Her eyes would wander from the page and her ears strain to catch the distant booming of the big guns that came from time to time floating across the hills.
The fact of the matter was that the poor girl was the victim of a presentiment that something was going to happen to John.

Most people of imaginative mind have suffered from this kind of thing at one time or other in their lives, and have lived to see the folly of it; and there was more in the circumstances of the present case to excuse indulgence in the luxury of presentiments than as usual.

Indeed, as it happened, she was not far out--only a sixteenth of an inch or so--for John was very _nearly_ killed.
Not finding Jess in camp, Mrs.Neville made her way across to "The Palatial," where she knew the girl sat, crying as she went, at the thought of the news that she had to communicate, for the good soul had grown very fond of John Niel.

Jess, with that acute sense of hearing which often accompanies nervous excitement, caught the sound of the little gate at the bottom of the garden almost before her visitor had passed through it, and ran round the corner of the house to see who was there.
One glance at Mrs.Neville's tear-stained face was enough for her.

She knew what was coming, and clasped at one of the young blue gum trees that grew along the path to prevent herself from falling.
"What is it ?" she said faintly.