“No, Miss Edith; but he has been vilely used. He was out two hours in this storm. He found his way back more dead than alive. He has been tarred and feathered.”
She cried out in disgust: “The brutes! They were, then, too base for murder!”
“You may say that,” Patrick answered. “But now come home. You can’t see him, you know.”
But she would not go till she had heard his voice, and Patrick was obliged to go back to the entry with her. The entry was filled with men and women, all listening for any news that might reach them. The door was ajar into the kitchen, where two or three men were admitted. The priest was with the doctor in an inner room.
“You had better drink this,” they heard Dr. Willis say; and Father Rasle’s voice replied: “No, doctor. It is after twelve o’clock, and I must say Mass to-morrow.”
“But, if you do not take it, you may be very sick,” the doctor persisted.
“I cannot take it,” Father Rasle
said again. “My people must not be disappointed.”
“Thank God, it is really he!” Edith exclaimed. “Come, Patrick, we will go home now.”
Mrs. Yorke, fearing to alarm her husband, had put out the lights, and Edith, seeing the house all dark, took no precaution to conceal herself in approaching it. The first notice she had, therefore, that any of the family were awake, was her aunt’s frightened voice calling from the open window of the sitting-room, “Is it Edith? Has Edith been out?”