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Page 8
He took a sombre but agitated leave of his hostess, and went out
into the twilight, cursing his lack of ease, remembering the things
which he had meant to say, and hating himself for having forgotten
them. Philippa, to whom his departure had been, as it always was,
a relief, was already leaning forward in her chair with her arm
around Helen's neck.
"I thought that extraordinary man would never go," she exclaimed,
"and I was longing to send for you, Helen. London has been such a
dreary chapter of disappointments."
"What a sickening time you must have had, dear!"
"It was horrid," Philippa assented sadly, "but you know Henry is
no use at all, and I should have felt miserable unless I had gone.
I have been to every friend at the War Office, and every friend
who has friends there. I have made every sort of enquiry, and I
know just as much now as I did when I left here--that Richard was
a prisoner at Wittenberg the last time they heard, and that they
have received no notification whatever concerning him for the last
two months."
Helen glanced at the calendar.
"It is just two months to-day," she said mournfully, "since we heard."
"And then," Philippa sighed, "he hadn't received a single one of our
parcels."
Helen rose suddenly to her feet. She was a tall, fair girl of the
best Saxon type, slim but not in the least angular, with every
promise, indeed, of a fuller and more gracious development in the
years to come. She was barely twenty-two years old, and, as is
common with girls of her complexion, seemed younger. Her bright,
intelligent face was, above all, good-humoured. Just at that moment,
however, there was a flush of passionate anger in her cheeks.
"It makes me feel almost beside myself," she exclaimed, "this
hideous incapacity for doing anything! Here we are living in luxury,
without a single privation, whilst Dick, the dearest thing on
earth to both of us, is being starved and goaded to death in a foul
German prison!"
"We mustn't believe that it's quite so bad as that, dear," Philippa
remonstrated. "What is it, Mills?"
The elderly man-servant who had entered with a tray in his band,
bowed as he arranged it upon a side table.
"I have taken the liberty of bringing in a little fresh tea, your
ladyship," he announced, "and some hot buttered toast. Cook has
sent some of the sandwiches, too, which your ladyship generally
fancies."
"It is very kind of you, Mills," Philippa said, with rather a wan
little smile. "I had some tea at South Lynn, but it was very bad.
You might take my coat, please."
She stood up, and the heavy fur coat slipped easily away from her
slim, elegant little body.
"Shall I light up, your ladyship?" Mills enquired.
"You might light a lamp," Philippa directed, "but don't draw the
blinds until lighting-up time. After the noise of London," she went
on, turning to Helen, "I always think that the faint sound of the
sea is so restful."
The man moved noiselessly about the room and returned once more to
his mistress.
"We should be glad to hear, your ladyship," he said, "if there is
any news of Major Felstead?" Philippa shook her head.
"None at all, I am sorry to say, Mills! Still, we must hope for
the best. I dare say that some of these camps are not so bad as
we imagine."
"We must hope not, your ladyship," was the somewhat dismal reply.
"Shall I fasten the windows?"
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