"You don't say anything, Alfred," complained little Lady Semingham from the window.
"What is there to say?" asked he, spreading out his hands.
"The only son of his mother, and she is a widow," whispered Adela, gazing away over the sunny meadows.
Bessie Semingham looked at the pair for an instant, vaguely dissatisfied with their want of demonstrativeness. There seemed, as Alfred said, very little to say; it was so sad that there ought to have been more to say. But she could think of nothing herself, so, in her pretty little lisp, she repeated,
"How sad for poor Lady Valentine!" and slowly shut the window.
"He was a bright boy, with the makings of a man in him," said Semingham.
Adela nodded, and for a long while neither spoke again. Then Semingham, with the air of a man who seeks relief from sad thoughts which cannot alter sadder facts, asked,
"Where are the Dennisons?"
"She went for a walk by herself, but I think she's come back and gone a stroll with Tom and Harry." As she spoke, she looked up and caught a puzzled look in Semingham's eye. "Yes," she went on in quick understanding. "I don't quite understand her either."
"But what do you think?" he asked, in his insatiable curiosity that no other feeling could altogether master.