He had been thinking of this possibility for the last few weeks almost continuously, and yet now that it had come to him he felt that he had never thought about it before, that he must go off alone by himself to envisage this monstrous and terrible fact, without distraction or interruption.
He saw his wife coming down the alley between the roses.
He was wrenched by emotions as odd and unaccountable as the emotions of adolescence. He had exactly the same feeling now that he had had when in his boyhood some unpleasant admission had to be made to his parents. He felt he could not go through a scene with her yet, that he could not endure the task of telling her, of being observed. He turned abruptly to his left. He walked away as if he had not seen her, across his lawn towards the little summer-house upon a knoll that commanded the high road. She called to him, but he did not answer....
He would not look towards her, but for a time all his senses were alert to hear whether she followed him. Safe in the summer-house he could glance back.
It was all right. She was going into the house.
He drew the telegram from his pocket again furtively, almost guiltily, and re-read it. He turned it over and read it again....
Killed.
Then his own voice, hoarse and strange to his ears, spoke his thought.
"My God! how unutterably silly.... Why did I let him go? Why did I let him go?"