'I said you were engaged—severially indispoged, my lady,' he replied, shaking his cauliflower-looking head solemnly.
'Yet—she would come in.'
'Yes, my lady.'
'And at a time like this—when we are plunged in unutterable woe! Such confident assurance!'
The door was thrown open, and Bella Chevenix came swiftly forward as the servant withdrew.
But in this we are anticipating a little.
CHAPTER VI.
'THOUGHTS THAT OFTEN LIE TOO DEEP FOR TEARS.'
Like the again partially widowed Laura, Bella Chevenix had watched with an aching heart the progressive news of the war among barbarians on the burning Gold Coast, from the landing on New Year's Day to the battle of Amoaful, the passage of the Prah, and the victorious advance on Coomassie; and now came the sudden shock and horror by a tantalisingly brief telegram, in the upper corner of a newspaper, headed by a sensational title in large type, but three lines, announcing that the two officers had fallen—Dalton severely wounded, and Wilmot killed and carried off by the enemy!
Bella sat for a time as one turned to stone, incapable even of tears—oppressed and crushed down by the one appalling and apparently, unrealisable thought.