Polly dropped a curtsey and said nothing. It was not for her to make any first move. Nobody could hear how her heart fluttered.
“Then, sir, doubtless you will bring messages for us all from the unfortunate prisoners there detained,” said Mrs. Bryce, not yet grasping his identity with one of those prisoners.
Drake at this moment carried in the lights, and Roy, entering with him, cried out in astonishment.
“Den! Why, ’tis Den himself! Can it be in very truth? Den, dear fellow!”—nearly wringing Ivor’s hands off with the energy of his welcome.
Pre-occupied though Ivor was with Polly, his gaze rested with satisfaction upon “his friend Roy.” The boy who had left Verdun for the dungeons of Bitche was a man now, broad-shouldered, well-built and soldier-like, frank as ever in manner, yet with a certain something in the young face, which told not only of endurance, but of the touch of sorrow. At the present moment, however, Roy’s look was all sunshine.
“I am glad, Den, more glad than words can say. Little I dreamt who I should find in here! And you’re free! But how is it? How has that come about? You don’t say old Boney has let you off! Of his own free will? I wouldn’t have given the old chap credit for so much generosity. What made him do such a thing? Lucille? No! Bravo, Lucille!”
Nobody else had a chance of being heard. Mrs. Bryce exclaimed and talked in vain. Polly and Molly waited. Roy’s eager questions had to be answered, before Denham was allowed to turn elsewhere.
Then came a change of manner and a lowering of voice.
“I shall have no end of things to tell you, things he said of you too, Den. Ay, I know”—at a slight gesture. “Another time. Yes, by-and-by. But you’ve seen accounts of the battle. That charge of the Reserve through the valley wasn’t bad! French column tried to turn our flank, you know. We did just knock ’em into a cocked hat and no mistake. The column just simply ceased to exist.”
Molly tried to put in a word, and was baffled.