"Something has happened?"
"Yes, dear."
"Oh—" the young girl could not put the question.
Alva did not speak. Lassie felt her heart freezing harder every instant. It was always so, when one came within the circle of that greater existence. Part of the attraction of Ingram was that he was just so ordinarily human. Alva was never ordinary, and scarcely ever human. Oh, dear! Her lovely dream seemed suddenly slipping out to sea before this tremendous, quiet storm of resistless stress!
"You have had a letter?" she whispered timidly, at last.
"Yes, dear, and he is dead." Alva spoke quite steadily.
"Dead!"
"I had a letter from his friend—his doctor—the one who wrote for him. You were right in what you thought. He died last night, in the night, while I slept. He was unconscious when he died. He struggled first and suffered—while I was struggling and suffering, you remember—and then he grew still when I grew still, and then when I slept he slept and began to die, and while I still slept he died—that is—his body died."
Lassie sank down upon the bed beside her, took the clasped hands into her own, and burst into bitter tears, hiding her face in the four hands at once.
After a little Alva spoke again, still in the same low, ringing voice.