She glanced towards the open casement, where the curtain waved. Under the shading foliage of the clematis that grew up to the cottage-roof there had climbed the spray of a belated rose. "Rose Ménie" was its name. Mrs. Crewe had said that it would not flower that year. But there was one bud, half-hidden by leaves, swelling on its sappy twig, close to Gwenna's window-sill.
"It'll come out in a day or so," Gwenna thought.
"I'll send it to him, if it comes out white.... He was pleased with my looks!"
So, reassured, she turned to the letter again, and added:
"The only thing is, that whatever sort of wife you'd married, they couldn't have loved you like I do, or been so proud of being your wife; really sometimes I can hardly believe that I am really and truly married to——"
She broke off, and again lifted her curly head from bending above the paper.
There had been a light tap at the door behind her.
"Come in," called Gwenna, writing down as she did so, "here is the little maid coming to bring me up my hot milk; now, darling, darling boy, I do hope they give you enough to eat wherever you are——"
Behind her the white door opened and shut. But the maid did not appear at Gwenna's elbow with the tray that held that glass of hot milk and the plate of biscuits. The person who had entered gazed silently across the quiet girlish room at the little lissom figure clad in that soft crumple of pink and white, sitting writing by the dressing-table, at the cherub's head, backed by the globe of the lamp that spun a golden aureole into that wreath of curls.
There was a pause so long that Gwenna, wondering, raised her head.