"Come in, Miles, and never listen to Miss Betty! She is a tyrant and denies me my wig!"
O'Hara laughed in answer to Miss Betty's quizzical smile, and strode over to the bed. He gripped my lord's thin hand and frowned down at him with an assumption of anger.
"Young good-for-nought! Could ye find nought better to do than to smash yourself up and well-nigh drive your man crazy with fright?"
"Oh, pshaw! Did you find Jim?"
O'Hara looked round and saw that Miss Betty had discreetly vanished. He sat gingerly down on the edge of the bed.
"Ay. I took the mare over as soon as I had your letter-and a fine scare you gave me, Jack, I can tell you! She recognised him, and I accosted him."
"I'll swear you did not get much satisfaction from Jim!" said my lord. "Did he look very foolish?"
"To tell ye the truth, I thought the man was half daft, and wondered whether I'd been after making a mistake. But in the end I got him to believe what I was trying to tell him, and he has taken the mare, and will bring your baggage along this evening. By the way, John, I told him of our little meeting, and of your pistols being unloaded. He said 'twas his fault, and ye never saw aught to touch his face!
Put out was not the word for it."
"I suppose so. Look here, Miles, this is a damned funny affair!"
"What happened to you exactly?"
"'Tis what I am about to tell you. After I had left you, I rode on quite quietly for about an hour, and then came upon Miss Beauleigh's coach stopped by three blackguards who were trying to drag her to another coach belonging to the gentleman who conducted the affair. So, of course, I dismounted, and went to see what was to be done."
"You would be after poking your nose into what didn't concern ye. Four men, and ye had the audacity to tackle them all? 'Tis mad ye are entirely!"
"Of course, if you had been in my place you would have ridden off in another direction-or aided the scoundrels?" was the scathing reply.
O'Hara chuckled.
"Well, go on, Jack. I'm not saying I don't wish I had been with ye."
"'Twould have been superb. I suppose Miss Beauleigh has told you most of the tale, but there is one thing that she could not have told you, for she did not know it: the man I fought with was Belmanoir."
"Thunder and turf! Not the Duke?"
"Yes. Tracy."
"Zounds! Did he know ye?"