“That you had a premonition that he might come to you for assistance.”
“A premonition!” Her ladyship laughed nervously. “It is more than a premonition, Ned. He has come.”
The captain stopped in his stride, and stood quite still.
“Come?” he echoed. “Dick?”
“Sh!” she warned him, and sank her voice from very instinct. “He came to me this evening, half an hour before we left home. I have put him in an alcove adjacent to my dressing-room for the present.”
“You have left him there?” He was alarmed.
“Oh, there’s no fear. No one ever goes there except Bridget. And I have locked the alcove. He’s fast asleep. He was asleep before I left. The poor fellow was so worn and weary.” Followed details of his appearance and a recital of his wanderings so far as he had made them known to her. “And he was so insistent that no one should know, not even Terence.”
“Terence must not know,” he said gravely.
“You think that too!”
“If Terence knows—well, you will regret it all the days of your life, Una.”