Agatha felt a sudden stoppage at the heart which took away her. breath. “Tell me—quick; I shall not be frightened;—he is coming home to-morrow.”
“My dear child!” muttered Duke again, as he held out his hands to her, and she saw that tears were dropping over his cheeks.
Agatha clutched at the hands threateningly—she felt herself going wild. “Tell me, I say. If you don't—I'll——”—
“Hush—I'll tell you—only hush!—think of poor Anne! And there's hope yet. Only they have not come into Southampton-roads—and last night there was a fire seen far out at sea—and it might have been a ship, you know.”
Thus disconnectedly Marmaduke broke his terrible news. Agatha received them with a wild stare.
“It's impossible—totally impossible,” she cried, uttering sounds that were half shrieking, half laughter. “Absolutely, ridiculously impossible. I'll not believe it—not a word. It's impossible— impossible!”
And gasping out that one word, over and over again, fiercely and fast, she walked up and down the room like one distraught. She was indeed quite mad. She had not any sense of anything. She never once thought of weeping, or fainting, or doing anything but shriek out to earth and Heaven that one denunciation—that such a thing was and must be—“impossible!”
Marmaduke caught her—she flung him aside.
“Don't touch me—don't speak to me! I say it's impossible!”
“Child!” And his look became more grave and commanding than any one would have believed of the Dugdale. “Dare not to say impossible! It is sinning against God.”