Doreen swept with stately grace to where they sat.
'Are either of the gentlemen hurt?' she inquired in French.
He who was bowed down looked up. She dropped the pitcher which she held, and staggered against the wall.
'Theobald--here!' she whispered.
Alas! Yes. It was Theobald Wolfe Tone--thinner, paler, with all the youth gone out of him.
'It was not thus that I had expected to return,' he said in French, with a sorry smile. 'Yet what matters it? Le temps et le malheur ont flêtri mon âme!'
Doreen speedily recovered her self-possession.
'How culpably rash!' she muttered. 'There is no one that knows you in this place who would betray you; you will pass for a Frenchman. I will warn Shane, that he may not show surprise. That you should have come at last! Too late--too late!'
My lady, who was always the first to think of etiquette, suggested that the officers of high rank should occupy the reception-rooms. It was showing scant civility to leave them in the hall, like lacqueys. By-and-by, when the repast was served, they should be shown by their hostess, in person, to the places of honour.
Miss Wolfe gladly echoed her aunt's suggestion, for she was burning to talk to Theobald, yet dared not in this public place, under the eyes of awestricken oafs.