“That sound! The notes of a quail!”
The Princess shook her head.
“Oh, yes, you heard it! Don’t say you did not hear it!”
216Then, when the Princess, still looking up in vague alarm, gently shook her head a second time, Elinor reached forth a hand imploringly, as it were, and whispered:
“You must have heard it. The whistle of a quail, back there in the woods?”
To the little woman upon the bench these words had no significance, but her sympathy was aroused. That sensitive nerves and an aching heart should succumb, at last, to despair and loneliness and fasting she could readily understand, and she answered, kindly:
“I heard no bird, dear child, but it may be there. Perhaps your hearing is better than mine.”
At this reply all the joy went out of Elinor’s face, leaving a look so spiritless and despairing that her friend, who could only guess at her companion’s thoughts, added:
“Or it may be nothing. You merely dreamed it, perhaps.”
Elinor straightened up. She drew a long breath, and murmured, in a low voice from which all hope had fled: