"Not yet. The cable might come any time, now. We cabled to Frank, of course. And he was so pleased about Dorothy's baby and everything, and now—now he'll never see her."
They sobbed and cried.
"The baby will be a comfort to Dorothy."
"Yes, oh yes. And to Mother too, later on."
A bell rang, and Janet said:
"That might be the cable."
Waiting for the Indian cable seemed to be the nearest approach to an occupation that was possible.
"Uncle has sent up the announcement to the papers, so to-morrow I suppose there'll be telegrams and things," said Sylvia, shuddering. "But the Indian cable ought to be here to-day."
The cable came at last and Janet took it upstairs unopened to her mother's room, and Sylvia and Lily remained in the schoolroom, where the clock hands moved so slowly that they often seemed to have stopped altogether. Lily held Sylvia's hand, and spoke from time to time, trying not to think that her platitudes were utterly meaningless.
"He couldn't have felt anything at all—it would have been so much more dreadful if he'd had to suffer ... and now he—he's so much happier ... he'd want you to be brave...."