"How do you know anything about it?" demanded Trace, recovering from his surprise.
"I do happen to know about it," was the calm answer. "The case was bad enough, as Heaven knew; but you need not make it worse."
"It was reported that he took poison," persisted Trace.
"Only at the first moment. When he was found dead, people naturally leaped to that conclusion, and the newspapers published it as a fact. But on the inquest it was proved by the medical men that he had died from natural causes. I think," added Mr. Henry, in a dreamy kind of tone, "that that report arose in mercy."
The three boys stared at him questioningly.
"To his friends the business of itself was cruel enough—the discovery that he, whom they had so respected as the soul of honour, was unworthy," pursued the master. "Then followed the worse report of his self-destruction, and in that shock of horror the other was lost—was as nothing. But when the truth came to light on the following day—that he had not laid guilty hands on himself, but that God had taken him,—why, the revulsion of feeling, the thankfulness, was so great as to seem like a very boon from Heaven. It enabled them to bear the disgrace as a lesser evil: the blow had lost its sting."
"Did you know him?" questioned Trace.
"I knew him in Germany. And these particulars, when they occurred, were written over to me."
"Perhaps you respected him in Germany?" cynically added Trace, who could not speak or think coldly of the unfortunate Captain Paradyne with his usual degree of equable temper.
"I never respected any one so much," avowed Mr. Henry, a scarlet spot of hectic arising in his pale cheeks.