Kate bounced away whooping. Mr. Kenny wiped his eyes and finished a buttered bun. "I suppose," said Reuben, "it happens to the best of dogs."
"Why," said Charity, "he was overtaken by surprise."
"Of course he was," said Mr. Kenny. "Come, Sultan! Come here, boy, good boy!" Mr. Kenny chirped, but though Sultan was willing to explain everything in a long undertone, he was not at the moment coming anywhere, for anyone.
Charity exploded in fresh cries. "I can't stop laughing!" she wept, and dropped her head on the table. "I can't stop it!" Mr. Kenny bent over her, concerned; her laughter had gone shrill and sick. "Dreadful news, and I—I can't stop laughing! Help!"
For Reuben, the worst of Mr. Eccles' dangerous writhing had not obscured a second's glimpse of Charity in the moment when she discovered that Ben was in the room. Under cover of her wailing laughter he muttered in Ben's ear: "Can't you see she loves you? Do something!"
He knew Ben did not quite understand nor believe it, but Ben took an uncertain step toward the chair where Charity struggled with the demons of her laughter, and that was enough. Charity flung herself at him. Reuben saw his brother's arms close around her with a natural kindness, and heard him say: "Now, now! What's the matter, Mistress Charity?"
"Cousin Jan—Mr. Dyckman." She spoke quietly into Ben's shirt, all laughter spent.
"Dyckman?" John Kenny came to them, and touched her shoulder lightly, as if it might burn him. "What of Mr. Dyckman, my dear?"
"He is dead."
"Dead! But——"