Claire uttered a quick, flurried cry. She grasped her mother's arm. "You—you don't mean," she exclaimed, in a piteously fierce way, "that I killed Father—or—or hastened his death by—by not being home? Oh, say, Mother, that you don't mean this! It would drive me mad if I believed so! Please say it isn't true!"
Claire's aspect breathed such desperation that it wrought havoc even with so stolid a perversity as that of the harsh, unpropitiable being whom she confronted.
"Well, no, I don't say that," murmured Mrs. Twining, with sullen alteration of mien and tone. "But I do say, Claire, that you was off somewhere, and he was fretted and pestered because you was, and" ...
Here the peculiar nature of this most tormenting woman suddenly revealed a change. Her grim mouth twitched; her nostrils produced a kind of catarrhal sniff; her cold black eyes winked, as if tears were lurking to assail them. The next words that she spoke were in a high, querulous key.
"Oh! so you're the only one that's fit to mourn for that poor dead one, hey? I, his lawful wedded wife, and your own mother, ain't got any right to grieve! Oh, very well! I'm nobody at all, here. I'd better get away. You're chief mourner. There's nobody but you. I s'pose you'll pay all the expenses of the funeral, since you're so dreadful stuck-up about it!"
Claire shook her head, in a pathetic, conciliating way. She lifted one finger, at the same time. Her face was still white, and her dark-blue eyes were burning feverishly.
"No, no, Mother!" she said. "This is all wrong. You mustn't speak like that, here. If you didn't love him, I did. There's a little money yet. It's yours, but you'll give it; you've told me of it; it will be enough to bury Father decently. I promise you that if you do give it I will try very hard to get some work that will support us both."
Mrs. Twining put a hand on either hip. She stared at Claire for a moment. Then she answered her.
"No," she said. "I won't give a cent of it. It's only about a hundred dollars. He ain't led me such a nice life that I should be so awful grateful to him now he's gone. There's ways of burying that don't cost money. Yes, there's ways.... Let 'em come and take him. I ain't going to beggar myself because he wants a rosewood coffin, and"—
"Mother!" cried Claire, pointing toward the dead, "he is here!"