Lady Lyons made her voice heard in the passage, asking if her son was in, and Grace snatched her hand from Paul, and rushed out of the room by one door as her mother-in-law came in at the other.
Paul was an affectionate son, but at that particular moment he would have preferred to have had time to discover what was the matter with his wife, and he was so absorbed that his mother told him a fact very interesting to her, and which she considered should have been equally interesting to him, without his taking it in.
"My dear Paul," she said at length, "you are not attending to me one bit!"
"I beg your pardon, mother, I think I heard what you said."
"About the doctor, Paul?"
"I think so," he answered, trying to recall her words.
"Well, you see, I shall have to get another that being the case."
"A very good thing, I should say."
"Paul! the death of an eminent medical man is not a subject for rejoicing."
"Oh! he is dead. Who is dead, mother?"