Nearer and nearer came the thunder of the approaching sound, mingled with startled exclamations and the noise of trampling feet from the direction of the kitchen tent.

Slowly, mechanically almost, she dragged herself to the entrance, and stood clinging to the canvas there.  By the time she had reached it Broomhurst had flung himself from the saddle, and had thrown the reins to one of the men.

Mrs. Drayton stared at him with wide, bright eyes as he hastened toward her.

“I thought you—­you are not—­” she began, and then her teeth began to chatter.  “I am so cold!” she said, in a little, weak voice.

Broomhurst took her hand and led her over the threshold back into the tent.

“Don’t be so frightened,” he implored; “I came to tell you first.  I thought it wouldn’t frighten you so much as—­Your—­Drayton is—­very ill.  They are bringing him.  I—­”

He paused.  She gazed at him a moment with parted lips; then she broke into a horrible, discordant laugh, and stood clinging to the back of a chair.

Broomhurst started back.

“Do you understand what I mean?” he whispered.  “Kathleen, for God’s sake—­don’t—­he is dead.”

He looked over his shoulder as he spoke, her shrill laughter ringing in his ears.  The white glare and dazzle of the plain stretched before him, framed by the entrance to the tent; far off, against the horizon, there were moving black specks, which he knew to be the returning servants with their still burden.

They were bringing John Drayton home.

One afternoon, some months later, Broomhurst climbed the steep lane leading to the cliffs of a little English village by the sea.  He had already been to the inn, and had been shown by the proprietress the house where Mrs. Drayton lodged.

“The lady was out, but the gentleman would likely find her if he went to the cliffs—­down by the bay, or thereabouts,” her landlady explained; and, obeying her directions, Broomhurst presently emerged from the shady woodland path on to the hillside overhanging the sea.

He glanced eagerly round him, and then, with a sudden quickening of the heart, walked on over the springy heather to where she sat.  She turned when the rustling his footsteps made through the bracken was near enough to arrest her attention, and looked up at him as he came.  Then she rose slowly and stood waiting for him.  He came up to her without a word, and seized both her hands, devouring her face with his eyes.  Something he saw there repelled him.  Slowly he let her hands fall, still looking at her silently.  “You are not glad to see me, and I have counted the hours,” he said, at last, in a dull, toneless voice.

Her lips quivered.  “Don’t be angry with me—­I can’t help it—­I’m not glad or sorry for anything now,” she answered; and her voice matched his for grayness.