"The Challoners are no good," she said, in a voice curiously distinct and hard.
"Don't say that, Cynthia," Harry Rames answered gently.
"I do say it. I ought to know."
The words were uttered, and only then she realized what she had said. She looked quickly toward her husband, but he gave to her cry no particular significance. His brain seemed to register her words, not to comprehend them. Cynthia was conscious of a great relief. Loud at her heart rose a hope, a prayer that in all things, all qualities, even to tricks of manner, she was her mother's child, and had nothing of her father. Never would she acknowledge her relationship with that family. Never would she admit her name. Her first resolve and instinct had been right. The Challoners were no good.
"No, I should not say that, Cynthia," Raines repeated. "He's dead."
Cynthia turned swiftly upon the word. Her dress rustled as she turned, and when that sound ceased there was absolute silence in the room. Cynthia stood by the mantel-shelf still as stone. Her face was white, and a look of awe overspread it. With her lips parted and her eyes troubled and wondering she watched her husband. Harry Rames sat with a large silver paper-knife in his hands, looking absently straight in front of him. And in a little while he broke the silence by absently tapping with the blade of the paper-knife upon his blotting-pad. The sound roused Cynthia. She moved to a low chair close to the writing-table.
"Dead? Harry, I don't quite understand."
The tapping ceased.
"His heart was wrong. He died in the Division Lobby--actually while the division was being taken."
"In the Division Lobby? But you said you didn't take him with you."