Carstares closed the door behind her and came back to O'Hara, who had flung himself back into his chair, trying, manlike, to conceal the excitement he was feeling.
"Come, sit ye down, Jack, and let me have the whole story!"
My lord divested himself of his long cloak and shook out his hitherto tucked-up ruffles. From the pocket of his elegant scarlet riding coat he drew a snuff-box, which he opened languidly. With his eyes resting quizzically on O'Hara's face, he took a delicate pinch of snuff and minced across the room.
"This, my dear friend, is Sir Anthony Ferndale, Bart.!" He bowed with great flourish.
"Ye look it. But come over here, Sir Anthony Ferndale, Bart., and tell me everything."
Jack perched on the edge of the desk and swung his leg.
"Well really, I do not think there is much to tell that you do not already know, Miles. You know all about Dare's card-party, for instance, precisely six years ago?"
"'Tis just exactly what I do not know!" retorted O'Hara.
"You surprise me! I thought the tale was rife."
"Now, Jack, will ye have done drawling at me? Don't be forgetting I'm your friend--"
"But are you? If you know the truth about me, do you feel inclined to call me friend?"
"There never was a time when I would not have been proud to call ye friend, as ye would very well have known, had ye been aught but a damned young hothead! I heard that crazy tale about the card-party, but do ye think I believed it?"
"Maybe, but I fancy I know ye just a little too well to believe any cock-and-bull story I'm told about ye. And even if I had been fool enough to have believed it, do ye think I'd be going back on ye? Sure, 'tis a poor friend I'd be!"
Jack stared down at the toe of his right boot in silence.
"I know something more than we guessed happened at that same party, and I have me suspicions, but 'tis your affair, and whatever ye did ye had your reasons for. But, Jack, why in the name of wonder must ye fly off to the devil alone knows where, without so much as a good-bye to anyone?"
Carstares never raised his eyes from the contemplation of that boot. He spoke with difficulty.
"Miles--in my place--would you not have done the same?"
"You know you would. Was it likely that I should inflict myself on you at such a time? What would you have thought of me had I done so?"