“Your niece has just received a letter from your nephew. He writes that he will not come home.”
“My niece confided this personal affair in you?”
He bowed.
“Eleanor,” she demanded, “is this true?”
“That Joe refuses to come home? It is brutally true, Aunt.”
The girl had turned her aunt’s hasty slur neatly. Barnes met her eyes with understanding. As in Miss Van Patten’s case, the grim fact was sufficient to divert the aunt’s attention from everything else.
“He refuses to come back at such a time?” she repeated. “This is terrible!”
There was silence for a moment, and then she added,
“But this will break his heart!”
She glanced excitedly from one to the other of them. The girl crept to her side.