When they reached the hotel and entered from the sunshine into the small, plainly furnished hall, she sat down on one of the chairs inside the door and left it to Colonel Grey to make inquiries. The first person he saw to put a question to was Mr Burton. It chanced to be a holiday, and Mr Burton was spending his leisure in attendance on the man whom, brief though the acquaintance was in respect of time, he had come to regard with an esteem beyond the ordinary. He crossed the hall at the moment of Mrs Lawless' entry with the Colonel on his way to the sick man's room, and seeing visitors, and one a lady, bowed with his customary courtesy as he passed. The Colonel waylaid him, and taking him aside, stated the object of their visit. Mr Burton looked puzzled. "His wife, you say! Strange that he did not mention her. I asked him if there was anyone he would wish informed of his condition; I was prepared to communicate with his friends; but he said no, and I knew no address to telegraph to. He probably feared to alarm her. Does Mrs Lawless realise what has happened? He's badly hurt." "What's the damage?" the Colonel asked gruffly. "We know nothing. It is only surmise that has led us here. We've heard no details." Mr Burton's mild eyes blinked their astonishment behind their glasses. He had never happened across such an extraordinary sequence of remarkable incidents in all his life before. It fully bore out his oft-repeated assertion that it is not only in big cities that the great events occur. "He has been shot in the breast," he answered gravely. "His condition is not critical, but it is sufficiently serious. It was the most dastardly attempt upon his life. I witnessed the whole affair,--indeed, Mr Lawless and I had but a few minutes previously parted company. I am not a vindictive man, I hope, sir; but I should wish the man who was responsible for that cowardly attack to suffer punishment. But I cannot persuade Mr Lawless to furnish me with a clue as to his identity, and I was too far away to see clearly. Perhaps when Mr Lawless recovers he may speak of the matter, at present it is not wise to refer to it before him. We have orders to keep him as quiet as possible." "Who's attending him? ... Got a decent medical man?" Colonel Grey asked, with some idea in his mind of sending to Cape Town for skilled advice and nurses. "Oh! we have an excellent man... Out from England for his health. Mr Lawless is quite well looked after in that respect." "And nurses?" The little man looked surprised. "The landlady does what is necessary," he explained. "I help a little... Yes." "But--good Lord, man!--he wants trained nursing."