Page:Hornung - Rogues March.djvu/377

Rh “He came to the factory last week, miss; ye’ll niver guess why—to choose a wife!”

“A wife!”

“An’ it’s me he chose … you ask the masther when he comes back!”

The master came back in time for lunch. He found Claire on the verandah, with a white face and an angry eye, loudly declaring she felt another being.

Tom heard and saw her, and waited infamously for the first time. He could not understand it at all. She had left the boat-shed with a very different mien. What could she have found out since then? That he had purposely misled her for her own good? That was impossible. Yet he knew so well from her proud, averted face that Claire had discovered something fresh against him. Whatever that discovery might be, however, it was destined not to be her last that day.

They were still at luncheon when Peggy burst into the room.

“Nat Sullivan an’ the thraps!” she gasped. “It’s afther Tom they are, an’ I tould ’m he absconded last night. Oh, sir, say that same, for Ginger’s there too, an’ there’s the blood in their eyes!”

Here was a bombshell, from the least expected quarter, at the least expected time. Tom felt the blood rush to his face—draining his heart—but he stood his ground until Daintree ordered him out of the way of the windows. Claire sat motionless. Lady Starkie was less calm. But Daintree rose up from the table, with perfect but ostentatious sangfroid, and he patted Peggy on the back as a party of horsemen rode in front of the verandah.

“Quite right, my girl!” cried he. “They shall not