His arm went round her instantly. "What is it, my chicken?"
She held him closely for a while in silence; then, her face hidden, she told him of the trouble at her heart.
"That song has been haunting me all night long. I feel as if—as if—someone—were calling me, and I can't quite hear or understand. Nick, where—where is Violet?"
It had come at last. Once before she had confronted him with that question, and he had turned it aside. But to-day, he knew that he must face and answer it.
He laid his cheek against her hair. "Olga darling, I think you know, but
I'll tell you all the same. She has—gone on."
Very gently he spoke the words, and after them there fell a silence broken only by the scolding of a couple of parroquets in a mimosa-tree near the verandah.
Nick did not stir. His lips twitched a little above the fair head, and his yellow face showed many lines; but there was no tension in his attitude. His pose was alert rather than anxious.
Olga lifted her face at last. She was very white, but fully as composed as he.
"That," she said slowly, "was the thing I couldn't remember."
He nodded. "It was."