..."
She gave a little girlish exclamation and ran forward.
"Isn't that young Gathbroke, who was out here at the time of the earthquake
and fire...or an older brother, perhaps?"
She had taken the photograph from the mantel and was examining it under one
of the lanterns. Her alert ear detected the deeper and less steady note in
Gora's always hoarse voice.
"It is the same. Did you meet him?...Oh, I remember he told me he met you
at the Hofer ball. He rather raved over you, in fact."
"Did he? How sweet of him. I met him again, I remember. Mr. Gwynne brought
him down to Rincona one day."
"Oh?"
And Alexina, knew that he had never mentioned that visit.
"But he looks much much older."
"He did before he left. That horrible experience of his seemed to prey on
him more and more.
"Oh."
He had not looked a day over twenty-three on that afternoon at Eincona, two
weeks after the fire.
Alexina replaced the picture, then turned to her sister-in-law with a
coaxing smile. "Are you engaged? It would be too romantic. Do tell me."
"No," said Gora, shortly. "We are not engaged. Good friends, that is all,
and write occasionally."
"Well, he must be very much interested--and you must be a very interesting
correspondent, Gora dear! Is he? Interesting, I mean. What does he do,
anyhow? I have a vague remembrance that he said something about the army."
"He was in the army, the Grenadier Guards.
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