“What is it, Fanny?”
The question was almost a cry of alarm. Fanny made no reply, and Diane went to her, taking the paper from her. As she did so, Fanny pointed to the headlines of an article that filled the head of a column. It was a cablegram, printed in large type that seemed to stare:
H. M. S. Pelican arrived safely at Southampton to-day, with Lieutenant Blackford and the other members of his antarctic expedition. They brought with them the well-known American explorer, Simon Overton, U. S. N. Having barely recovered from desperate illness and exposure, Overton refused to be interviewed.
Diane let the paper fall to the floor, and the two girls stood looking at each other in speechless amazement.
Down-stairs there was a moment of poignant silence in the library when the judge read the newspaper despatch in an incredulous voice that was a little deeper than usual. As he read, a sudden burst of sunshine, almost as violent as the storm, flooded the room. It shone on the smooth surfaces of the ancient vases and on the rich and multicolored bindings of the judge’s books. It warmed the moss-roses that had bloomed for the wedding, and shone still more keenly, with almost a cruel concentration, on the white face of Arthur Faunce.
It revealed Faunce’s countenance at a moment when his inner self seemed to be receding, in mortal panic, from the vision of his friends. He stood, with his hand gripped like a vise on the back of a tall chair and his eyes fixed on his father-in-law. He was like a man overtaken by sudden calamity and rooted to the spot, with no more power to escape it than the victim of a nightmare.
The judge threw back his big head and looked at him.
“What can this mean, Arthur?”
Faunce gasped. His mind was still reeling, and his voice sounded a long way off to his own ears.
“It must be a mistake,” he replied slowly; “a mere newspaper story—or the wrong name. Overton is dead!”