This was terrible news. Harry gave me the paper, now, to look at. There was a long list of telegrams about different stations and garrisons, but that was all I read; it was nearly word for word as he had told me, nothing more—but what could be worse? It was evident that the garrison was terribly weak, or they would never have abandoned the post they had so carefully fortified. Probably they had suffered dreadfully in that sortie, and Percy was sure to have been among them.
Had he ever got back into Lucknow? and if so, could they hold out till relief came? And where was it to come from? Oh, what a terrible four or five days that was before the mail came in with the details of the news, what a sickening agony of suspense I suffered!
At the end of that time all suspense, all hope was over.
The day that it was expected, Polly went down to the gate to watch if Harry returned from the station, which he was sure to do if there was news.
I could not stand there with her, but sat indoors watching her, with my heart hardly beating, and my hands grasping tightly the arms of the chair, as if to keep down the wild impulse which prompted me to rush madly down to the station to see the paper. At last Polly moved, and then went up the road, out of my sight, and I knew then that she saw Harry coming back again, and that the news was in.
How long—oh, how long they were coming! I knew that, owing to a little turn of the road, he could not have been more than a hundred yards off when she caught sight of him, not fifty when she met him. Oh, how long they were! and as second passed by after second—each second seeming an age to me—and still they did not come, my heart sank lower and lower, and hope died quite out. At last they appeared at the gate. I could not see Harry's face, for it was bent down, but Polly's was as white as death, and then I knew that Percy was killed.
I did not hear anything about it for some time afterwards: I remember them coming in at the gate, and the sight of Polly's face, and the next thing that I recollect, was that I was laying on the sofa, with Polly crying softly over me, and Dr. Whitmore standing beside me.
Harry was not there, for he had cried so terribly, and had been so much in the way, that the doctor had been obliged to send him out of the room. I had been for a long time in a faint, so long that they had become seriously alarmed, and had sent the servant to fetch the doctor; but even with his aid, there had been a great difficulty in bringing me round.
As soon as I recovered sufficiently to be moved, Harry came in and carried me up to my room, and Polly got me into bed. I was very faint and weak still, and soon dozed off to sleep. I believe, indeed, that Dr. Whitmore gave me some powerful sedative. It was not till next day that I was recovered sufficiently to ask any questions. I had never been told that Percy was dead, but I knew it as well as if they had spoken; they saw that I knew it, and had not even alluded to the subject.
"Let me see the account," I said at last.