Page:The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman.djvu/282

 It was no less deserted than the garden! Lights blazing, doors and windows open, but not a soul in sight; the very servants pressed into the hue-and-cry. I wandered through room after room, upstairs and down. When I went back to the terrace, it was with the crazy feeling that the world had come to an end and I alone was left. . . Suddenly a step on the gravel! And I do assure you that I did not know whether to scream with fear or sob with relief.

“Lady Ann!” I was far beyond recognizing voices. I peered into the darkness until the figure of a man emerged from the shadows. . . “Colonel Butler!,” I cried. “Where’s Phyllida?,” he asked. “Goodness me, what have you been doing to yourself?,” I exclaimed.

His clothes were in rags, he had lost his hat, he was plastered in mud from head to foot, and one arm was in some sort of make-shift sling.

“Oh, that’s nothing,” he said. “A fool of a girl was riding a horse she couldn’t control, and, in trying not to run her down, I had to turn the car over an embankment. There was no station within reach, so I had to come here across country. I’d have wired; but, by the time I reached a telegraph-office, everything was closed—”