Page:The leopard's spots - a romance of the white man's burden-1865-1900 (IA leopardsspotsrom00dixo).pdf/317

 to express her love. He was surprised at her brilliance and wit. He had not held her so deep a thinker on the serious things of life as these letters had showed, nor had he noticed how keen her sense of humour. He was so busy looking at her beautiful face, and drinking the love-light from her eyes, he had overlooked these things when with her. Now they flashed on him as a new treasure, that would enrich his life.

At the end of two weeks when the General had not answered his letter he began to grow nervous. A vague feeling of fear grew on him. Something had happened to darken his future. He felt it by a subtle telepathy of sympathetic thought. He was gloomy and depressed all day after he had received and feasted on the wittiest letter she had ever written. What could it mean he asked himself a thousand times—some shadow had fallen across their lives. He knew it as clearly as if the revelation of its misery were already unfolded.

He went to the post-office on the next day he was to receive a letter, crushed with a sense of foreboding. He waited until the mail was all distributed and the general delivery window flung open before he approached his box. He was afraid to look at her letter. He slowly opened the box.

There was nothing in it!

"Sam, you're not holding out my letter to tease me, old boy?" he asked pathetically.

Sam was about to joke him about the uncertainties of love, when his eye rested on his drawn face.

"Lord no, Charlie," he protested, "you know I wouldn't treat you like that."

"Then look again, you may have dropped it."

Sam turned and looked carefully over the floor, over and under his desks and tables and returned.

"No, but it may have been thrown into the wrong bag