She was seated at her early supper, alone, and looked round in surprise, which quickly deepened into dire bewilderment and dread.
"Farish!" she whispered with pale lips, as he cast off the soiled and travel-worn white Arab cloak which had covered him, showing himself a big, bent, white-bearded, fierce-looking, haggard-faced fellow, barefooted, almost in rags. He was glancing about him with the expression of a wild beast in a cage while the old housekeeper gazed at him, breathing over-quickly, her hands at her heart.
"Ay, it's Farish, Janet," said he at length, in a very bitter voice, and threw himself wearily into a chair. "None other than your ne'er-do-well brother, Farish, come home to die on your hands. I've been hiding in the woods all day, waiting a chance to creep in. I'm starving, too."
She turned, trembling sickly, to a full cupboard and set more food on the table in haste. He fell upon it like a famished wolf, and while he was devouring it they talked, in broken sentences.
"Where have you come from—in such a state?" the old woman asked, watching him with woe in her face.
"From hell," he mumbled hoarsely, his mouth full, "to square accounts with another devil who seems to have made the Castle of Loquhariot his home too. What's Dove, as he calls himself, doing here, Janet?"
"He came with the Lady Josceline Justice," Mrs. M'Kissock made difficult answer.
"He came with the Lady Josceline Justice!" repeated her brother mechanically, and ceased eating for an instant to stare at her out of blank, disbelieving eyes. Then he went on with his ravenous feast and his questioning. "Who else is here?"
"Mr. Slyne," his sister told him meekly, "and Mr. Jobling, her ladyship's London lawyer. The Duchess of Dawn and Lord Ingoldsby came across the Pass to call on her ladyship this afternoon. And there's Mr. Herries, too, ill in bed, as he's been since the night of her ladyship's coming."
"I know the man Slyne," muttered Farish M'Kissock. "But—what's Lady Josceline Justice like?"