"My mother sent me," Anita said, gently, "to ask if I could do anything for you."
Mrs. Lawrence murmured her thanks, and then hesitated for a moment, the words trembling upon her lips.
"Yes," she said, "you can do something for me. Something I haven't asked anybody to do. I tried to ask the chaplain just now—he is a kind man, and tries to help me but for some reason my courage failed; I don't know why, but I didn't ask him. It is, to write a letter for me."
"Certainly I will write a letter for you," said Anita.
"It is to Mr. Broussard," answered Mrs. Lawrence.
The thought of writing to Broussard startled and overwhelmed Anita. She glanced about her nervously, fearing Mrs. Lawrence's words had been overheard, and stammered and blushed. But the woman, lying wan and weak in the bed, did not notice this.
"I am not strong enough to dictate it exactly as I want," said Mrs. Lawrence, "and you will have to write it at your own home. But I am very anxious for you to write to Mr. Broussard for me and tell him that my husband is missing and will soon be posted as a deserter; that I don't know where he is, but I am sure he will return. Don't tell Mr. Broussard how ill I am, but just say that the Colonel has let me stay on here, and the boy is well. Mr. Broussard is my husband's best friend; they were playmates in boyhood."
A dead silence fell between the woman and the girl and lasted for some minutes. Anita was already composing the letter in her mind.
"Perhaps before I go I can do something else for you," she said presently.
"No, everything has been done for me, and Mrs. McGillicuddy brings the boy over every night to tell me good-night. What you can do for me is to write the letter, as I asked you, and post it to-night. It can't reach Mr. Broussard in less than a month, perhaps two months. The last letter I received from him he was in some wild place a long distance from Guam, but he will get the letter eventually, if he lives."