Flavia paused half-way across the floor and listened. "What's that?" she asked, raising her hand for silence. "Didn't you hear something? I thought I heard a horse."
"You didn't hear a mare," her brother retorted, grinning. "In the meantime, miss, I'd be having you know we're hungry. And——"
He stopped, startled by a knock on the door. The girl hesitated, then she stepped to it, and threw it wide. Confronting her across the threshold, looking ghostly against the dark background of the night, a grey horse threw up its head and, dazzled by the light, started back a pace—then blithered gently. In a twinkling, before the men had grasped the truth, Flavia had sprung across the threshold, her arms were round her favourite's neck, she was covering its soft muzzle with kisses.
"The saints defend us!" Uncle Ulick cried. "It is the mare!"
In his surprise The McMurrough forgot himself, his rôle, the company. "D—n!" he said. Fortunately Uncle Ulick was engrossed in the scene at the door, and the girl was outside. Neither heard.
Asgill's mortification, as may be believed, was a hundred times deeper. But his quicker brain had taken in the thing and its consequences on the instant. And he stood silent.
"She's found her way back!" The McMurrough exclaimed, recovering himself.
"Ay, lad, that must be it," Uncle Ulick replied. "She's got loose and found her way back to her stable, heaven be her bed! And them that took her are worse by the loss of five pounds!"
"Broken necks to them!" The McMurrough cried viciously.
But at that moment the door, which led to the back of the house and the offices, opened, and Colonel John stepped in, a smile on his face. He laid his damp cloak on a bench, hung up his hat and whip, and nodded to Ulick.