Then one day towards the end of February, Mildred danced into the flat drawing-room and shouted that her father had nearly consented to recognize an engagement. A word to him from her angelic Emmeline might now make him surrender altogether.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I am disturbing you.”
Miss Verinder was kneeling on the floor surrounded by maps and open books. One large map was spread out across the seat of a chair, and in her hand she held the magnifying glass with which she had studied its thin lines and minute signs. That dark hair of hers, still without a touch of grey, flopped loose and untidy; her face was haggard; her teeth showed strangely as she made a piteous effort that resulted in a wry, distorted sort of smile. Mildred drew back frightened, and then came forward with outstretched hands. This was a Miss Verinder that she had never seen before.
“I am glad, dear. He—he’ll consent. But you mustn’t count on me any more, Mildred. Yes, yes, yes, I have been upset. But you must leave me alone, please—you must leave me out of everything.” And although the girl could see all the old affection in her eyes, her voice was almost harsh and forbidding. “I—I have no place among happy people.”
CHAPTER XVII
NEWS had come; and it was bad news. Except that it conveyed desolation instead of comfort, she did not yet fully understand the long cablegram from Twining. Its one salient statement had been a blow sufficiently cruel to strike her down.
Twining had returned to Hobart in the relief ship. He had returned—without Dyke. He had brought back other people—but not Dyke.
The message had many map references, and she immediately recognised the first one—in Latitude seventy-seven degrees, forty minutes, south. That, of course, was Dyke’s base camp on the Barrier, near the place from which Captain Scott started. So it had been arranged. He was to follow Captain Scott’s line. He said it was a duty to the dead—to carry on the work.
Naturally it was to that point that Twining would go, to succour and relieve. The message said:—