioned in Daisy's telegram. It had struck her at the time that the handwriting was stiff and formal, as if disguised; but this served to account for the mysterious announcement of an "unknown fiend!" She was satisfied that Miss Douglas had sent anonymously the sum he wanted to the man she loved. And that sum Bill had already told her was three thousand pounds—exactly the amount, according to her husband's version, lately borrowed by the General from a notorious money-lender. Was it possible Satanella could thus have stripped one admirer to benefit another? It must be so. Such treachery deserved no mercy, and Mrs. Lushington determined to show none.
She considered how far her visitor might be trusted with this startling discovery. It was as well, she thought, that he should be at least partially enlightened, particularly as the transaction was but little to the credit of any one concerned, and could not, therefore, be made public too soon. So she laid her hand on Bill's coat-sleeve, and observed impressively—
"Never mind about my being old and ugly, but attend to what I say. Daisy, as you call him, has evidently found a good friend. Now I know who that friend is. Don't ask me how I found it out. I never speak without being sure. That money came from Miss Douglas."
Bill opened his eyes and mouth. "Miss Douglas!" he repeated. "Not the black girl with the black mare?"