"Are you—going to stay here?" she asked anxiously.
"If I thought," he answered, "that there was the slightest thing I could do in London which I have not already done, I would go back by the first train this morning, but, indeed, you must remember what I told you last night. The matter is practically settled. In a few days he will know."
"It is those few days," she said softly, "which are so terrible."
It was hard to try and make use of any conventional phrase of reassurance. Deane, remembering how intense, how real and startling a thing this tragedy really was, found it hard, impossible, indeed.
"Tell me," he asked, "do you live absolutely alone?"
"Yes!" she told him. "There was a cousin who was with me for some time, but she got a situation the other side of London, and had to move. I was in a boarding-house," she continued, after a moment's hesitation, "until—this happened. Then all the people—well, they meant to be kind," she broke off, "but the woman who kept it thought I had better leave, and I suppose she was right."
"We will go in to breakfast," he said, a little abruptly.
Every moment he seemed to realize more completely the pathos of her position. They turned towards the house. Suddenly her fingers fell upon his arm. "Who is that?" she asked, pointing landwards.
Deane followed her outstretched finger. Riding along the top of one of the dykes, as though unconscious of the sea flowing on either side, came a boy on a bicycle. The bicycle was painted red, and the boy had on a cap whose high peak gave it a semi-official look.
"He is coming here," said Deane. "It may be my letters. Or I think—"