“But we will ask Roy, and he will tell us about Denham. Perhaps he will bring you a message from him.”
“No,” Polly answered. “Roy comes from Bitche—not from Verdun. Did you not hear? ’Tis long since he saw them. And, Molly, you must not ask.”
“Not ask!”
“No, not for me. Nothing for me! How can I tell now—so long as it is since any letter came? And no message—none at all—in the last that did come. Do you not see?”
“You mean——But, Polly, you do not think Denham has changed towards you! O sure he cannot have done so.”
“I cannot tell. It may be. I am a woman, dear, and I may not be sure, without reason. In my heart, I think I do trust him. And if Roy tells—but you must not ask for me.”
“Not even how Denham is?”
“Yes—that, for yourself. But nothing for me.”
A very different Roy soon appeared, dressed in a cast-off suit of Mr. Bryce’s, which, though by no means a perfect fit, since Roy was very markedly the taller, yet shone by comparison with what he had worn before. Roy had grown brown during his prolonged wanderings; and the dye, which it had been thought advisable to keep going so long as he remained on French soil, was still en evidence. But the face and the grey eyes were quite unmistakable. They had been unmistakable to Molly from the earliest moment.
An abundant dinner, hastily heated and brought together, awaited him soon in the dining-room; and Roy confessed to a “wolfish” appetite. Molly said nothing then in allusion to Ivor. She knew that Polly would wish the subject to be avoided while Drake was present; and Drake took care to be present throughout the meal, that he might not lose a word of Roy’s narration of his escape from Bitche and his journey through France. That any Frenchman should have acted as Jean had acted, came as a positive shock to the insular prejudices of the old butler. Drake arrived at a solemn conclusion, as he listened, that some among those Mounseers over the water were not perhaps altogether bad, even though they lacked the advantages of an English “eddication.”