"You only saw the jungle side," she explained, "but I can tell you, that Miss Nancy is accomplished; she can play the piano, and sing and dance as well as the best of your tip-toppers; she didn't waste her time at school, you bet! She cost Laurence Travers about two hundred a year, he never spared any expense upon his girl—we all know that."
When Mrs. Hicks had withdrawn—she was an early to bed lady—Mayne wandered about alone in the bright moonlight, thinking sorrowfully of the dead man.
Was it but a week ago, when they two, discussing a question of European politics, had paced this very path, and since then, his companion had set out for the undiscovered country? It seemed incredible.
By and by he went and stood by the newly made grave; something was lying across it, crushing all the beautiful wreaths and flowers. What was it? On nearer inspection it proved to be Togo; who recognized his disturber with a threatening growl.
From the grave Mayne returned to the bungalow, and sat for a long time alone in the empty verandah—what a change was here! The merry voices, and the laughing that filled it a week ago, already belonged to the past; every door stood wide, and a chill death-like stillness pervaded the premises. Even in the servants' quarters—what a singular absence of sound!
All at once a wholly inexplicable impulse impelled Mayne to enter the room where Travers had breathed his last; the corners looked mysteriously, and forbiddingly dark; but in the centre, where the moonlight streamed,—it was as light as day. The little iron cot had been neatly made up, in the long chair—Mayne started, the moon discovered a prone figure—Nancy! with her head buried among the cushions; and something in the absolute abandonment of her limp and lifeless attitude, brought to his mind the picture of a dead white bird.
He stole away, noiseless as a shadow, with these two scenes indelibly fixed upon his memory; Togo, keeping watch and ward over the grave, Nancy prostrate in the death chamber. Surely few men had ever awakened such profound grief, as Laurence Travers.