“The name?—I wrote it down on a bit of paper just for my own memory's sake, for I forget everything; the name is Conway,—Charles Conway.”
“Why, that's the very—” When he got so far, a warning look from Bella arrested Kellett's voice, and he ceased speaking, looking eagerly at his daughter for some explanation. Had he not been so anxious for some clew to her meaning, he could scarcely have failed to be struck by the intense keenness of the glance Driscoll turned from the countenance of the father to that of the daughter. She, however, marked it, and with such significance that a deathlike sickness crept suddenly over her, and she sank slowly down into a seat.
“You ware saying, 'That's the very—'” said Driscoll, repeating the words, and waiting for the conclusion.
“The very name we read in a newspaper,” said Bella, who, with a sort of vague instinct of some necessity for concealment, at once gave this evasive reply. “He volunteered for somewhere, or was first inside a battery, or did something or other very courageous.”
“It was n't killed he was?” said Driscoll, in his habitual tone.
“No, no,” cried Kellett, “he was all safe.”
“Isn't it a queer thing? but I'd like to hear of him! There was some Conway s connections of my mother's, and I can't get it out of my head but he might be one of them. It's not a common name, like Driscoll.”
“Well, Jack will, maybe, be able to tell you about him,” said Kellett, still under the spell of Bella's caution.
“If you would tell me on what points you want to be informed,” said Bella, “I shall be writing to my brother in a day or two. Are there any distinct questions you wish to be answered?”
The calm but searching glance that accompanied these few words gradually gave way to an expression of pity as Bella gazed at the hopeless imbecility of poor Driscoll's face, wherein not a gleam of intelligence now lingered. It was as if the little struggle of intellect had so exhausted him that he was incapable of any further effort of reason. And there he sat, waiting till the returning tide of thought should flow back upon his stranded intelligence.