She looked so like a reed in the winter wind, so frail and little and shivering in my room, that I dared not tell her there and then. I said it was better that both father and she should hear my tale together, and we went into the room where already he was bedded but not asleep. He sat up staring at our entry, a night-cowl tassel dangling on his brow.
“There's a man dead—” I began, when he checked me with a shout.
“Stop, stop!” he cried, and put my mother in a chair. “I have heard the tale before with my brother Andy, and the end was not for women's ears.”
“I must know, Quentin,” said his wife, blanched to the lip but determined, and then he put his arm about her waist. It seemed like a second murder to wrench those tender hearts that loved me, but the thing was bound to do.
I poured out my tale at one breath and in one sentence, and when it ended my mother was in her swound.
“Oh, Paul!” cried the poor man, his face like a clout; “black was the day she gave you birth!”