“All well—or they were when I heard last.”
“Tell me what you know of them?” And Sir Harold’s great hungry eyes searched the major’s face. “They believe me dead?”
“Certainly, Sir Harold. Everybody believes you dead. And I am dying to know how it is that you are alive. Where have you been these fifteen months? How did you escape the tiger?”
The desired explanation was delayed by the appearance at the door of Mrs. Archer, who brought a jug of warm spiced drink and a plate of food. The major took the tray, and shut his wife out, returning to his guest.
Sir Harold was nearly famished, and ate and drank like one starving. When his hunger was appeased, and a faint color began to dawn in his face, he pushed the tray from him, and spoke in a firmer voice than he had before employed.
“I have imagined terrible things about my wife and Neva,” he said. “My poor wife! I have thought of her a thousand times as dead of grief. Do you know, major, how she took the report of my death?”
“I have heard,” said the major, “she nearly died of grief. For a long time she shut herself up, and was inconsolable, and when she did venture out at last, it was in a funereal coach, and dressed in the deepest mourning. There are few wives who mourn as she did.”
Sir Harold’s lips quivered.
“My poor darling!” he muttered inaudibly. “My precious wife! I shall come back to you from the dead.”
“Lady Wynde is heart-broken, they say,” said the major. “One of the men in our mess, a lieutenant, is from Canterbury and hears all the Kentish gossip, and he says people were afraid that Lady Wynde would go into a decline.”