“I thought you—you are not——” she began, and then her teeth began to chatter. “I am so cold!” she said, in a little weak voice.
Broomhurst took her hand, and led her over the threshold back into the tent.
“Don't be so frightened,” he implored; “I came to tell you first. I thought it wouldn't frighten you so much as——Your—Drayton is—very ill. They are bringing him. I——”
He paused. She gazed at him a moment with parted lips, then she broke into a horrible discordant laugh, and stood clinging to the back of a chair.
Broomhurst started back.
“Do you understand what I mean?” he whispered. “Kathleen, for God's sake—don't—he is dead.”
He looked over his shoulder as he spoke, her shrill laughter ringing in his ears. The white glare and dazzle of the plain stretched before him, framed by the entrance to the tent; far off, against the horizon, there were moving black specks, which he knew to be the returning servants with their still burden.
They were bringing John Drayton home.
V
One afternoon, some months later, Broomhurst climbed the steep lane leading to the cliffs of a little English village by the sea. He had already been to the inn, and had been shown by the proprietress the house where Mrs. Drayton lodged.