e Bashi. They were cut off by the Kafirs, and killed."

"`They'? Who--who else?"

Shelton wished the friendly earth would open beneath his feet then and
there.

"Mrs Carhayes, pray be calm," he said unsteadily. "You have heard the
worst, remember--the worst, but not all. You cousin shared poor Tom's
fate."

"Eustace?"

The word was framed, rather than uttered, by those livid and bloodless
lips. Yet the listener caught it and bent his head in assent.

She did not cry out; she did not swoon. Yet those who beheld her almost
wished she had done both--anything rather than take the blow as she was
doing. She stood there in the doorway--her tall form seeming to tower
above them--her large eyes sparkling forth from her livid and bloodless
countenance--and the awful and set expression of despair imprinted
therein was such as the two who witnessed it prayed they might never
behold on human countenance again.

She had heard the worst--the worst, but not all--her informant had said.
Had she? The mockery of it! The first news was terrible; the second--
death; black, hopeless, living death. Had heard the worst! Ah, the
mockery of it! And as these reflections sank into her dazed brain--
driven in, as it were, one after another by the dull blows of a hammer,
her lips even shaped the ghost of a smile. Ah, the irony of it!

Still she did not faint. She stood there in the doorway, curdling the
very heart's blood of the lookers on with that dreadful shadow of a
smile. Then, without a word, she turned and walked to her room.

"Oh! I must go to her!" cried Mrs Hoste eagerly. "Oh, this is too
fearful."

"If you take my advice--it's better not! Not at present, at any rate,"
answered Shelton. "Leave her to get over the first shock alone. And
what a shock it is. Bereaved of husband and cousin at one stroke. And
the cousin was almost like a brother, wasn't he?"

"Yes," and the recollection of her recent suspicions swept in with a
rush upon the speaker's mind, deepening her flurry and distress. "Yes.
That is--I mean--Yes, I believe she was very fond of him. But how
bravely she took it."

"Rather too bravely," answered the other with a grave shake of the head.
"I only hope the strain may not be too much for her--affect her brain,
I mean. Mrs Carhayes has more than the average share of
strong-mindedness, yet she strikes me as being a woman of
extraordinarily strong feeling. The shock must have been frightful,