“You poor boy,” she cried, “I'm trying to tell you one of the hardest things a body can tell. Yes, some one is dead, but that ain't all. Eben Hammond, poor soul, is out of his troubles and gone.”
“Eben Hammond! Captain Eben? Dead! Why, why—”
“Yes, Eben's gone. He was took down sudden and died about ten o'clock last night. I was there and—”
“Captain Eben dead! Why, he was as well as—as—She said—Oh, I must go! I must go at once!”
He was on his way to the door, but she held it shut.
“No,” she said gravely, “you mustn't go. You mustn't go, Mr. Ellery. That's the one thing you mustn't do.”
“You don't understand. By and by I can tell you why I must be there, but now—”
“I do understand. I understand it all. Lord help us! if I'd only understood sooner, how much of this might have been spared. Why DIDN'T you tell me?”
“Mrs. Coffin—”
“John—you won't mind my callin' you John. I'm old enough, pretty nigh, to be your mother, and I've come to feel almost as if I was. John, you've got to stay here with me. You can't go to that house. You can't go to her.”