"He's killed. My Harold. My boy. My boy, Harold. Oh, Sabre, Sabre, my boy, my boy, my Harold!"
He began to sob; his shoulders heaving.
Sabre gave a sound that was just a whimper. Oh, irony of fate! Oh, cynicism incredible in its malignancy! Oh, cumulative touch! To deliver him this his enemy to strike, and to present him for the knife thus already stricken!
No sound in all the range of sounds whereby man can express emotion was possible to express this emotion that now surcharged him. This was no pain of man's devising. This was a special and a private agony of the gods reserved for victims approved for very nice and exquisite experiment. He felt himself squeezed right down beneath a pressure squeezing to his vitals; and there was squeezed out of him just a whimper.
He walked across to the fireplace; and on the high mantle-shelf laid his arms and bowed his forehead to the marble.
Twyning was brokenly saying, "It's good of you to come, Sabre. I feel it. After that business. I'm sorry about it, Sabre. I feel your goodness coming to me like this. But you know, you always knew, what my boy was to me. My Harold. My Harold. Such a good boy, Sabre. Such a good, Christian boy. And now he's gone, he's gone. Never to see him again. My boy. My son. My son!"
Oh, dreadful!
And he went on, distraught and pitiable. "My boy. My Harold. Such a good boy, Sabre. Such a perfect boy. My Harold!"
The letter was crumpled in Sabre's right hand. He was constricting it in his hand and knocking his clenched knuckles on the marble.
"My boy. My dear, good boy. Oh, Sabre, Sabre!"