Captain Lyle considered, and allowed it could.
Well, the emissary said he would communicate with Captain Bland, and return again and inform him of that worthy gentleman’s decision, but no attempt must be made to follow him, or all communication would cease between them.
And Captain Lyle was fain to assent.
Then the emissary mounted his fleet horse, stuck the spurs into his sides, and disappeared like a flash.
The man tore along the road, determined to put the greatest distance in the least possible time betwixt himself and Grayling House.
Little recked he of a coming event.
About a mile from the house the road crossed a stream by a steep old-fashioned Gothic bridge. He was just entering one end of this, when up at the other sprang, as if from the earth, a tiny half-clad gipsy girl. She waved a shawl and shrieked aloud. The horse swerved, but could not stop in time, and next moment the animal and its rider had gone headlong over the parapet, and lay dead—to all appearance—near the stream below.
The girl dashed down after them, wrenched open the man’s coat, tore out some papers, and waving them aloft, went shouting along the avenue back to Grayling House.
“My dear child,” said Lyle, as soon as he had scanned the papers, “how ever can I reward you?”
“You were good to granny,” was all the girl said.