"No letter yet, Mrs. Laurence," she said very gently. "I waited for the mail."
She did not speak a word. She sat down suddenly, sick—sick to the very heart with the bitter sense of the disappointment. The flush faded from her face, the light from her eyes; she drew a long, dry, sobbing breath, folded her arms on the table and laid her face upon them.
"Poor little soul!" thought the elder Miss Waddle looking at her in silent compassion. "What brutes men are."
Miss Waddle's experience of the nobler sex was limited, but her sentiment in the main was a correct one. It was peculiarly correct in the present instance, for since that morning three weeks ago, when Laurence Thorndyke had left Sea View Cottage, not a word, not a message, not a letter had come from him. How the lonely, longing girl left in the dull little house, watched and waited, and prayed, and grew sick to the soul, as now, with disappointment, only those who have watched and waited in vain, for the one they love best on earth, can know.
Was he sick—was he dead—was he faithless. Why, why, why did he not write?
They were the two questions that never left the girl's mind. She lost the power to sleep or eat, a restless fever held her. She spent her days, the long, vapid, sickening days, gazing down the road he must come, the nights in wakeful, frightened thought. The one event of the twenty-four dreary hours, was the coming home of the elder Miss Waddle from Chelsea; the one hope that upheld her, the hope that each day she would bring her a letter. All this long, bleak day she had lived on that one feverish hope, and now she was here, and there was none—none!
The moments wore on. She lay there prostrate, crushed, never moving or lifting her head. Miss Waddle the elder bent over her with tears of compassion and indignation in her kindly, spinster eyes.
"Dear child," she said, "don't take on like this. Who knows what to-morrow may bring? And if it brings nothing, there isn't a man on earth worth breaking your poor heart for, as you're doing. They're a set of selfish, heartless wretches, every one—every blessed one!" said the elder Miss Waddle, vindictively; "so come along and have a cup of tea, and don't pine yourself to death for him. I daresay, if the truth were known, he's not pining much for you."
Norine lifted her face—such a sad, pathetic, patient little face.
"Don't, Miss Waddle," she said, "you mean well, I am sure, but I can't bear it. He does not intend to forget or neglect me. He is ill—I know that. He is ill, and I don't know where he is, or how to go to him. No, I don't wish any tea, a mouthful of food would choke me, I think. I will go down to the beach instead. I—I would rather be alone."