There was a long silence as she stood there with the paper in her hand: a silence that grew gradually more terrible, while her face turned white. Over and over she read the scrawled words, as if in the vain hope that the thing they told might yet prove only a hideous dream from which, presently, she might wake. Then, as if very far away, she heard the butler’s shaking voice.
“Miss Norah! Is it bad news?”
“You can send the boy away,” she heard herself say, as though it were some other person speaking. “There isn’t any answer. He has been killed.”
“Not Mr. Jim?” Allenby’s voice was a wail.
“Yes.”
She turned from him and walked into the morning-room, shutting the door. In the grate a fire was burning; the leaping light fell on Jim’s photograph, standing on a table near. She stared at it, still holding the telegram. Surely it was a dream—she had so often had it before. Surely she would soon wake, and laugh at herself.
The door was flung open, and her father came in, ruddy and splashed. She remembered afterwards the shape of a mud-splash on his sleeve. It seemed to be curiously important.
“Norah!—what is wrong?”
She put out her hands to him then, shaking. Jim had said it was her job to look after him, but she could not help him now. And no words would come.
“Is it Jim?” At the agony of his voice she gave a little choking cry, catching at him blindly. The telegram fluttered to the floor, and David Linton picked it up and read it. He laid the paper on the table and turned to her, holding out his hands silently, and she came to him and put her face on his breast, trembling. His arm tightened round her. So they stood, while the time dragged on.