Bang! Bang! Bang! The door burst open. It was midnight, and Mrs. Murphy, in an appalling night-cap and a magenta dressing-gown, was standing by the girls' beds.
"Get ye up! Get ye up!—no, don't bother about your hair, it's well enough as it is. The Saints be praised—hush, ye'll not say a word, for I'm a good Protestant here, for Murphy's sake, and an old gazaboo the clergyman is, to be shure!—but there's a gintleman come down in a big automobile to see you. Wirra, phwat news!"
While she was shouting and gesticulating, the old lady had pulled Doris and Marjorie out of their beds, and was wrapping them up in their dressing-gowns with shaking fingers.
"News?" Doris gasped—"news of John?"
"News that'll shake England, aye, and Doblin too, to its foundations."
"Bernard?" Marjorie said unsteadily.
"Ye'll kindly come along with me," said Mrs. Murphy, and a strange procession went down the stairs into the hall.
The three servants of the house were bundled into one corner, and the less said about their attire the better. Lieutenant Murphy, in his uniform, was trying to light candles, and his wrinkled face was brighter than the flaring, smoking lamp which hung from the ceiling. In the centre of the hall was a tall, clean-shaved, youngish-looking man. He held a cocked hat in one hand and wore a uniform of dead black-blue.
Directly the old lady rolled down the stairs, followed by the frightened girls, this new-comer made a step forward. His manners were perfect, and he bowed as if he were at Court.