So she had posted the first of her new series of love-letters to him with no great heaviness of heart; and then there began for her a fresh period of waiting; for she knew that some months must elapse before her letters could reach him, and after that an equal space before she could receive his reply.
But the barley crop had only been reaped in the golden fields of Brackenshire when Mr. Westwood's lawyer brought her a telegram which he had just received from Zanzibar. It was not from Claude, but from a doctor whose name she frequently heard in connection with the exploration of Africa.
“Westwood arrived here to-day from Uganda, overcome with fatigue, not serious. Leaves for England, probably fortnight.”
So the telegram ran, and her heart leapt up, for she knew that her days of waiting were being shortened. He had doubtless received no news of his brother's death when at Uganda, and although he had intended to remain there until he should be fully restored to health, he had made up his mind to return at once to England. But what had caused her heart to leap up was the sudden thought that came to her:
“He has received my letter, and he knows that I am true to him.”
A moment afterwards she recollected that it would have been impossible for him to receive a letter from her—even her first letter—while he was still at Uganda. He had started for the coast immediately on getting the news by telegraph of the death of his brother, and both her letters, being addressed to him at Uganda, had, it was almost certain, crossed him on the road to the coast.
Still, her days of waiting would be shortened, and that thought gladdened her. Only for a week was she left in the torture of the apprehension that the journey to the coast might have proved too much for him, and that he might die at Zanzibar. All the accounts that had been published in the newspapers regarding him had dwelt upon the necessity there was for him to remain at Uganda until he had in some measure recovered from the effects of his terrible experiences; so that she felt she had grave reason to be apprehensive for him.
The newspapers shared her anxiety not only in telegraphic despatches from Zanzibar, which involved the expenditure of large sums, but also in leaders and leaderettes, which like George Herbert's “good words” were “worth much and cost little.”
At first the news came that the explorer whose name was in every one's mouth, was completely prostrated by his journey; but soon the gratifying intelligence was received that he was making a good recovery, and had gone for a week's excursion in a gunboat that had been placed at his disposal until the mail steamer should be leaving Zanzibar.
It was thought advisable by his physician to put some miles of green sea between Claude Westwood and the scores of enterprising gentlemen who were anxious to see him. The newspaper men were polite but urgent; the English publisher's agent was business-like and impressive; these gentlemen were not so greatly dreaded by the doctor, though he would have liked to be summoned to take a part, however humble, in a post-mortem examination on each of them. But when it came to his knowledge that the American lecture-bureau agent had bought the house next to the Consulate, and was reported to be making a subterranean passage between the two so as to give him an opportunity of an interview with Mr. Westwood, the doctor thought it time to make representations to the commander of the gunboat.