"Thank you! Why, how you're shivering! You have nothing but that feather thing over your thin gown! Wait half a minute—I'll get you a wrap!"
He was gone in an instant, leaving her standing on the border-line of one of the oases of black-velvet shadow, swayed by the violence of her emotion as some tall young birch might have been shaken by the fury of a south-west gale.
His touch.... She had not dreamed.... Her head drooped, and a long sigh went fluttering after him into the darkness, like some night-moth whose wings are wrought of hues more gorgeous than the peacock butterfly's, whose scent is on the alert, and whose diamond eyes pierce the blackest midnight in search of the partner of its kind.
A footstep she knew approached. A familiar voice called her:
"Uncle Owen." The spell broke. Her mind leaped up alert and quivering. "Have you any news—of Bawne?"
"I have news!"
"Not——"
"Not the worst news," said Saxham's harsh voice, "but not—hopeful!"
"They are not coming back?" She strove to set her heel on the treacherous hope that he would say No! For how could she bring herself to desire the enemy's return. And yet the thought of Bawne was a stab of anguish in her bosom. What was the Doctor saying?
"The last definite intelligence received of them confirms the certainty that Captain von Herrnung is now over the North Sea. He alighted nowhere; that we have positively learned from many different news-centres. A tractor-monoplane answering to the description and carrying two-passengers passed the Bull Light on Spurn Head, at a few minutes before eight. The lighthouse-keeper signalled that bad weather might be expected. The pilot paid no attention. And later on——"