“She is magnificent,” he said to himself. With her mass of black hair falling in wavy cascade over her shoulders, her midnight eyes appealing and dashed with a fear that swept the colour from her cheeks, she looked a pallid goddess standing against the pictured panes.
“My brother!” she cried at last. “What of him?” Then, noticing the blood on Armstrong’s coat, she gave utterance to a startled exclamation, moving a step forward and checking herself. “Is he wounded? Has there been a battle? Where is he?”
“He is wounded, but not seriously. I brought him to his own room.”
Without another word she sprang up the stair, past her interlocutor, and flew along the hall, disappearing into the invalid’s chamber. Armstrong thought it best not to intrude at the moment of their meeting, so passed on down the stair and out to the horses, where he found an old servitor standing guard over them, apparently at a loss what to do or how to account for their presence.
“Are you John?” asked the Scot.
“Yes, zur.”
“Who is the doctor that attends on this family when any of them are ill?”
“’E be Doctor Marsden, zur, down t’ th’ village.”
“How far away is the village?”
“‘Bout dhree mile, zur.”