“There’s one thing against shipboard though.”  He had come to a halt, head aslant, and said it softly, eyeing a tree some thirty yards distant.

“What?”

“No stones lying about.”  Picking up one, he launched it at a nuthatch that clung pecking at the moss on the bark.  “Hit him, by George!  Come—­”

He ran and she raced after him for a few paces, but stopped half-way, with her hand to her side.  The nuthatch was not hit after all, but had bobbed away into the green gloom.

“Tell you what—­you can’t run as you used,” he said critically.

“No? . . .”  She was wondering at the mysterious life a-flutter in her side—­that it should be his brother.

“Not half.  I’ll have to get you into training. . . .  Now show me the stables, please.”

They were retracing their steps when along a green alley they saw Mr. Hanmer coming down to meet them.  He was alone, and his face, always grave, seemed to Ruth graver than ever.

“Dicky!” said he.  “Service, if you please.”

“Ay, sir!” Dicky’s small person stiffened at once, and Dicky’s hand went up to the salute.

“Wait here, please.  I wish a word in private with Lady Vyell—­if you will forgive me, ma’am?”

“Why to be sure, sir,” she answered, wondering.  As he turned, she walked on with him.  After some fifty paces she confronted him under the pale-green dappled shadows of the alley.

“Something has happened?  Is it serious?”

“Yes.”

Looking straight before him, as they resumed their walk, he told her; in brief words that seemed, as he jerked them out, to be pumped from him; that made no single coherent sentence, and yet were concise as a despatch.

This in substance was Mr. Hanmer’s report:—­

They had remained on the terrace, seated, as she had left them—­ Captain and Mrs. Harry, Miss Quiney and he.  The Captain was talking. . . .  A servant brought word that two ladies—­Mr. Hanmer could not recall their names—­had called from Boston and desired to see Mrs. Vyell.  “Surely,” protested Mrs. Harry, “they must mean Lady Vyell?” The servant was positive:  Mrs. Captain Vyell had been the name.  “They are anxious to pay their respects,” suggested Miss Quiney.  “Anxious indeed!  Why we landed but a few hours since.  They must have galloped.”  Miss Quiney was sent to offer them refreshment and discover their business.

Miss Quiney goes off on her errand.  Minutes elapse.  After many minutes the servant reappears.  “Miss Quiney requests Mrs. Harry’s attendance.”  Mrs. Harry goes.

“Women are queer cattle,” says Captain Harry sententiously, and talks on.  By-and-by the servant appears yet again.  Mr. Hanmer is sent for.  “Why, ’tis like a story I’ve read somewhere, about a family sent one by one to stop a tap running,” says Captain Harry.  “But I’ll say this for the women—­I’m always the last they bother.”