"They're down at the jumps," he said, "—and they're changing horses."
It was then that the girl came out, passing swift as an apparition. The men fell back, touching their caps.
"I'll lay she heard you," said Rackham's man.
The stud groom looked after her curiously and, crossing over to the door of the grey's box, that she had left unfastened, closed it without a word.
She did not know why she was hurrying to the house. What half-conscious panic had seized her as her inattentive mind took its wandering impression of the grooms' idle gossip? What words had reached her, lodging in her brain to inspire that wild sense of impending trouble? It was no good searching for Barnaby in the house. He was down at the jumps,—changing horses.
"There's a wire for you," said Lady Henrietta.
It had come. At first she looked at it stupidly, as if it, the signal, were some trivial interruption. She heard herself explaining, like an unthinking scholar repeating a half-forgotten lesson. "I must go away. I—I have to go away."
"Bad news?" asked Lady Henrietta quickly. Susan crumpled the telegram in her hand.
"Yes, it's bad news," she said. "It is from the lawyers."
Vaguely she recollected what she was to say. Something about going up to London at once, and perhaps on to America.