"There is one little alleviation, I think, to a heavy blow—for a while, at least, nothing else seems heavy. Things that troubled me last week seem so utterly foolish to-day. I don't this evening seem to care for anything that could happen to us now; to us three, I mean."
Before noon of the next day she thought of that sentence again with a sort of dull surprise at her own folly.
How do such things occur? I can not tell. Yet how many times in your life have you personally known of them—families who are millionnaires to-day, and beggars to-morrow? It was just that sort of blow which came to the Benedicts. Came, indeed, because of the other one, and followed hard after it. Business men tried to explain matters to the widow. A peculiar complication of circumstances existed, which called for her husband's clear brain and wise handling. Had he lived, all would have been well; there was scarcely a doubt of it. Had he been able to give one week more to business, he would have shaped everything to his mind; but the call came just at the moment when he could least be spared, and financial ruin had followed.
Mrs. Benedict, in her widow's cap, with her plaintive white face, her delicate, trembling hands working nervously in her lap, from which the crimson fancy work was gone, tried to understand the bewilderments which, one after another, were presented to her, and grew less and less able to take in the meaning of the great words, and at last raised herself from her easy chair, looked round pitifully for Claire, and sank back among the cushions—her face, if possible, whiter than before.
The elder daughter came swiftly forward from her obscurity in the back parlor, and stood beside her mother.
"I beg pardon, gentlemen, but mamma does not understand business terms; my father never burdened her with them. Will you let me ask you a few plain questions? Is my father's money all gone?"
The gentlemen looked from one to another, and hesitated. At last the lawyer among them said he feared—that is, it was believed—it seemed to be almost certain that when all the business was settled, there would be a mere pittance left.
The next question caused two red spots to glow on Claire's cheeks, but she held her head erect, and her voice was steady:
"And do they—does anybody think that my father did wrong in any way?"