"Do you mind?" she asked. "I have been waiting so long."
"Read it, of course," said Pamela.
Millie tore the letter open, and at once the light died out of her eyes, and the smile vanished from her lips.
"From New York," she said, halfway between perplexity and fear. "He writes from New York." And with trembling fingers she turned over the sheets and read the letter through.
Pamela watched her, saw the blood ebb from her cheeks, and dejection overspread her face. A great pity welled up in Pamela's heart, not merely for the wife who read, but for the man who had penned that letter--with what difficulty, she wondered, with how much pain! Failure was the message which it carried. Millicent's trembling lips told her that. And again the village of Roquebrune rose up before her eyes as she gazed out of the window on the London square. What were the words the schoolmaster had spoken when, stripped of his dreams, he had confessed success was not for him? "We must forget these fine plans. The school at Roquebrune will send no deputy to Paris." Pamela's eyes grew dim.
She stood looking out of the window for some while, but hearing no movement she at length turned back again. The sheets of the letter had fallen upon the floor, they lay scattered, written over in a round, sprawling, schoolboy's hand. Millicent sat very still, her face most weary and despairing.
"It's all over," she said. "The friend was a swindler. He left the train at a station on the way and disappeared. Tony went on, but there was no farm. He is back in New York."
"But the man can be found?"
"He belongs to a gang. There is little chance, and Tony has no money. He will take no more of mine."
"He is coming home, then?" said Pamela.