Just after the poor little one was dead frantic telegrams had come from the Morleys, in consternation at his disappearance, and Mimo, quite prostrate in his sorrow, as he had been at her mother's death, had left all practical things to Zara.
No doctor turned up, either. Mimo had not coherently given the address, on the telephone. Thus they passed the day alone with their dead, in anguish; and at last thought came back to Zara. She would go to her uncle, and let him help to settle things; she could count upon him to do that.
Francis Markrute, anxious and disturbed by Tristram's message and her absence, met her as she came in and drew her into the library.
The butler had handed her her husband's note, but she held it listlessly in her hand, without opening it. She was still too numb with sorrow to take notice of ordinary things. Her uncle saw immediately that something terrible had happened.
"Zara, dear child," he said, and folded her in his arms with affectionate kindness, "tell me everything."
She was past tears now, but her voice sounded strange with the tragedy in it.
"Mirko is dead, Uncle Francis," was all she said. "He ran away from Bournemouth because Agatha, the Morleys' child, broke his violin. He loved it, you know Maman had given it to him. He came in the night, all alone, ill with fever, to find his father, and he broke a blood vessel this morning, and died in my arms—there, in the poor lodging."
Francis Markrute had drawn her to the sofa now, and stroked her hands. He was deeply moved.
"My poor, dear child! My poor Zara!" he said.
Then, with most pathetic entreaty she went on,