It was very awful, and most painful to my master and the landlord, or, rather, the landlord’s brother, who managed the hotel.
Of course the poor wife had to be told what had happened. At first they were going to send her a telegram to the address they found on a letter in the gentleman’s pocket, but they decided it would be such a terrible shock, and so the landlord’s brother, “Mr. Arthur,” as he was called, and quite a character, so master said, decided that he would go himself and break the terrible news to the poor lady as gently as possible.
He couldn’t go till the next day. And so it happened that he arrived by the very train that the poor gentleman was to have gone by himself. He took a fly from the station to the house—a lovely little villa, standing in its own grounds—and when he drove up, two sweet little girls came rushing down the garden-path, crying out, “Papa, dear papa! Mamma, mamma, papa’s come home—papa’s come home!”
And then their mamma, her face flushed with joy, came quickly out, and ran down after the children to the gate to welcome her husband.
Poor Mr. Arthur! Master said that when he told him about it his eyes filled with tears, and he could hardly speak.
He said it was a minute before he could open his lips; but the poor lady had read bad news in his face, and she gasped out,
“My husband! he is ill! he is worse! Oh, tell me; tell me. For God’s sake, tell me!”
And the little girls looked up with terrified faces, and ran to their mamma, and clung to her.
And then Mr. Arthur begged the lady to come into the house; and then, as gently as he could, he told her the terrible news.
Wasn’t it dreadful?