"Mother," Inez rattled on, "you have not given the whole list of those who were here; was, was—Claude Vernon here?"
The girl looked at her mother with a blush on her face, and then suddenly with an impulsive gesture she said, as she held her hand out over the table: "Mother, I must tell you! Father knows. Claude asked me a week before we sailed from Havre. We are engaged. We—."
She paused, seeing that in her mother's face which drove the color out of her own. Mrs. Carlton sat there in miserable silence. She hoped she might faint. She hoped for anything that would relieve her of the horror of the occasion.
"Mother!" cried Inez, "what is it?" She ran around the table, and Mr. Carlton at the same time came and supported his wife.
"O, it is too terrible! I cannot! I cannot tell it!"
"What! Is it Claude? Is anything the matter?" cried Inez, swiftly imagining evil where she loved the most.
"Yes! Yes! O my God! O child! Claude is—."
"He is dead!" said Inez calmly, but in a strange voice.
Mrs. Carlton threw her arms about her daughter and sobbed hysterically. When she finally recovered to realize what the news meant, Inez lay unconscious in her mother's arms. She had fainted.