“Lady Tilborough, you’ve made me a happy man,” cried the doctor.
“Have I?” she said drily, and with a merry look in her eye. “Well, be happy, for I don’t think you’ll lose, Granton,” she said softly. “I can read men pretty well. Long experience. That was real. You were cut up at the thought of my losing.”
“Cut up?” he cried earnestly and naturally. “It made me forget poor Hilt and myself.”
“Thank you, dear boy,” she said quietly. “I never thought you so true a friend before.”
She glanced at her watch.
“Time’s on the wing,” she said. “Hilt Lisle ought to be here by now; he was to meet me at the hotel, but I must have a look at the mare.”
“May I go with you?”
“If you wish to,” was the reply, and joy began a triumphant dance in the young doctor’s brain, for there was a something in the way in which those words were uttered. None of the light badinage, laughter and repartee, for Lady Tilborough seemed to have suddenly turned thoughtful and subdued, as she passed out, unconscious of the fact that the trainer had entered the hall and was watching her keenly.
“Beg pardon, sir,” he said, following up Granton.
“Oh, bother! Well, what is it?”