Lancelot laid his hand kindly on his shoulder.
‘My dearest Bracebridge, the evidence proves that the child was born dead.’
‘They lie!’ he said, fiercely, starting up. ‘It cried twice after it was born!’
Lancelot stood horror-struck.
‘I heard it last night, and the night before that, and the night before that again, under my pillow, shrieking—stifling—two little squeaks, like a caught hare; and I tore the pillows off it—I did; and once I saw it, and it had beautiful black eyes—just like its father—just like a little miniature that used to lie on my mother’s table, when I knelt at her knee, before they sent me out “to see life,” and Eton, and the army, and Crockford’s, and Newmarket, and fine gentlemen, and fine ladies, and luxury, and flattery, brought me to this! Oh, father! father! was that the only way to make a gentleman of your son?—There it is again! Don’t you hear it?—under the sofa cushions! Tear them off! Curse you! Save it!’
And, with a fearful oath, the wretched man sent Lancelot staggering across the room, and madly tore up the cushions.
A long postman’s knock at the door.—He suddenly rose up quite collected.
‘The letter! I knew it would come. She need not have written it: I know what is in it.’
The servant’s step came up the stairs. Poor Bracebridge turned to Lancelot with something of his own stately determination.
‘I must be alone when I receive this letter. Stay here.’ And with compressed lips and fixed eyes he stalked out at the door, and shut it.