“You are too late,” said Perdita, glancing away from him as she spoke. “Poor Tom; he deserved something better.”
“Let me go to him,” said Sir Francis, moving forward with a groping gesture, like one walking in the dark. He pushed past Perdita and entered the room. She remained for a moment on the threshold, following him with her eyes, and seeming inclined to retire and leave him; but she ended by stepping within and closing the door after her.
Sir Francis, however, was now unconscious of everything except that which lay on the bed before him. Tom’s hands rested beside him on the coverlet; his father lifted one of them, and let it fall again. He then sat down on the side of the bed, raised the upper part of the body and supported it on his arm, bending his face close to that of the dead boy, and giving vent at intervals, below his breath, to a kind of groaning sound, the most piteous that had ever fallen on Perdita’s ears. She remained leaning against the door, with an air of painful contemplation.
After what seemed a long time, and was undoubtedly long if measured by its spiritual effects, the baronet’s moanings gradually subsided into silence; the veins in his forehead, which had become swollen and dark with the accumulation of blood to the brain, returned to their normal state, and the man sat erect, gazing into vacancy, with a demeanor of pallid and stony immobility. Thought seemed to be at a standstill within him, and even the susceptibility to suffering had become torpid. He sat thus so long that at length Perdita’s restless temperament could endure the pause no more, and she spoke.
“Leave him now, Sir Francis. I wish to tell you something.”
He betrayed no sign of having heard her. By-and-by she advanced to the bed, and stood directly in front of him.
“What do you wish me to do with this?” she demanded, holding up the sealed enclosure which had accompanied Grant’s letter.
“These are not business hours,” said Sir Francis, sluggishly. “Tom and I are taking a holiday. Our work is done.”
“His work is done, but not yours: you cannot have the privileges of death until you die,” Perdita answered.
“I know more about death than you imagine,” responded the baronet, in the same halting tone. “You needn’t grudge me the privileges: I have the rest.”