It was like a second, and repeated, explosion. Miss Walbrook rose to her feet; the paper rustled to the floor.
“Oh! Oh!”
The sound was that which human beings make when the thing told them is more than they can bear. 314 Barbara cried out as if someone was beating her with clubs, and she was coming to her knees.
She was not coming to her knees. When her aunt reached her she was still standing by the little table in the hall which held the telephone, on which she had hung up the receiver. She supported herself with one hand on the table, as a woman does when all she can do is not to fall senseless.
“It’s—it’s Rash,” she panted, as she saw her aunt appear. “Somebody has—has killed him.”
Miss Walbrook stood with hands clasped, like one transfixed. “He’s dead?—after all?”
Barbara nodded, tearlessly. She could stammer out the words, but no more. “Yes—all but!”
In the flat at Red Point there was another and dissimilar breakfast scene. For the first time in her life Letty was having coffee and toast in bed. The window was open, and between the muslin curtains, which puffed in the soft May wind, she could see the ocean with steamers and ships on it.
The room was tiny, but it was spotless. Everything was white, except where here and there it was tied up with a baby-blue ribbon. Anything that could be tied with a baby-blue ribbon was so tied.