第24章 CHAPTER V(3)

"It's not myself will take any risks," he said again. "We are at war, and when men are at war killing becomes a sort of habit, and one life more or less is neither here nor there." And upon that he renewed his plea that she should hide him if she could and that on no account should she tell a single soul - and Sir Terence least of any - of his presence.

Having driven him to the verge of frenzy by the waste of precious moments in vain argument, she gave him at last the promise he required. "Go back to the bushes there," she bade him, "and wait until I come for you. I will make sure that the coast is clear."

Contiguous to her dressing-room, which overlooked the quadrangle, there was a small alcove which had been converted into a storeroom for the array of trunks and dress boxes that Lady O'Moy had brought from England. A door opening directly from her dressing room communicated with this alcove, and of that door Bridget, her maid, was in possession of the key.

As she hurried now indoors she happened to meet Bridget on the stairs. The maid announced herself on her way to supper in the servants' quarters, and apologised for her presumption in assuming that her ladyship would no further require her services that evening.

But since it fell in so admirably with her ladyship's own wishes, she insisted with quite unusual solicitude, with vehemence almost, that Bridget should proceed upon her way.

"Just give me the key of the alcove," she said. "There are one or two things I want to get."

"Can't I get them, your ladyship?"

"Thank you, Bridget. I prefer to get them, myself."

There was no more to be said. Bridget produced a bunch of keys, which she surrendered to her mistress, having picked out for her the one required.

Lady O'Moy went up, to come down again the moment that Bridget had disappeared. The quadrangle was deserted, the household disposed of, and it wanted yet half-an-hour to the time for which the carriage was ordered. No moment could have been more propitious.

But in any case no concealment was attempted - since, if detected it must have provoked suspicions hardly likely to be aroused in any other way.

When Lady O'Moy returned indoors in the gathering dusk she was followed at a respectful distance by the limping fugitive, who might, had he been seen, have been supposed some messenger, or perhaps some person employed about the house or gardens coming to her ladyship for instructions. No one saw them, however, and they gained the dressing-room and thence the alcove in complete safety.

There, whilst Richard, allowing his exhaustion at last to conquer him, sank heavily down upon one of his sister's many trunks, recking nothing of the havoc wrought in its priceless contents, her ladyship all a-tremble collapsed limply upon another.

But there was no rest for her. Richard's wound required attention, and he was faint for want of meat and drink. So having procured him the wherewithal to wash and dress his hurt - a nasty knife-slash which had penetrated to the bone of his thigh, the very sight of which turned her ladyship sick and faint - she went to forage for him in a haste increased by the fact that time was growing short.

On the dining-room sideboard, from the remains of dinner, she found and furtively abstracted what she needed - best part of a roast chicken, a small loaf and a half-flask of Collares. Mullins, the butler, would no doubt be exercised presently when he discovered the abstraction. Let him blame one of the footmen, Sir Terence's orderly, or the cat. It mattered nothing to Lady O'Moy.

Having devoured the food and consumed the wine, Richard's exhaustion assumed the form of a lethargic torpor. To sleep was now his overmastering desire. She fetched him rugs and pillows, and he made himself a couch upon the floor. She had demurred, of course, when he himself had suggested this. She could not conceive of any one sleeping anywhere but in a bed. But Dick made short work of that illusion.

"Haven't I been in hiding for the last six weeks?" he asked her.

"And haven't I been thankful to sleep in a ditch? And wasn't I campaigning before that? I tell you I couldn't sleep in a bed.

It's a habit I've lost entirely."

Convinced, she gave way.

"We'll talk to-morrow, Una," he promised her, as he stretched himself luxuriously upon that hard couch. "But meanwhile, on your life, not a word to any one. You understand?"

"Of course I understand, my poor Dick."

She stooped to kiss him. But he was fast asleep already.

She went out and locked the door, and when, on the point of setting out for Count Redondo's, she returned the bunch of keys to Bridget the key of the alcove was missing.

"I shall require it again in the morning, Bridget," she explained lightly. And then added kindly, as it seemed: "Don't wait for me, child. Get to bed. I shall be late in coming home, and I shall not want you."