And then Jim came up smiling and delivered his ‘Ride,’ and was applauded till the roof rang, chiefly, however, because he was Jim, and there was something about racing horses in what he had read. ‘That’s your sort,’ old George said again, but more doubtfully; ‘though I’d like to have known a little more about them horses,’ he added; and shortly after the entertainment came to an end. There was no doubt it had been a great success. While the common people streamed out, not sorry to be able to stretch their limbs and let loose their opinion, and indemnify themselves for having been silent so long, the audience in the front benches lingered to pay their respects and congratulations, and to assure the curate that everything had gone off beautifully. ‘I hope the Riverside people enjoyed it. I am sure _I_ did,’ said General FitzStephen. Mr. Osborne looked at that gallant officer as if he would have liked to knock him down. He could not have shown a more angry and clouded face had the entertainment been a failure. ‘Oh yes. I suppose it has done well enough,’ he said. Mab, who did not know what all this meant, but who was able to perceive that something was wrong, was fixing her wits upon this mystery, and very anxious to know what it meant, when she suddenly heard a little cry from her mother, whose eyes were fixed upon the last stragglers of the crowd going out, and who suddenly broke off in the midst of a conversation, and with every appearance of excitement suddenly rushed out after some one--Mab could not tell whom. Mab rushed after her mother full of astonishment and eager curiosity, but only to find Lady William standing outside looking vaguely round her with an anxious, bewildered look upon her face. ‘What is it, mother? Who is it?’ Mab cried. ‘Do you want to speak to somebody?’ ‘I am certain,’ cried Lady William, ‘I saw her in the crowd. She turned round for a moment and I saw her face.’ ‘Who is it, mother? Who is it, mother?’ cried Mab. But Lady William did not make any reply to her. She turned round to another who had rushed after her (‘_That_ Leo Swinford, of course,’ Mab said to herself) and put out her hand to him, as if he, and not her child, could help her. ‘I have seen her, I am sure I have seen her!’ she cried--and she repeated in a tone of rising excitement what she had said before--‘with a black veil over her head. She turned round as she went out of the door; and there was Artémise. Oh, find her for me; find her, Leo!’ Lady William cried. XLII Next morning, however, there came a crisis which drove all thought of anything else for the moment out of Lady William’s mind.