"Ay, it's Farish, Janet," said he at length, in a very bitter voice, and threw himself wearily into a chair. "None other than your ne'er-do-well brother, Farish, come home to die on your hands. I've been hiding in the woods all day, waiting a chance to creep in. I'm starving, too."
She turned, trembling sickly, to a full cupboard and set more food on the table in haste. He fell upon it like a famished wolf, and while he was devouring it they talked, in broken sentences.
"Where have you come from--in such a state?" the old woman asked, watching him with woe in her face.
"From hell," he mumbled hoarsely, his mouth full, "to square accounts with another devil who seems to have made the Castle of Loquhariot his home too. What's Dove, as he calls himself, doing here, Janet?"
"He came with the Lady Josceline Justice," Mrs. M'Kissock made difficult answer.
"He came with the Lady Josceline Justice!" repeated her brother mechanically, and ceased eating for an instant to stare at her out of blank, disbelieving eyes. Then he went on with his ravenous feast and his questioning. "Who else is here?"
"Mr. Slyne," his sister told him meekly, "and Mr. Jobling, her ladyship's London lawyer. The Duchess of Dawn and Lord Ingoldsby came across the Pass to call on her ladyship this afternoon. And there's Mr. Herries, too, ill in bed, as he's been since the night of her ladyship's coming."
"I know the man Slyne," muttered Farish M'Kissock. "But--what's Lady Josceline Justice like?"
He listened attentively to his sister's brief, fond description, and then pushed the plates from before him.
"Can you give me something to drink now?" he asked, in a strained, unsteady voice. She brought him a bottle of wine from the cupboard and he swallowed some, very sparingly. It brought a little colour back into his ashen face.
"I'll eat some more in a minute or two," he muttered, and sank back into his chair, and sighed. And there he sat, still and silent, while the big grandfather's clock in its corner ticked away an eternity of suspense.
"And so it's--_her_!" he whispered to himself, and looked up at his sister again as if he had been unaware of her company.
"Listen, Janet," said he then, in a stronger voice, "and I'll tell you something of what I owe Dove.