He shut his eyes with that inconsolable sigh, and it was his unconscious soul that whispered, "Give my love to Helen," with the last beats of his heart.
Terrington went on writing as Langford's head fell back, then he loosened the dead man's fingers from his hand, and left the room. The sheer pressure of thought seemed to have squeezed out of him the power of feeling.
In the women's durbar hall he found Walcot and Mrs. Chantry turning over the litter of the Residency rooms.
Terrington had left the porterage of the reserve ammunition to Walcot's arrangement, and had been expecting his report for half an hour. Walcot had, however, considered the packing of Mrs. Chantry's boxes of more importance.
The expression of Terrington's opinion on his preference was a good deal tempered by Mrs. Chantry's presence; but even so was caustic enough to burn itself into Walcot's memory.
As he left the hall without a word, Rose Chantry lifted an Afghan poshteen from the heap beside her.
"Did you send me this?" she asked.
It was lined with astrachan, and exquisitely embroidered, and was the most valuable of Terrington's few possessions.
"Yes," he said, "it was the only warm thing I could get for you. You will want everything you can wear, and you can put that on over a good deal. There are some boots to come."
She did not know that he had sent her the thing of which he had most need himself, and his giving had about it no air of gallantry; but the proof that he had thought of her at a moment when he had to think of everything touched her far more than had Walcot's voluble commiseration.