172 The Real Charlotte. 



the culprits, and it had dragged painfully through its eight 

 courses, in spite of Lady Dysart's efforts to hasten Gorman 

 and his satellite in their inexorable orbit. Everyone except 

 Garry and Miss Hope-Drummond had been possessed by 

 an anxiety which Lady Dysart alone had courage to express. 

 She indeed, being a person who habitually said what other 

 people were half afraid to think, had dilated on all possible 

 calamities till Cursiter, whose temper was momently be- 

 coming worse, many times wished himself on the lake, row- 

 ing dinnerless and vengeful on the track of the fugitives. 



The whole party was now out of doors, and on its way 

 down to the landing-place, in the dark twilight; Lady 

 Dysart coming last of all, and driving before her the much 

 incensed Gorman, whom she had armed with the gong, in 

 the idea that its warlike roar would be at once a guide and 

 a menace to the wanderers. So far it had only had the 

 effect of drawing together in horrified questioning all the 

 cattle in the lower part of the park, and causing them to 

 rush, bellowing, along by the railings that separated them 

 from the siren who cried to them with a voice so command- 

 ing and so mysterious. Gorman was fully alive to the in- 

 dignity of his position, and to the fact that Master Garry, 

 his ancient enemy, was mocking at his humiliation ; but 

 any attempt to moderate his attack upon the gong was de- 

 tected by his mistress. 



" Go on, Gorman ! Beat it louder ! The more they 

 bellow the better; it will guide them into the landing-place." 



Christopher's affected misapprehension of his mother's 

 pronouns created a diversion for some time, as it was per- 

 haps intended to do. He had set himself to treat the 

 whole affair with unsympathetic levity, but, in spite of him- 

 self, an insistent thorn of anxiety made it difficult for him to 

 make little of his mother's vigorous panic. It was absurd, 

 but her lamentations about the dangers of the lake and of 

 steam-launches found a hollow echo in his heart. He re- 

 membered, with a shudder that he had not felt at the time, 

 the white face rising and dipping in the trough of the grey 

 lake waves ; and though his sense of humour, and of the 

 supreme inadequacy and staleness of swearing, usually de- 

 prived him of that safety valve, he was conscious that in the 

 background of his mind the traditional adjective was mono- 



