"I am not in the habit of coming in to tell you when called out to patients, mother. How was I to know you wished it?"
"Nonsense, Oliver! This is not an ordinary thing: the Norths were something to me once. I have had Edmund on my knee when he was a baby; and I should have liked you to pay me the attention of bringing in the news. It appears to be altogether a more romantic event than one meets with every day, and such things, you know, are of interest to lonely women."
Dr. Rane made no rejoinder, possibly not having sufficient excuse for his carelessness. He stood looking dreamily from a corner of the window. Phillis, as might be seen from there, was carrying away the fowl prepared for his dinner, and a tureen of sauce. Mrs. Cumberland probably thought he was watching with critical curiosity the movements of his handmaid. She resumed:
"They say, Oliver, there has been no hope of him from the first."
"There was very little. Of course, as it turns out, there could have been none."
"And who wrote the letter? With what motive was it written?" proceeded Mrs. Cumberland, her grey face bent slightly forward, as she waited for an answer.
"It is of no use to ask me, mother. Some people hold one opinion, some another; mine would go for little."
"They are beginning now to think that it was not written at all to injure Edmund, but Mr. Alexander."
"Who told you that?" he asked, a sharper accent discernible in his tone.
"Captain Bohun. He came in this morning to tell me of the death. Considering that I have no claim upon him, that a year ago I had never spoken to him, I must say that Arthur Bohun is very kind and attentive to me. He is one in a thousand."