In the two letters which were the last ones numbered by Mrs. Stewart, Jack spoke again and again of the little nurse. Almost the last line of his last letter, written after he returned to the front, spoke of her.
"Little Miss Sonnot and I correspond," he wrote, "and you can have no idea how much good her letters do me. They are like fresh, sweet breezes glowing through the miasma of life in the trenches."
I folded the letters, put them back into their envelopes, and arranged them as Mrs. Stewart had given them to me. When she came back into the room she found me still holding them and staring into the fire.
"Did you read them all?" she asked.
"Yes," I replied.
"Don't you think those last ones sounded as if he were really getting interested in that little nurse?" she demanded.
There was a peculiar intonation in her voice which told me that in her own queer little way she was trying to punish me for my failure to come to see her oftener with inquiries about Jack. She evidently thought that my vanity would be piqued at the thought of Jack becoming interested in any other woman after his life-long devotion to me.
But I flatter myself that my voice was absolutely non-committal as I answered her.
"Yes, I do," I agreed, "and what a tragedy it seems that he should be snatched away from the prospect of happiness."
The words were sincere. I was sure.