She went back after a while, her sense of beauty satisfied. From that hill one could hear anything, horse or vehicle, coming from a long way off. The sound ascended and was not lost in the winding and twisting roads. But she would not acknowledge disappointment to herself. She had gone up to look at the evening sky and it had been beautiful with one of the strange kaleidoscopic effects which makes those Western skies for ever new and beautiful.
The tea had been brought in and the lamps lit when a visitor was announced—Sir Felix Conyers. She was glad she had not heard the noise of his arrival and mistaken it for Shawn's.
Sir Felix was an old soldier who had held an important command in
India. He was a rather fussy but very kind-hearted person whom Mary
O'Gara liked better than his handsome cold wife with her organized
system of charities.
"This is kind, Sir Felix," she said. "Shawn is not home yet. They met
at the Wood of the Hare this morning. The scent must have lain well.
We were a little anxious about the frost before the wind went to the
South-West."
Then she discovered that Sir Felix, a transparently simple person, was labouring under some curious form of excitement. He stammered as he tried to answer, and looked at her furtively. He dropped his riding whip, which he was carrying in his hands, stooped to look for it and came up rather apologetic and more nervous than before.
"The fact is … I came over, Lady O'Gara … to … to …"
"Is anything the matter, Sir Felix?"
Down went her heart like a plummet of lead. Shawn! Had anything happened to Shawn? Had this stammering, purple-faced gentleman come to prepare her? Her heart gave a cry of anguish, while her eyes rested with apparent calmness on Sir Felix's unhappy face. Of course it was Mustapha. Would he never speak? Why could they not have found a better messenger than this unready inarticulate gentleman?
At last the cry was wrung from her: "Has anything happened to my husband?"
"No! God bless my soul,—no!"