"What I mind is your being married to that woman. I never liked it, Randall."
He closed his eyes. His face became more than ever drawn and peaked. His mouth opened. With short, hard gasps he fought for the breath he had so spent.
Ransome's heart reproached him because he had not cared enough about his father. And he said to himself, "He must have cared a lot more than he ever let on."
The way to the Divorce Court had been made marvelously smooth for him. His mother couldn't say now that it would kill his father.
But on Monday morning things did not go with Ransome entirely as he had expected. Shaftesbury Avenue refused to lend him more than ten pounds on the security of his furniture. Still, that was a trifling hitch. Now that the proceedings had been consecrated by his father's sanction, there could be no doubt that his mother would be glad to lend him the five pounds. He would ask her for it that evening as soon as he got home.
But he did not ask her that evening, nor yet the next. He did not ask her for it at all. For as soon as he got home she came to him out of his father's room. She stood at the head of the stairs by the door of the room, leaning against the banisters. And she was crying.
"Is Father worse?" he said.
"He's going, my dear. There's a trained nurse just come. She's in there with the doctor. But they can't do anything."
He drew her into the front room, and she told him what had happened.