Lady Susan rode on in silence, and Bunbury, leading his horse, walked by Slaney. It was quite unnecessary that he should walk, yet Slaney understood.
They neared at length a white house with fir-trees round it; there was a back entrance into the lane, and the hammock was carried into a yard where strange lumber lay about; a broken pumping-engine, signal-posts, long white gates.
“Mr. Glasgow’s house was nearest,” said Slaney, with her eyes on the ground. “Dr. Hallahan is afraid to take him farther.”
The back door of the house was open, and they went in, finding themselves in the kitchen.
“Nobody in,” said Dr. Hallahan, exploring the back premises rapidly, “and no one here either,” opening and shutting the door of Glasgow’s office. “Carry him up. I know the house.”
The hammock, with its light burden, was engineered up a narrow staircase; as Lady Susan followed, she noticed Glasgow’s gloves on the hall-table, his hunting-crop in a rack. They reminded her of all that was now so very far away, they added inconceivably to his reality and yet to his remoteness. Meeting him again would be more difficult than she had thought.
Dr. Hallahan opened the door of a room on the landing.
“This is a spare room, I think——” he said, and stopped short.
A woman started up from a table at which she was writing, and stared at them. Her hair was straw-coloured, and drooped in nauseous picturesqueness over her coal-black eyebrows; her face was fat and white, her dress was a highly-coloured effort at the extreme of the latest fashion but one; the general effect was elderly.
“I beg your pardon,” said Dr. Hallahan, recovering himself; “we’ve brought Captain French here, he’s very badly hurt, and I can’t take him any farther. Perhaps you could show us where to put him—or ask Mr. Glasgow?”