"Yes?" she said quickly, with a tight feeling at her breast.
He had a telegram in his hand.
"Joan, dear, can you bear to hear something? I—I know I am a weak fool, but some one must tell you, and Norah won't, and I would sooner die than give you any pain, but—Joan—"
His agitation and her own anxiety almost made her hate him.
"Tell me what there is to tell," she cried fiercely, and snatched at the telegram, and then recoiled from it as it fluttered away on the floor.
"No, don't!" she said the instant after, "I think I know it. Jack—"
"Yes, dear. That is it. Jack will never—Jack will never have your letter," and the musician put out his hand to her. She did not take it, nor heed him.
"It was a railway accident—they have not cabled much," he faltered; but she did not help him by a word or a look, and they stood silent for an interminable minute.
Then she spoke through her dry lips with a little forced laugh.
"What a pity I did not wait for the next mail," she said; "what a character for constancy I might have had!"