“What on earth is the matter, Daddy?” asked Mouse, astonished and curious. “Have you come to bring me bad news?”
“You ask me!” cried Daddy in amaze; then dropping his voice to a sepulchral moan, he added, “Is it possible—possible—that you have not heard of your brother’s fatal act?”
Over her face a cold and angry shadow passed.
“Has he killed himself?” she asked. “I don’t think he’d ever do anything half so agreeable to others.”
Daddy Gwyllian drew a long breath.
“I am really grieved to be the bearer of such tidings,” he said, with the very keenest relish in telling them. “But Ronnie—stay—you know that the Massarene woman gave all that immense fortune away to the poor?”
“Yes,” said Mouse impatiently. “I saw all that rubbish in the papers long ago. What has that to do with Hurstmanceaux?”
“He has married her!” ejaculated Daddy. “Now!—now!—when she hasn’t got a penny! Oh, Lord!”
“What!” she cried in turn, as she rose impetuously and stared at him.
“My dear lady! You may well be incredulous. It does seem impossible that any man in his senses—— But he married her yesterday, down at Bournemouth.”