Old Dill turned back again.
“If I don’t believe you are speaking of the failure of Kent & Green! It’s not that, Mr. Archibald. They won’t affect us much; and there’ll be a dividend, report runs.”
“What is it, then?”
“Then you have not heard it, sir! I am glad that I’m in time. It might not be well for you to have seen it without a word of preparation, Mr. Archibald.”
“If you have not gone demented, you will tell me what you mean, Dill, and leave me to my letters,” cried Mr. Carlyle, wondering excessively at his sober, matter-of-fact clerk’s words and manner.
Old Dill put his hands upon the Times newspaper.
“It’s here, Mr. Archibald, in the column of deaths; the first on the list. Please, prepare yourself a little before you look at it.”
He shuffled out quickly, and Mr. Carlyle as quickly unfolded the paper. It was, as old Dill said, the first on the list of deaths:
“At Cammere, in France, on the 18th inst., Isabel Mary, only child of William, late Earl of Mount Severn.”
Clients called; Mr. Carlyle’s bell did not ring; an hour or two passed, and old Dill protested that Mr. Carlyle was engaged until he could protest no longer. He went in, deprecatingly. Mr. Carlyle sat yet with the newspaper before him, and the letters unopened at his elbow.