The lady with the candle said with a twinkle in her grey eyes: “Don’t be alarmed! I’m no ghost, I assure you. You woke me with your ring at the bell, and because I’m of a prying disposition, I got up to see what in the world was going forward.” She came down the stairs as she spoke, and saw Ludovic. Her eyebrows went up, but she said placidly:
“I see I’ve thrust myself into an adventure. Is he badly hurt?”
“I think he’s dying,” answered Eustacie tragically. “He has bled, and bled, and bled!”
The lady put down her candle and came to the settle. “That sounds very bad, certainly, but perhaps it is not desperate after all,” she said. “Shall we see where he is hurt?”
“Nye said I was not to touch him,” replied Eustacie doubtfully.
“Oh, he’s a friend of Nye’s, is he?” said the lady.
“No—at least, yes, in a way he is. He is my cousin, but you must not ask me anything about him, and you must not tell anyone that you have ever seen him!”
“Very well, I won’t,” said the lady imperturbably.
At that moment the landlord came into the coffee-room from the back of the house, followed by a little man with a wizened leathery face and thin legs. When he saw the tall woman, Nye looked very much discomfited, and said in his deep, rough voice: “I beg your pardon, ma’am: you’ve been disturbed. It’s nothing—naught but a lad I know who’s been getting into trouble through a bit of poaching.”
“Of course, he would be poaching in the middle of February,” agreed the lady. “You had better get him to bed and take a look at his hurt.”