“No, sir, no. Not now. And a good thing, too. Upset the town for nothing! My lord has no chance, and Pybus, who is his lordship’s man here, he told me himself——”
He paused with his mouth open, and his eyes on a tall lady wearing a veil, who, after standing a couple of minutes on the further side of the street, was approaching the coach. To enter it she had to pass by him, and he stared, as if he saw a ghost. “By Gosh!” he muttered under his breath. And when, with the aid of the guard, she had taken her seat inside, “By Gosh!” he muttered again, “if that’s not my lady—though I’ve not seen her for ten years—I’ve the horrors!”
He turned to Vaughan to see if he had noticed anything. But Vaughan, without waiting for the end of his sentence, had stepped aside to tell a helper to replace his valise on the coach. In the bustle he had noted neither White’s emotion nor the lady.
At this moment he returned. “I shall go on to Bristol for the night, White,” he said. “Sir Robert is quite well?”
“Quite well, sir, and I shall be happy to tell him of your promptness in coming.”
“Don’t tell him anything,” the young man said, with a flash of peremptoriness. “I don’t want to be kept here. Do you understand, White? I shall probably return to town to-morrow. Anyway, say nothing.”
“Very good, sir,” White answered. “But I am sure Sir Robert would be pleased to know that you had come down so promptly.”
“Ah, well, you can let him know later. Good-bye, White.”
The agent, with one eye on the young squire and one on the lady, whose figure was visible through the small coach-window, seemed to be about to refer to her. But he checked himself. “Good-bye, sir,” he said. “And a pleasant journey! I’m glad to have been of service, Mr. Vaughan.”
“Thank you, White, thank you,” the young man answered. And he swung himself up, as the coach moved. A good-natured nod, and—Tantivy! Tantivy! Tantivy! The helpers sprang aside, and away they went down the hill, and over the long stone bridge, and so along the Bristol road; but now with the shades of evening beginning to spread on the pastures about them, and the cawing rooks, that had been abroad all day on the uplands, streaming across the pale sky to the elms beside the river.