“One thing more, Wilkins; if Sergeant Farrelly or any policeman comes up here from the barracks either to-day or to-morrow and asks to see me, tell him I’m out, and that it won’t be the least use his waiting because I won’t be in before midnight and probably not then.” “Yes, my lord.” Wilkins left the room, and Lord Manton, taking the chair in which Miss Blow had been sitting, lit a cigarette. There was a stealthy step on the gravel outside. He looked up and saw Patsy Devlin’s face pressed against the window. He rose, opened the window, and asked Patsy what he wanted. “Might I be so bold as to put a question to your lordship?” “Is it about Miss Blow or Dr. O’Grady?” “It is,” said Patsy. “It’s about the both of them.” “Out with it, then. That young woman and her relations with the doctor form quite the most interesting subject I know at present.” “Did your lordship keep the truth from her?” “I did my best not to, Patsy; but I think I may safely say that I did.” Patsy pondered this saying. The meaning was not immediately obvious to him. “It’s what Jimmy O’Loughlin was saying to me last night,” he said, “that if so be she heard that the doctor had left her, the creature’s heart would be broke, and her as handsome a young girl as any you’d see.” “At the present moment,” said Lord Manton, “she believes that you and Jimmy O’Loughlin have murdered the doctor and concealed his body in a bog hole.” “The Lord save us and deliver us! Was there ne’er another story you could tell her only that? Sure the police will be out after us.” “She went straight from this house to the barracks,” said Lord Manton, “and I shouldn’t wonder if you were arrested before night.” “Be damn!” said Patsy, “saving your lordship’s presence; but they couldn’t take me for the like of that. There isn’t one in the country but knows that I wouldn’t lay a hand on the doctor, drunk or sober, not if it was to save my soul.” “Don’t you be too sure,” said Lord Manton. “My own belief is that if Miss Blow doesn’t come across the doctor in the course of the next twenty-four hours, she’ll have you hanged for murdering him.” “It’s joking you are. She couldn’t do it.” “I am not joking. I defy any man to joke after spending half an hour with Miss Blow. She is the most determined young woman I ever met. She could do anything, absolutely anything. There isn’t a judge or a jury could stand out against her for an hour. If I were you, Patsy, I’d make a bolt for it and join the doctor in America. Your life’s not safe in this country. I expect by this time you have as much collected for the sports as would pay your passage out.” “I have,” said Patsy; “but I’ll not go. I’ll stand my trial, if it comes to that, sooner than have people saying it of me that I ever laid a hand on the doctor.”