“Oh, he was! I wish I could have got some news of him—of how he was killed. No one in the regiment seemed to know anything. It is dreadful to go out like that—no one knowing how!” She shuddered. Then, with an instinctive movement to break the spell of unwanted memories, she pressed the bell for the maid to clear the course from the table.
The conversation resumed on the everyday matters of his profession. She thoroughly identified herself with her husband’s interests and discussed them, as was her wont, with intelligent sympathy. She was one of those women who stimulate all the latent potentialities of their men. He—it was obvious from the clear-cut features—was both resolute and clever; a man who would go far. Already Satterthwaite was a name in the Courts for which clients would pay big fees.
They were discussing the important case of the day when suddenly she looked round, startled.
“Jack! Someone has come in—or gone out. I heard the hall door slam!”
“Imagination, my dear,” he replied, smiling sceptically. “The maids are busy—they would not go out. We should have heard the bell if there were a visitor. No one has a key except ourselves——”
The words were scarcely uttered when the door behind them opened. The child, who sat facing it, stared in amazement for a second, and then slipped off her chair and ran toward the intruder with a wild shout of joy.
“Daddie!”
Mr. and Mrs. Satterthwaite sprang up from their seats, turned to see a youngish man, clad in an ill-fitting lounge suit, standing in the doorway. The young woman clutched at the back of her chair, her eyes wide in terror.
“Harry!” She breathed the cry almost voicelessly in her stupefaction. “Harry’s ghost!”
Satterthwaite snatched back the child, who had recoiled from the flaming anger in the stranger’s face.