"It would be strange if she didn't whistle," he said cryptically.
Bones was lying on his back, his hands behind his head. A half-emptied tin of biscuits, no less than the remnants of a box of chocolates, indicated that anchorite as he was determined to be, his austerity did not run in the direction of starvation.
His mind was greatly occupied by a cinematograph procession of melancholy pictures. Perhaps he would go away, far, far, into the interior. Even into the territory of the great king where a man's life is worth about five cents net. And as day by day passed and no news came of him—as how could it when his habitation was marked by a cairn of stones?—she would grow anxious and unhappy. And presently messengers would come bringing her a few poor trinkets he had bequeathed to her—a wrist-watch, a broken sword, a silver cigarette-case dented with the arrow that slew him—and she would weep silently in the loneliness of her room.
And perhaps he would find strength to send a few scrawled words asking for her pardon, and the tears would well up in her beautiful grey eyes—as they were already welling in Bones's eyes at the picture he drew—and she would know—all.
"Phweet!"
Or else, maybe he would be stricken down with fever, and she would want to come and nurse him, but he would refuse.
"Tell her," he would say weakly, but oh, so bravely, "tell her ... I ask only ... her pardon."
"Phweet!"
Bones heard the second whistle. It came from the open window immediately above his head. A song bird was a rare visitor to these parts, but he was too lazy and too absorbed to look up.
Perhaps (he resumed) she would never see him again, never know the deep sense of injustice....