"And dear old Rajah—you have not our rough, shaggy introducteur with you," said Sybil, smiling.
"Poor dog, no. I left him at home in Rhoscadzhel, and, somehow, he is dead; that is all I know about it—so Gartha told me in a letter."
"All who love me die—even the poor dog. Surely they would be kind to your pet, for your sake."
"They—well, I don't know—doubtless."
Audley cared not to say that, by his lady-mother's orders, the dog had been destroyed as a nuisance—the last legacy of his comrade, poor Delamere, who died in the jungle.
"Ah, if my dear Denzil had lived to see this day!" said the happy girl, after a pause that was full of thought.
"Sybil, God knows how for your sake, even at the time when I never, never, hoped to see you more, I sought to protect and love your brother; but he repelled, avoided, and seemed to loathe me. Yet he saved my life in the Khyber Pass. It was through sorrow for his mother—and—and, perhaps, love for Rose Trecarrel; for he would be jealous of me, among other things, poor lad!"
"And she—she?"
"Rose was very heedless, Sybil; but, after all Bob Waller has written, let us not talk of the past now. You will learn to love her well, I know."
"I hope so: I must—I shall, for Denzil's sake."