A shudder of returning consciousness, an inquiring look around, and then the dread remembrance burst upon her.
“Oh, Arthur!” she wailed forth, in a despairing, bitter moan, “you are dead, love, and I—why do I still live?” and the tears rushed forth as her frame shook beneath its weight of sobbing woe.
“Hush, dear!” whispered Annie. “It does not say that, you know; it says he is a prisoner, and he may have escaped by now, or been rescued. While there is life there is hope.”
Something in the idea seemed suddenly to strike her. Starting up, she pressed her hand against her brows.
“So there is! Hope, hope! He is not dead. We must rescue him;” and with a new-born determination, Lilian rose and walked towards the door. Her hostess stared at her with a vague misgiving. Had this shock turned her brain?
“Mr Payne,” said Lilian, quite calmly, as she entered the sitting-room, “what can we do?”
Payne, who was busy buckling on a pair of stout riding gaiters, looked up, no less astonished than his wife had been. A cartridge-belt, well stocked, lay on a chair, and just then Sam entered with a gun which he had been wiping out.
“Do? Well, I’m going to start off at once for Brathwaite’s camp and see what can be done. But cheer up, Miss Lilian. We may bring our friend out of his troubles all right enough. While there’s life there’s hope, you know.”
Just what his wife had said, and the twofold reiteration struck Lilian vaguely as a good omen.
“Mr Payne,” she said, suddenly, “I want to go with you.”