The girl staggered to her feet.
'I will go and sit with her,' she said; 'she should not be alone.'
CHAPTER XVIII
A Skirmish by the Way
At earliest dawn Mortimer was up and away again.
Linda had risen up and prepared breakfast for him; quiet, capable, busied with frying-pan, fire, the setting of a place at table; he looked at her as she moved about the kitchen, and wondered had not the sight of her face of agony last night been a dream? She even rallied him a little.
'You must eat well,' she said, as she put fried eggs and bacon before him—the pleasantest meal he had eaten since he had left Sydney; 'you don't want to be out another night with those despatches of yours loose.'
'I want shooting,' he said, his forehead burning.
'Oh no,' she said, 'you are young yet to it all; you will have plenty of time to learn carefulness before the war is over.'
'I hope so,' he said.