"Yes," he said, after a moment.
"Oh, what?" she broke in. "Tell me quickly—quickly! It is my father,
I know, I know. He has been hurt—wounded—"
She stopped. Nick had lifted one hand as if to silence her. "My dear," he said, his voice very low, "your father died last night—before we left the fort."
At her cry of agony he started up, and in a second he was on his knees by her side and had gathered her to him as though she had been a little child in need of comfort. She did not shrink from him in her extremity. The blow had been too sudden, too overwhelming. It blotted out all lesser sensibilities. In those first terrible moments she did not think of Nick at all, was scarcely conscious of his presence, though she vaguely felt the comfort of his arms.
And he, holding her fast against his breast, found no consolation, no word of any sort wherewith to soothe her. He only rocked her gently, pressing her head to his shoulder, while his face, bent above her, quivered all over as the face of a man in torture.
Muriel spoke at last, breaking her stricken silence with a strangely effortless composure. "Tell me more," she said.
She stirred in his arms as if to free herself from some oppression, and finally drew herself away from him, though not as if she wished to escape his touch. She still seemed to be hardly aware of him. He was the medium of her information, that was all. Nick dropped back into his former attitude, his hands clasped firmly round his knees, his eyes, keen as a bird's and extremely bright, gazing across the ravine. His lips still quivered a little, but his voice was perfectly even and quiet.
"It happened very soon after the firing began. It must have been directly after he left you. He was hit in the breast, just over the heart. We couldn't do anything for him. He knew himself that it was mortal. In fact, I think he had almost expected it. We took him into the guardroom and made him as easy as possible. He lost consciousness before he died. He was lying unconscious when I came to you."
Muriel made a sharp movement. "And you never told me," she said, in a dry whisper.
"I thought it best," he answered with great gentleness. "You could not have gone to him. He didn't wish it."