‘I know one thing, any way,’ says she, ‘that out ov this ye go, this minnit-second. Ye can tell yer nevvy all about it whin ye git out, an’ the sooner ye’re out, the sooner ye can tell him; an’ I wish ye joy of the tellin’! Come now!’—she steps up to Mrs. Prior with a menacing air—‘quick march!’ This grand old soldier—with whom even her husband, good man and true as he had proved himself on many a battlefield, would probably have come off second best at a close tussle—now sidling up to Mrs. Prior with distinct battle in her eyes, that lady deems it best to lay down her arms and sound a retreat. ‘This disreputable conduct only coincides with the whole of this establishment,’ says Mrs. Prior, making a faint effort to sustain her position whilst being literally moved towards the gate by the powerful personality and still more powerful arm of Mrs. Denis. The latter does not touch her, indeed, but she keeps waving that muscular member up and down like a windmill, in a most threatening manner. ‘You understand that I shall report all this to Mr. Wyndham?’ ‘Ye’ve said all that before,’ says Mrs. Denis, with great contempt. ‘An’ now I’ll tell you something. That report ye spake of, in my humble opinion, will make mighty little noise!’ After that she closes the gate with scant ceremony on Mrs. Prior’s departing heels. CHAPTER XLVI. ‘To hear an open scandal is a curse; But not to find an answer is a worse.’ Mrs. Prior, thus forcibly ejected (ejections are the vogue in Ireland), commences her return journey to Crosby Park, smarting considerably under her wrongs and the big umbrella she is holding over her head. She has gone but a little way, however, when, on suddenly turning a corner, she finds herself face to face with Wyndham. He has evidently been walking in a great hurry, but as he sees her he comes to a dead stop. All his worst fears are at once realized. The fact is that Crosby had missed Mrs. Prior at luncheon hour—a most unusual thing, by the way, for her to be absent, for she dearly loved a meal—and he had asked Miss Prior where she was. Miss Prior had said she did not know—hadn’t the faintest notion—perhaps gone for a prowl and forgotten her way home. Crosby somehow had felt that the fair Josephine was lying openly and freely, and had at once given a hint to Wyndham of Mrs. Prior’s conversation with him on the previous night, even suggesting that Mrs. Prior’s unusual absence from luncheon might have some connection with the Cottage. The result of all of which is that Mrs. Prior now finds herself looking into her nephew’s eyes and wondering rather vaguely what the next move is going to be. His eyes are distinctly unpleasant. They had been anxious—horribly anxious—when first she saw them; but now they seem alive with active rage. ‘Where have you been?’ asks he immediately, his face set and white. Crosby, then, had been quite right in his suggestion.