“That’s all, Digby,” he said briskly.  “I’ll go through the hot-houses myself some time to-day.”

As he spoke, he signed to one of the footmen in the room to close the window, and then propelled his chair with amazing rapidity to the table.

The instant and careful attention accorded to his commands by both gardener and servant was characteristic of every one in Patrick Lovell’s employment.  Although he had been a more or less helpless invalid for seven years, he had never lost his grip of things.  He was exactly as much master of Barrow Court, the dominant factor there, as he had been in the good times that were gone, when no day’s shooting had been too long for him, no run with hounds too fast.

He sat very erect in his wheeled chair, a handsome, well-groomed old aristocrat.  Clean-shaven, except for a short, carefully trimmed moustache, grizzled like his hair, his skin exhibited the waxen pallor which so often accompanies chronic ill-health, and his face was furrowed by deep lines, making him look older than his sixty-odd years.  His vivid blue eyes were extraordinarily keen and penetrating; possibly they, and the determined, squarish jaw, were answerable for that unquestioning obedience which was invariably accorded him.

“Good-morning, uncle mine!” Sara bent to kiss him as the door closed quietly behind the retreating servants.

Patrick Lovell screwed his monocle into his eye and regarded her dispassionately.

“You look somewhat ruffled,” he observed, “both literally and figuratively.”

She laughed, putting up a careless hand to brush back the heavy tress of dark hair that had fallen forward over her forehead.

“I’ve had an adventure,” she answered, and proceeded to recount her experience with Black Brady.  When she reached the point where the man had fired off his gun, Patrick interrupted explosively.

“The infernal scoundrel!  That fellow will dangle at the end of a rope one of these days—­and deserve it, too.  He’s a murderous ruffian—­a menace to the countryside.”

“He only fired into the air—­to frighten me,” explained Sara.

Her uncle looked at her curiously.

“And did he succeed?” he asked.

She bestowed a little grin of understanding upon him.

“He did,” she averred gravely.  Then, as Patrick’s bushy eyebrows came together in a bristling frown, she added:  “But he remained in ignorance of the fact.”

The frown was replaced by a twinkle.

“That’s all right, then,” came the contented answer.

“All the same, I really was frightened,” she persisted.  “It gave me quite a nasty turn, as the servants say.  I don’t think”—­meditatively—­“that I enjoy being shot at.  Am I a funk, my uncle?”

“No, my niece”—­with some amusement.  “On the contrary, I should define the highest type of courage as self-control in the presence of danger—­not necessarily absence of fear.  The latter is really no more credit to you than eating your dinner when you’re hungry.”