She opened her mouth to speak of him, but at first no words would come. The fastening of her glove took all her attention it seemed. She had turned to the light for it, away from Mrs. Rooke's sympathetic glances.
She had almost controlled her voice to speak without trembling when the thing was taken out of her hands.
"I must not let you go," Mrs. Rooke said, "without giving you a message from Godfrey. A message and gift. It came a week ago. See--here it is. I was going to post it to you." She took up a packet from the side-table.
At last it was said. Nelly's hand closed over the little packet. She would open it when she got home. To think that he remembered--that he had chosen a gift for her! Was there a word with it, perhaps? Her first letter--and her last letter--from him was lying perhaps in her hand.
But what was it Mrs. Rooke was saying? She bent her ears greedily to listen.
"He was well when he wrote, but the letter was written some time ago. Where he is, it is not easy to get letters carried in safety. One never knows what may be happening. It is, of course, a terrible anxiety."
The tears came into her eyes. There had been a little shadow over her brightness even while she had watched Bunny. Nelly had been aware of it dimly. What did she mean?
"Anxiety!" Nelly repeated falteringly. "Why should you be anxious? He is not ill, is he?"
Her heart had sunk, heavy as lead. Her soul cried out in fear.
"You know he is with the punitive expedition against the Wazees for the murder of Major Sayers and his companions? You never can tell what dreadful thing may be happening to him. It isn't possible you didn't know? And I had been thinking you hardhearted! Ah!"
"It isn't possible you didn't know? _Don't_ look like that! Do you care so much as all that, Nelly? Why, then, why, in the name of Heaven, did you let him go? Why are you marrying your cousin? My poor Godfrey!"
She was conscious of a strident voice shouting the evening papers in the street outside. Indeed, even while she spoke to Nelly, half her brain was listening in a strained way to that voice as it came nearer. What was it the creature was shouting? Before she could hear distinctly the voice died away again in the distance.