“This is terrible!” I said at last, feebly, foolishly, as the meaning of it all filtered through my none too active brain.
“It’s terrible for me,” acknowledged Dinky-Dunk, with a self-pity which I wasn’t slow to resent.
“But why aren’t you there?” I demanded. “Why aren’t you there to keep a little decency about the thing? Why aren’t you looking after what’s left of her?”
Dinky-Dunk’s eye evaded mine, but only for a moment.
“Colonel Ainsley-Brook is coming back from Washington to take possession of the remains,” he explained with a sort of dry-lipped patience, “and take them home.”
“But why should an outsider like—”
Dinky-Dunk stopped me with a gesture.
“He and Allie were married, a little over three weeks ago,” my husband quietly informed me. And for the second time I had to work life into what seemed limp and sodden words.
“Did you know about that?” I asked.
“Yes, Allie wrote to me about it, at the time,” he replied with a sort of coerced candor. “She said it seemed about the only thing left to do.”