As Drayton appeared suddenly around the end of the wall, the Irishman faced him calmly without rising. "I'm resigned," he said. "You might take a worse shape than that. What is it you'd be about now?"
Laughing outright, Drayton walked over and shook his giant friend by the shoulder.
"You blessed old idiot! Don't you know me? Have you been sitting here all this time while I mooned about thinking myself-By Heaven, Terry, do you know that Viola is here, too?"
"Viola, is it? Now I tell you straight, my lad, if you're what I suspect you of being you keep your tongue off my little sister or there'll be one devil the less in these parts!"
"Trenmore, have you gone stark mad? I'm no devil! Here, take my hand. Doesn't that feel like flesh and blood? I tell you, Viola is here. She came to the house after-after you went. And before I could prevent her she had stirred up that infernal gray powder."
"She did? Well, tell me then how you reached here yourself, and perhaps I'll begin to believe you."
Drayton shrugged. "I followed, of course. The whole thing was my fault. I thought you were both dead, and I could hardly do less than follow."
Trenmore sprang up and wrung the other's hand with his customary enthusiasm. "And now I do believe you!" he cried. "You're Bobby Drayton and none other, for you've acted like the man I knew you to be. But poor little Viola! And where is she now? Sure, if she's in this place, I misdoubt it's the one I took it for, after all!"
"She is over among the ruins, and she seems to have fainted. I found her all buried in grass. She mustn't be left alone another instant. Have you any whisky or brandy about you?"
"I have not-bad luck to me!"