Old Wilton heard him, glanced at him, turned his eyes away, and a faint smile curled his upper lip.
Flora heard the whistle too, she looked at Hal, and then at her father. She had her misgivings likewise—she believed every shilling he had possessed to be gone, and to hear him speak thus made her heart throb violently. Oh, if grief and trial should have turned his brain!
Her father understood her gaze, he read her thoughts, and his smile deepened.
Colonel Mires heard the unconscious whistle, also. He darted a look at Hal, and then turned to Wilton, and peering at him under his eyebrows in a scrutinising manner, he said, in a tone which had more than a tinge of irony in it—
“Will you say to-morrow, Mr. Wilton?”
“Of course,” thought Hal, “that’s just it; he might as well say half-an-hour hence—one is as likely as the other.”
To his surprise, not less than to that of Colonel Mires, Wilton answered—
“To-morrow, if you please. At what hour?”
“At moonshine,” thought Hal; “poor old man, how mad he is getting!”
“Ten o’clock in the morning,” returned the Colonel, with a grim smile.