“One moment, Mrs. Cox.”
She lingered there patiently, with the tray in her hand.
“There was some sound,” Hamel continued, “perhaps a real sound, perhaps a fancy, which made you go down on your knees in the kitchen. Tell me what it was.”
“The sound I always hear, sir,” she answered quietly. “I hear it in the night, and I hear it when I stand by the sea and look out. I have heard it for so many years that who can tell whether it comes from this world or the other—the cry of men who die!”
She passed out. Hamel looked after her, for a moment, like a man in a dream. In his fancy he could see her back again once more in the kitchen, kneeling on the stone floor,—listening!
CHAPTER XXIX
A cold twilight had fallen upon the land when Hamel left the Tower that evening and walked briskly along the foot-way to the Hall. Little patches of mist hung over the creeks, the sky was almost frosty. The lights from St. David’s Hall shone like cheerful beacons before him. He hastened up the stone steps, crossed the terrace, and passed into the hall. A servant conducted him at once to the drawing-room. Mrs. Fentolin, in a pink evening dress, with a pink ornament in her hair, held out both her hands. In the background, Mr. Fentolin, in his queerly-cut evening clothes, sat with folded arms, leaning back in his carriage. He listened grimly to his sister-in-law as she stood with Hamel’s hands in hers.
“My dear Mr. Hamel!” she exclaimed. “How perfectly charming of you to come up and relieve a little our sad loneliness! Delightful, I call it, of you. I was just saying so to Miles.”
Hamel looked around the room. Already his heart was beginning to sink.