Said Edwin, still shying at the main issues:
"I was under the impression you had been to America once."
"Yes, that's why I know. I hadn't any money. And what's more," he added with peculiar emphasis, "I was brought back."
Edwin thought:
"I shall yield to this man."
At that instant he saw the shadow of Hilda's head and shoulders on the glass of the door.
"Excuse me a second," he murmured, bounded with astonishing velocity out of the room, and pulled the door to after him with a bang.
III
Hilda, having observed the strange, excited gesture, paused a moment, in an equally strange tranquillity, before speaking. Edwin fronted her at the very door. Then she said, clearly and deliberately, through her veil:
"Auntie Hamps has had an attack--heart. The doctor says she can't possibly live through the night. It was at Clara's."