"Not William! Not my husband! No! No! No!" she shrieked.
"I thought you knew! I thought you knew!" George Boult said. The woman hurt him by her grip upon his arms; what a din was in his ears!
"Papa! Oh, papa! Papa!" Bessie screamed.
Franky was screaming too. He had got down from the table and rushed round to his younger sister, who, white, and shaking like a leaf, took the child in her arms. Bernard had risen, ashen-faced, staring. "It isn't true!" he shouted savagely at his father's traducer. "It's a lie!"
"Didn't you know?" George Boult kept saying to the poor woman who was shaking him by the force of her trembling as she clung to him. "I would have prepared you—I thought you knew."
"I thought it was bankruptcy," she got out between her chattering teeth.
"I didn't know it was—disgrace. Are you sure? Quite sure?"
"Quite. There is not the shadow of a chance it is not true. A police officer brought me a message from him from the station-house last night."
She let go his arms, and sank into her chair again; and Franky, who could find no comfort in Deleah's embrace, left her, and still screaming his terrified "Papa! papa! papa!" flew to hang upon his mother's neck.
Deleah crept round to Bernard. "Oh, Bernard, what can we do?" she said.
"What ought we to do?"
Bernard, who had sunk into his chair, only laid his arms upon the table, his head upon his arms, and sobbed.