The hours of the evening passed slowly.
There was a pack of cards in the house; the women tried to amuse themselves, and failed. Anxiety about Arthur preyed on the spirits of Miss Henley and Mrs. Lewson. Even the maid, who had only seen him during his last visit to London, said she wished to-morrow had come and gone. His sweet temper, his handsome face, his lively talk had made Arthur a favourite everywhere. Mrs. Lewson had left her comfortable English home to be his housekeeper, when he tried his rash experiment of farming in Ireland. And, more wonderful still, even wearisome Sir Giles became an agreeable person in his nephew's company.
Iris set the example of retiring at an early hour to her room.
There was something terrible in the pastoral silence of the place. It associated itself mysteriously with her fears for Arthur; it suggested armed treachery on tiptoe, taking its murderous stand in hiding; the whistling passage of bullets through the air; the piercing cry of a man mortally wounded, and that man, perhaps——? Iris shrank from her own horrid thought. A momentary faintness overcame her; she opened the window. As she put her head out to breathe the cool night-air, a man on horseback rode up to the house. Was it Arthur? No: the light-coloured groom's livery that he wore was just visible.
Before he could dismount to knock at the door, a tall man walked up to him out of the darkness.
"Is that Miles?" the tall man asked.
The groom knew the voice. Iris was even better acquainted with it. She, too, recognised Lord Harry.
X
THERE was the Irish lord at the very time when Iris was most patiently resigned never to see him more, never to think of him as her husband again—reminding her of the first days of their love, and of their mutual confession of it! Fear of herself kept her behind the curtain; while interest in Lord Harry detained her at the window in hiding.
"All well at Rathco?" he asked—mentioning the name of the house in which Arthur was one of the guests.
"Yes, my lord. Mr. Mountjoy leaves us to-morrow."
"Does he mean to return to the farm?"
"Sorry I am to say it; he does mean that."
"Has he fixed any time, Miles, for starting on his journey?"
Miles instituted a search through his pockets, and accompanied it by an explanation. Yes, indeed, Master Arthur had fixed a time; he had written a note to say so to Mistress Lewson, the housekeeper; he had said, "Drop the note at the farm, on your way to the village." And what might Miles want at the village, in the dark? Medicine, in a hurry, for one of his master's horses that was sick and sinking. And, speaking of that, here, thank God, was the note!
Iris, listening and watching alternately, saw to her surprise the note intended for Mrs. Lewson handed to Lord Harry. "Am I expected," he asked jocosely, "to read writing without a light?" Miles produced a small lantern which was strapped to his groom's belt. "There's parts of the road not over safe in the dark," he said as he raised the shade which guarded the light. The wild lord coolly opened the letter, and read the few careless words which it contained. "To Mrs. Lewson:—Dear old girl, expect me back to-morrow to dinner at three o'clock. Yours, ARTHUR."
There was a pause.
"Are there any strangers at Rathco?" Lord Harry asked.
"Two new men," Miles replied, "at work in the grounds."
There was another pause. "How can I protect him?" the young lord said, partly to himself, partly to Miles. He suspected the two new men—-spies probably who knew of Arthur's proposed journey home, and who had already reported to their employers the hour at which he would set out.
Miles ventured to say a word: "I hope you won't be angry with me, my lord"——
"Stuff and nonsense! Was I ever angry with you, when I was rich enough to keep a servant, and when you were the man?"
The Irish groom answered in a voice that trembled with strong feeling. "You were the best and kindest master that ever lived on this earth. I can't see you putting your precious life in peril"——
"My precious life?" Lord Harry repeated lightly. "You're thinking of Mr. Mountjoy, when you say that. His life is worth saving. As for my life"—— He ended the sentence by a whistle, as the best way he could hit on of expressing his contempt for his own existence.
"My lord! my lord!" Miles persisted; "the Invincibles are beginning to doubt you. If any of them find you hanging about Mr. Mountjoy's farm, they'll try a shot at you first, and ask afterwards whether it was right to kill you or not."
To hear this said—and said seriously—after the saving of him at the milestone, was a trial of her firmness which Iris was unable to resist. Love got the better of prudence. She drew back the window-curtain. In another moment, she would have added her persuasion to the servant's warning, if Lord Harry himself had not accidentally checked her by a proceeding, on his part, for which she was not prepared.
"Show the light," he said; "I'll write a line to Mr. Mountjoy."
He tore off the blank page from the note to the housekeeper, and wrote to Arthur, entreating him to change the time of his departure from Rathco, and to tell no creature in the house, or out of the house, at what new hour he had arranged to go. "Saddle your horse yourself," the letter concluded. It was written in a feigned hand, without a signature.
"Give that to Mr. Mountjoy," Lord Harry said. "If he asks who wrote it, don't frighten him about me by telling the truth. Lie, Miles! Say you don't know." He next returned the note for Mrs. Lewson. "If she notices that it has been opened," he resumed, "and asks who has done it, lie again. Good-night, Miles—and mind those dangerous places on your road home."
The groom darkened his lantern; and the wild lord was lost to view, round the side of the house.
Left by himself, Miles rapped at the door with the handle of his whip. "A letter from Mr. Arthur," he called out. Mrs. Lewson at once took the note, and examined it by the light of the candle on the hall-table. "Somebody has been reading this!" she exclaimed, stepping out to the groom, and showing him the torn envelope. Miles, promptly obeying his instructions, declared that he knew nothing about it, and rode away.
Iris descended the stairs, and joined Mrs. Lewson in the hall before she had closed the door. The housekeeper at once produced Arthur's letter.
"It's on my mind, Miss," she said, "to write an answer, and say something to Mr. Arthur which will persuade him to take care of himself, on his way back to the farm. The difficulty is, how am I to express it? You would be doing a kind thing if you would give me a word of advice."
Iris willingly complied. A second note, from the anxious housekeeper, might help the effect of the few lines which Lord Harry had written.
Arthur's letter informed Iris that he had arranged to return at three o'clock. Lord Harry's question to the groom, and the man's reply, instantly recurred to her memory: "Are there any strangers at Rathco?"—"Two new men at work in the grounds." Arriving at the same conclusion which had already occurred to Lord Harry, Iris advised the housekeeper, in writing to Arthur, to entreat him to change the hour, secretly, at which he left his friend's house on the next day. Warmly approving of this idea, Mrs. Lewson hurried into the parlour to write her letter. "Don't go to bed yet, Miss," she said; "I want you to read it before I send it away the first thing to-morrow morning."
Left alone in the hall, with the door open before her, Iris looked out on the night, thinking.
The lives of the two men in whom she was interested—in widely different ways—were now both threatened; and the imminent danger, at that moment, was the danger of Lord Harry. He was an outlaw whose character would not bear investigation; but, to give him his due, there was no risk which he was not ready to confront for Arthur's sake. If he was still recklessly lingering, on the watch for assassins in the dangerous neighbourhood of the farm, who but herself possessed the influence which would prevail on him to leave the place? She had joined Mrs. Lewson at the door with that conviction in her mind. In another instant, she was out of the house, and beginning her search in the dark.