A light flashed from the other room; then a sound of voices. It was not exactly a blessing that Claverton gulped down, as some one was heard calling:
“Lilian. Are you there? It’s supper-time. Why, what has become of her?” added the voice, parenthetically.
Lilian started as if from a reverie. “Here I am,” and she rose hastily. Claverton was not the only one who watched her as she came out into the light, but the serene, beautiful face was as calm and unmoved as if she had been in their midst all the time.
Very cheerful and homelike looked the lighted room, and the table with its hissing tea-urn, and knives and forks and dish-covers sparkling on the snowy cloth. Very bright and exhilarating in contrast to the wet, chill gloom without, and to those two, who had been at work in the rain all day, especially so.
“The flood will do no end of damage,” Mr Brathwaite was saying, as he began to make play with the carving-knife. “There’ll be lots of stock swept away, I fear, and the homesteads along the river banks stand a good chance of following.”
“That’s cheerful, for their owners,” remarked Claverton. “I should think old Garthorpe’s place would be one of the first to go.”
“Serve him right, I was nearly saying. He doesn’t deserve to own a good farm like that—always preaching to the Kafirs instead of looking after it.”
“Is he a missionary?” asked Lilian.
“No. He ought to be, though. He’s quite humbug enough.”
“Tsh!” laughed Mrs Brathwaite. “Lilian will think you a regular heathen.”