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es they sat there, silent, waiting for the second telegram. Dumbleton brought it in, and lingered, anxiously expectant; but Warde dismissed him with a gesture. As the door closed, Warde stood up. "If our fears are well founded," he said solemnly, "may God give you strength, John Verney, to bear the blow." Then he tore open the envelope and read the truth-- "_Henry Desmond killed in action._" "No," said John, fiercely. "It is Scaife, Scaife!" Warde shook his head, holding John's hand tight between his sinewy fingers. John's face appalled him. He had known, he had guessed, the strength of John's feeling for Desmond, but, he had not known the strength of John's hatred of Scaife. And Desmond had been taken--and Scaife left. The irony of it tore the soul. "Don't speak," commanded Warde. John closed his lips with instinctive obedience. When he opened them again his face had softened; the words fell upon the silence with a heartrending inflection of misery. "And now I shall never know--I shall never know." He broke down piteously. Warde let the first passion of grief spend itself; then he asked John to explain. The good fellow saw that if John could give his trouble words it would be lightened enormously. He divined what had been suppressed. "What is it that you will never know, John?" At that John spoke, laying bare his heart. He gave details of the never-ending struggle between Scaife and himself for the soul of his friend; gave them with a clearness of expression which proved beyond all else how his thoughts had crystallized in his mind. Warde listened, holding John's hand, gripping it with sympathy and affection. The romance of this friendship stirred him profoundly; the romance of the struggle for good and evil; a struggle of which the issues remained still in doubt; a romance which Death had cruelly left unfinished--this had poignant significance for the house-master. "I shall never know now," John repeated, in conclusion. "But you have faith in your friend." "He never wrote to me," said John. At last it was out, the thorn in his side which had tormented him. "If he had written," John continued, "if only he had written once. When we parted it was good-bye--just that, nothing more; but I thought he would write, and that everything would be cleared up. And now, silence." * * * * * The week wore itself away. A few details were forthcoming: enough to
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