"That's just what I am unable to tell you. There was a mystery: everybody knew that; but I don't believe anybody fathomed it. Whether it lay in his illness, or in his death, or in neither, mother never knew. Sometimes she thought it was connected with his wife. They had been a loving couple until one night, when some dispute occurred between them, and there ensued an awful quarrel: one of those dreadful disturbances that terrify a household. Mrs. Norris, a gentle, loving, merry young girl, as she had seemed until then, dashed her hand through a cheval glass in her passion, and cut it terribly. It all took place in their own room. Mr. Pym was fetched; and altogether there was a fine hullabaloo."
"Were you there?"
"I was not there; nor mother either. It was not for some days afterwards that she was sent for to Mrs. Norris: but the servants told her of it. Mr. Norris had been ill ever since; and three days later he was dead. The butler said--and he no doubt had it from the valet, for they were great friends--that it was that night's quarrel that killed his master."
"How could the quarrel kill him?" cried the wondering housekeeper.
Nurse Dade shook her head. "I don't know. All sorts of things were said--as things in such cases often are, and perhaps not a word of truth in any of 'em. At any rate, Mr. Norris died, and nobody knew for certain how he died or what was the matter with him, or what could have given rise to the dreadful quarrel that led to it. There were but two persons who could have told the truth--Mrs. Norris and Mr. Pym."
"Mr. Pym must have been a young man then," observed the housekeeper, after a pause.
"About thirty, I suppose. He must be sixty now."
"Mr. Pym's not sixty!"
"He is hard upon it. Nobody would take him for it, though, he is so active. Mrs. Norris had to leave the Court when she got well, for the new people to come to it; she went straight to the house she's in now, which of right belongs to Miss Charlotte--I should say Mrs. St. John."
"I hope she's amiable?" observed the housekeeper.