She had gone down to the village on the afternoon when the Olive Branch arrived in the loch, and she walked back as far as the castle with Carthew. The reappearance of that ill-omened craft had alarmed her more than a little, and she could see that Carthew was becoming always more sorely puzzled. But he had promised her to await events without question for three short months; and he was keeping his promise loyally. She could have told him nothing, in any case.
She met Slyne in the hall, on her way indoors, and he reassured her as to her perfect safety from any further risk of evil-doing by Captain Dove. He pointed out, too, that the steamer's crew was too scanty now to cope with the force he could call to her aid from the village in case the old man should attempt to make any mischief, which was most unlikely. And she went on to her own cosy quarters, quite content again.
She was changing her outdoor dress for one of her pretty Parisian tea-gowns, when word was brought her that the Duchess of Dawn and Lord Ingoldsby had come across the mountains to pay her a call.
She remembered Lord Ingoldsby, and wondered what could have brought him to Loquhariot. The idea of entertaining a duchess dismayed her a little; she had no notion at all what the conventions called for under circumstances so unusual in her own experience—although Slyne had been at some pains to explain a number of other conventions to her. But she went along to the blue drawing-room at once, and was relieved to find Slyne there before her, unconcernedly chatting with a very beautiful young woman in a sadly splashed habit, her back to the fire, booted feet a little apart, hunting-crop in clasped hands, laughter in her clear eyes; while Lord Ingoldsby, looking much less imbecile and more of a man in his travel-soiled riding-kit, stood listening gloomily.
His face cleared at sight of Sallie, however. "Here's Lady Josceline, Aunt Jane," he cried, and the duchess, after a single swift, appraising glance at her, came forward with outstretched hands and kissed her without any more ado.
"Oh! my dear," said the duchess impulsively, "you can't imagine what a relief you are. Ingoldsby has been simply raving about you, and—I was so anxious, don't you know. But I don't blame him now.
"I've seen you before, too—one night at the Savoy. If I had only known then who you were—But some one said you were a Miss Harris! You've kept it all such a close secret! We wouldn't have known even now if we hadn't heard, quite by chance, that the beacon had been lighted one night. And we've been wondering ever since—So you must tell me all about everything now, if you will." And she drew Sallie down beside her on a low couch at one side of the white marble fireplace, leaving the two men to their own devices while she went on to explain herself no less volubly.
"It was madness, of course, to cross the Pass in weather like this, but—Ingoldsby would give me no peace; and I've been so curious myself to find out who could be here. I'm your nearest neighbour, you know, although Castle Dawn is ten miles away; those are worse than twenty anywhere else. So, when the rain stopped this forenoon we set out—and here we are, covered with mud! The road's in a dreadful state, but you must come over and stay with me as soon as the bridges are mended. We're going to be great friends. I knew your father—although I'm not quite so old as you might imagine from that, for I wasn't out of short petticoats the last time he spoke to me. And, as for being the aunt of that scapegrace there, he's five years older than I am in years—and fifty in—"
"Don't be too rough on a fellah, Aunt Jane!" interrupted her noble nephew, who had been regarding Sallie with fixed vacuity through his eye-glass. "An' don't you believe all you hear about me, Lady Josceline: I'm not so black as I'm painted, at any rate."
"He's been simply raving about you," the duchess declared again, in a laughing whisper. "I couldn't imagine what had brought him down to Dawn in midwinter, until he confided in me that he had been searching the wide world for you ever since he met you first: and he imagined that you might, after all, be here, at home."