Hugh had been sent for the previous evening, and two specialists were even then on their way to Harley's Mills for consultation. Latimer himself had come down to inform Hugh's new employers, as well as to do some friendly acts of necessity.
"I am going home at noon," was Poppea's spoken answer to Latimer, but between the brief words he read much besides.
"I expected that you would, and told Oliver Gilbert so in passing," was his reply.
"How is Hugh?" was her first question, when after the bustle of transit they were seated in the train with no other passengers in their immediate vicinity.
"Perfectly quiet, but as one stunned; his sorrow for his father is deep enough, but his anguish at his mother's condition is heartrending."
"Is there—do you think that there is anything I could do if I should go there?" she faltered.
"Not now, my child; it is a time when no friend and not even a man's wife must come between him and his sorrow, his thoughts are only for the eye of God. Such help as Charlotte needs below stairs is being given by Jeanne and Satira Potts."
"And the funeral?"
"Will be from St. Luke's to-morrow."
The next day Poppea and Oliver Gilbert followed with the rest, the Feltons, Mr. Esterbrook, and half the summer colony. She only caught a glimpse of Hugh, who, tearless, looking neither to the right or left, seemed hewn from marble.