oing to post it to you." She took up a packet from the side-table.

"How is he?"

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!"

Her arms went round Nelly.

"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.

"Why did I let him go?" Nelly repeated after her. "Because, because, he
would not stay. He knew that I loved him, but he would not stay. He
never seemed to think of staying. When he had broken my heart it seemed
that I might as well make others happy. My father, Lady Drummond, my
cousin; they have been so good to me always."

"But you were engaged to your cousin, weren't you, when Godfrey left?"

Little Mrs. Rooke's dark eyes looked black in her frightened face.

"You were engaged to your cousin, were you not, just as you are to-day?"

"I never accepted my cousin till--till Captain Langrishe had gone. It
was understood that when we grew