"In five days, about, it should be here," said Delafield.
There was a silence. She dropped into a chair beside the balustrade of the terrace, which was wreathed in wistaria, and looked out upon the vast landscape of the lake. His thought was, "How can the mail matter to her? She cannot suppose that he had written--"
Aloud he said, in some embarrassment, "You expect letters yourself?"
"I expect nothing," she said, after a pause. "But Aileen is living on the chance of letters."
"There may be nothing for her--except, indeed, her letters to him--poor child!"
"She knows that. But the hope keeps her alive."
"And you?" thought Delafield, with an inward groan, as he looked down upon her pale profile. He had a moment's hateful vision of himself as the elder brother in the parable. Was Julie's mind to be the home of an eternal antithesis between the living husband and the dead lover--in which the latter had forever the beau rôle?
Then, impatiently, Jacob wrenched himself from mean thoughts. It was as though he bared his head remorse-fully before the dead man.
"I will go to the Foreign Office," he said, in her ear, "as I pass through town. They will have letters. All the information I can get you shall have at once."
"Thank you, mon ami", she said, almost inaudibly.