, with a becoming hint of
deference--"I might do so. I gathered that Charles--that your
father--wished it. He has not been feeling well."

And as Damaris anxiously exclaimed--

"Yes"--Miss Felicia went on--"not at all well. Hordle told me. That was
why I went to the library. He hoped, if he waited and rested for a little
while, the uncomfortable sensations might subside and it would be
needless to mention them. He did not want any fuss made. We gave him
restoratives, and he recovered from the faintness. But he won't be equal,
he admits, to coming in to dinner. Colonel Carteret must be hungry--your
father begs us to wait no longer, I assured him we would not. Hordle is
with him. He should not be alone, I think, while any pain continues."

"Pain--pain?" Damaris cried, her imagination rather horribly caught by
the word. "But is he hurt, has he had some accident?"

While Carteret asked tersely: "Pain--and where?"

"Here," Felicia answered, laying her hand upon her left side over the
heart. She looked earnestly at Carteret as she spoke, conveying to him an
alarm she sought to spare Damaris.

"He tries to make little of it, and assures me it was only the heat of
the house which caused him discomfort after the cold air out of doors.
It may be only that, but I think we ought to make sure."

Again, and with that same becoming hint of deference, she turned to
her niece.

"So I sent orders that Patch should drive at once to Stourmouth and fetch
Dr. McCabe. I did not stop to consult you because it seemed best he
should take out the horses before they were washed down and stabled."

"Yes--but I can go to him?" Damaris asked.

"Darling--of course. But I would try to follow his lead, if I were
you--treat it all lightly, since he so wishes. Your father knows best in
most things--and may know best in this. Please God it is so."

Left alone with Carteret.

"I am anxious--most cruelly anxious about my brother," she said.

While Damaris, sweeping across the hall and down the corridor in her
sunshine silken dress, repeated:

"The ponies--the smugglers' ponies," a sob in her throat.

CHAPTER VII

TELLING HOW CHARLES VERITY LOOKED ON THE MOTHER OF HIS SON

"Which is equivalent to saying, 'Hear the conclusion of the whole
matter,' isn't it, McCabe?"

Dr. McCabe's square, hairy-backed hands fumbled with the stethoscope as
he pushed it into his breast pocket, and, in replying, his advertised
cheerfulness rang somewh