Nobody has noticed that anything is wrong. Only Doatie turns very pale, and glances nervously at Geoffrey, who answers her frightened look with a perplexed one of his own.
Then, as breakfast was virtually over before the letters came, they all rise, and disperse themselves as fancy dictates. But Geoffrey goes alone to where he knows he shall find Nicholas in his own den.
An hour later, coming out of it again, feeling harassed and anxious, he finds Dorothy walking restlessly up and down the corridor outside, as though listening for some sound she pines to hear. Her pretty face, usually so bright and debonnaire, is pale and sad. Her lips are trembling.
"May I not see Nicholas, if only for a moment?" she says, plaintively, gazing with entreaty at Geoffrey. At which Nicholas, hearing from within the voice that rings its changes on his heart from morn till eve, calls aloud to her,—
"Come in, Dorothy. I want to speak to you."
So she goes in, and Geoffrey, closing the door behind her, leaves them together.
She would have gone to him then, and tried to console him in her own pretty fashion, but he motions her to stay where she is.
"Do not come any nearer," he says, hastily, "I can tell it all to you better, more easily, when I cannot see you."
So Doatie, nervous and miserable, and with unshed tears in her eyes, stands where he tells her, with her hand resting on the back of an arm-chair, while he, going over to the window, deliberately turns his face from hers. Yet even now he seems to find a difficulty in beginning. There is a long pause; and then——
"They—they have found that fellow,—old Elspeth's nephew," he says in a husky tone.