We have been so much to
each other all our lives. He'll stick it out, dear, if any human
being can. We shall have him back with us some day."
"But he is hungry," Helen sobbed. "I can't bear to think of his
being hungry. Every time I sit down to eat, it almost chokes me."
"I suppose he has forgotten what a whisky and soda is like,"
Philippa murmured, with a little catch in her own throat.
"He always used to love one about this time," Helen faltered,
glancing at the clock.
"And cigarettes!" Philippa exclaimed. "I wonder whether they give
him anything to smoke."
"Nasty German tobacco, if they do," Helen rejoined indignantly.
"And to think that I have sent him at least six hundred of his
favourite Egyptians!"
She fell once more on her knees by her friend's side. Their arms
were intertwined, their cheeks touching. One of those strange,
feminine silences of acute sympathy seemed to hold them for a while
under its thrall. Then, almost at the same moment, a queer
awakening came for both of them. Helen's arm was stiffened.
Philippa turned her head, but her eyes were filled with incredulous
fear. A little current of cool air was blowing through the room.
The French windows stood half open, and with his back to them, a
man who had apparently entered the room from the gardens and passed
noiselessly across the soft carpet, was standing by the door,
listening.
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