‘I wonder when I shall see Patrick!’ he said, quickened in spite of himself by the sham sounds of music to desire changes and surprises.

Jane was wondering whether he could be a man still to brood tearfully over his old love.

She echoed him.  ‘And I!  Soon, I hope.’

The appearance of Mrs. Adister with features which were the acutest critical summary of the discord caused toll to be paid instantly, and they beheld a flashing of white teeth and heard Italian accents.  The monkey saluted militarily, but with painful suggestions of his foregone drilling in the ceremony.

‘We are safe nowhere from these intrusions,’ Mrs. Adister said; ’not on these hills!—­and it must be a trial for the wretched men to climb them, that thing on their backs.’

’They are as accustomed to it as mountain smugglers bearing packs of contraband,’ said Philip.

’Con would have argued him out of hearing before he ground a second note,’ she resumed.  ’I have no idea when Con returns from his unexpected visit to Ireland.’

‘Within a fortnight, madam.’

’Let me believe it!  You have heard from him?  But you are in the air! exposed!  My head makes me stupid.  It is now five o’clock.  The air begins to chill.  Con will never forgive me if you catch a cold, and I would not incur his blame.’

The eyes of Jane and Philip shot an exchange.

‘Anything you command, madam,’ said Philip.

He looked up and breathed his heaven of fresh air.  Jane pitied, she could not interpose to thwart his act of resignation.  The farmer, home for tea, and a footman, took him between them, crutched, while Mrs. Adister said to Jane:  ’The doctor’s orders are positive:—­if he is to be a man once more, he must rest his back and not use his legs for months.  He was near to being a permanent cripple from that fall.  My brother Edward had one like it in his youth.  Soldiers are desperate creatures.’

‘I think Mr. Adister had his fall when hunting, was it not?’ said Jane.

‘Hunting, my dear.’

That was rather different from a fall on duty before the enemy, incurred by severe exhaustion after sunstroke! . . .

Jane took her leave of Philip beside his couch of imprisonment in his room, promising to return in the early morning.  He embraced her old dog Wayland tenderly.  Hard men have sometimes a warm affection for dogs.

Walking homeward she likewise gave Wayland a hug.  She called him ’dear old fellow,’ and questioned him of his fondness for her, warning him not to be faithless ever to the mistress who loved him.  Was not her old Wayland as good a protector as the footman Mrs. Adister pressed her to have at her heels?  That he was!