"Patsy!" that young person's father muttered to himself, "so it has come to Patsy! Evidently she does not take after me. I have no doubt that the vixen will be calling him 'Raincy' by the week's end."
CHAPTER XV
THE FECHTIN' FOOL
These were hard days for Stair Garland. He alone had planned and carried out the deliverance of Patsy. He had dared the spilling of the blood royal, yet he had given all the profit of it over into the hands of another. And now Louis Raincy had Patsy safe within the walls of his grandfather's castle, and all that remained for Stair was liberty to keep watch and ward outside.
I do not imagine that Louis cared much about the matter. Why should he? He had other things to think about—bright, young, heart-stirring things that danced and glistened, flitting up before him just as a sudden wind-gust may for a moment turn a petal-strewn garden path all rosy.
But, to make up for such ingrate forgetfulness, Patsy thought a good deal. She knew—no woman could have helped knowing—the fact of Stair's devotion. But then she had always accepted it as quite natural, which it was. Also as calling for no particular notice, except, as it were, for a certain graceful obliviousness on her part, modified by a possessive glance or two from her fearless black eyes—glances for which Stair watched more alertly than he had ever gazed into the night for the signal flashes from the Good Intent.
But now he, Stair the doer, was without while Patsy was within with Louis the dreamer. At this time Stair had more liberty to come and go. He could now spend some of his days at Glenanmays helping his brothers and sisters in any emergency. The attack upon the Duke of Lyonesse had been hushed up—so far, that is, as any official inquiry was concerned. The matter was not even referred to in Parliament.
It had been announced that the Prince had been hurt somewhat seriously in a carriage accident, frequent in travelling through such wild lands as Ireland and the south of Scotland. People averred that he would find himself safer on the Mall or climbing the slopes of Primrose Hill.
And meanwhile McCarthy, the Irish doctor who attended him, said nothing about the gunshot wound in the thigh which caused the Duke to walk with a slight limp ever after.