“Was it well to trust one of those savages?” he asked.
Sir Perseus shrugged his shoulders.
“He knows naught of us—I found him some weeks ago half-dead upon the mountains; he had dragged himself, God knows how far, on a broken ankle, then fallen in a swoon. I could not leave him in that desolation—the horse I rode was stout: I brought him here.”
A smile came on the smooth face of Jerome Caryl.
“Like you,” he said, “and Miss Delia nursed him, I suppose?”
She answered quickly, not looking at him: “He is almost mended now—and wild to return—he is not, I think, very grateful.”
“Gaelic is one of Delia’s accomplishments,” said Sir Perseus; “I do not understand a word the fellow says.”
The subject did not appear to interest Jerome Caryl; he had weightier matters on his mind.
“What was you doing in the Highlands?” he asked Perseus.
“Why, I was gathering what information I could as to the submission of the clans—January first is the last day, you know, and not so far away.”