Larcher thereupon savagely threw on the breakfast table a roll of papers, and looked defiantly at his friend. Tone and expression failed to elicit surprise.
"Oh!" said Tait reflectively, "then Hilliston gave you bad news, after all. I guessed he had from your refusal to accompany me to the theater last night."
"You guessed rightly. He gave me such news as I never expected to hear. You will find it amply set forth in those papers, which I have been reading all night."
"Dear me. I trust it is nothing serious. Has Mrs. Bezel——"
"I don't know anything about Mrs. Bezel," said Larcher loudly. "So far as she is concerned I am as much in the dark as ever. But my parents——"
"What of them?" interrupted Tait, uttering the first thought which came into his mind. "Are they alive, after all?"
"No. They are dead, sure enough," muttered Claude gloomily.
"In that case what can Mr. Hilliston or Mrs. Bezel have to say about them," demanded the other, looking puzzled. "No scandal about Queen Elizabeth, I hope?"
"Confound it, man, don't be so flippant! I've had bad news, I tell you. My father,"—here Larcher gulped down his emotion with some difficulty—"my father was murdered!"
"Murdered!" repeated Tait, looking aghast, as well he might.