Poor silly Harry!
“Madam,” said his father, “you may be quite sure that nothing short of the greatest extremity would have brought me to your house. He is dying, I repeat. I doubt if he can live an hour longer; that he can live a day is impossible.”
“How very horrible!” she said nervously; she trembled visibly, she felt that Inversay intended to insult her, and she had not courage to resent and reprove it. Harry dying! Such a possibility had presented itself to her, and she had thoughts, even when she had read in the papers that he was coming home wounded, that perhaps he would be better—safer—dead; but now that the actual tragedy of his end was brought home to her, it seemed to her extremely dreadful.
Poor Harry!
He was only a year older than herself!
Inversay looked at her with loathing and hatred. But for her what a happy and simple life his boy might have led!
“I have a favor from you to ask for in his name,” he said huskily; “nothing less could have made me leave him. But he cannot die in peace if he cannot see your son, the eldest boy; he would like to see all the children.”
She checked the nervous tremor in her limbs and braved herself to combat and composure; she felt all that the stern eyes of the old man said to her while his lips limited themselves to those few harmless words.
“He was always very fond of the children,” she said quite naturally, with marvellous self-possession. “But I don’t think I can send them to see him; it would look so very odd; and a deathbed frightens small boys so much; Jack was ill for weeks after seeing his father die.”
This tremendous falsehood glided smoothly off her lips in the purposed introduction of her husband’s name.