“And that his eldest child was at the point of death, sir,” added Green, more timidly than before.
“Well—what next?” demanded the attorney.
“The poor child has since died, sir.”
“The poor child, indeed! Who cares a fig about a child? Why—you are growing quite soft-hearted, Mr. Green,” said Heathcote, in a tone of cutting irony. “The poor child, indeed! I suppose the wife has died also?” he added, with heartless jocularity.
“Indeed, sir, I am sorry to say you are right in your conjecture,” responded Green, scarcely venturing to make the announcement.
“No!—is it really the case, though?” exclaimed Heathcote, startled for a moment at finding that what he had said as a brutal jest turned out to be a solemn and shocking truth. “Well—what next?” he demanded, mastering those emotions which he was ashamed at having betrayed.
“Thompson himself, sir—driven to despair by these numerous afflictions—cut his throat in prison this afternoon,” added Mr. Green.
“Is this possible?” cried Mr. Heathcote, again excited to a degree more powerful than the clerk had ever before observed: but speedily subduing his feelings, by dint of a strong and almost superhuman effort—so sudden and effective was it—he said, “Well—it is not my fault. Maudlin sentimentalists will perhaps lay his death at my door——”
“I am afraid, sir, that all the three deaths will be attributed to you,” interrupted Green, with an affectation of exceeding meekness, while from beneath his brows he darted a rapid glance of fiend-like expression at his master—a glance which denoted how the man in his secret soul feasted upon the pangs which now rent the heart of the attorney.
“I am tough enough to bear everything that people may say of me, Mr. Green,” observed Heathcote, in his usually cold tone of irony. “But proceed with your communications.”