"Oh, of course!" She frowned, and pulled open the flimsy sheet.
The boy waited. He peered past her, interested in the odd pictures on the walls, and the glimpse of a table luxuriously set. The minutes sped. He had soon seen all he could, and began to fidget.
"Any answer, Miss?" he hinted.
"Oh!" said Clare vaguely. "Answer? No. No answer. No answer at all."
The boy knuckled his forehead and clattered away down the staircase.
Mechanically Clare shut the door, locked and bolted it and secured it with the chain. Then she returned to the sitting-room and crossed to her former station by the open window.
The storm was ending in a downpour of furious tropical rain. It beat in unheeded upon her thin dress and bare neck and the open telegram in her hands, as, with lips parted and a faint, puzzled pucker between her brows, she conned over the message—
I cannot come to-night.—I have gone to Dene. I am going to marry Roger.
She read it and re-read, twisting it this way and that, for it was barely visible in the wet dusk. It seemed an eternity before its full meaning dawned upon her. And yet she had known all there was to know when she confronted the messenger boy (Oh, Destiny is up to date) and took her sentence from his grimy hand.
I am going to marry Roger.