The drive home was altogether silent. Jean could not trust herself to speak. She had eaten almost nothing since one o'clock, and the long strain was making itself felt.
"I sent word to your aunt that, if we came at all, we should be late—that she must not stay up, but might leave a good fire in the study," remarked Mr. Trevelyan, as they stopped at the Rectory. "And—tea. I thought you would rather have something here than at the Park. Walters would have got anything that I wished—but—jump out!"
Jean was past jumping. She descended somehow, and made her way to the study, where indeed a cheery fire blazed, and tea-things were outspread. Madame Collier's voice over the stairs kept Mr. Trevelyan back; and Jean could hear an exchange of low-voiced communications.
There was an exclamation or two in Madame Collier's voice, and then—
"On the marshes!—In the snow!—Too late!—All over!"—at intervals from her father.
Jean stood over the fire, feeling strangely. It had been such a terrible day. Only ten hours since she had quitted the Rectory, light-hearted and joyous—and all this to have come since! She felt as if ten weeks might have passed over her head. A vision rose before Jean of the General's tall figure and kind face, as he had come into his wife's boudoir; and then of the same, lying stark and cold in the white snow; and then of Evelyn's desolate misery; and a suffocating lump rose in her throat.
"Aunt Marie will see you presently, but I can't have talk to-night. You must go to bed as soon as you have had something to eat," said Mr. Trevelyan, entering.
He poked the fire carefully, arranged a bed of hot coals with deft fingers, and placed the kettle thereon.
"It will boil directly. Sandwiches—that's right. Sit down, Jean."
He pushed a chair towards her, and she obeyed, with a despairing sense of having come to the end of everything. Thus far she had kept up with marvellous courage for a girl of sixteen; but some measure of reaction was almost inevitable.