'It really seems,' said Agatha, with a weary sigh, 'that Mr. Lester's legacy will prove anything but a blessing! I do wish people would leave us alone.' But a short time afterwards Major Lester's wrath and Miss Miller's strong partisanship in his cause were quite eclipsed by a greater trouble.
Agatha took in The Times, and it was generally delivered at their house about twelve o'clock in the morning, by the postmistress's little boy, directly he came home from school.
One morning Clare met him at the gate, and opened it herself. She was feeling anxious and uneasy. For the first time Captain Knox had missed the mail, and she was full of gloomy forebodings.
Agatha was tying up some straggling rose branches in the verandah, and Elfie practising away in the drawing-room.
'Any news, Clare?' Agatha asked carelessly.
There was no answer. She looked up. Clare slowly came towards her, paper in hand. She was in a fresh white dress, with a bunch of crimson roses in her belt, her golden hair shining in the sun, but her face was as white as her dress itself, and she stared at Agatha as if she did not see her. Agatha dropped her hammer and nails with a crash to the ground.
'What is it, Clare? anything about Gwen?' she asked, in frightened tones.
Clare handed her the paper without a word, and still gazed before her, as if she were in a dream.
Agatha soon found it. Only a terse, short telegram, mentioning that reports of a massacre of a surveying party had just reached the African coast, and it was feared that none had escaped alive.
Captain Knox's name was amongst those of the party.