"Strange that Life's Registrar should call
That day a day, this day a day." ...
Bel came in about ten, by that many sleepless, active, anxious hours more jaded than when she had seen him last. Road-dust powdered his face and hands and lay caked in the folds of his coat, and he carried the arm in the sling with more open confession of acute distress. Lucinda herself opened for him, and he met her eyes with a short nod.
"You've found her, Bel? Where?"
He glanced round the room, caught sight of the maid through the open door to the bedchamber, and indicated her with a brusque jerk of his head.
Lucinda called the woman. "You've had no breakfast?" she added.
"No time. Been on the road all night. Just got in."
"Let me order you something...."
"Well ... I would be glad of a cup of coffee—nothing else, thanks."
Lucinda sent the maid on the errand, and as soon as they were alone gave intuition voice: "Bel: something has happened to her? she's dead?"
With a weary nod, Bel dropped into a chair. "We got as far as Santa Barbara without picking up a sign," he said. "It was getting daylight then, and I made up my mind we'd taken the wrong road, that Nelly had lied or changed her mind about the way she meant to go. But she hadn't. When we turned back we found her ... what had been her...."