This anxious thought held the anger with which he had entered the house in abeyance. He stepped forward.
“Mother!”
She started and dropped her book, pressed one hand suddenly against her heart, and gasped out:
“Well, my son.”
“Are you reading? Have I frightened you?”
“Reading? No, I only held the book. One falls into thought sometimes, forgetting every thing.”
La Clide took up the volume she had dropped. It was a medical book, and had fallen upon the floor open at a treatise on diseases of the heart.
“Why, mother, what is this?”
“That? Oh, nothing. It chanced to be on the table. But what is the matter? You look strangely, Claude.”
“Do I? Very likely, mother, for I come to tell you that I can never marry Ellen Worthington.”