“But such an odd letter! It may require an immediate answer; or is some begging petition, perhaps. Get on with your breakfast.”
Lady Mount Severn opened the letter, and with some difficulty spelt through its contents. They shocked even her.
“How dreadful!” she uttered, in the impulse of the moment.
“What is dreadful?” asked Lord Vane, looking up from his breakfast.
“Lady Isabel—Isabel Vane—you have not forgotten her?”
“Forgotten her!” he echoed. “Why, mamma, I must possess a funny memory to have forgotten her already.”
“She is dead. She has been killed in a railway accident in France.”
His large blue eyes, honest and true as they had been in childhood, filled, and his face flushed. He said nothing, for emotion was strong within him.
“But, shocking as it is, it is better for her,” went on the countess; “for, poor creature what could her future life had been?”
“Oh, don’t say it!” impetuously broke out the young viscount. “Killed in a railway accident, and for you to say that it is better for her!”