The great bare hall, with its timbered roof, and four motionless figures in full armor ranged between the worn and faded tapestry on the walls, surmounted by trophies of arms and implements of the chase, which glittered as the firelight played on them, struck Lord Carthew as a perfectly fitting background for Miss Cranstoun’s slender figure and the strange ethereal beauty of her face. Amid petty or conspicuously modern surroundings she would have seemed, so he told himself, wholly out of place.
Other impressions crowded upon him. For one thing, the servants all looked bewildered and alarmed, and even in the fashionable London doctor’s manner there was a touch of constraint, as though he was not quite certain of his ground. As for Hilary the hall and every one in it seemed rocking round him. The pain in his shoulder was acute, and the action of riding had caused the blood to burst through the temporary bandages over the severe gunshot wound which Stephen Lee’s weapon had inflicted. He had hardly heard what was being said about him as they led him to a room, the library, as he afterwards learned, and laid him on a sofa, at which point he very quietly fainted.
When he came to, he was lying on an old-fashioned four-poster bedstead in a great, ghost-like apartment, hung with tapestry—as he afterwards learned, a guest-chamber of the Chase. A woman was on her knees trying to persuade a fire to burn in a seldom-used chimney, and another servant, elderly and dark-complexioned, stood near his bedside, attending to the instructions of Dr. Morland Graham, while Lord Carthew watched him from the foot of the bed.
“You place the bandage so,” the doctor was saying, “and as soon as he recovers consciousness, give him a dose of this. Your friend has had a nasty accident, Mr. Pritchard, but a man of his superb physique will soon get over a trifle of this kind, provided that fever does not intervene. What a magnificently made young man Lord Carthew is, to be sure! Quite unlike his father the Earl. I was dining with Lord Northborough a few weeks ago. I suppose you will let him know of his son’s accident?”
“Leave that to me,” returned Claud, promptly.
A voice from the bed attracted their attention at this point:
“What on earth are you two talking about? And where am I?”
“Hush, hush! my dear Lord Carthew! You really must not excite yourself. You are in very good hands indeed. I informed Lady Cranstoun that you must not be moved to-night, and she instantly insisted that you and Mr. Pritchard should be her guests until you have completely recovered. She is greatly distressed at your accident, I assure you. I must leave you now and join the ladies at dinner, which has been postponed for over an hour. You will soon be about again, believe me.”
“But why do you call me Lord Carthew?” Hilary inquired, trying to sit up.
The doctor exchanged a sympathetic glance with Claud.