“Have you been to the Abbey House to pay a Christmas visit?” he asked. “It is very kind of you to come and see us so soon after your return.”
“I am the bearer of bad news, so I did not loiter.”
“Bad news! what was it?”
“Mr. Heigham is dead,” she answered, watching his face narrowly.
“Dead, impossible!”
“He died of enteric fever at Madeira. I have just been to break the news to Angela.”
“Oh, indeed, she will be pained; she was very fond of him, you know.”
Lady Bellamy smiled contemptuously.
“Did you ever see any one put to the extremest torture? If you have, you can guess how your daughter was ‘pained.’”
Philip winced.