“Did he die?” asked Lilias, in the tremulous low voice, which for the few preceding moments had been changed.
Mossgray paused. Thirty years had elapsed since colder men decided Hew Murray’s fate, thirty years without a sign or token, the faintest that hope could build on; and yet the old man hesitated to say he died.
“Lilias, I cannot tell. He was my dear friend; we were close brethren in our youth; do you think he can have lived these thirty years, and given no sign?”
“No, Mossgray,” said Lilias, “oh, no, no! I do not think it can be hard to die; but to live while your dearest friends think you are dead—no, no—it could not be!”
The old man sighed.
“Then he is dead,” he said.
There was a pause.
“And this friend of yours,” resumed Mossgray, at last, “he likes Bombay, Lilias?”
The light came again more timidly.
“I think so—I mean, he does not like it—it is not home—but—”