"What's the matter?" she asked.
He looked at her compassionately and she gasped.
"Oh! Is Dick—?"
He put his arm around her and led her to an oak bench near the big fireplace.
"Dick's dead," he said quietly. "On board the Rowan. Heart failure, the doctor thinks."
"I sent him, when I knew he was ill!" she cried in distress.
"You didn't know it would do him much harm, dear."
"But I did!" Elsie moaned with a shiver, turning her head.
Andrew was puzzled, but he answered soothingly:
"I know what you feel, because I felt it too—Dick might have got better and lived a long time if he hadn't gone down-channel to warn me. In fact, I spoke to the doctor about it, but he didn't altogether take this view."