It was the first time for some weeks that they had dined alone together, and conversation did not flow freely.
Bertie looked up again, fixing his eyes, not on her face, but on the row of pearls at her throat.
“My dear, you will be very much shocked.”
“Yes?” said Judith interrogatively, eating her soup.
“It is not true,” said Judith, and then she actually smiled.
. . . .
The room was whirling round and round, a strange, thick mist was over everything, and through it came the muffled sound of Bertie’s voice:
“It occurred this afternoon, quite suddenly. I heard it at the club. He had not been well for some time, and had collapsed more or less the last week. But no one had any idea of danger. It seems that his heart was weak; he had been overdoing himself terribly, and cardiac disease was the immediate cause of his death—cardiac disease,” repeated Bertie, with mournful enjoyment of the phrase, and pulling a long face as he spoke.
Judith, sitting there like an automaton, eating something that tasted like sawdust, something that was difficult to swallow, was vividly conscious of only this—that Bertie must be silenced at any cost. Anything else could be borne, but not Bertie’s fluent regrets.