Mortimer obeyed her, and, after doing so, sat down on the bed to await the call to eat of the food the girl Linda was preparing.
And then outraged nature took her revenge. He had not slept for fifty-six hours; he had been in the saddle eighteen hours of yesterday, and twelve of to-day. It was three hours before he knew anything more, and then it was only his cramped position on the bed that woke him; except for that he would have slept the clock round.
He sat up numbed, his heart beating suffocatingly. Where were his despatches? What clothes were these he wore? He fell to his feet, a groan of horror bursting from him. What was this he had done—raw, careless, culpable soldier that he was? He had never taken the envelopes from the clothes he had handed the woman—the woman whose sons' and husband's deaths lay at his country's door, still unavenged! Two strides took him down the hall to the kitchen, his face was like ashes. All the little house lay still as the tall, thin young farmer who, in the front room, was taking his rest for ever from the ploughing of fields, the sowing and reaping of crops, the blind and strenuous guarding of his land and liberty at the command of those in the high places.
The fire still burnt brightly in the grate. Linda sat before it so plunged in mournful thought she did not hear the young bushman's footfall.
Across one side of the fire a clothes-horse stood holding the draggled skirts of the girls, the grandfather's moleskin clothes, the familiar khaki of the uniform he had disgraced.
His hand clutched the coat convulsively; beads of sheer terror stood on his forehead. Then he sat down suddenly, the passion of relief bringing the tears of relief to his eyes.
The papers were there untouched; the long envelopes with the red army seal upon them stuck up out of his breast-pocket in full view! That woman, the mother whose sons were dead, that clear-headed young girl, they must both have known the importance of the papers, yet neither had laid a finger upon them, since he was their guest, their helper!
Linda smiled at him in a pale way.
'You have come to say you are hungry,' she said. 'I went to your room twice, but you slept so soundly I thought the food might wait.' She put a dish before him, meat and vegetables mixed up together. 'This is hot, at least, and nourishing,' she said.
He thanked her, his voice still thick from agitation, then ate while she went back to her morbid gazing at the glowing fire.