It was the soldier telegraph-operator, with a despatch-envelope in his hand:
"It is for Mrs. Rayner, miss, and an answer is expected. Shall I wait?"
Mrs. Rayner came hastily forward from her place of refuge within the dining-room, took the envelope without a word, and passed into the parlor, where, standing beneath the lamp, she tore it open, glanced anxiously at its contents, then threw it with an exclamation of peevish indignation upon the table:
"You'll have to answer for yourself, Nellie. I cannot straighten your affairs and mine too." And with that she was going; but Miss Travers called her back.
The message simply read, "No letter in four days. Is anything wrong? Answer paid," and was addressed to Mrs. Rayner and signed S.V.A.
"I think you have been extremely neglectful," said Mrs. Rayner, who had turned and now stood watching the rising color and impatiently tapping foot of her younger sister. Miss Travers bit her lips and compressed them hard. There was an evident struggle in her mind between a desire to make an impulsive and sweeping reply and an effort to control herself.
"Will you answer a quiet question or two?" she finally asked.
"You know perfectly well I will," was the sisterly rejoinder.
"How long does it take a letter to go from here to New York?"
"Five or six days, I suppose."