It was an hour and a half before Glasgow, dropping down into a road from the top of a heathery bank, found the hounds at fault on the edge of a wide and famished expanse, half marsh, half bog. They seemed beaten and spiritless; some were already sitting idle and panting on their haunches, and one of the younger ones was baying at a little bare-legged girl, who was uttering lamentable cries at finding herself in the middle of the pack. She and the few starveling cattle she was tending were the only living creatures in sight. It was a flat and inexplicable conclusion, but it was final beyond all ingenuity of casting.
It was a twelve-mile ride home for Slaney. She turned Isabella’s head almost immediately, and started at a walk, while the heat and enthusiasm died slowly away, and to-morrow lay as flat and cold before her as the marsh at her side. She was soon out of sight and hearing of the group on the road, and passed on through the loneliness of the barren hills, a tired figure on a tired horse, forgotten by all. So it was that she saw herself, with that acute perception of the gloom of the position that is with some natures the preliminary to tears.
“What happened to Slaney Morris?” said Lady Susan to Glasgow, an hour later, as she rode home with him. “She vanished like the fox. Is she a witch, too? I think she must be to have got that old crock along as she did.”
“Major Bunbury will tell you all about her,” replied Glasgow, not without interest in the manner in which the information would be received. “I saw him catch her up before she had gone half-a-mile.”
“Oh, the wily and dissolute old Bunny,” exclaimed Lady Susan, in high amusement. “Won’t he hear about it from me! I’m simply screaming for a cigarette,” she went on, “and Hughie has my case in his pocket, and he’s miles behind—oh, thanks!” She took one from Glasgow’s case, and lit it in the fresh breeze with practised ease.
“I suppose Hughie’s leg must have been bad again to-day,” she said, rather awkwardly, as they moved on again. Glasgow stroked his moustache and looked the other way, with a tact sufficiently ostentatious to impress Lady Susan.
“I saw him come out of the covert over a two-foot wall,” Hugh’s wife went on, “and he had no more cling than a toy.” She paused again, and Glasgow still was silent. “You saw him at that fence where I asked him for a lead,” she said, with some genuine hesitation. “What do you think was wrong with him?”
“I don’t suppose you can imagine what it feels like to lose your nerve, Lady Susan,” said Glasgow slowly.
She took her cigarette out of her mouth.
“I’ve been horribly afraid it was that,” she said, in a low voice, and their eyes met in a fellowship in which Hugh could never have a part.