The latter was smoking a last cigar as he paced up and down the cloister with upturned coat-collar. Silence lay on the carefully darkened building, crouching low under an icy sea-fog; at intervals, through the hush, the waves continued to mimic the booming of the guns.
Campton drew out the orderly’s letter. “I hear you’re leaving to-morrow early, and I suppose I’d better give this back,” he said.
Mr. Brant had evidently expected him. “Oh, thanks. But Mrs. Talkett says she has no right to it.”
“No right to it? That’s a queer thing to say.”
“So I thought. I suppose she meant, till you’d seen it. She was dreadfully upset ... till she saw me she’d supposed he was dead.”
Campton shivered. “She sent this to your house?”
“Yes; the moment she got it. It was waiting there when my—when Julia arrived.”
“And you went to thank her?”
“Yes.” Mr. Brant hesitated. “Julia disliked to keep the letter. And I thought it only proper to take it back myself.”
“Certainly. And—what was your impression?”