'Well,' said Gwen, after a slight pause, 'I hope it may be true, if she really loves him. It is like a story-book, the long-lost lover come to life again! Don't say a word to any one. They have promised to send us the first information they receive.'
For the next few days both Agatha and Gwen appeared to the others very restless and pre-occupied; but as a week or two passed away without further tidings, they tried to banish it from their thoughts, and in a measure succeeded.
Gwen was delighted at the prospects of her book coming out, and hoped to realize a good sum from it, more than she at one time could have thought possible to be earned by her pen. And when, a little later, she received the first instalment of it, she sent a cheque straight out to Meta Seton.
'I feel convinced,' she confided to Agatha, 'that she still cares for Walter; and it is only her father that has insisted upon her breaking it off. I should be so thankful if they came together again. In Walter's last letter he mentions having met her, and I think that they may have arrived at a secret understanding with one another; he writes in much better spirits.'
'If she is a wife worth having, she would never desert him for his poverty,' said Agatha.
Gwen shook her head and sighed, for she knew the world better than simple-minded Agatha did. But her writing took her mind off the startling news she had heard, and Agatha was equally engrossed in preparing Elfie's trousseau, so that though they were always on the watch for any news in the papers, they did not mention the subject to one another, and it was a distinct shock to Agatha to receive a telegram one morning.
'Captain Hugh Knox alive. Coming home. Break it to his friends.'
Clare was doing some work for Elfie when the telegram arrived. Agatha hastily consulted Gwen in the study, and then came into the dining-room, where the two younger girls were sitting.
'Who is the telegram from?' asked Elfie quickly. 'We have so few here that Clare and I are quite curious about it.'
Agatha sat down, and her hands trembled as she unfolded and refolded the yellow envelope in her grasp.