"What are you doing here, Mr. Herries?" Carthew demanded, amazed. "You should be at home in bed, and—"
"The beacon?" gasped the new-comer, a haggard, sick-looking old man with a long white beard, almost spent, but none the less resolute not to enter the inn.
"It seems that Lady Josceline Justice has just arrived at the castle," Carthew informed him concisely, after a moment of hesitation.
"Lady—Josceline—Justice!" the other repeated dazedly, but with evident disbelief. "Did you say—Lady Josceline Justice! You're surely joking, Mr. Carthew—although it would be no joke for you if her ladyship had come back to life."
"I'm not joking," Carthew assured him.
"But—how can it be!" the other demanded. "I can't conceive—Have you seen her yourself?"
"Yes, I've seen her," declared Carthew. He could not have answered otherwise without betraying Sallie.
"But come away in. You must get between the blankets again at once," he insisted firmly. "A five-mile gallop on a night like this is quite enough to finish you. And there will be time enough in the morning—to pay her ladyship a call."
"I've been factor of Loquhariot these five and thirty years—and it would ill become me to be abed at such a moment. I'm going up now," the sick man asserted stubbornly. "I'm responsible for all that goes on here, as you know very well, Mr. Carthew—and I've had no news at all of this. I can't understand—And yet—it must indeed be her ladyship, as you say, since Janet M'Kissock—"
He caught at his horse's bridle again and tried to clamber into the saddle.